There’s something about weigh-in day. Something where chocolate cheesecake seems to be a little more necessary, and a congratulations about your commitment to stripping the joy away from your sweet tooth.

It’s been an intense, emotion-driven week. For those who haven’t been following, Jan’s daughter, Alex, underwent major scoliosis surgery this week. She was a trooper; the surgery was a fabulous success. But the strain will be in the healing, which will take weeks to get her fully mobile again. The stress of her surgery, in a time of COVID where only one parent at a time can see her (and no, no stepparents permitted or siblings permitted), it’s been a rollercoaster week.

Suffice to say, while I weighed in and took the measurements, I didn’t blog Tuesday night. And I didn’t get my recipes online when I had planned too, either.

I’ve also not been much able to get back to messages. I am thinking of my friends. I am thinking of my family. But my capacity for it all is reaching its pique. With the loss of not being able to go to see concerts, or movies, or on road trips or travel, I’ve started new initiatives and hobbies from home like the Lipstick Series and posting my culinary creations (Careful Eating). It’s all I’ve got to keep my head from exploding. I’m hoping I jazz up my energy to get back to writing. My patience for The Chronicles of Oledanick began to wane just before the pandemic bubbled up. And when I figured it would have been the best time to get a lock on another chapter, I found myself hungry for something new and exciting. I’ve never been one to rest on her laurels, which seemingly makes me incapable of finishing projects or seeing things through to their finish line.

I had an interesting reach out from my post last week regarding a fight Jan and I had had just before I was ready to post for National Spouse Day.

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A post shared by Care ☆ (@carefulchatting)

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A post shared by Care ☆ (@carefulchatting)

Someone encouraged me to stop using our fighting as a metric of Jan’s affection for me. That focusing on this could somehow land him in the pile of my divorces. Interesting.

If there’s anything I’m trying to take to 40 that I certainly didn’t have when I was in my 20s and addicted to weddings and marriage and the idea of forever and ever amen, it’s that I’m never in a rush to shut down ideas that don’t necessarily reflect my own. Less I’m in some heated debate with my kid about her having to contribute to the family chore wheel, when it comes to the assertions, language, or opinions of people who follow my blog or read my posts, I typically attempt to at least listen. One of my former employers used to encourage I take a “10 000′ view”. I read and re-read my passage about Jan and I. About how we’d had a disagreement just before I’d gone to post about National Spouse Day. About how the pandemic was threatening our relationship and rocking the two of us to our human core. About how we’ve been forced to see each other in the light of two people who’d had their whole lives to get to know one another, save we only got a couple of months to mature, nurture and harvest our relationship before we got locked down together. And I’m not scared to say that it’s not been easy. And at times, it’s been the fucking worst. I have absolutely leaned on girlfriends who are in long-term relationships, seeking advice on how to breathe, how to not want to run away (as I would have ten years ago) and how to see things from a different perspective before I throw in the towel for good.

In my response to this particular quest for imparting knowledge and wisdom, I thanked them for their advice, encouraged them to stop reminding me I’ve been divorced (every year, someone feels the necessity to remind me) and told them I, at the very least, listen to what everyone has to say. The fact that I’m writing about it tonight is evidence that I do let things fester, and roll around in my head.

The bottom line is that I feel sometimes I paint a very flowery picture of mine and Jan’s relationship. He’s absolutely not keen on vague-booking, or making ados of nothing on social media that would call to question something not being okay. He’s far more private than I when it comes to revealing what’s going on in the inside, which is what made his post about Alex so extraordinarily rare. He is very cautious to allow people to get too far inside his personal life.

