Nursevl

2011-07-07T00:44:00.002-06:00

"It's not fair!!"

2011-05-01T10:33:00.000-06:00

Yes, son. Life is not fair. You have to sometimes do dishes when it's not your turn. You sometimes have to pick up messes that aren't yours. You definitely have to clean up after yourself. Life just isn't fair.
You sometimes have to take on more responsibility when you get older. You need to work for your money or privileges. You have to pay bills and taxes. You have to buy gas and toilet paper. You have to work in order to feed yourself and those you are responsible for. No one will do it for you. Life can be hard. Life is not fair. But it is worth every minute if you let it be. Your attitude with help or hinder you. In the end it is your choice.
So choose.

Why not just leave a message?

2011-04-28T09:31:00.000-06:00

I hate the telephone. I don't know why, but something about talking on the phone just bores me. I don't mind emailing or texting, or even hand written notes, (gasp)! but the telephone is such a chore. Who says I have to go first? Why do I feel a sense of rejection if someone says,"I gotta go."? Or why do I feel guilt about saying, "I gotta go" when I really have to go?
There is such an awkwardness to it.
The other thing, why call me and not leave a message? Was your call just you wanting to waste a few minutes if I picked up, or did you really want something? Why not tell me on my voicemail or machine that you were just calling to chat, or that you cut off your pinkie toe and you've lost a pint of blood and need a ride to the hospital?
No, you just hang up. What if I am screening my calls? How do I know what is urgent and what is just senseless time wasting?
I don't know. I think days were simpler when there were no answering machines. If I missed your call I missed your call. I didn't have to wonder why you felt the need to call me both on my land line and my cell phone but chose not to leave a message.
It is a mystery complicated by technology.

Aaannnd this today too!! I feel like a princess!!!

2011-02-18T20:52:00.000-07:00

I felt such shame today as I came home with 2 pairs of jeans, 3 shirts, a new (cute!) shower cap, believe it or not,and new cheep head phones. When I got home I had the Coastal Scents 88 palate and the Teva Maryjanes on my porch. I'm rotten!

Just got these in the mail today!! OMG Caaaaaautte!!!!

2011-02-18T20:48:00.002-07:00

5200 Pentagon Employees Purchased Child-Porn NOT being Prosecuted! Penta...

2011-01-10T12:01:00.000-07:00

"Person of the Year"

2010-12-28T14:32:00.000-07:00

I was at the optometrist office this morning and noticed a nice looking man with reddish hair and striking green eyes on the cover of Time Magazine . I was not immediately aware of who this was so I got up and walked across the room and grabbed the copy. It was the Person of the Year 2010 issue. The person of the year is Mark Zuckerberg, of facebook fame. Really?
I flipped through the magazine skimming the articles until I came across Mark Zuckerberg's article. I am not at all interested in him, so I just skimmed the highlighted portions and looked at the stylized glam shots of him teaching a young kid fencing, (how heroic!) and working on his laptop at the local dive bar (how common!). Several mentions about his billionaire status got me thinking.
A quote I heard recently rings in my head as of late and I can't help but apply it to this situation and set a little judgement out. I know, do not judge lest ye be judged. Right. We all do it a little anyway, otherwise there would be no parameters as to define society behavior in an appropriate way. So shut up.
Anyhoo, I cannot remember the quote exactly, but to paraphrase, I went something like, "how can you feel successful if you allow yourself to have billions of dollars while others go without, suffering."
Now when I think of this quote, I think of those through no fault of their own, who suffer. Such as poverty stricken children, children with disease whose birth circumstances don't afford a trip or trips to the doctor or even pharmacy. Those who work hard and don't fit into the upper nor lower classes to obtain benefits of those 2 groups also qualify for those "suffering". You get the idea, I am not talking about people who "suffer" with pretend back injuries to collect disability so they can buy a fishing boat and be on permanent vacation, etc.
I admit, I don't know much about Mark Zuckerberg. I do know that when the movie Social Network came out, he was indeed worried about how it made him look like a greedy little bastard, and he rushed off to donate to the Newark School system.
Now I did see recently that he joined the likes of Bill Gates and others to agree to donate half of his wealth to charity. Ok, that is admirable.
But Mark, what will you do with the other 3.5 BILLION dollars you have left?

Peace for this Christmas

2010-12-21T12:02:00.000-07:00

Hello,
During Christmas this year I feel we are all on the verge of a huge change. 2011 seems to be the beginning of some tremendous evolutions for all of us, and for me individually. I am not sure what this means for me really, but I plan to try different things in 2011, such as vegetarianism! And meditation! And....well, lots of stuff.
But in the meantime, it seems like emotional reflection is what needs to start at present, as things that come to mind tend to bring out stronger emotions that I would expect. I say to myself, don't fight it, just deal with it. If work needs to be done, face it. Do it.
So with that I wish everyone in the universe a Blessed Christmas and New Year, filled with love and enlightenment, filled with pure Source Energy, from God alone.
Peace and love to the whole world,
Nurse Evil

Outfit of the Day!

