Onederful Bound

One Door Closes...

2008-01-15T16:45:00.000-05:00

Another One Opens.

My apologies. This transition took longer than I expected.

For those of you still interested in reading my ramblings, I will now be at

The Diary I Carry

Hope to see you there.

The End of the Year

2007-12-31T08:49:00.000-05:00

Holy Cow, it's been so long since I blogged that I forgot my password to Blogger! That is a bad, bad sign!

I can't believe it's been almost a MONTH since I wrote here. The month of December went by so fast, with so many holiday preparations at home and at work, that I hardly had time to do anything "fun" -- reading, needlework, etc. And let's face it, I basically "gave up" when it came to food and exercise. Not admirable, but I'm not going to deny it, either.

In a way I'm glad 2007 is almost over. This has been an incredibly tough year for me. While there was no single thing that stands out as a tragedy or a terrible experience, something inside of me seemed to have waved the white flag of surrender and ... not died, but went into a deep hibernation.

The majority of this year I've dealt with low to mid-levels of depression, with a small period of anxiety attacks thrown in for good measure. I'm still trying to sort out how much was physical/chemical/hormonal and how much was psychological/emotional issues. I know both were involved, and it was a lethal combination that has wreaked near-total devastation on my food and weight issues. I've gained back a LOT of weight, way more than I'm willing to admit here in print, although in January I've got a doctor's appointment that will not be a pleasant experience. However, I'm hoping at this appointment to rectify some mistakes I've made with my medications as far as my PCOS is concerned. I'm convinced switching medications at the beginning of last year had a lot to do with my weight gain, lack of energy, mood swings, etc., and I'm going to get on my knees and beg if necessary to go back to what was working before.

I'm not saying it was all biological. I know I got mentally burned out on the dieting, which evolved into a vicious cycle of restricting and binge eating. I thought I was getting a good handle on Intuitive Eating and Conscious Living, but my depression kept getting in the way. I know I still have a lot of issues to work through, the core reasons behind my disordered, emotional eating, and at my last therapy session I asked Dr. K. to begin helping me go through Karen Koenig's "Food and Feelings Workbook." I think having someone to answer to and a deadline to complete the chapters will help me to quit procrastinating and do the work that needs to be done.

I realize now that the last couple months I've been dragged down by huge amounts of negativity and pessimism. I find myself resentful, grumbling and angry way too much. It's been so hard for me to look for the positives in anything, and it's sure hard to feel good about myself when I can't seem to find the good in anything.

I know it's incredibly cliche to jump on the New Year's Resolution bandwagon, but I find myself looking at the new calendar and wanting to make a fresh start. Part of me is scared, because traditionally the January through March period is usually my most depressed part of the year, and I can't bear to think of feeling worse than I do right now. I already feel like I'm scraping bottom, and if I get any lower I'll be underground. It seems like I have no where else to go now but up.

On that note, I have decided to let go of this "Onederful Bound" title and start a new blog. I need to reassess my goals and aspirations, and at this point I can't make it a number on a scale. This is NOT a farewell; I need to write and express my feelings now more than ever. But looking at that title reminds me too much of my self-perceived failure in this one aspect of my life. I think a starting fresh on a new, blank slate may help to let go of the negativity that has taken hold of me.

Don't worry, I will link the new site to this one so anyone who still wants to (those of you who are still checking in on me, my apologies again for my long absence) can find me.

I hope everyone had a good Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, etc., and will be able to celebrate the new year. We're having a party at my house tonight, and I'm hoping to paste on a happy face and enjoy myself.

I promise, I will be back.

Cleaning House

2007-12-03T08:21:00.000-05:00

I know I've been missing in action here in blogland. The holidays are taking a lot out of me: there was all the cleaning before Thanksgiving; at work doing a lot of work ahead of time to prepare for my days off; all the work and preparation on the actual day; cleaning up afterward; visiting with relatives in from Annapolis; my daughter and I catching a cold; then continuing to clean and decorate for Christmas.

I do feel like I've been in a haze, a holiday haze: going through all the boxes in the attic, lugging down the artificial tree (I just can't justify chopping down a living tree every year, plus the expense of them) and all the lights, ornaments and other decorations. On Friday I did a commando shopping trip, bouncing from store to store like a ball in a pinball machine. Over this past weekend I've been working on the Christmas cards; I send about 50, and it involves looking up addresses, signing them all, and yesterday I had a photo shoot with Mabel and the dogs that was incredibly difficult to coordinate.

This past week I've been a woman on a mission: I got sick of my husband and I snipping at each other about our disorganized basement (that I'm still waiting on him to remodel) and decided that something had to be done. Since I'll die an old woman before he would ever organize the stuff down there, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work. On Thursday evening I spent a couple of hours on it, and Saturday morning I attacked it again. Even though Hubby swears someday he's going to build more shelves and give me more storage, for now I did the best with what I had, and it looks so much better.

In addition, knowing that bad weather was on its way Saturday night and Hubby would not have any time to do it because of deer hunting, I decorated the front porch for Christmas, too. He claims he's going to put more lights up on the shrubs, etc., I didn't want the front of our house completely dark until Dec. 24th.

Finally, I got sick of asking my husband several times to clean the dog poop out of the back yard and did it myself. It must have been at least a month since this was last done, and I spent at least an hour trying to pry frozen dog turds out of the grass. Mabel helped me clean the other (non-poop) garbage/dog destruction out of the yard, and in addition to my two big buckets of fecal matter, we also amassed a garbage can and a big box full of destroyed dog toys and chewed up wooden lattice from our deck.

Even after that I still wasn't done. I kicked the dogs out of the kitchen and thoroughly cleaned it, too. By the end of the day I was exhausted. I was achy and sore and all I wanted to do was curl up in my comfy chair and watch the season finale of Torchwood. Of course, Hubby came home all full of energy and wanted to go Christmas shopping in Pittsburgh -- which is over an hour away from our home! There was no way I was leaving the house at 6 p.m. and fighting the Christmas shopping crowds after slaving in that house all day.

Lately I feel more like a maid or servant than anything else. There are so many obligations placed upon me; I find myself forced to do so much endless "grunt" work because no one else will. I seem to be inheriting the fate of my mother and her mother, taking on the brunt of all the household responsibilities because the husbands in our lives don't take on what we feel is their share.

Okay, my husband cooks dinner. That's great, and a lot of wives probably envy that. But I'm not sitting around eating bon bons while he cooks. I'm setting the table, getting out condiments, drinks, etc. I usually help carry serving bowls to the table, too, and have to run back to the kitchen because he rarely remembers to bring serving utensils. And once the meal is over, my family instantly vanishes, leaving me to clear and clean the table, put the food away, then wash the dishes, clean the stove top and counters and put everything (kitchen gadgets, spices, ingredients, etc.) back in their places. You can tell he learned to cook in restaurant kitchens and is used to having dish washers take care of everything: in a regular meal he uses several different knives, multiple pots and pans, bowls and sheet pans, then puts the finished meal in separate serving dishes. When he does actually put his tools in the sink he never rinses anything, so by the time I get there all the sauces, cheese, etc., is dried on them, or else he stacks the sink to overflowing and loads up the top item with water, which then topples over and spills all over the kitchen when I'm trying to empty it. There are times I feel like telling him not to cook dinner any more because it seems to make more work for me than if I cooked myself.

I know I sound resentful, like the stereotypical wife who feels overburdened and under appreciated by her family. I'm not writing this to martyr myself to the world, although sometimes I do feel that way, I admit. I do try to voice my needs and my desire for help, but the usual response is "I'll get to it," yet hours or days later I still wind up doing it myself.

The good thing about this past week and getting so fired up about tackling these projects is that it gets me moving and energized. I have less time to sit around and eat; instead of sitting around brewing on my emotions and thinking about binge eating, I'm working off these feelings with scrubbing, lifting and other chores.

My eating still isn't great; the holiday season has brought lots of high calorie foods into the house and they're hard to resist. But at least I'm not sitting for hours ingesting them all until I'm bloated and sick.

Again, sorry for the absence here on the blog. But rest assured, I haven't been idle. I've been thinking a lot as I vacuum, dust and organize, and I'll try to relate those revelations here as I find time.

