God Never Gives You More Than You Can Handle

Yesterday was stressful at "Chez Schulman."

My mother was in back pain, my brother, Ricky, pictured, was miserable and acted up at dinner, my father was spiteful and didn't eat the chicken after my brother said it sucked, and mind you, we had the neighbor over for dinner, my mother was grinding her teeth and cursing my father and brother under her breath, AT DINNER, (i heard it, did the company hear it too?) which i repremanded her for; later, she was yelling, loudly, at my brother, inciting a familial riot, and later last night, Bro had his TV turned up so loud it sounded like a bomb going off, for spite? I ate two blocks of raw cheese, 2 bags of Brad's raw chips and 2 packs of Awesome Foods raw fudge. Just another lovely family dinner!

My stresses are mostly due to the fact that i am distracted here, and have a vocal rehearsal in 5 days for which i have not yet practiced. I am also a major procrastinator, but i cannot deny that being here is a 24/7 job that is overwhelming.

Practicing my music is today's number one goal. In 5 days i have a rehearsal and 5 days later, i have to entertain at a party.

deep sigh.

i'll get it together. it's only 3 peices.

My mothers stresses yesterday were that her back has been killing her for the last 3 days. She finally broke down and took 2 muscle relaxer pills yesterday, despite reading Susan's letter encouraging her to go natural and just feel the pain.

I actually have an inkling that Ma is in the midst of a serious emotional detox as well as a physical one now eating raw over a week. She talked alot about her first son, by birth, who was killed in a car accident. (my brother, Ricky, and i were subsequently adopted.) She never brings up Jeffrey. I found it curious it would come up now. I think i'll encourage her to talk more. She never mourned his death, like almost 50 years ago. She was always busy doing for everyone else.

She finds it very uncomfortable that i am doing for her. She feels pampered and spoiled and guilty.

Maybe i can help her through the mourning process. god, what the hell did i get myself into?

To make matters worse, my mom and my brother, Ricky, who lives here at 'chez schulman', have a long history of tension between them, so yesterday when the chicken was dry and he announced his displeasure to everyone including our company, my mom was seriously miffed. Then when dad joined in and turned his nose up at the chicken, it made matters worse.

Mom says my bro is jealous that i'm here and that's why he acted up, too. i had the garlic bread ready when he got there and he never got to partcipate in making dinner. His chicken, which he felt was superior, was in the basement, and he had offered to warm that for dinner. He didn't like MY chicken.

family dynamics are fun.

I missed Cliff yesterday, too, terribly. It would have helped to have him to deflect tensions. But, he had a very late teaching night and slept back at our home, 15 mins away from where he teaches. Moms is 45 mins away.

When i told him on the phone of the familial havoc, here he had a hard time believing it was over...chicken.

Ridiculous. But isn't that what all families fight about? Stupid stuff?

On the positive side, Mom did great with her raw diet yesterday. It's been 8 days for her.

Let's move away from the familial crap and talk about raw.

We had green smoothie for breakfast - my favorite - strawberry/mango/orange/banana/parsley with date.

For lunch, i ate that one entire block of raw cheese and it went downhill the rest of the day for me, although i managed to stay raw, thank you very much.

Mom had a lovely salad she enjoyed very much with a sunflower pate as dressing. i'm tellin' ya, she is LOVIN' the raw food!

For snack, she had a pina colada banana whip with pineapple and coconut.

For appetizer when the company came, she had some raw nuts and raisins while our company munched on roasted nuts. A practical solution to avoid feeling deprived.

For dinner, she enjoyed a salad with lots of raw sliced mushrooms and a tahini based dressing. She loved it.

And she had vanilla banana whip for snack before bed. Loved it, too.

"Bernie, you'd get used to loving this diet really quickly if you tried it!" she told my dad. how nice.

Mom has settled into eating frequently, 6 meals a day, but small meals. She has a little belly. I feed her every time she gets hungry and have been consciouse to make the meals on the heavier side. Perhaps not ideal for healing, but she weighs 118 now. she is a little stick as it is. (I AM OBVIOUSLY GENETICALLY NOTHING LIKE HER. I'M ADOPTED. I HAVE LOADS O' FAT GENES IN ME. I COULDN'T UNFORTUNATELY INHERIT MY MOTHERS BEAUTIFUL THICK HAIR OR SKINNY ASS!)

Eating small frequent meals was working like a charm for me until i was a retarded mo-fo and decided to numb myself on raw cheese. I finished the 2nd block later, and the 2nd bag of raw Brad's chips to curb the serious cravings for a binge on real chips. I swear i almost gave in last night. On real icecream and real chips. I ate raw versions instead. And fell asleep with raw fudge in the corners of my mouth. Let me just get over this HUMP of the first few weeks raw...and the cravings will dissappear. And let me just begin to work on my music so the stress will be gone.

The only thing that stopped me from eating the real stuff was knowing 1) i'm here to be a raw support for mom and i would fuck it up royally if i went off, and 2) that i'd be off and running tomorrow with the fried chinese food for sure if i actually gave in, and 3) i KNEW i was stressed from procrastinating and putting off my music studies, so getting caught up in a subsequent whirl of binge eating when i have to be learning my music wouldn't help things, but make everything worse.

At least i'm thinking things through. progress, not perfection.

Cliff was such a dear on the phone when i reported my failure. "Big deal. You've done MUCH MUCH worse." You see why i love him??? That makes me want to get right back on track today, with a smile.

I know i have to work on my music.

I'll rub moms back today and we'll take our walk and she'll take her bath, and maybe we'll talk some about her loss. hopefully she'll be feeling better soon.

She still has zero pains in her stomach.

Mantras for today: "ONE DAY AT A TIME". "GOD NEVER GIVES YOU MORE THAN YOU CAN HANDLE". "PROGRESS, NOT PERFECTION."

xoxo michelle joy