What's fair is fair

I have two jobs.  I work full-time for a company and I also own my own company with my sister.  My sister is also an employee of the company that I work for.  I love her very much.  She's a good sister and I even like working with her.

But...

I do WAY more of the work than she does.

WAY more.

The Olympic Track & Field Trials will be held in Eugene, Oregon later this month.  One of the things that we've done since 2008 is work with a sorority house on the campus of the University of Oregon to book their rooms for various track and field events, including the Olympic Trials.  This is a client of our own company (not the one for which we are employees).  I have done 80% of the bookings and work for this event.  At least 80%.  Maybe more.  Is it wrong to think that I should get more than half the proceeds from the event?  Actually I don't think I should get paid more than she does.  I just think it isn't fair.

We also have several clients that we work for on a year-round basis.  Last year we had two clients, but we added three new clients around the first of the year.  ALL of the new people, all of them, were people that I have relationships with.  They are all people who signed on because of me.  I'm also the only one who is licensed to do the work we do (property management) so I have to deal with all the government BS for licensing and following the many, many rules they have about how things are done.  I have to complete 30 hours of continuing education every two years. 

She has been trying to step up in the accounting and other work that we have to do.  I guess I'd just like some appreciation that she is reaping rewards that are not necessarily in line with how much work she does.  I doubt she sees that.

I also do more at the company we work for as employees.  I wish I could say that to our boss sometimes.  I know that he appreciates me and probably that he recognizes that I do more work and am a more reliable employee.  Maybe a nice raise or a bonus would help :)

BTW we are going to Disneyland later this summer.  The trip is mostly being paid for with funds earned from the Olympic Track & Field bookings at the sorority.  I'm excited!

Update, Amanda-style!

Hello Blogland!

Look, I'm posting two days in a row!  In a comment on my last post, someone suggested that I talk about things that are going on in my life like work, kids, etc. to give me something to write about (other than how I have nothing to write about).

This is a picture of my daughter.  She was in a soccer tournament over Memorial Day weekend.  She plays goalie.  I am pretty crazy about this kid!  She is playing for a new team the spring.  I have a lot of pain and hurt feelings about her last team which seems really nuts to me and I've thought about writing about it, but it seemed too complicated and I kept telling myself I should get over it.  Maybe writing about it will help.  Caelyn has played for the same team since first grade.  She's in 5th grade now.  Last summer we received an email that the coach and one of the parents had had a falling out and the assistant coach was wanting to combine the team with another team.  Wanting the best for everyone, I agreed to go along.  I felt badly for the old coach.  He had given so much to the team and to Caelyn and he was essentially being squeezed out.  Caelyn had to "try out" for the new team, which was very stressful, but everyone made the team who came to the tryouts from the two teams that were merging.

As it turns out, the new coach's daughter plays the same position as Caelyn, goalie.  We weren't worried about it because Caelyn is a really good goalie and they both played other positions too.  Generally you switch goalies at half-time anyways so two kids can share the position.  Except the coach never put Caelyn in as goalie.  Okay.  We are team players.  I let the assistant coach know I wasn't too happy about it and I told Caelyn to let the coach know she wanted to play goalie sometimes.

The thing is that the coach's daughter wasn't as good as Caelyn in goal, but she was a little snot.  She told Caelyn that she was an All-Star player and could play several different positions.  She was okay in several positions and was a pretty good goalie, but still.  I heard her yell at another kid in practice for not kicking the ball straight at her.  By the end of the season, Caelyn's confidence was shot.  This coach did not appreciate her and he made her feel badly about herself.  Asshole.

Caelyn usually plays indoor soccer in the winter so we found her a new team to play on for the indoor season.  She was happier and had fun.  Indoor soccer is just for fun - there are no practices, just a game once a week.  The problem was that the team sucked!  I think the lost all the games but one or two.  Luckily they made a better Spring team and they actually had an undefeated season in the Spring!  Caelyn was the starting goalie.  She played in various defensive positions for half of the games.  And the put her on the tournament team for Memorial Day.

The first tournament game ended in a tie which means they have a shoot out to determine the winner.  A shoot out is where they line the kids up and they get five penalty shots directly at the goal with only the goalie to stop them.  Caelyn was the goalie for the shoot out and she even got to take a shot on the opposing team's goalie (which she made).  Needless to say, she won the shoot out by stopping more shots AND by kicking one in on the other team too!  They won two of their games and lost two.  I think they finished 5 of the 7 teams in the tournament, but it was a redemption of sorts! 