Thankful

2007-11-21T09:18:00.000-05:00

Here's what I'm thankful for:

Today is the last day of work until Tuesday. I've been working especially hard to get everything done, and I think I've been able to do it all with a minimum of mistakes. I'm looking forward for a few days off to spend time with my daughter (who is also getting a break from school and gymnastics), decorating the house for Christmas and maybe making some cookies.

Tomorrow is my family's Thanksgiving dinner and everything's falling into place. My cousin and his wife are bringing their five month-old baby girl Molly and I simply cannot wait to hold her.

I'm grateful that my family is healthy. One of our neighbors unexpectedly died yesterday, and I feel so much sympathy for his family as they have to deal with their grief over the holiday season. My parents are in good health, my husband is fine, and my daughter's a cartwheeling ball of vim and vigor. And I'm doing okay, too.

Despite the cons to living in a very small town, I appreciate the good things about it. Yesterday afternoon I stopped to drop off something to my former neighbor who recently lost her husband (I wrote about this at the beginning of the month) and we wound up talking for two hours. There were plenty of things I was going to do yesterday afternoon -- mainly clean my house -- but this time with her seemed so much more important and precious to me.

I'm also thankful for the other good friends I have, who have been there for me in good times as well as the rough ones.

Yes, I have my share of problems. There are things in my life that I'm unhappy with. Some are within my control and some aren't, even though some of the ones that in theory are in my control seem impossible to change. And sometimes I let these things drag me down and feel miserable. But, like the song we sang in church last Sunday, I need to Count My Blessings. I have to remember all the good things I have, all the positives in my life.

The lady I visited yesterday talked to me about this, too. And her comment was, "When I think I have problems, I look around and what some other people have to bear and I realize I don't have any problems at all." And this is a woman who just lost her husband of 60 years, who has diabetes and probably other issues I know nothing about. If she can have this attitude, I need to take her as an example and realize how fortunate I am.

So, to everyone out there, spend a moment or two in the next 24 hours appreciating the good things in your life. Be thankful for all that you have. I plan to do the same.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Church Lady Snaps

2007-11-15T10:07:00.000-05:00

This is without doubt the busiest week of the year at my job. Compare it to the week of April 15 for accountants. To survive this week I have to do a lot of pre-planning, time management and multi-tasking. My biggest headaches come from outside sources: mainly procrastinators and people who expect me to drop everything and get their last-minute requests done.

I am not proud of the fact that I made someone cry yesterday. This is a person who makes tons of demands on me and is always expecting me to fulfill her last-minute requests throughout the year. But yesterday she hit me on the absolute wrong day, and I snapped at her. I didn't even explode on her like I really wanted to, but my obvious aggravation and displeasure was enough to send her over the edge (and let's be frank here: this is a woman who is always teetering on that precipice from all the drama in her life).

Of course when she starts crying I feel awful, although I was kind of confused as she starting gushing about some relative who's dying and doesn't want anyone to know. This made me think that the tears really weren't about me, but then she came back a few minutes later and tried to give me a $20 bill for my "trouble." This started the whole discussion of me not wanting her money, that I just need things in a timely manner, not two hours after I've completed the project she wants to contribute to. I reminded her that I put reminders in the bulletin about this for the past month, and I can only wait so long. But then she was martyring herself all over the place and offering to stay and help me. At that point all I wanted was for her to get out of my office so I could do my work without her tearful theatrics disrupting me.

Then there's this other woman who drives me absolutely crazy. She is the queen of procrastination who feels it's perfectly fine to call me at the last minute -- often at home -- with all her requests. Even though she works at a place full of computers and e-mail, most of her requests are handwritten and left for me on the piano bench in the basement of the church, so I have to go hunting for them. Worst of all, she leads me through her directions like a dim-witted five year-old and often forces me to read back her stuff when she dictates it to me over the phone.

I've slowly been trying to correct this situation with this woman. Two weeks ago she called my house at 9:30 p.m. -- the night before I print the Sunday bulletin -- to dictate an announcement she wanted in there.

"Do you have a pencil handy?" she asked me.

"Um, no," I replied curtly, "I'm in bed."

Boy did she stutter around! I told her to call me in the morning (wishing it would be at the office), but instead she called me at 7:30 a.m. while I was trying to get Mabel ready for school. I of course had to write down her announcement and read it back to her. Oh, and by the way, she needed a bunch of copies made for her Sunday School classes, too.

So this morning she calls me at home again at 7:30 in the morning, asking me to go find her papers in the church basement and make all these copies for her for this Sunday. The same week I've got the newsletter and annual meeting and envelope distribution and poinsettia orders and everything else.

I wanted to unleash holy terror down upon her, but the image of the other lady crying in my office kept me from verbally ripping her head off. I told her I would try to honor her request, but it was awfully last-minute and it's an extremely busy day, not to mention week. She him-hawed around and said if I couldn't do it all, if I could at least do make copies of the one sheet. I told her I would do my best, but that I'd appreciate it if in the future she would get things to me earlier.

I so wanted to tell her to take her copies and shove them up her butt. But what kind of a church lady would I be? I'm supposed to be gracious and helpful and take care of people. But where's the line when you become someone who gets taken advantage of and becomes a doormat?

It's no wonder I've been doing some stress-eating the past couple days. Not a binge, but nervous, mindless eating. I'm incorporating other options to reduce my stress -- yesterday was my appointment with my therapist, I'm exercising in the mornings, I'm trying to read a good book and start my Christmas counted cross stitch projects. But let's face it, it's hard to fight those urges to eat some cookies or some chocolate to soothe myself. But I'm trying.

Today's crunch day, and fortunately things are coming together well. But my personal life is equally jam-packed right now, and this afternoon I have to try to cram in as many errands as possible, especially since the weather man is calling for several inches of snow tonight. Often our road crews aren't prepared for our first major snow, and I'd like to be able to avoid as much traveling as possible tomorrow.

I have to admit the thought of being snowbound in my house for a day sounds nice. Of course, I'll have to disconnect the phone so no one can bother me with their demands. I can just sit back, read my book, do some stitching, and rediscover some relaxation.

What Other People Think of Me is None of My Business

2007-11-13T18:14:00.000-05:00

Today's better, I guess. I was so busy at work today I didn't get a chance at all until this evening to think about blogging. It's newsletter time, but also time for our church's annual meeting, which means I need to compile agendas, minutes, budgets, reports etc., and assemble them into 200 packets. It's also time to distribute the new offering envelopes, so I had to label all 299 boxes. The Christmas Eve poinsettia orders are due this week, so they're flying in, as well as memorial gifts for a deceased member of the church, and these have to be recorded so I can put them in the newsletter. Oh, and the Sunday School superintendent needed lessons printed up for grades 1-6, and our associate pastor needed 200 copies of his Christmas letter copied. All of this on top of my usual work. Fun fun!

I really kind of worked myself into a bit of a frenzy over this whole ordeal I shared with you yesterday. But at least when I'm upset I'm not compulsively overeating. Hubby and I talked about it more this morning, and I suppose it's as resolved as I'm ever going to get it.

I feel kind of foolish about the whole thing now. I look back at myself and see a whining, spoiled brat who threw a fit because she didn't get her way. The scolding mother in me looks at this little girl and says, "Guess what, kid? Life isn't fair, so get used to it."

I also think I totally set myself up for more disappointment and hurt feelings with my e-mail to him. Looking back, I think I expected him to respond objectively and empathetically -- basically like a therapist would. I wanted him to listen and validate my feelings and not interject his opinions into it or give me any judgments or criticisms. And that just isn't realistic. I know this man pretty well, and he responded pretty much like he always does. He gets defensive, he sees things subjectively and can't help bringing his feelings into it. And let's not forget the family gift of guilt.

I also realize a lot of my upset feelings stems from my age-old quest to win someone's approval. It started with desperately trying to get my dad's approval (i.e. love) and has moved on to peers, teachers, bosses, boyfriends, etc. This also feeds into my difficulty saying no to people and the need to be perfect. I've always had a horrible time coping with criticism, negative reviews and full-out *ss-chewings. I fall apart emotionally because I feel worthless, stupid and unlovable.

