2005-11-08

Well, have been exercising. A lot. Unfortunately, I've been balancing my exercise with excessive amounts of bad-for-me food and am at a weight stand-still and fear not squeezing into the twelves I purposefully bought for motivation. Argh!

I mean, here I am... with an iron-clad reason to lose weight. And what do I do? Just screw around. Which makes me wonder if I really want to lose weight or not. Sometimes I think that all I really want is to hear someone tell me I'm fine the way I am. I could tell myself twenty times a day, but we all know how little I trust my own judgement.

I'm just (as is my MO this year), keeping busy enough that I do NOT wallow in grief over Grandpop and Uncle Joe. We all know what happens when you wallow-- her name's Aunt Crazy. So I do, do, do.

The most insurmountable task is Aunt Crazy and her many needs. Still emptying her condo so repairs can start. Still trying to figure out what she can bring back east without overflowing her next place and four storage lockers. Still getting long, whining messages from her about what she wants me to bring her next. Every conversation with her is an exercise in self-restraint. I don't get very angry very often. But Aunt Crazy gets me mad. She used to try my grandmother's patience and Grandmom was a saint, so I know it's just something that comes with the territory of dealing with her.

Some things are going well. All those things I always meant to do around the house, like steam-clean the carpets and organize the cabinets, and treat the kitchen woodwork. Well, they're done. I just wish I'd done them when grandpop was still around to see them. There's nobody to appreciate them except me. And I only have a few minutes of appreciation in me before moving on to the next task.

Still cleaning Uncle Mike's. An ongoing, but doable task.

I'm trying to keep Lisa's house up under all the construction. Bleh. Hate when things are in that kind of disarray. But I'll be glad of all of it when the new kitchen's in. Was getting very sick of the Very Brady Cabinets.

I cut Maddy's hair tonight when I was staying late (Lisa had to go to San Diego for her father). I mean, I know I can do mine and some friends'- but doing Maddy's was a whole different matter. She's autistic. I'd never thought of trying it. She might thrash around so bad she'd make me cut her, then myself, then her brothers and any passing insects. But I was trying (so hard) to brush her tangles after her bath. Her ongoing brush-refusal has gotten to crisis point this week. Even loading with conditioner, you can't brush her. I was muttering that she needs a haircut and Maddy suddenly said, "Want haircut, April."

I was babbling about how "Mommy will take you" till I suddenly realized that maybe I could just get it over with, while she was so agreeable. Gave her a nice, short Buster Brown do. Even though Maddy's hair is beautiful, it can't be kept up when long. You can't tie a little girl down and force the hairbrush on her. Especially not Maddy, who doesn't really understand. She probably wonders why I seem to be deliberately hurting her.

Yeah. I know. Not exciting. I've become a pseudo-mommy. And I don't even have a C-section scar to show for it. Sigh.

I have been editing, however. I've done from the beginning of this diary up to On Toilets and Retro-Diary #10: A new love... or is it? So, if you feel like checking out any old entries, now with added anonymity, there you go. Still wonder whether I should bring the retro-diaries back. Not like I don't have the material. Preteen April had a lot more melodramatic prose in her. And bad poetry, too. She's like a very bad reality show. Still... more exciting than Momish April.