2010-09-10T18:03:00.000-06:00

Sometimes you read blogs or watch youtube videos about people's outfit of the day. I decided as I was getting dressed to describe my outfit (no way in hell I am posting a pic) in tribute to others who have shared before me.
Today I have chosen white hanes her way bikini undies, paired with a hot pink fruit of the loom sports bra that I wear when not much support is needed. (read: I am too lazy to do anything strenuous today)
My top is classic Life is Good apparel, but it is a jammie top instead of an actual tshirt, but no one will know. Wait. I guess I told everyone now.
I am sporting khaki mom capris, sans belt cuz it cuts into my tummy. Blech.
For shoes I am choosing to pair my outfit with the lesbian version of flip flops. If you have these you know exactly what I mean.
Accessories? My scratched up sunglasses.
Voila.
Enjoy!

Happy Mothers Day!

2010-05-09T09:27:00.000-06:00

It's Mothers Day and I am sitting here, half ready for church. Everyone else is....at church. I had my niece staying with me and who knew it would take an extra 15 minutes to brush her long hair and braid it? Wow. Having 3 boys has been super easy in the hair dept.
Oh well, that left me not enough time to finish my own hair. Once I wash it, I am committed to styling it all the way, meaning fully blow drying it and curling, etc. Shorter hair bites that way.
Anyhoo, not upset, enjoying the peace.
I learned yesterday that for every 32 oz of water you drink extra, take 1/4-1/2 tsp of salt. Very important. It may explain when I super hydrate my feet tend to charlie horse while I am lying in bed. I mean they curl up like the wicked Witch of the West's fingers. Ouch. My sodium tends to normally be a hair low anyway. I avoid salt like the plague since I tend to retain water easily. I also learned low serum sodium makes you retain water? Wow. Chalk one up for salt. Maybe I will stop avoiding it so much.
Hmm.
Anyway, Happy Mothers day to all, and to all a good day!

Water-logged

2010-05-08T08:49:00.000-06:00

I finally did it. I was able to drink 180+oz of water yesterday. It took all day and constant thinking about it to accomplish that, but I did it. It was hard. I thought to myself, "can I really do this every day?" But, then I started to think, hey, I was able to run for 2 +miles without stopping after starting to run and thinking 5 minutes of running was going to kill me. You just have to work up to it, and get used to it. I hope drinking lots of water will just be a habit I can manage to continue. Do I feel fabulous today now that I am "hydrated"? No, not really. I think it will take a couple of weeks at least to flush out my system, and I may feel like crap until then. So, I hope I can stick it out.

In the mean time, after eating well for break fast, I skipped morning snack. I was busy and not really hungry. For lunch, I had a chicken breast, sliced up into about 2 cups of spinach leaves, with celery, cucumbers and snow peas cut up into them. I then used about 1 1/2 tsp olive oil and 1 tsp lime juice and tossed it all together in a Tupperware container. Yum. Later for snack I had a handful of almonds and an apple. Dinner was eggplant Parmesan made "clean", breaded with wheat germ, baked and layered over whole wheat pasta, topped with homemade marinara and 1 cut up chicken breast. Topping was about 1/3 cup of Parmesan. I also added a few sun dried tomatoes packed in oil. Yum. Good but time consuming. We didn't even eat supper til 8pm. Sometimes it feels so tempting to order pizza "for the kids" and just eat it myself, due to the time it takes to cook supper from scratch. Afterwards my oldest made brownies and I did not have enough room for any! So passing on them was easy.

Today, I started with 1 cup skim milk, added 1 scoop whey protein, added 2/3cup frozen blueberries, 2 Tbsp flax seed, 1 Tbsp wheat germ, and 1/2 cup old fashioned oatmeal. Magic bulleted! I was really good with an interesting texture....and filling! Super easy if fixed on a weekday and very portable!

27 oz water gone, much more to go......
Party on!!

Clean Eating for a Dirty Eater

2010-05-07T09:01:00.001-06:00

Good Morning!
Today I am sitting at the computer eating plain old fashioned oatmeal, with Agave Nectar. Previously I had a Whey protein shake with fresh strawberries, skim milk, flax seed 2Tbsp and Wheat Germ 1 Tbsp. No water yet.
Water.
I have read many places that to truly flush your system, you need to drink 1 fluid oz of water for every pound of body weight. What? That's.......12..4....23+6... is..uh..=shit loads of water for me. I only could gulp down all but 27 oz of water required the last 2 days. This necessitated a trip to the bathroom in the middle of the night both nights. Baghhh.
I am sure my body is full of pollutants. I want them gone. I will try to flush them out with good food and water......if I live through it.
What doesn't kill you makes you get up at night to pee.