Let's face it: Hubby and his family did not approve of my trip, and although they've apparently backed down on their outright disdain (at least to my face) I will never make any of them think it's a great idea. And that's what's felt so unfair this weekend: all of the "boys" were basking in their fully sanctioned, 100 percent approved trips, while I will never get that.

There's a great saying my Mom shared with me: What other people think of me is none of my business. I have to quit relying on outside validation to feel good about myself. I have to tune out those people out there who are out to make me feel bad or that my opinions are shoddy because we don't agree on certain things. I have to stop comparing myself to others and focus on my good qualities and how I can improve the ones that are a little shaky.

So, instead of telling this little girl to suck it up and tell her the world is a cold, hard place, I need to give her a hug, tell her I love her and let her know that things will get better.

Sick As A Dog

2007-11-12T09:00:00.000-05:00

It's been ages since I've published pictures of my doggies. In case you're new or you've forgotten, Bruno is the yellow one and Pearl is the black one. They are practically inseparable. And did I mention how freakin' BIG they are? It's like having livestock in the house. But like children, they're always so precious when they're asleep.

I put this picture on my entry last night, which has now become somewhat apropos, since I awoke at 2:30 a.m. sick as a dog. Why? Because, folks, I had my first full-blown binge since starting the Wellbutrin. I can tell it's been about a month since I last did this, because my body is already out of practice, and I was miserable.

As I laid in bed chewing on antacids, I tried to figure out why I did this. It didn't take too long to figure it out. Over the course of the weekend I watched my BIL and FIL plan and go on an overnight fishing trip to New York; then on Sunday my husband and his buddies were on the phone all day like a bunch of giddy teenagers planning next year's Alaska trip. It stirred up a lot of feelings about my upcoming trip to England and the unpleasant time I had when I first decided to go.

I thought about how great these guys had it compared to me: no one jumped all over them with guilt and criticism about going; no one judged them and their traveling companions as being morally "unfit" or "deviant"; no one had major discussions behind their backs, ranting what a horrible spouse and parent they are; and no one accused them of being unfaithful to their spouse.

I have tried very hard to get past and forget about what happened to me over my England trip, but it's been very difficult. Even though I've tried to explain it to my Hubby, I don't think he really understands how terribly hurt and angry I was at how I was treated. I rank it as one of the most painful experiences of my life. In Hubby's defense, he and I discussed what happened between us. He apologized, I understood what his feelings were behind his actions, and I was able to forgive him.

I have done my best to put my hard feelings aside and be polite and courteous to his parents, even though it didn't help me begin forgiving when I was told "not to take it personally." I know this is a major exaggeration, but it's like telling the Jews not to take the Holocaust so personally, because the Nazis wanted to wipe out all the homosexuals and gypsies, too. It's continued to be a challenge as I was first given the silent treatment for several weeks. And now I and my England trip have been relegated to the family's Shameful Secrets Closet, where if we never talk about it and pretend it doesn't exist, maybe it will all go away and we can pretend everything's fine. Yet I have continued to try to rise above this. I had no qualms about Hubby inviting them to my family's Thanksgiving dinner; despite what has passed, even I didn't want to see them with nowhere to go on the holiday. But the feelings don't go away.

I dwelled on this (okay, obsessed) over this for several hours, then finally got back to sleep. I didn't wake up until Hubby was walking out the door, so this morning I e-mailed him a basic rewording of what you see above. I told him I'm not telling him this because I don't want him to go to Alaska. I WANT him to go, I want him to have a great time and enjoy all the anticipation leading up to it and relish all the wonderful memories afterwards. I just wish I had been given the same opportunity.

I told him I AM telling him this because I have to get these feelings off my chest and quit burying them with food. I have packed on enough pounds over the last couple months because of it, and it has to stop. Only by feeling my feelings and not hiding them will I be able to break this problem I have.

I feel like a fool for emotionally eating and making myself ill. But at least I was able to realize why it happened and made an effort to stop it in its tracks and not let it continue to fester and run out of control. And maybe next time I can see it coming and prevent a future binge.

Yea Me!

2007-11-10T14:32:00.000-05:00

The above title should be well known to those of you who have children who watch Disney Channel, mainly "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody." The one character, London Tipton (a Disneyfied version of Paris Hilton) often exclaims "Yea me!" when something goes her way (which is often, since she's a rich hotel heiress).

Anyway, I've been exclaiming it today as I show off my counted cross stitch masterpiece, which took several months of work to complete (not to mention I did several little projects in that time, too). I actually bought this pattern WAY back in 1993, stitched the littlest plate and two of the oranges, then gave up when life got too hectic. This is definitely the largest counted cross stitch pattern I've ever done (it fits in an 11x14 inch frame) and by far the most intricate. It gives me such a sense of accomplishment to see this finished, to know that I made every single stitch and that it all came together into such a beautiful picture.

Hubby actually seemed a little disappointed when I told him I wanted to hang it in my office at work; he wanted to hang it in our kitchen. But I have some other pieces (including the artichoke I displayed here back in July) that I'd like to hang in there instead.

Still not a lot to write about. Tonight we're going out for my BIL's birthday to a Mexican restaurant that just opened in a nearby town. It's part of a small chain of restaurants that we already like a lot, so I'm looking forward to ordering my new favorite dish of theirs-- a shrimp chimichanga.

Otherwise, Mabel's feeling better, which is a relief because I don't have to find a babysitter for her while we go out, or worse, stay home with her and not get to go out at all.

Maybe tomorrow I'll have more to ruminate on. Hope everyone's having a good weekend.

Mom At Work

2007-11-09T16:20:00.000-05:00

I had a sick kid at home today. Mabel came to me at six a.m. complaining about her belly and feeling like she was going to throw up. She didn't perk up at all the next hour, so I decided to let her stay home. It doesn't seem like she's faking: she's been achy and droopy and laying low all day.

So I did my usual house cleaning, broken up here and there with requests for chicken soup, soda and Popsicles. I haven't gotten around to the Room of Doom today, other than to vacuum the carpet. Maybe now that Dad's home he can supervise the ill child and I can get a little bit more done.

I've noticed one big difference since starting the Wellbutrin: before, Fridays were my day to eat anything and everything I wanted because I was by myself and could "treat" myself. While I did make a little batch of apple cranberry crisp for myself (about two servings), it wasn't much more than an over-glorified apple and cranberry oatmeal, and I wasn't driven to go hog wild with anything else throughout the day. What once seemed to be an uncontrollable drive to eat has suddenly been cut off at the knees. In fact, it feels suspiciously like what I imagine "normal eating" to be. I could handle that.

Sorry I don't have much else to post. Been too busy being Mom/Housewife today to do much deeper thinking. Maybe tomorrow I'll have more.

Happy Jonimas!

2007-11-08T08:14:00.000-05:00

Happy Jonimas! My fellow Joni Mitchell devotee and friend SS reminded me that yesterday was her birthday, and we always like to celebrate one of our favorite artists. In honor of this special day I listened to two of her albums on my MP3 player-- For The Roses and her live album, Miles of Aisles -- while cross-stitching during Mabel's gymnastics class.

This was a good thing to do, because yesterday afternoon I got horribly irritable, and I could feel the urge to binge creeping in like cold air seeping into the cracks of a house. Music does have a calming affect on me, as well as doing needlework, and it helped me to avoid eating yet allow me to focus on what was bothering me.

I will say that one song in particular really hit home: Lessons in Survival. But that's a whole therapy session in itself there...

What I did manage to sort out were the feelings that were affecting me that evening. First of all, my back was hurting me off and on all day and was really starting to ache by late afternoon. That by itself is a logical cause of my irritability. But the real problem was feeling overwhelmed: I've dug in deeply to this Room of Doom project and making real progress. My book shelves are looking great and I managed to organize my large collection of greeting cards (I suppose that sounds odd, but my late grandmother was an avid card sender and always had a stockpile for every occasion. And guess who inherited it? Yeah, me.) But now I'm getting to the hard part; sorting through my husband's and my own miscellaneous papers and other office doodads and figuring out what to do with them all: file them, store them or throw them away. I feel a lot of uncertainty about Hubby's stuff (I have a difficult time getting him to file, organize or throw away anything, and if I go ahead and do it for him, I worry I'll do something wrong), and the piles are so big that I don't even know where to begin.

