Sunday, February 3, 2013

Happy Birthday to Empty Nest

Okay, maybe I'm a couple of weeks late...

I didn't think about it until this weekend, but my blog is a year old now. It's pretty impressive. Impressive that I've stuck with keeping a journal for a whole year (even if it is primarily a cooking journal).

Other changes over the past year... Well, I've stuck to my diet plan I laid out last May. It actually has been working pretty well. I am now down 22 pounds. I've gotten lots of compliments in the last few weeks as the weight loss is really starting to show. I am down at least one dress size. Probably two, but I haven't been shopping in a few months because I still have more weight to go. I made it through the holidays without gaining any additional weight. (I didn't lose any either during that time, but that's a victory in my mind.) I'm down two more pounds since the holidays are over (maybe a couple more depending on which morning I weighed myself). Ten pounds to go.

Eating better has become much easier. It's I don't snack quite as much any more. I plan my meals through carefully so I know what to expect and not just grab anything. I still eat desserts more often than I should. I let myself enjoy meals out of special treats but now those don't seem to trigger a landslide of excuses. I eat more fruits and vegetables. More fiber. I drink primarily water and have stopped drinking soda and sweet tea at home. Definite success on that goal.

Also new since I started this blog, The Boy has now started college. He lives at his dorm, and I'm an Empty Nester. The living alone hasn't been as big of an adjustment as I thought. I was weird, but The Boy came home every weekend during the first semester. Plus I'm so busy with my job I have multiple late nights at work every month. The bigger shift, that I didn't expect, was the change in the parenting relationship. I didn't really expect that to be as difficult as it was. The Boy and I had several conversations about how being 18 may legally make you an adult, but doesn't necessarily mean mom loses any say in activities, decision, and choices. That adjustment took a lot of negotiating. I think we have it pretty well worked out now. The past couple of months have been really good again. The ah-ha discovery in all of this is the lack of parenting advice online or in-books for how to parent an "adult" teenager. If anyone wants to borrow my idea and write such a thing, please do. There's a gab in the information available there.

This semester The Boy doesn't have a car to come home every weekend. (There was a little car accident in early December that removed the car. Not The Boys fault, just no more car available.) So, now there is a smaller adjustment again in having him gone a lot more. I've been so busy at work, though, still, I have hardly been home since he left for college again. Actually, I'm really looking forward to some down time. I need it.

There have been other major changes in the past year. Ones I haven't written about here but have still redirected my life in unforseen ways. It always seen to happen that way. I think to myself, "Things have settled down. This next year life will just be status quo." But there never seems to be a status quo. It's inevitable. Life moves forward.



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