This is where I need to begin....again

2010-05-06T11:12:00.005-06:00

This blog has had varied content: random, goofy, funny, dark, poetic, sarcastic. I read somewhere that blogs are for narcissistic people, but I don't think of myself as narcissistic. I think I am totally opposite. I avoid attention, at all costs, usually. I sometimes dip out into the world and show my inner self, such as with my art and with a blog, with a post of Facebook. I am nervous to do so, since I am so private.

Back to this blog. Now that I know what a blog is and is usually used for, I have decided to use mine for a selfish purpose: to log my experiences with my weight loss, my challenges with said weight loss and my peaks and valleys of happiness. I tend to intertwine my happiness level with my weight and self image, so these two will be impossible to separate.
I have recently had some epiphanies, and some questions as to why I do what I do. I have not always had a problem with weight. I was always thin, however, I was also bordering on anorexia as a way of staying thin. I used to save my lunch money in high school ($2.00) every day so I could by concert tickets. Because I was thin I managed to go to Sammy Hagar, Loverboy, Cheap Trick....and on and on. I refused to eat breakfast, refused lunch for the above reasons, and had minimal dinner. I also worked out pretty regularly, as well as dancing in my room like a dork to my prized possession, a Panasonic Boom Box. I had a collection of mixed tapes that would make any 80s hair band proud.

It wasn't until I started having babies that I was noticing that I was slowly (or sometimes quickly) gaining weight. After my oldest was 2, I dieted and exercised like a disciplined athlete and lost almost 40 lbs. I felt really good about it, but I only weighed 118. I was definitely too skinny. I was scared, however to gain it back and I didn't know how to keep it off without losing more. (I know, I wish I had that problem now.) By the time I reached the weight I liked (118), I was pregnant again. But that time I was careful about what I ate and gained minimal weight. I did, however develop Paroxysmal Supra ventricular Tachycardia, which meant my heart would race for no reason or after I climbed 4-5 stairs to 160-170 bpm. I had to see a cardiologist and start taking Inderal. If anyone else has taken Inderal, you will know it causes fatigue, depression and slow metabolism. I had to quit exercising, because of the heart rate trigger and because I was so friggin tired and depressed!
After my second son was born, and after a serious bout of PPD, I started to lose weight enough where I felt pretty healthy. I got off the Inderal, got on some Zoloft and did much better.
At that time, my nurse midwife discovered an enlarged thyroid gland. I started with a few doctors and ended up with an endocrinologist, who discovered both lobes of my thyroid had "hot and cold" nodules. Hot ones were more likely benign, the cold ones were often times cancerous. To make a longer story short, after countless needle biposies and dr. visits, I had a partial thyroidectomy when my youngest was 2. (in 2003)

The pathology report came back, a week later. I had cancer of the thyroid. I had also found out the day before, that I was pregnant. Whoops.
I miscarried at 12 weeks.
Thank God the tumour was only 3mm, and encapsulated. That means that they removed all of it with my thyroid gland and I did not required further chemo, radiation or additional surgery at that time.
I did find, that anytime you take away natural thyroid function and replace it with artificial supplement (Synthroid), your body just doesn't do as well. Your metabolism slows way down. You don't gain weight automatically but gain much easier and lose it with 3X the effort.
Here starts the problem with weight gain and loss.
Subsequently, by the way, I went on to have the rest of my thyroid removed in January of 2009 due to the gnarly appearance of the remaining side, and the chance that there could be cancer in that side as well. It was benign. I do, however now face the increased difficulty of losing or simply maintaining weight without a thyroid gland at all.

The medical community is not terribly helpful when it comes to losing weight when you are only considered "overweight" by the government. If you are a 5'5" female, and you weigh, say 165 lbs., you will likely sit in a doctor's office (at that time a female dr., no less) and be told, " I would feel lucky to weigh 165. That's actually less than I weigh". You will then walk out and have no help medically to lose weight, or prevent further weight gain. I currently weigh about 15 lbs more now, that was about 9yrs (and another baby) ago. My insight into the problem was, I knew I would continue to slowly gain weight, and I was desperate to stop it or prevent it.
Apparently, the medical world wants to wait until you are #250 to start intervening. Until then, you are "lucky" to weigh what you do.
Don't expect help until your life is threatened.

But, isn't it already threatened? Just now in the early stages? Don't get me started on the medical system and the thought process there. That is another episode.
Anyway, things I plan to post about: weight loss, weight gain, thyroid trouble, diet, clean foods, unclean foods, exercise, motivation, lack of motivation, and my personal journey to lose weight before I get to Ruby-size. (I love Ruby, by the way. I am in fact, a lighter earlier version of her in some ways)

Also, I plan to post pics of myself along the way, not for anyone but me. I am posting them fearlessly in hopes to see the real me as someone else may see.
That's it for now, more to come.
Unless there isn't.