I found myself facing a similar situation last night with the counted cross stitch project I've been working on since August. I am finally getting close to completing this larger-sized, somewhat intricate picture, yet last night I had that same feeling of being overwhelmed and not knowing where to start. I finally made myself minimize my focus and just pick one color of thread and deal with that and not think about the rest. By changing my perspective, concentrating on a small amount of stitches instead of letting myself get overwhelmed by all the ones that need to be done, it was much easier to deal with and lessened my trepidations.

As I was getting into the groove and enjoying myself again, I realized I need to do the same thing with the Room of Doom, as well as the rest of my life. I see that this has to do with my perfectionism: I fret so much about doing something right that I either get irritable and fret about doing it wrong or wind up not doing it at all. I've seen this kind of procrastination a lot in my family and can recognize it in myself. Instead of getting overwhelmed, frustrated and apprehensive about the big things or what's going to happen in the future, I need to redirect myself and focus on the Now -- i.e., conscious living.

While I was still a little irritable when I got home last night, at least I knew why, and I didn't turn to food to make myself feel better. I used my shiatsu massager to loosen up my back, laid down on my heating pad and went to bed early. This morning my back is still a little tender, but better, and I'm prepared to tackle that stack of papers this afternoon a little bit at a time.

To Be Like Paula

2007-11-07T08:34:00.000-05:00

I've noticed, as well as been told by some readers, that the photos on my blog have been pretty gruesome lately (mourning, gallows, Lizzie Borden), so I'm trying to perk things up around here to fit my rejuvenated feeling.

On Monday I made myself a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch and sat down in front of the TV. There's not a lot on at 1 p.m., but if I can't find anything else I always have my stand-by, Paula Deen. Her show was about one-pot meals, and at the end of the show her husband Michael Groover came into the kitchen to sample some of her recipes. It's so obvious they have a fun relationship that involves a lot of laughter.

I've always liked Paula Deen, even though back in my dieting days there were very few of her recipes that I would even think of making. This woman loves her butter and cream, and she doles them out liberally in her food. But even then I found her charming, funny, self-effacing and such a flirt with the men! Now granted, I know this is the image she portrays on television and I have no idea how she is in her day-to-day life, but she sure seems genuine to me. Not to mention I think she has the prettiest hair and eyes.

I sat there on Monday watching her and thought to myself that she definitely has some traits I would like to develop in myself. I'm not saying I want to start talking with a Southern accent and buying my butter in 50-pound vats! She just seems so comfortable in her skin, so confident and at ease with herself. I am a little aware of her past and that at one point in her life she suffered from agoraphobia. But she seems to have recovered from that and has made a true success of her life.

The last two days my eating has been great. I'm not counting calories, but I am staying aware of portion sizes as it pertains to the amount of food it takes to satisfy me. I'm not eliminating any foods, but I am looking at the nutrients in my food and seeking a balance of different food groups. Last night for dessert I got out a Hershey's Special Dark chocolate bar and realized after eating half of it that I didn't want any more, so I put the rest in a sandwich bag for another time.

Yesterday morning I got back to my gym and did 20 minutes each on the treadmill and the stationary bike. Then I went to my yoga class in the afternoon and we had a great time doing some different poses. I got home and went back to work on my Room of Doom, which is coming along well. The more I go through boxes and get things organized the better I feel. My life feels less chaotic and definitely more productive. And that evening it carried over to the rest of my house and I puttered around decluttering and tidying things up.

I may not be forming a restaurant-cooking empire like Paula Deen, but I think in my own small way I'm becoming more fulfilled in my life and making it more the way I want it to be.

Another Door Opens

2007-11-06T08:10:00.000-05:00

It's snowing this morning. I knew it was coming -- it is November in Appalachia, after all -- but I still didn't really want it to come. While snowflakes are pretty and I love seeing the landscape covered in white, there are a lot of things about winter I'm not crazy about. Already my hands are drying out on me; ever since I lost weight I get cold so easily and have to bundle up much more than I used to (even with this current regain); plus I have a real fear of ice after my fall a few years ago that shredded my poor left knee. And let's not forget the joys of shoveling snow! Although I've heard predictions that this winter is supposed to be mild, so maybe I won't have to dig myself out of my house every day for the next six months -- and won't have to wear three layers of clothing just to keep from shivering!

Thanks to all who offered words of support yesterday. The funny thing is, while I was writing about mourning, I don't really feel that sad. Maybe it's the Wellbutrin doing it's job, but I'm feeling rather positive and good about myself right now, in spite of the regain. The signs are there: I'm putting on makeup and jewelry on a daily basis; I'm exercising regularly again; I'm tackling jobs I've procrastinated about for ages. I look at myself in some of the new clothes I've bought, check out my hair that I've been growing out for months, and I actually think I look pretty good.

It makes me think of this quote from Helen Keller: "When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us." Instead of concentrating on the closed door -- the one that included entrance into the Onederfuls -- I'm finally seeing this new door and walking through it.

For example, I am finally tackling my Room of Doom (thank my friend SS for that name), the office/den. Since we moved in last December (!!!) I have been putting off organizing this room, and all the den/office boxes have been sitting in the attic, waiting for me. This past Saturday, after saying à bientôt to my "skinny" clothes, I took a look at that pile of boxes and decided that yes, it was finally time. On Saturday the main job was just going through the boxes upstairs to see what was there. My first discovery was that the multitude of boxes was deceiving; my husband, in his usual" flying by the seat of his pants" method of packing his things, just threw random crap in boxes, and a lot of his them weren't even a third full! So I did a lot of consolidating and greatly reduced the number of boxes. Just doing this step made the process seem much less intimidating and overwhelming.

Yesterday afternoon I started tackling the book shelves that are in the Room of Doom. These have been filled in a chaotic way with a lot of nonsensical stuff that just got thrown there when we moved in, and this mess has continued to grow as we just laid things here and there instead of putting them in their proper place. I found a lot of things I've been trying to find for months as well as things I had completely forgotten about. And I found plenty of things that should have just been thrown in the garbage can, which is where they went. I only managed to bring one box of books down from the attic to put on the shelves, but the big accomplishment of the day was to actually clear the shelves and realize how much room I actually have to finally display some of my most treasured books. So hopefully I can get some more time this week to keep working on this!

Here's another discovery: the more I get involved like projects like this, or doing my counted cross stitch, the less I'm compulsively overeating, or more importantly, want to. Because I've realized as I'm taking this Wellbutrin that it is not a cure-all magic pill. Even though it helps reduce compulsive thoughts and decreases my appetite some, I can still binge eat while on it if I don't do the cognitive-behavioral work.

The trouble I was having before was that even when I'd try to occupy myself with housework or needlework, with all the books I was reading and feeling exercises and therapy I was doing, my brain was still thinking about food constantly and my cravings were still haunting me around the clock. Now, if I can get myself busy or just get myself in a peaceful, conscious state, I can completely forget about food and eating, which is something I've never been able to do before. It seems like I've finally got the right combination of tools -- pharmaceutical and psychological -- to really be able to succeed with Intuitive Eating.

I realize I never updated you all on my doctor's appointment last Thursday. My weight was up, although not as high as my scale at home said, but the doctor didn't berate me for it. She was a little concerned about my blood pressure, though; it's not high, but at that borderline zone, which makes me unhappy because at the beginning of the year I had it down to 110/70 or something like that. I know it's due to the weight gain and not exercising regularly, as well as the stress and depression I've dealt with, but both the doctor and I think my improved mood, thanks to the Wellbutrin, and renewed motivation will allow me to turn this around.

Mourning

2007-11-04T12:30:00.000-05:00

I found myself mourning this weekend.

On Friday was the funeral of the gentleman I talked about in a previous post. I got there early to help usher if necessary, but the men I called to help me said they had everything under control, so I could mingle and just be a visitor. His wife of 60 years and I chatted for a while, and his daughter pulled me aside and had a very nice conversation with me, too. While I don't know everyone in the family, the ones I do know are so genuinely nice, kind people, and I felt for them as they grieved the loss of their family's patriarch.