I can't believe I care this much about 5th grade soccer...Actually what I really care about is my daughter and her happiness and that assholes don't hurt her.     

I remember an episode of Seinfeld where one of the characters - Elaine, I think - describes an issue she's having with a neighbor.  At first they were friendly and they'd say hello when they passed in the halls and maybe stop for a chat.  As time passed, they only smiled and nodded.  After more time, the smiles stop, the nods stop until finally they are glaring at each other when they pass.  It is like they hate each other, but there's no reason for the animosity.

That's how it has become for me and this blog.

I used to write almost daily.  I looked forward to writing and checking in with all of you.  Then my posts became less frequent.  I had less to say about weight loss and my Lap-band.  But I'd still stop in and smile and nod from time to time.  But somehow I started actively avoiding my blog and I don't really know why.

True, I lost all my weight and got to goal.  In fact I lost another 15 lbs. after I hit goal.  Also true that I regained some weight over the holidays and have spent the last six months losing a bit and then regaining.  I'm still under goal, but I'm about 10 lbs. from where I was and it is frustrating.  Some of my clothes are tighter than I'd like them to be. 

I have found myself going back to what I used to do: dieting.  And then I realized what I was doing and I quit it and I lost several lbs.  I felt good and was confident that I'd be back at my previous weight.  And then I had about three weeks of not-so-great eating.  And my weight didn't just creep up.  It SHOT up!  Now I'm back where I was in January when I started trying to lose the holiday weight.

Fuck.

I've been eating well for several days.  I know what works.  I need to eat three meals a day with only planned snacks in between.  I can't "go on a diet" or my brain freaks out and I start binging and starving. 

I had a good long time where weight loss was easy.  I also enjoyed several months of easy maintenance.  If I slipped up, it didn't seem to be noted on the scale.  Not the case these days.

Fuck.

You don't write. You don't call...

I read once that if you don't update your blog for awhile, you shouldn't mention it because most people won't notice anyway and really, what's the point of another blog post that says, "I haven't blogged FOREVER!"?

But DANG!  I haven't blogged FOREVER!

What can I say?  I'm busy.  My job is busier from March until October than the rest of the year. 

Plus I don't have much to say.  Things are going pretty well.  My food and exercise has been great.  I'm still up from my lowest low, but all is well.  It will come off when it wants, I guess.  I'm not eating a super low-cal diet - definitely more of a maintenance diet so I am not surprised by the number on the scale.  I'm not overeating. 

I wonder, however, if you guys have any words of wisdom about being tired?  At my last physical, I think the doctor said something about a low potassium level which I see can cause lethargy.  The level was the low side of normal.  I'm thinking I need more bananas or something.  I spend my days yawning even though I get eight hours of sleep each night.  I always get up once or twice to pee, but I usually go back to sleep.  Sometimes I fall asleep while reading or watching TV and it will be like 9:15.  I get up at 6:30 or so (my alarm is set for 6:50, but I seldom sleep that late).  What do you think?

Gas...and not the $4 a gallon kind

Remember the gas pains that you had post-op?  Does anyone else still get them sometimes?

I don't really know when gas pressure became an issue for me.  Basically I feel like I need to burp and when I do burp, I feel better.  Sometimes when I am laying down in the evening, watching TV or whatever, I'll constantly feel the need to burp.  I'll do so and then the pressure starts building again.  Annoying.  I don't have any issues with the gas coming out the other end.  I even quit drinking soda because it made it worse.  I discovered Gas-X and it took care of the issue whenever is came up - maybe once a week or so.  Until my fill last week, that is.

I had the fill on Wednesday last week and every night I've had pain so bad that it was really miserable.  At first I thought I torqued my back, but the pain doesn't respond to analgesics at all.  Then I noticed that the pain subsided when I burped.  So I took Gas-X and it works for a half hour or so, but then the pain comes back.  Drinking hot tea makes it go away for 45 minutes or so, but it comes back.  Yesterday I was in pain all day.  Today no pain thus far, but in the past several days, it has hit after dinner.

