Erika

It has been a long time since I have visited this site. I don’t know if anyone will read this, it is a long story, but I have to get it out, 4 months and damned near 30 pounds.

Basically my life and my weight is completely out of control. In the span of 5 days in March my marriage, family, life and body imploded. It goes like this….

Monday 3-9: Important side note: my husband has been claiming to have had no contact with his crazy family for 1 and a 1/2 years….. I Receive call from a bill collector looking for my sister-in-law, they said she gave my number as her home number.  Call Ethan (husband) he’s shocked and later that evening we send email to his family demanding this be fixed.

Tuesday 3-10: Receive call from another of his sisters demanding that the $3000 he secretly borrowed from her last October for the purpose of divorcing me be repaid. NEWS TO ME!

That night  I search Ethan’s private email account only to find multiple emails between him and one of his 21 year old students. All included words like “can’t wait to see you”, “can’t stop thinking about you”, and my personal favorite…”You got an ‘A’ for the class but should turn in your homework so I can justify it.” This had been going on for a year.

I will be honest, I slapped him twice and broke his cell phone.

I called my girlfriends and left to meet them for a drink and comfort, ended up collapsing in the restaurant and was rushed to the ER. Blood pressure 70/40, panic attack, heart palpitations, and severe stomach pain.

Turns out I had a hernia the size of a grapefruit and an infected gall bladder. I am laying in the hospital bed with tubes coming out of each arm, heart moniter, the whole deal…Ethan walks in and continues to try and justify his actions with his student. I had him removed by security.

Wednesday 3-11: Admitted and scheduled for surgery,  I check out AMA to deal with my situation at home. Find another email from a woman Ethan and I have known for 20 years. Her name is Megan and I hate her.

Megan and I had a mutual friend who tragically had a baby premature that eventually passed. While our friend was in the NICU with her son, Megan was in the hospital parking garage having anal sex with her husband. She is garbage.

Ethan swore it was one of those random “classmate finders” emails, I believed him.

Thursday 3-12: I check the cell phone records find a number with 20-30 texts/calls a day. Late at night, when I was working, the usual. It was Megan and it had been going on for 2 years, simutaniously with the student for the past year. 

I slapped him again and began texting her from his phone. She thought it was him. I left the house with his cell phone. 5 minutes after leaving he called MY brother asking him to call her to warn her she was actually texting me.

When I returned home that night he was gone, he took a few things and a box of condoms. 

Important to note that my kids were with my mother, I asked her to keep them to protect them from the kaos.

Friday 3-13: With the kids at school, my mother and I sat trying to figure out what the hell to do next and there was a knock at the door. The police! Ethan had gone and falsely sworn out a PFA against me accusing me of trying to kill him, beating him nearly unconcious, being a terribly abusive mother, and a raging alcoholic.

In Pa they will grant a temp PFA without question. I was evicted from my home and forbidden any contact with my children for 12 days until the hearing date of March 25th…That happens to be my oldest son’s birthday.

I had 15 minutes to gather what I could to take with me. My oldest has severe asthma and allergies, and I am the one who has always monitered his care and medicine. So I spent those 15 minutes organizing his meds and testing his nebulizer. I left with cosmetics and a change of clothes that happened to be in the dryer.

My mother, who was also banned from contact with the kids was sobbing uncontrollably and told by the officers that they serve these many times a week, and it has never been more apparent that someone was being screwed by false allegations that it was with me.

Sunday 3-15: As I was warned by the doctors, my hernia basically ruptured and I was was taken by ambulance to the hospital for emergency surgery. How humilating to ask my doctor for a full STD screen and having to explain why I thought it was needed. Thank God, I am ok.

As any mother reading this can imagine those 12 days were excruciating without my children.

After hiring one of the best lawyers in Pittsburgh, and $3700 later on the court date the PFA was thrown out as unfounded and I filed for divorce. I now have full custody of my boys and Ethan is begging for a reconcilliation.

I have been crying and eating and screaming and eating and basically holding on by my fingernails thoughout the day for my kids, and when they are in bed I am eating and crying some more.

 I have to regain control, and maybe this can be a new start.

I thank anyone who has had the patience to sit thru my rant, and welcome any advice or suggestions. 

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t fall off the wagon…I chose to jump off for a day, it was planned and needed. I have hit a wall, and stopped losing weight with my low carb diet. This has happened to me before, and I have found that the best way to re-start the losing is to take a day off and “shock” my system.

Let me tell you, I feel like I have the worst hangover of my life. My head hurts, I’m tired, a little sick to my stomach…the whole 9 yards. If there was any doubt in my mind that my body just works better on low carb, this definately proved it!

I woke up this morning longing for an egg, as opposed to the cereal I had yesterday….funny how quickly the body changes.