His son-in-law, a Lutheran pastor, gave the eulogy, and what an amazing job he did. His love and admiration for his father-in-law was evident, and he shed true tears of mourning during his time up at the podium. Of course I started crying, too -- lately it doesn't take much -- but having known this family all of my life, I felt their sadness as they said goodbye to this wonderful man.

This next part will probably sound really superficial and selfish after writing about the loss of a special person, but I also did another kind of personal mourning this weekend. I'm really coming to grips with my weight regain and facing the reality of what my compulsive eating did to me these last few months. Saturday morning I forced myself to go through my closet and try things on, and what didn't fit would go into storage. How sad! There were so many pretty things that I bought last winter, thinking I was only going to get smaller and smaller, that are simply too tight to wear now. I wound up with an embarrassingly big pile of clothes, which were placed in their plastic coffin and taken to the attic, where they will be stored in hopes of being resurrected one day.

It reminded me of when my grandmother died and we had to clean out her closet. The discarding of a person's clothes really makes you face the fact that this person is dead. Our clothing is a tangible part of our personalities -- it reflects not only color preferences but can reveal if we're conservative or liberal, flirty or demure, sometimes what we do for a living or what activities we engage in.

It wasn't very long ago that I was discarding my "fat" clothes, and there were some pieces of clothing I found it very difficult to part with. There was the outfit I wore when I first saw my daughter, the dress I was in when I later adopted her. I had one shirt I adored -- it was comfortable and I loved the pattern of the fabric -- that I really didn't want to get rid of even though it had become more of a tent than a shirt.

At that time I was saying goodbye to the Fat Me (and when I say this I mean the body that wore sizes 26/28 and 30/32), and while it was generally a good feeling, there was a sense of loss of a life I had been familiar with. I had sworn to myself I would never buy bigger sizes again and would never return to this weight.

Well, I have to admit I am fortunate that I haven't gotten back to that size. The clothes I packed up on Saturday were mostly below a size 16, except for a few pieces that must have been vanity-sized to make people think they can wear smaller clothes. I'm mostly in the 18/20s again, which in the grand scheme of my life isn't a terrible tragedy. I've been much, much bigger, so I still don't feel like I utterly failed.

This packing up of the skinny clothes did feel a little bit like defeat, however. I felt like I was saying goodbye to any hopes of ever reaching the Onederfuls, that I was mourning the loss of a size I never even got a chance to reach.

I am part of a Yahoo group called dietsurvivors, run by Linda Moran, and I wrote there about what's going on with me right now. Nadia wrote the following paragraph, and it really meant a lot to me.

"One thing I'd like to point out is that when you grieve the loss of something, and then move on with life with some sort of peace and acceptance, it does not mean that you are glad that the loss occurred. You've still lost something that you cared about; it's just that it no longer rules your life, and happiness is possible in spite of the loss."

What a wonderful paragraph, and how true it is. At one point reaching 199 was my main goal in life; I even named this blog after it! And I was so close: at the beginning of this year I managed to get down to 205, and I was so sure that by now I would be firmly in the Onederfuls. But life didn't work out that way, and now that goal seems nearly impossible, mainly because I can no longer keep up the calorie restricting and the constant diet mentality that twisted my brain and made my eating so wildly disordered.

So maybe this weight gain has its purpose: it's making me see that this goal I had can no longer rule my life, and that I need to find happiness and contentment in spite of it. It's not giving up and saying I'll never reach it, but that reaching it -- or not -- will not define me as a person and determine the overall quality of my life.

Stepping on the Gallows

2007-11-01T08:12:00.000-04:00

Why is it that I equate the doctor's scale to the gallows? I suppose it makes sense: from early childhood that act of stepping on the scale was so full of humiliation and shame, there were times it felt worse than execution, because I had to walk off and either face the disgust and ridicule of my other classmates or look forward to a brow-beating or downright abuse from my doctor. In some wild coincidence my daughter had weigh-in day at school this week, but thank God for her, she doesn't face this embarrassing, mind-scarring experience because her weight falls within society's "normal" range. As bad as it was in my day, at least I didn't get a letter sent home berating my parents for having a fat child with an unacceptable BMI, like they do now.

Why this focus on the scale today? This afternoon is my doctor's appointment to see how my Wellbutrin is doing. I'm not concerned about this: I feel great on it. But I know Dr. Amy is going to weigh me when I walk in, and right now I think I'd rather climb on the gallows mentioned above.

So as to be prepared for this moment, this morning I stepped on the scale at home. I was actually kind of expecting to see a little bit of a loss, or at least stay close to the same from the weigh-in at my last doctor's appointment. Since starting the Wellbutrin I haven't had a full-blown binge, I feel like I've been eating less, and I've been slowly building back up on my physical activity. So I thought it would have had a positive affect.

Oh, foolish me! I actually weighed more. A lot more.

I just wanted to sit down on the bathroom floor and cry. It hit me in the gut like a big nasty glob of shame, anger and sadness, dipped in a crunchy coating of failure. I felt like I was watching all the hard work, dedication and sacrifice I've given over the past three years slipping through my fingers like grains of sand.

But then my anger, which was originally towards myself for screwing up so royally, changed direction. I was furious that the day before I was feeling great about myself, yet a number on a machine could ruin all of that. Why, after all the time, after all I've tried to learn in this Intuitive Eating journey, do I still let myself be emotionally devastated by a number on a scale?

Of course my mind race with diet mentality thoughts: "that's it, I've got to start losing all this weight, I've got to count calories again, I need to exercise two hours a day, I've got to do something about this!" But even thinking these thoughts initiated those old fears of deprivation, and I knew this wasn't the answer.

I have to take a big breath and think clearly about all of this. This weigh-in was just a record of one day, one moment in time. It doesn't reflect the process I'm undergoing. And let's face it: it took me months to gain all this weight (and I'm sorry, I'm so embarrassed by how much it is that I can't even begin to post how much), so it's probably going to take even longer to undo the damage I did. Certainly more than two weeks!

I can't let this reading discourage me and make me feel awful. I have to remember all the positive things I'm doing right now -- yoga, incorporating healthier foods, increasing my exercise -- and realize I'm doing this for my mental and physical health, not my weight or dress size.

I have to get going -- I've got a ton of work to do today. I'll let you know how the appointment goes.

Celebrating Halloween

2007-10-31T08:19:00.000-04:00

Happy Halloween! I do love this time of year and celebrating this day. I almost said holiday, but of course many Christians would stone me for such blasphemy. Of course, anyone who has studied history would see that most of our Christian holidays borrowed heavily from our ancestor's pagan traditions, and the early church even placed those holy days close to the old pre-Christian celebrations to help smooth the transition: Easter keeps the old symbols of rebirth and fertility (eggs and rabbits); Christmas still incorporates the holy and the ivy and the search for light (Christ's birth) during the darkness (winter solstice); and the early Christian leaders moved All Hallows (Saints') Day to honor our departed to the same time that the pagans celebrated the end of summer while they prepared for the dark, cold winter to come. As the plants froze and the livestock were butchered, it was normal to think about death as it pertained to the normal cycle of the seasons. Anyway, enough of my history lesson!

On my mother's side of the family a disproportionate number of people have died in the month of November. I think this side of the family spends the month looking over their shoulder in fear of seeing the Grim Reaper. It could just be a coincidence, but I wonder if the colder weather and decreasing sunlight have an effect on this. We all know about Seasonal Affective Disorder, so maybe it's connected to that.

An old friend of our family died Sunday at the age of 89. He and my grandparents were very close, and after my grandfather died I went a number of times with Grandma to his house for Thanksgiving. The last house I lived in was right across the street from his house, which I consider to be one of the most beautiful homes in our little town. I often took Mabel to visit him and his wife because I always loved talking to both of them. He was a treasure trove of information about the history of our town, and she always had interesting stories to tell. Once in a while she would offer up some home made cookies, or she would teach Mabel a little poem from her Scottish background. And it was always a treat when they offered a tour of their home; as lovely as it is on the outside, their heirlooms and collections were wonderful. In an odd coincidence, the house I'm now living in was the house where they courted as a young couple!

