Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Can Your Head Really Explode?

What a morning. I don't know if it was the TOTM headache I woke up with, the rain, or the fact that I'm getting backed up at work and everyone and their uncle has been calling my office, but I really thought for a few minutes that my head might actually explode.

Fortunately, the ibuprofen I took is kicking in and I'm starting to feel a little better. I'm chipping away at the piles of work around me, but I'm still wading through it and trying to figure out how I'm going to get it all done.

In a sick twist of fate, my deadline week for the monthly church newsletter, entitled "The Visitor," has been coinciding the last several months with my monthly visitor. I swear this adds to my aggravation levels each month as I wait around for my regular procrastinators to get their information to me, or else the other people whose psychic powers propel them to call me with all kinds of crazy, last-minute requests when my workload is already at its maximum. Today for about an hour, maybe 90 minutes, the phone seemed to ring every two minutes. Included in this chaos was two calls each from my husband and his mother. No emergencies or urgent reasons, just odd things that really could have waited until I got home. Can you say OVERLOAD?

I should be working right now, but I had to take a few minutes to collect myself and decompress. I'm kind of disappointed a little because I ate my morning snack earlier during the phone call madness and didn't get to enjoy it much. I was legitimately hungry then, so I wasn't eating it for emotional reasons, but there were too many distractions going on and it took away from the enjoyment of it. I should have put it away and saved it for later, but the physical signs of hunger were there and I didn't want to get in the "too hungry" category, which would have made things even worse.

Well, this morning I finally broke down and got back on the scale. I wanted to wait until Friday, making it a week, but I'm pretty pleased I made it five whole days. While the lingering diet mentality thoughts had made me hope for a lower number, it was exactly what I expected it to be, just by judging how I felt. This is actually a good sign because not only does it mean I'm pretty in tune with my body, but that I'm basically in a maintenance mode right now. That's a huge relief to me, because in the days that I didn't weigh I kept having these concerns that eating what I wanted was going to shoot my weight up astronomically.

While I know it's a good thing to back off on weighing myself, I did discover that as time went on I was actually afraid to get back on the scale, because of these fears of gaining weight. While I don't want to be obsessively weighing myself three times a day, I don't want to be in avoidance mode because I'm filled with worry and dread, either. Hopefully in time I will reach the point that what I weigh just doesn't matter to me anymore. It seems very difficult, however.

Well, I better get back to work here. I have more to say, but I guess it will have to wait. At least my head feels better. Maybe this afternoon I'll try to get back online in between loads of laundry and other housework. An AFG's work is never done...

5 comments:

Bea said...

I did our church bulletin for three long years, rain or shine, every darn Sunday. I finally put a notice in the bulletin saying I would not accept anything else after Thursday. No inserts, no additions, nothing. Made everyone mad, and my life a whole lot easier. The choir director and the pastor took turns hating me. I didn't care. I was a volunteer. What were they going to do, fire me? I also stopped calling people trying to track down information. If there were no page numbers with the hymns or scripture references with the sermon, I left them out. Only took one Sunday of that to get stuff in on time. When pastor announced during service that Bea had left something out, I stood up and said oh no she didn't, you never gave it to her. That only happened once. I also quit answering the phone while I was running the bulletin or the newsletter. I let the machine get it. I got militant. When I began to hate the job, I quit. What an eye opening experience is working in a church. Hang in there.

Vashta Narada said...

It's already well established that I do not track down people for information. If they don't get it to me before I print out the final draft, tough luck. Every month in the bulletin I warn people that if I don't have the info on a certain date it will get held for the following month. Same thing with the Sunday bulletin. If you call after 9:30 a.m. Friday with something it simply has to wait until the next week.

I've learned some tricks over the years, especially with the flower orders (poinsettias at Christmas, lilies and tulips at Easter). I purposely make the deadline several days before MY deadline to the florist, to accommodate any procrastinators. But the funny thing is, after the first year when I politely told people they were too late to order, I hardly have any now. Funny thing, setting boundaries and limits. It often gets you the respect you deserve.

Bea said...

Boundaries and limits. The thorns in my side.

Jocelyn said...

I dont know if your head really can explode, and I dont really want to find out LOL.

I have just been catching up on your last few posts, I can see so many things in your thinking that seem to be changing regarding IE. It is wonderful to see your progress.

BigAssBelle said...

i swear, andrea, it's as if we're long distance twins. i am having the same fears about the scale and feeling as if i'm maintaining but being afraid i'm not and it is just all so crazy.

i had a full blown relapse last night when a friend dropped by. she's in the same liquid diet program i was in when i dropped 120 pounds. she has lost 40, looks great.

she asked if i wanted to do it again and some small part of me said "no, it just won't work for me long term" and the other part of me said "no" but leapt instantly into action when she left writing down every morsel of food i'd eaten, planning how to burn off extra calories at the gym, obsessing about getting fat, getting thin, all of it.

full. blown. diet. relapse. it was shocking.

sorry you're having such a stressful day. funny how all of the crap seems to join up and launch an attack on our serenity.