Finally back

Wow, that was a really long, unintentional hiatus I just finished. Whew! What a busy, hot, blazing fast summer that was. August was a complete blur. It's finally time to stop, take a deep breath, and reflect.

There were some good things about this summer, like going to visit my cousin, school starting, and air conditioning, but if I'm going to be honest, I'd have to say the end of the summer had me pretty beaten down. Work is always the craziest in August, and this year was no exception, but that was the least of my worries at most times. Because I didn't want to use this blog as a place to solely complain, I dealt with my stress in other ways. The record heat of this summer kept me from running & getting that stress out naturally, so I did my best to compensate and find other ways to decompress. But mostly, I did feel like I took a whippin' throughout the month of August. There wasn't enough exercise, alcohol, or chocolate in the world to actually comfort me - it was just too much. To give you a brief rundown what I'm talking about, I'll quickly spout out the list of stressors that were giving me a run for my money:

- Aaron changed jobs.

- Lost insurance coverage.

- Car broke down weekly for the entire month of August.

- One of the times it died, I was on the side of the road in 100+ degree heat, with my kid.

- Had to get a rental car, for the first time ever.

- Aaron's new job had (or has?) payroll glitches, which resulted in delayed paychecks, sometimes up to a week late.

- Diving into the world of private insurance, which was overwhelming and frustrating.

- Without insurance, Z's monthly medications came to $472.00. For two nose sprays and a daily chewable pill. Seriously? Thank God for sympathetic doctors who took pity on me & gave me samples to carry him through until I found insurance.

- My debilitating pain-inducing cyst made an appearance, after 8 years of not having shown it's ugly self.

- School starting, which included school supply shopping - the first year since we've been at our school where I opted out of buying the pre-packaged supply pack. Stupid me. Lesson learned.

- A friend needed a place to stay, so we had her move in with us. She is a joy, don't misunderstand, but it was still something that took place amidst the craziness of August.

- Enduring the wretched, God-awful, surface-of-the-sun type heat, day in & day out.

- And of course, the busiest work load of my entire calendar year. This month, only. Of course.

So, now you may see why I didn't have time to blog, or rather, why I had no business blogging. It would've been a sonic whine-fest. I was emotionally tapped out, pissed off, and as edgy as any of my worst PMSing weeks of the past. But I'm happy to report, we survived the crap-filled curveballs that life threw at us over the past six weeks, and actually lived to tell about it. And what are we doing to reward ourselves? Starting a 21-day cleanse on September 27, which consists of no meat, no dairy, no white anything (bread, sugar, table salt), no gluten, and no caffeine. Yes, I know, we are gluttons for punishment.

Since I still refuse to use my blog to a place to vent my complaints about how much I'm going to miss my morning coffee for the next 3 weeks, I will instead use my blog as a place to log our journey into the strange, unknown world of raw, healthy, non-processed foods. Along with the new way of eating will come intentional meditation, consistent exercise, and positive thinking - otherwise, we don't stand a chance. To be clear, only Aaron and I are participating in this vegan nightmare (<-- oops! not positive!), it's not something I want to put Z through right now. We will slowly change over his diet to more of this way of life, but in baby steps. I don't need him having a meltdown from the sudden shock of withdrawing every less-than-healthy thing he consumes during the week. It's going to be bad enough that Aaron and I are going through it, and we'll need him here to mediate and keep us from turning on each other & getting a divorce. Mood swings are inevitable. Crankiness? A given. I'm just hoping once the first few days are over, we'll remember how much we liked each other before all this began.

I posted our impending challenge up on Facebook, and was surprised by how many people contacted me either on that day, or privately since that day, asking me to blog about our experience with the cleanse. I was even asked by several people to journal daily. I would love to do that, but I can't guarantee I will be able to blog every day. I will most certainly try, though, and can almost see myself being able to post everyday -- since I won't be spending time eating or feeling slothy from what I ate earlier that day, I should have all kinds of new free time on my hands. Awesome!

So, in light of the newfound health adventure we will embark on in 4 days, I will amend my usual closing (love, peace, and chicken grease) to love, peace, and veggies. Not nearly as catchy, but gotta kickstart that positive thinking now! Until next time ...

Love, peace, & veggies to all.