If we went to lunch…

If We Went to Lunch

One of the truly glorious things about being an adult is regular lunch dates with friends. There are few things I love more than spending an hour or two gabbing with a friend, catching up on each others lives, talking through problems and brainstorming solutions. Or just discussing our latest Netflix obsession. Serious or light-hearted, I LOVE going out to lunch. If you lived near my Arizona suburb and we met for lunch, this is what I’d tell you:

1.  Despite some really valiant efforts, I am not adjusting very well to the suburban Arizona lifestyle. I desperately miss my mountains and the cooler weather they provide and I really miss living downtown in a mid-size city (vs the outlier in suburban desert sprawl).

2. One thing that is helping is a little suburban oasis in the backyard. It’s not mountains and it’s not a bunch of local restaurants and boutique shops, but it is a little patch of green and my own veggies to tend, and that sense of home and place has done wonders the last little while in helping me find a center here.

3. For the first time in a very long while, my relationship with Blue Eyes is….good. There was a bit there a while ago where things were really quite dicey. Merging lives is hard, ya’ll. And merging married lives that have been lived seperately, and then adding moving stress, work stress, blended family stress, and the rest of it….there were a couple of tricky months there. But, without intentionally risking the good thing we’ve got going here, it seems that Blue Eyes and I are in a better place than we have been in….years. And it’s probably the best, most hopeful, and most scary thing I’ve got going for me. Best and hopeful for obvious reasons, scary because it seems like it would be so easy to fall back into that tricky place. Deep breaths, Harriet. We got this.

4. I have been working my tail off for the last 8 weeks or so to lose some fluff that has been bothering me for months years. Turns out, when your marriage is stressful AND you move AND you aren’t settling well AND your job is crazy AND, AND, AND, and you eat chocolate and ice cream to cope? Yeah, that turns right into body fluff. Regular exercise has been kind of a difficult habit to form, but I think I’m finally on the winning side of that battle. And now it’s too hot to go outside much anyway, so my summer fling with the gym looks like it might move into Serious status. Real Talk: I hit my heaviest weight ever a few months ago, 198 pounds. I am 5’7″ and that is not nearly tall enough for 198 pounds of muscle and bone and fluff. Yes, healthy is more important than skinny, but when you are 45 pounds overweight and your medical doctor AND your physical therapist tell you so? Losing 45 pounds is about my health and it is about helping my body work better and it is about confidence to try new things like horseback riding, and continue old loves like mountain climbing. But I’d by lying if I didn’t also admit that losing 45 pounds will be a significant impact on my looks and my dress size (and bra size, and pants size. Forty-five pounds is a lot of fluff).

5. With the weight loss and exercise additions, I have been pretty careful about what I eat. I eat way more veggies, way less sugar and chocolate and bread, and the same amount of cheese. I am still kind of obsessed about local eating and am excited to find a CSA-delivery service for my area that is my new go-to for vegetables and eggs.

6. Um, farm-fresh eggs in the scrambled, hard-boiled, or over-easy variety (so, breakfast) are kind of an acquired taste. They are WAY eggier than my regular grocery store eggs, even the expensive cage-free, organic-fed, brown and speckled, $6.00 for a dozen grocery store eggs. Which should tell you a lot more about $6.00/dozen grocery store eggs than farm fresh CSA eggs.

7. Working from home has been a really rough adjustment. Well, let me back up a bit. Working from home with a new boss has been a really rough adjustment. My boss started last summer and she is not a favorite of anyone in my department. She is probably the only reason I am able to work remotely, but her leadership style (i.e. lack of) has made the working remotely much harder than I thought it would be. It is hard to manage up from 700 miles away. I don’t want to say much more about this (although, in person I’d talk your ear off about it) as it still is an in-progress adjustment, but MAN, I miss my previous supervisor and work environment!

What about you? What would you tell me if we went to lunch?

(That delicious looking burrito up there? That was from a fantastic lunch at The Cutting Board with Kelsey from Rising*Shining.)

Harriet sig

6 thoughts on “If we went to lunch…

  1. WhenInTurkey

    I came to this post for the burrito, but stayed for the conversation 😉

    Can’t think of anything beyond the cliches to say, but they all apply in earnest haha. You can lose the weight (my highest was 192 at 5ft 9in so I hear you). Marriage is simultaneously scary and wonderful (as you know). Moving to a new place is so psychologically challenging, you have to actively accept it rather than wait for it to grow on you. Life, girl. It’s crazy!

    Reply
  2. Tammy

    I grew up in the mountains (the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas) and I am usually OK with not living there anymore, but I ache for it in the summer. I am also working on healthy lifestyle changes and I LOVE the Cutting Board, so if you ever want to have lunch IRL I think that would be fun 🙂

    Reply
  3. Jen

    It’s been almost ten years and I’m still not quite “adjusted” to Arizona living. I’m getting there. It’s just this damn heat kills me every year.

    Fluff. Ha!

    I think we should have a lunch date in real life. And I like your new profile pic.

    Reply

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