His wife and I talk a lot, because she's in charge of scheduling the altar flowers for our church. She spent the last year coping with his decline, the trips in and out of the hospital and his stay in the nursing home. At Easter the family was called in because his health was so poor, but he managed to rally and continue on until he finally passed away a few days ago. They were such a close couple and shared a lot of the same interests. They both did needlepoint (my grandmother went to their house every week for a church needlepoint group that made all of our church's paraments and our nativity) and seemed so genuinely happy. I know it will be hard for her to lose her life mate.

Let's face it: no matter how hard we try, we cannot escape death. It waits for all of us at the end of our journey, no matter how much plastic surgery we have, no matter how good our diet and exercise routines are, we grow old (if we're lucky) and we eventually die. It is a part of our time here in this existence, so doesn't it make sense to make peace with it instead of being terrified of it? I believe that's the original basis of celebrating Halloween: enabling us to become more comfortable with the idea of death.

Wow, I wasn't expecting to be this verbose on this subject. But it's definitely what was on my mind this Halloween morning.

Back to everyday things. Yesterday I had a very heart-pumping yoga session. The room was very chilly yesterday afternoon so Yoga Rachel got us ripping through a series of Sun Salutations until we got all warm and toasty.

Yesterday afternoon and evening I seemed to be constantly hungry. I did okay until evening, when I took Mabel to our local arts center for a Halloween craft class and I went to W*l-M*rt. For the first time since starting the Wellbutrin I found myself thinking about buying up binge foods, and I definitely checked things out in the store. I did get one small container of cookies, but I managed to look at my usual binge foods and turn away. The thoughts in my head were "I just don't want that much,"... "If I buy it I'll eat it all and I'll feel sick,"... "I don't want to go there."

I wasn't perfect, though. Last night I wound up eating all of the cookies in the car before I picked up Mabel to take her home. Granted, it was a much smaller amount of food than the other things I could have bought, but I still felt like I should have been able to stop at one or two. But I tried to look at the whole day and see what was going on that might have caused it. I didn't eat a lot throughout the day because I was very busy, including the more-intense-than-usual yoga class. That busy-ness and trying to juggle a million different things was stressing me out. Our schedule was so tight that I had less than 10 minutes to eat supper, which made it very unsatisfying. It was also the first full day of my Time of the Month.

So, um, yeah, there was lots of fuel to spark a bonfire of eating. I consider myself fortunate that I was able to keep it to a minimum and not buy and consume every binge food I could find.

This morning I'm trying to prevent this from happening again. I had a more substantial breakfast (a little more food, but a lot more fiber), packed a lunch with more protein, and I tried to plan a dinner with Hubby that was easier and quicker to prepare so I have more than 10 minutes to eat it! I couldn't do much about the hectic schedule -- my week is what it is -- but my goal is to do some kind of meditation or yoga this evening to help alleviate the night time munchies.

As for exercise, this morning I finally got back to my gym and rode my stationary bike. Then I came home and did the stability ball exercises again. I am so glad to be getting active again.

Here's something I didn't think about: I'm trying to exercise more and eat healthier foods. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow to see how the medicine is going, and I know I'll be weighed. My husband announced he's hoping to hit the 50-pounds lost milestone this week. All of these things could be triggering the old diet mentality in me, which leads to thoughts of depriving myself and often causes binge eating. Even though I'm not trying to diet, having all these things happening at once could still spark those old responses, right? Definitely something to keep in mind.

All right, I've been writing long enough. I have work to do -- including the funeral bulletin for the gentleman I mentioned above. Have a fun Halloween.

Fitness and Spirituality

2007-10-30T10:37:00.000-04:00

I didn't mention yesterday that I finally rolled the stability ball out of my closet yesterday morning and did every exercise on the handy chart that comes with it. The move illustrated in this photo is the one that I'm feeling today in my triceps; otherwise I'm feeling okay, which means the weekly yoga must be helping to keep me in semi-decent shape.

I'm doing my best to revive my exercise routines. I let the strength training slide back in May, and by the end of the summer my regular walking had fallen by the wayside, too. I attribute the lack of walking to the Lexapro and the fatigue and lack of energy it caused.

Now that my energy and motivation are returning, I'm anxious -- in a good way! -- to get myself moving and physically active again. But it does mean recreating the habits that I let fall to the wayside. Part of that problem is getting disciplined to get up early enough in the morning, because from past experience I know it's the only time of day I can guarantee I won't be disrupted by phone calls, appointments, errands or the multitude of responsibilities I have. Unfortunately I still have some challenges: my home gym is still in the room in the garage at my old place (my cousin is renting the house), and even though it's a short distance away, it's still enough to give me an excuse not to go. My gym's future home, the basement in our new place, is still in flux; Hubby got waylaid in finishing that project by our dogs and their destruction of our kitchen floor. He swears to me that this will be done by Christmas, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for the best.

Another front I'm addressing is working on my spirituality. Yes, I do want to get back to church on a more regular basis, but that's only part of it. I've been wanting to delve into meditation for some time because I think it would really help me with stress as well as staying grounded and in touch with my body. The yoga is definitely part of that, but the truth is that other than my class once a week, I haven't been doing anything at home, and I know I really need to incorporate more of it into my daily life.

For some time I've been thinking about getting some jewelry that would be a symbol and reminder for me in regards to living consciously. As I began getting more and more into yoga I've discovered lots of "yoga" jewelry out there, but nothing really struck me and that I could imagine wearing on a regular basis. I wound up visiting S pirals of Light and was drawn to their chakra jewelry.

Now I'm no expert on chakras, but I do like the aspect of the connection of mind and body that it illustrates. The jewelry website encouraged you to think about colors you are drawn to, and the first thing that came to mind is purple. It's always been my favorite color, and I'm not sure it's a coincidence that I have been told by a person who can see auras that mine is a light purple color. When I looked at the bracelets I was of course attracted to the purple amethyst one, and I was quite pleased to see the following description:

Spirituality and Intuition

Amethyst, Clear Quartz
These stones help you to know your relationship with the Divine Spirit.
They are in alignment with the 6th chakra (Third Eye Chakra).
They assist in intuitive awareness, understanding and knowing, as well as insight and peace of mind.

Definitely sounded like what I was looking for, so I ordered it.

I then looked at the necklaces, and again I was drawn to the purple amethyst and quartz. I also liked the description for this piece:

“OM” with Amethyst & Quartz

This bright and shinny sterling silver “OM” pendant is surrounded with purple Amethyst and accented with clear Quartz. At 17” it is a perfect length to wear everyday.“OM” is the symbol of the universal force. It is the universal Cosmic Sound. Amethyst is a stone of spirituality and wisdom Quartz is an energy amplifier.

Again, this seemed to be what I was looking for. So I ordered this too, and yesterday they came in the mail. I'm not saying that I believe these pieces of bead and silver will instantly give me inner peace, wisdom, increased spirituality and energy. But wearing this jewelry makes me feel good. When I look at them they remind me what I'm striving for in my life and what a positive thing this is for my well being.

I've got my yoga class in an hour, so I better wrap up here. Namaste!

Frost and Tears

2007-10-29T10:45:00.000-04:00

Ever heard of the saying "the frost is on the pumpkin?" It's from a poem by James Whitcomb Riley and definitely describes the world I woke up to today. Chilly, crisp air, frost covering everything, and it's all exhilarating and beautiful in some strange way.

I suppose I could view the cold morning negatively and fret over the upcoming heating bills, but why depress myself over things I can't control?

Then there are the things that are a little more under my control. On Sunday I had a breakdown moment, complete with tears. Instead of viewing this negatively -- my new medication is making me over-emotional, too prone to tears, and it's embarrassing and I feel out of control -- I realize how good this actually is for me.

I have always been a person who tries not to cry because I've always viewed it as a sign of weakness. I suppose this was ingrained early, as illustrated by the story I'm about to tell you. When I was about 4 years old my uncle hid my Christmas presents and informed me that I was bad and Santa didn't bring me anything. I got angry, telling him I knew he had hid the presents, and I wanted him to put them back under the tree. This went on for some time -- the uncle trying to convince me I didn't get anything, my defiant anger -- until my uncle turned to my mother in frustration and said, "I can't get her to cry!"