Work is insane! We are very quickly becoming the place to be in our area, and appear to be the favorite hangout for all the other local restaurant/bar’s employees.

We were shoulder to shoulder, and 4 people deep around the bar Tuesday night, it looked like a Saturday…Speaking of Saturday, I am going to need rollerskates, as it is our St Patty’s Day party. I expect that we will be filled to capacity by 11pm, if not earlier.

Jarod’s 10th birthday is coming up in 2 weeks! 10? How the hell did that happen so fast? His party is an “American Idol” theme. I hired the DJ that does our karaoke night at the bar to play the party.

Like most of you know, we have a reputation for hrowing the most over the top birthday parties. Jarod told me the other day that at least 5 of his teachers at school plan on attending….not to mention the regulars and the kids from his class. I’m expecting about 75 people in total.

As usual, I am behind on party planning. Thankfully I am off this evening, so I plan to put a dent in the list of things I need to do.

That’s what’s new here, I hope you all are well.

I don’t know if any of you have had this moment or not, maybe I’m crazy…or just over-reacting, but I’m curious about your opinions on this one.

Over the weekend, I was talking to some friends at work during a quick break, when one of them brought up my diet.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a very complimentary conversation….almost too complimentary.

As you know, I have been 100% faithful to my low carb diet since Jan 2nd. During the discussion I received such praise for holding out this long, without so much as a crouton.

It was very, ‘I don’t know how you do it’ and ‘I am so proud of you’, or ‘I can’t believe I can sit next to you and eat pasta and bread and it not bother you’

One woman in particular, just kept going on and on about it, then the question and answer portion of the conversation started….it was nice but so over the top. So much so that it began to make me feel uncomfortable.

I gave up carbs, not crack! I’ve lost some weight, I didn’t cure cancer! Yeah, my ass is getting smaller but it’s not like I have single handedly changed the world….it was odd.

It just seemed to me like I was recieving ther kind of praise that should me reserved for someone who has done something astonishing….losing 30lbs or not eating bread does not strike me as astonishing. While I know it was well intended, it almost felt patronizing. 

When does support become embarrassing?

Along the embarrassing note…I had the most wonderful and vivid dream lastnight. No it wasn’t a romantic romp on the beach with some George Clooney type, I was dreaming about eating ice cream and mashed potatoes.

How pathetic am I?

I honestly woke up this morning feeling full of dread and regret, wanting to kick my own ass for breaking my diet. It took a good half hour before I realized that it was just a dream.

It’s Monday, I haven’t had a day off since last Monday…and it looks like I won’t have another day off until next Monday.

This week is going to kill me. We are getting a new computer system for the restaurant, they have been still using hand written checks this whole time, I have to train 2 new employees, and we just fired 2 others. Then add into all that the fact that we are launching the new menu on Wed, and it makes for one chaotic week.

Remember the guy I wrote about that was driving me crazy? Well, he was one of the ones to go!

It was his own fault…his arrogance and mouth finally caught up with him and he was fired.

Does it make me a bad person for being happy he’s gone?

On a happier note, I bought a car this weekend. Stressing the word I in that sentence. I bought a car, not Ethan and I bought a car…just me! Quite frankly, mine is nicer than his. It’s a dark teal green Buick LeSabre, with a tan interior and it’s mine!

I did a little experiment this week, and I found out that I should be able to make the payments on the tips I earn in about 2 weeks. Yeah me!

It has been a long time since I had an income of my own, and the ability to buy what I want without a debate, and I am loving it!

To be perfectly honest, Ethan fought me every step of the way about buying this car. I just assumed that I would have needed his name as a co-signer, but I tried it by myself and it went through. I guess I didn’t reason out that I only have a couple of  low balance credit cards in my name, so my income to debt ratio is actually better than Ethan’s.

Ha!

I guess he saw this car as just one more step of me reclaiming my independence, and thought if he made it difficult he could retain the control he had by keeping me dependent on him for transportation to and from work.

So that’s what is happening here, I hope you all are well.

Many times before as I have tried to lose weight, I have always kept my dieting to myself, with the exception of immediate family. This time around I have decided to be very open about what I am doing.

Partially out of neccesity, like haing to special order all of my food at work, and partially out of experimentation. I must say that I like it much better this way.

It’s amazing how much support is available to you once you open the door for people to be involved in your self improvement process. even the regulars at the restaurant and the bar are commenting on my weight loss, asking about my progress, and offering an ‘atta girl’ almost daily.

I have noticed that my co-workers will casually glance at my plate as I sit down to eat, I’m assuming to check that it is carb-less, as I am then always met with an approving nod.