I, on the other hand, am a big ole open book. I need to write it down in order for it to make sense. I need to get it out, talk it out, allow itself to be revealed in the words that come out of me for me to see things in the bigger picture. And while relationships can sometimes be too modified, too filtered, too pretty – like an snapchat filter for the unreality of two people in love – I am not afraid to say sometimes it really fucking sucks for Jan and I. Cause sometimes, it does. The pandemic sucks. Money sucks. Locked down in winter without the sun sucks. Jan and I have successfully gotten this far without fully disengaging from one another. Be it survival that kept us together, sheer will power or an unbelievable amount of love and adoration, it doesn’t really matter. But what my objective was with this post was to say – yeah, I post a lot of flowery, lovely shit about this guy. About this guy and me. I post a lot of bread and roses and happy and smiles and selfies, and big grins, and silly days, and makeshift hours, and stuff of love songs and romantic comedies. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a whole big dark that looms. And sometimes we have to tackle it and shove back into the shadows. The National Spouse Day post was removing the filter and saying: this is what we were like today. Not in that post, or any of the other that came before it, did I try to somehow measure Jan’s love or affection for me. Not through fighting, or lack there of. Not through anything. There isn’t a metric for his life for me, or vice versa. Some days, I carry the emotional load. And sometimes he. But all times, we have a mutual adoration for one another that keeps the strength, love and light alive. If ever I believed in soul mates, well.

My beautiful Bella turned 20 this week. This incredibly charismatic love bug made it to a new decade, virtually unscathed. She seems pretty well put together. Jayda is smart, and intuitive. She’s funny, and loyal, and humble, and – and like, true to herself. It’s a virtue I don’t see exceptionally often with young people her age. Jayda has never had issue being exactly who she is. Believing in exactly what she believes in. She has a joy inside her I’ve never known. We should all aspire to having her contentedness. Jayda is happy with her lot right now. And she just keeps figuring out how to be happy where she is, until she’s somewhere else. Then she’ll be content there. We could all use to learn this from her. Happy Birthday, Bella. Mama loves you.

The Health Care group is growing little by little every day. And as more of you continue to post your photos, the memes, ideas, check-ins and weigh-ins, I continue to be inspired by the congregation of people who are keeping this group alive. We’re now into February – historically the time where most fall off the health bandwagon of New Year’s resolutions. It’s not easy to make a commitment to yourself – which baffles me. You can commit to your partner, your kids, your employer, even your favourite TV show, but somehow you are your last priority. I hope you know you’re exceptional and so very, very worth it. And the self-care you’re lacking can be made up by even just motivating yourself enough to remember that you are wonderful, unique, and incredible asset to the world around you. But if you choose to go further, and work on your health and need help seeing through those goals, join us –> https://www.facebook.com/groups/healthcareonair.

This week, I donned the cherry bikini! It’s the half-way mark till my traditional summertime bikini snap. And this journey has been everything and all things. I love this bathing suit. I also love Hot Topic, with who’s clothes have grown (and shrunk) with me over the years.

I’m back into the swing of making food again now that I’ve started the new Insta. I’m also exceedingly encouraged that I’ve gained a mere 4 oz since the egg fast ended. I was pretty concerned I’d put most of it back on once I went back to my eating regime. But fortunately, I’ve found myself just a mere three pounds away from my next goal. A lot of that is a testament to shaking up my work-out routine. I’ve had to come away from just running on a treadmill. I’ve now incorporated daily dance aerobics following this gal:

Fifteen minutes on the treadmill. Fifteen minutes of dance aerobics. Every time I tackle one of these vids, I feel like I’ve never worked out before in my life. At the end of the week, I’m confident I’ll have developed doing this into a habit. It’s not easy.

As always, I do continue posting my progress photos online (the ones of me stripped down). If you’re interested in that link, shoot me a DM.

I’m on MyFitness Pal under “CareDietrich” if you’d like to be friends, and I invite you to collaborate with me on Spotify:

This week’s work-out jam:

(I’m on kind of a 90s alternative rock jam right now. Probably all the Dawson’s Creek.)

Food this week:

I’ve become completely obsessed with sauces since I discovered the value of egg yolk (go egg fast, go!). The rich and creaminess of a sauce that isn’t going to weigh you (or your food) down has been a real success in feeling full during portion control. I’m hovering around the low 170s right now, on my quest to knocking on the 160s door. Through all the wins this week – new food recipes, new projects, new work-out routines – only gaining mere ounces from the extreme egg fast is what has me the most proud of myself.

You can if you want to.

— c