Yes, I've got some screwed up family. But since that time I don't like people playing mind games with me. I still have issues about my coping skills when I get hurt by others. Usually I suppress my feelings, withdrawing from the person emotionally if I'm not able to completely eliminate the person from my life. In fact, I'm doing this right now with some people who have hurt me! I'm not saying it's the healthiest thing in the world to do, but I just know confronting these people would not change their behavior or the situation and would only cause World War III. So I have to protect myself the best way I can.

Once in a while I will get angry, but normally it's only when I'm defending someone very close to me -- my mother, my sister, my daughter, my best friend. It's rare that I get that angry in my own defense -- only when it's come to the point that I don't care anymore if the relationship is ended by my blow-up. (Okay, I found this image while searching for crying pictures, and while it does kind of illustrate anger, the darn thing makes me LOL! What a ridiculously staged photo-- I love it!)

It's taken me a long time to realize that my expression of anger is not an absolute death-sentence for a relationship; I'll never forget the time I flipped out on a friend for letting me down on something that really mattered to me. I totally expected this person to never speak to me again, but the next day I received flowers from this friend in apology!

For a long time withdrawing and anger have been the only two accepted methods for me. Crying to me was a sign of defeat -- the other person "won" by breaking me down to tears. I felt it gave the other person the upper hand and power over me. But lately I've been discovering a lot of positives in this crying business. For one thing, it definitely releases the emotions I tend to hold inside, which many times can lead to depression and/or compulsive eating if I don't address them. And if I let myself cry over something that has hurt me, it enables me to let go of those feelings so they don't fester inside and grow into something much bigger and more powerful than they should be.

I've also realized in the last couple weeks, my tears have actually helped in getting my point across. I suppose I have the same problem that many people do: we think the people around us are mind readers and can tell when we're upset and when things really bother or hurt us, even though we don't tell them. We expect them to read our body language or tell by what we don't say or do to figure it out. Unfortunately, most people just aren't that intuitive or have those psychic powers.

And sometimes, even when we do tell someone what's on our minds, if we do it too calmly with little or no emotion behind it, they don't take it seriously. I've mentioned Lori's 2x4 over the head method before, but it's so true: with some people it takes a major effort to get their attention. I can be so emotionally suppressed and withdrawn, especially with my old mind set that emotion= weakness, that my feelings don't get across and subsequently I don't wind up getting what I actually need.

For my husband, I think I've finally found my 2x4: tears. I don't want it to sound like I'm deliberately shedding crocodile tears to manipulate him and get my way, because I would never play those kind of games. Two times in the past week, the second yesterday afternoon, I wound up crying during serious discussions with him, and it was something I deliberately didn't want to do, but I wasn't able to hold them back. What I've realized, however, is that this definitely gets his attention, and not only is he better able to understand what I'm feeling and thinking, but he winds up being more insightful and expresses himself better, too. Perhaps the reason for this is because if I go to him angry, his natural instinct is to get defensive and self-protective. But if I'm crying, it's obvious that I'm not out to attack him, and his natural response is to open up to me and try to make me feel better.

And guess what? For some time I've been addressing the same issues over and over with him with no luck. But now that I'm showing him the emotions behind these issues, when he can actually see how much of an emotional toll it's taking out of me, it's like he's finally really hearing me.

So while this crying thing is a little scary, I'm quickly realizing how much it's benefiting me. It just goes to show that I need to look for the positives in all things, even if they appear like a negative at first glance. Maybe even this weight regain I've had may have some purpose I'm not yet aware of.

Someone sent me this prayer in one of those e-mails that you're supposed to forward on to other people. While I'm not ultra-Christian, the message in this prayer definitely struck me today and helped me know that I should not regret what I've been through and where it's brought me -- I am exactly where I am meant to be:

"May today there be peace within. May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith. May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content knowing you are a child of God. Let His presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us."

The Curse of the Tight Jeans

2007-10-28T08:30:00.000-04:00

While I completed this counted cross stitch project some time ago, I'm finally revealing it here because I just gave it to Hubby for his birthday this weekend. He seemed pleased with it, along with the other presents I gave him.

I get great enjoyment out of buying people presents that aren't necessarily expensive (none of his were) but that really connect with the recipient and let them know I made the effort to get something that interests them. For example, Hubby got this picture because he's an avid fisherman; I got him an encyclopedia of D.C. and Marvel comics because he's a collector; I got him a University of Pittsburgh t-shirt because he went there; and a DVD of "Young Frankenstein" because it's one of his all-time favorite movies.

Yet another busy day yesterday. Hubby went turkey hunting (he didn't get anything, much to my relief!), while Mabel and I went shopping. The cold weather is here and her bedroom tends to be cold, so I got her an electric blanket, which she is totally in love with and takes it back and forth from the bedroom to the living room to snuggle in warmth. In the afternoon I finished the house cleaning I didn't get done on Friday, then we went out for Hubby's birthday dinner.

Some sad news here: when I went to try on my jeans to dress for the meal, all of them were tight! Last season's "fat" jeans were the only ones that fight, but were very snug. The rest weren't even a possibility. Pretty depressing.

I swore to myself when I lost this weight that I would never buy bigger-sized clothes again, so when I thought about going out and buying a bigger pair of jeans, it really bothered me and felt like defeat. Granted, I am still WAY smaller than I was back at the beginning of this journey -- close to a hundred pounds! -- yet these extra pounds I've packed back on feel like such a crushing failure.

But don't fear, I didn't fall into a heap and cry, or vow to start a diet on Monday. I told myself that I am, with the help of my new medicine, starting to turn things around, and it will take time to undo the damage this summer of mental turmoil wreaked on me. I may never get to 200 pounds or reach the Onederfuls, but in time I will reach the weight that's most natural and comfortable for me, and I just need to be patient and do the work that needs to be done to be a "normal" (or at least semi-recovered) eater. At that time, if I need a new pair of jeans, I'll get them, but for the time being I'll wear my other pants (which I prefer anyway!) and not condemn myself for a tight pair of denim pants!

I have to get off of here and finish getting ready; my SIL and her friend from Baltimore who's staying with her for the weekend are meeting my mother, Mabel and I for breakfast at a nearby diner. Then hopefully we'll be able to sit back, relax, watch the Steelers game and do nothing for the rest of the weekend!

Live Simply? How?

2007-10-26T17:03:00.000-04:00

I don't have much time to write: Mabel and I are headed to her pee wee cheerleading banquet in half an hour.

Very busy day. Took my mother to the hospital this morning for a colonoscopy. This was her first and fortunately, everything went great.

After I took her home I went down to see J&M, two of the people I'll be travelling with to England. J's birthday was on the 12th, and I brought her a belated present that I made, the counted cross stitch picture you see here.

I did call Hubby from J&M's to make sure he'd be home when Mabel got off the bus, because the three of us were talking up a storm. He called back once she got home to tell me he was taking Mabel for her allergy shot -- oops, forgot about that! I rushed back and took over for him at the doctor's office waiting room, because he had to go home and finish the meal he prepared for his powderpuff football team, which is playing this evening. (If you haven't heard of this, powder puff football is when the girls are the players, in this case the 11th graders vs. the 12th graders, and the boys are the cheerleaders)

Mabel and I are not going to the game because of the banquet I mentioned above. I'm kind of glad the banquet gave me an excuse not to go, because the weather is 50 degrees F and rainy here and I don't relish the idea of sitting on a cold, wet metallic bleacher for two hours.

After the banquet I'm hoping to get home and wrap Hubby's presents. If he's home, I guess it'll have to wait until morning when he leaves to go turkey hunting (yuck). Then that evening we're going out to dinner for his birthday. Of course, we also have to go with his parents, his brother and of course Mabel, so forget any kind of romantic evening.

The cross-stitch picture I gave my friend reads "live simply." I sure wish I coud be following that motto, but right now that just isn't in the cards. Right now it's more like "cram as much in as possible and run yourself ragged in the process." At least I have the energy to do it all, and better yet, not have a desire to turn to overeating for stress relief, comfort, etc. So it could be worse.

The Hills Are Alive with the Smell of Potatoes

2007-10-25T09:50:00.000-04:00

My hometown's claim to fame is its potato chip factory. These chips are distributed through the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States and are quite popular. On rainy, foggy days like today, when you walk outside the entire town is greeted to the aroma of frying potatoes. I suppose it's the fog that holds down the emissions from the plant on the east end of town, but I can tell you I live on the very western end of town and our house is surrounded by this smell. All I have to say is, it smells a lot better than the other frequent smell our town is subjected to: the liquid manure the nearby farmers spread on their fields!