Last week I was dying for pizza, so I ordered a 4 cut with all the toppings I like, I never get mushrooms and onions at home. I was delayed in getting to eat so the chef just put it in a pizza box, anyway I get my fork and proceed to sit down and eat off only and all of the toppings, no crust. Perfectly legal on low carb, and oh so decadent.

I was amazed at how many people stopped to check on what I was eating, and then say something like, ‘ I was worried you fell of the wagon.’

Normally I would have resented that intrusion into my personal life, but in this setting and with these people, I felt a sense of support, concern, and genuine love. Feeling accountable to these people ass well as myself, just might be that extra push I have been looking for.

I really do believe that having everyone around me involved in this process is a great help and I am sure it is a major contributing factor in my success.

Today marks 46 straight days of being 100% on my diet and a loss of 25 pounds. This is a first for me, I have never lasted this long without so much as one slip-up.

I highly recommend involving the people in your life to act as a support team, God knows it appears to be working for me.

It has been insanely cold here, we had 5 inches of snow yesterday, then hail, then a small ice storm…all that is missing is the locusts. Anyway, the furnaces have been working overtime.

Last night on my way to work, I had the car heater pumping and once I finally got there my sweater was completely stuck to me with static cling. Like I could see little sparks coming off my sweater when I tried to shake it out.

Luckily I had my handy can of Static Gaurd in my purse, but decided to spray myself down after I got inside.

I walked in the door, almost running smack into a co-worker, Jim, who did a double take at me and said, quite loudly, ”Holy shit Erika, how much weight have you lost?” A few regulars turned around and they echoed the same compliments.

According to Jim, he hadn’t been able to really see a change, other than in my face, because my clothes are so loose. But thanks to my static cling issues he could finally see all my hard work was paying off. He even bought me dinner, low carb of course.

Once this diet is finished I am going to have to get the kitchen staff a nice gift. They have been so kind and patient with me and all my special orders. Even my boss, the executive chef, has been creating special low carb versions of his dishes for me.

I am very lucky and grateful for all the support.

I’m off to dig out my car, I have a 15 hour day ahead of me…better get moving now.

Something very scary happened to me this week, and I hope that you all will read this and head the warning!

As most of you know I work a a manager of a restaurant/bar. The other night, after a crazy shift, I decided to relax with some friends and have a few glasses of wine. By no means enough to produce the effects it had on me.

Let me preface this by saying that I DO NOT EVER black out, nor do I drink to the level that would cause a black out! It was confirmed to me by my friends that I seemed completely normal when I left, no staggering or slurring, no bloodshot eyes or odd behavior.

I lost approx 12 hrs. The last thing I remember was saying leaving the bar, saying goodbye to everyone, and trying to have a conversation with my friend who drove that night.

I say “trying” because I remember really having to concentrate on getting the words out. That’s it, up to and including putting my kids on the bus at 9am the next day and giving Jarod his allergy meds before school.

My memory of that time is only a flash of a picture here and there.

I found out later by Ethan when I commented about all the mystery bruises on my arms and legs, that I had lost conciousness 3 different times that night.

He said that I came home perfectly lucid, although I appeared to be drunk. Then about 2 hrs later I got up from bed and collapsed in the bathroom (the thud woke him up). He came to get me, and on the was back to bed I passed out again, almost falling down the stairs when I fell into the banister. Then once again, as I he was trying to help me back into bed.

Again, I have NO recollection of any of this. Someone clearly put something in my drink.

What I do know is that I have become very complacent at work, I feel at home there. I don’t watch my purse like I would at any other place and I obviously wasn’t watching my drink either.

I told the owners about what happened to me, and they didn’t seem to be taking this seriously until I pointed out that all of this behavior happened in the privacy of my own home. This wasn’t a case (as we have had with some other employees) of getting bombed, making a fool out of yourself, and then trying to back pedal and excuse away the behavior. Realizing that I could have simply kept all of this to myself to avoid embarrassment, made them realize that something must have happened.

I rounded up all the bartenders and told them the story as well. One of them, who is known for parting way to hard confessed that the same thing happened to her a week earlier. She never said anything because she thought that no one would believe her, due to her past behaviors.

I also, after talking to a regular customer, that she too was a victim of this, but also has a history of not being able to hold her liquor and was afraid that no one would buy her story. Both of those women had this happen a different bars, but in the same general area.

In a way I am glad that this happened to me, simply for the fact that my past behavior gives me the credibility to make such a claim and be believed and unquestioned.

Please, be careful Buddies. Pay attention, if this could happen to me where I work, surrounded by people who care for me, it can happen to you.

Lastnight was “College Night” at the bar and the children were out in full force. “College Night” means $1 beers and reduced drinks. These kids kill me with the ‘yes ma’am’ and ‘no ma’am’ and ‘thank you ma’ams’.

While I appreciate their respect, when the hell did I become a Ma’am?