I did some research and discovered that a few people on LBT have had similar experiences, but no one seems to have resolved it.  I'm afraid that my only solution is to get a partial un-fill, but food and drink go down just fine so I don't want to do that.  Plus at my fill appointment, my fill doctor said that if I had problems with this small fill, I should go get imaging done since I could have a slippage.  I think she was being a little ridiculous since I have zero symptoms of that (She said it because I indicted I had decent restriction at .25 ccs in my 4 cc band and because I didn't gain a significant amount of weight during the year I was essentially un-filled.).  So I know if I go back and have some fluid let out, she'll want me to get imaging done (which I can't afford and have no insurance for) and she won't treat me beyond the un-fill until I do.

So I am a little frustrated at the moment.  Does anyone have any words of wisdom?           

Are you a different person?

Have you noticed the blogs where people have become super-studs running 5Ks, commuting by bicycle, doing Zumba and lifting weights like it's their JOB?  What about those who are now eating for health and nutrition instead of eating for entertainment and stress release?  A few bloggers have gotten out of bad relationships with spouses and friends as well.  Which makes me wonder, do we become different people after weight loss surgery?

My messed up relationship with food was a HUGE part of who I was.  In a lot of ways, I felt like two people: There was the healthy Amanda who has been a vegetarian since age 19, who exercised regularly, who cared about health and fitness.  And then there was the other Amanda, who wanted to binge and overeat at every opportunity.  She looked at giving up unhealthy foods and unhealthy behaviors like someone looks at giving up their hair.  She didn't want any part of it.  That Amanda clung to her behaviors.  She wanted to be thin, but she didn't want to change.

I lived in two states.  I was either overeating and/or binging or I was carefully dieting, recording the fat and calorie content of every morsel that went into my mouth, exercising religiously and obsessing about food.  If I screwed up on the diet, all hell would break loose and I'd eat and eat and eat.  There was NO MIDDLE GROUND.  There was NO MODERATION.  It was either one or the other.  I didn't even believe that I could ever be normal with food or have a normal life in that regard.  I do not remember EVER, not one day in my entire life, when I can honestly say that I was not in one extreme or the other.

Weight loss surgery changed everything.  It did things I didn't know it could or would.  I hoped that I would lose weight, but I didn't know that I would discover the freedom and joy of a life of moderation.  My Lap-band made me eat smaller portions.  It made me slow down when I was eating.  I actually did not always do a bad job with food choices pre-op so I just continued eating the foods I always had.  I didn't know my problem was really one of portion control until I could sit down and eat a moderate portion and feel good about it.

As I lost weight, I stopped beating myself up.  I stopped hating myself when it came to food.  I learned to ENJOY the food I ate instead of feeling ashamed when I ate, no matter what I was eating.  I began to enjoy eating for good health and for fitness.  I savored the treats I ate, but I also now understand that moderation doesn't mean eating everything I want, all the time.  I have to regulate the portions and frequency of desserts and snack foods and I have discovered that I can do this.  Sometimes I fail and make bad choices, but generally I do a pretty good job.

I've had a chance in the last few months to really remember what it was like for me before weight loss surgery.  Those who read my blog know I gained a few pounds over the holidays and have struggled to take them off.  I finally acknowledged that I needed the help a fill can give me and saw my fill doc this week.  I don't know why I waited so long, but I don't regret the brief glance of how I don't want to live my life.  I have been dieting and having occasional binges.  I have been living in the two ends of the spectrum that I knew before surgery.  I did it because it was familiar and apparently because I'm not very quick on the uptake.  I didn't realize what I was doing, but now I see things clearly.

So am I a different person?  No, I'm still me with all my fabulous flaws.  The "other" Amanda still lives within me.  She will always be in me, but now she and my true self are learning to play nice and live in harmony.

How about you?  Are YOU a different person?

   

Ah, mushies...

I am sitting here eating my vegetarian re-fried beans with a sprinkle of melted cheese and a dollop of sour cream like a good Bandster who just got a fill.  So yummy!  Definitely my favorite mushy meal!

I think I sort of forgot I had a Lap-band which probably tells you how little restriction that I had.  Sitting here eating my lunch slowly, I am feeling like a Lap-band patient for the first time in a while. 

I am almost embarrassed to confess that I only had .25 ccs in my 4 cc band.  Now I have 1 cc.  I've had as much as 2.7 ccs before, but I had issues with reflux at that level.  I'm a total fill light-weight, but I can honestly say that regardless of how much fill I have in my band, I still feel some restriction and it still helps me at least a little bit in this battle.  So I hoping this level gives me what I need and doesn't give me what I don't need (reflux).

And that's the skinny!