One of my favorites…the inevitable drunken hugs from these kids and the ‘you are such a nice lady‘ from the girls or the ‘ I’ve always been attracted to older women ‘ from the guys.

Again….exactly when the hell did this happen?

The kicker of it all is that all of my friends laugh about the fact that I basically look the same as I did at 21. A little more refined and a tad more graceful, then again I have also been told by these same friends that I acted 35 at 19….but I still do look pretty much the same. But apparently to these kids I look like their Grand-Ma.

Maybe I will start carring around my Senior pictures to show these little whipper-snappers. Other than the big 80’s hair, I’ve kept up pretty well.

Today it Friday, and we get more of an adult crowd. I think I will find a nice middle aged man to flirt with tonight at work just to hear the words ‘young lady’.

 Have a great day all, and may no one over 12 call you Ma’am.

For the last week and a half Logan has been coming home with little trinkets, saying  ‘Look what so-and-so gave to me’. I didn’t think much about it until he brought home a set of keys, that he also claimed were “given” to him by a little boy at school.

I called the teacher to return the keys and found out that little things have been going missing in the class lately and if they turned up, Logan seemed to be the one who found them.

My heart sunk, and I told her that I now thought that Logan was stealing these things….she said that she would look into it but doubted it very much.

Well, the note came home that he was in fact taking these things from the class or other students. A note that I didn’t see until Sunday night.

Monday morning I woke “Sticky Fingers McGee” up and  after a long interrogation, I told him to pack a bag…a change of clothes, a toothbrush, maybe something to read, and all of the toys he stole.

“Am I going to Nana’s?” he asked. “No, after I put your brother on the bus, you are going to the police sation! Because that’s where people who steal end up.”

Dispite his begging, pleading, crying, and hyperventilating, that is exactly what I did.

The officer was great, he played right along, and put the fear of God in him.

He  made Logan give him all of the facts, as well as name, rank, and serial number….writing all of it down in a very official looking way.  Saying things like….’boy, take that hat off and look at me when I am talking to you!’,  ‘Is that how you sit on a chair? Sit up straight, and you will answer me yes sir!’

It was great! He let him off with a warning, but threatened him with Detention Hall if he did it again.

Then it was off to school where he had to confess to the principal and return the toys. she suggested that he lose his recess for 2 days, I insisted on a week.

Something tells me that the little booger won’t do it again,  or he will be scarred for life…it could go either way!

Tonight will be a crazy day at work, it’s Fat Tuesday and we are having the Mardi Gras festivities at the bar. Yeah me! I get to run to the party store to buy decorations, masks, beads, and the like. Then I get to spend the afternoon hanging all the crap up before my shift tonight.

That’s what is happening here, be well Buddies.

Yup it’s true, I survived my first full month, 100% on plan with my low carb diet. Here are the January results…

Weight: -18lbs  ~ Bust: -2″ ~ Waist: -4″ ~ Hips: -4.5″ ~ Body Fat% -3%

A full month is a huge deal for me, as it has been a very long time since I was able to claim that amount of time.

I had to laugh at myself at work lastnight. After serving dessert to a family, I stood in the kitchen desperate to lick the spatula I cut their cake with. A seven layer chocolate cake….one to die for!

I stood there trying to calculate how many carbs would be in that little taste, no worries I literally ran it back to the dishwasher. As I walked back thru the kitchen, laughing out loud at my self, my boss stopped me and asked what was so funny.

I told him about my pathetic, yet short lived emotional affair with the spatula. Now to say that this man is stingy with compliments of any sort is a gigantic understatement, but to my utter shock he said….”Don’t do it Erika, you really are starting to look good.”

‘Starting’ to look good? I told you he has little experience with sweet words.

He clarified, and said that everyone can see a difference in me and that he was proud of me. He also added that ‘this is why I don’t say anything to a woman about weight loss, it always comes out wrong.’

What he said really jazzed me, and the evening went very well until some drunk and my boss nearly got into a fist fight. Things started to calm down when my boss left the room, after telling the drunk to leave, but then he turned his attention to my co-manager, Jim….and it all flared up again.

Finally, this drunk picked up a beer bottle and advanced on Jim. At that point I stepped in between the two of them. the drunk retreated and eventually left.

I don’t believe that I was ever in any real danger, it was obvious to me that this guy was not willing to hurt me to get to Jim…Well at least that’s what I was counting on, and I was right.

I found out later that 3 of the male patrons were getting ready to jump if this guy put his hands on me, what a crazy night!

We are in the middle of one hell of an ice storm here, the kids have a 2hr delay…and I am supposed to be at work in 45 min, to receive all the beer orders. The roads are a mess, so I am assuming that they will be running late too.

I’m off to brave the cold and go scrape the 400 layers of ice off the car.