Fortunately for me, potato chips have never been one of my trigger foods or even on the top 10 of my favorite snack foods. Not so for my husband: his father worked for the above-mentioned potato chip company for more than 40 years and brought home an endless, free supply of their chips and other salty snack foods. Currently Hubby's favorite treat is their sourdough pretzels, which again is not one of my favorites -- they're too hard for my liking and scratch the inside of my mouth. I am definitely more of a sweets person, although I do like the occasional salty snack like nuts.

I haven't mentioned my husband's weight loss efforts here in the blog for some time. In case you're new to this blog or have forgotten, he went on the weight loss drug Meridia back in May. He has done phenomenally on this medicine -- so far he has lost somewhere around 40 pounds. It has reduced his appetite and helped him drastically cut his snacking and overeating.

Since he's been on this medicine I've been rather jealous, wanting my own magic pill to make the urgency and compulsion to overeat go away. I suppose I could have gone to my own doctor and asked to be put on it, but then I fell into my summer of anxiety and depression and wound up on Lexapro, which seemed to make the compulsive eating even worse.

But now that's changed. This Wellbutrin is working so much better for me. Granted, I do find myself more prone to tears -- when I'm laughing, when I'm hurt, even when some sentimental song comes on -- and I have discovered this is a common side effect. But this actually seems good after the depressing emptiness I was experiencing. I'm also realizing how important it is for me to feel my emotions and not suppress them, whether I do it myself or with medication: the more I feel, the less I turn to food.

Let's face it, though: the biggest change has been with my appetite and my compulsions to overeat. I still get hungry, but it seems like I'm finally just feeling my physical hunger instead of all the cravings and mental urges to eat. For example, yesterday I worked on our kitchen floor for almost six hours straight: normally I would have to stop at least once to eat something, but yesterday I was fine. My snacking has greatly reduced, and when I do, I find myself truly satisfied with so much less. Instead of being haunted by binge foods calling my name, I actually kind of forget they're there!

I'm not saying all of my cravings are gone, but I think they're becoming more intuitive instead of driven by compulsive reasons. Last night as I was finishing up the floor Hubby called me on the phone and asked me what I wanted for supper. I admitted I was really craving a burger, and he brought me my favorite one (not from a fast food restaurant, but a nice sit-down place with quality food) and I was satisfied eating half of it. Afterwards I saw the snack foods sitting where we keep all of them, and while the old habit would have been to dive in to them whether I was full or not, I wasn't interested at all.

As hard as I was trying to eat intuitively the last six months, doing my best to work on the environmental and psychological aspects of it, I realize now that there were neurobiological issues there that could not be overcome without medication. I wanted so badly to master IE "on my own" (hence my reluctance to ask for Meridia), but I realize now that I was fighting a losing battle.

This doesn't mean I'm going to rely on this "magic pill" to solve all my problems. I still need to work on expressing and managing my emotions; learning to become more self-assertive; work on avoiding the almost OCD-like tendency of falling into diet mentality (let's face it, my compulsive need to weigh myself several times a day is not much different than a person who constantly washes their hands); and getting more in touch and respecting my body.

It feels so great to share good news on this blog again. I actually feel eager to write now, which is a major sign of my recovery. Thank goodness! And thanks to all of you who have hung in there and supported me in these topsy-turvy months.

My Girl Crush

2007-10-24T08:10:00.001-04:00

My blog has been so dreary lately, and I feel like it's time to lighten it up, so I'll tell you about my Girl Crush. The term sounds so silly and relegated to teen girls, but according to the NY Times article I linked to above, it is "a phrase that many women in their 20's and 30's use in conversation, post on blogs and read in magazines."

The article also made me feel a little better when it went on to say, "This is not a new phenomenon. Women, especially young women, have always had such feelings of adoration for each other. Social scientists suspect such emotions are part of women's nature, feelings that evolution may have favored because they helped women bond with one another and work cooperatively. What's new is the current generation's willingness to express their ardor frankly."

I'd call my crush more admiration than ardor, because this is a person who has qualities I would like to foster in myself. So I look to her as in inspiration, someone I can learn from and look to for guidance.

All right, enough stalling, I have a girl crush on my yoga instructor! From the first day I have appreciated the calmness Rachel generates in the room, the relaxing cadence of her voice as she talks us through poses and urges us to get in touch with our bodies. I admire her peaceful demeanor, the way she carries herself, even the clothing she wears.

Yesterday I was the only one who showed up for class, and she asked me if I'd like to do partner yoga with her. If you've never heard of it, click on the photo above for a link to a web site about it, or else check out this book on Amazon. I was kind of nervous about it, definitely self-conscious at first, but as it went on I was able to relax and appreciate the cooperation involved in the poses.

It did illustrate to me how I (and probably most people) have become so removed from people and physical contact. Other than my husband and my daughter I almost never touch another person. My family isn't the huggy-kissy type, nor are most of my friends. And in our 21st century culture we conduct the majority of our relationships through telephones and computers. We as a society have become isolated from each other, and this lack of intimacy with others could easily be a cause of a lot of the problems we face.

All I can say is that I love yoga, and I'm thankful I have a good instructor to lead me to an improved quality of life. If I'm going to have a girl crush on anyone, I can't think of a more positive, affirming person.

Eruption

2007-10-23T08:08:00.000-04:00

Once again I've been staying away from the computer. The good news is I haven't been binge eating -- the Wellbutrin is doing a fantastic job of quelling my urges to compulsively overeat. For example, last night I went to the store during Mabel's gymnastics class, and even though it was an incredibly emotionally stressful day and I broke down and cried twice, I didn't buy one single binge food. Instead I bought strawberries, oranges, bananas, a high-fiber wheatberry bread and seltzer water. Granted, before I walked into the store I had eaten a handful of mini candy bars (oh the joys of Halloween candy), but this was extremely minimal in comparison to my eating in the last few months. And I still can't get over the fact that I had absolutely no desire to refill my binge food cache. There was no feeling of panic of running out of snacks, no feelings of deprivation -- only a desire to get some more healthy foods back into my body again.

I picked the picture above of an active volcano to illustrate how I'm feeling right now. I'm in the middle of some stormy situations to be sure. While I have erupted and the lava is flowing steadily, it's better than staying dormant and withdrawing emotionally, and I haven't completely exploded like Mount St. Helens into a huge cloud of dirt and firey ash with only a crater left behind. In fact, even though this isn't the most pleasant feeling, I think I actually prefer this middle ground: I'm not shutting down emotionally, which leads me to overeating and depression, and I'm also not going completely psycho and chasing my family around with an axe.

Mentioning axes, I watched a new show yesterday on the Lizzie Borden murders that used modern CSI techniques and psychological profiling to shed new light on the case. It seems more and more certain that Lizzie did in fact give her parents 40 whacks, but she was definitely the O.J. Simpson of the 1800s and managed to escape conviction for it. I find these crime/mystery shows mesmerizing. I guess I'm intrigued by the human mind and how it snaps and leads people to horrific acts. Not that I'm seriously planning any massacres, I swear!

I'm know I'm glossing over what led me to this current state. Once again, it's those little straws that build up until the camel's spine snaps from the burden. This current straw really hit me hard, hence the crying I've been doing. After a couple days of this I realized the only way I was going to get over it was to confront the person who caused it. It was difficult, but I did it, and while at first I felt a sense of weakness in exposing my hurt, by the end I felt stronger for standing up for myself and making sure the person knew they had crossed the line.

The reoccurring problem seems to be, however, that I while I am asserting myself more and more, nothing really changes, and these incidents keep happening. I don't know what the solution is. And that scares me.

I guess I just have to keep asserting myself and hope that eventually it sinks in to the people I'm asserting myself to that they're going to keep getting my confrontations until they change their ways. Or perhaps I'll have to get that axe after all...

The Benefits of Anger

2007-10-18T12:40:00.000-04:00

This could have been a picture of me yesterday. I had some moments when I was okay -- mainly when I was out of my house -- but every time I was at home I seemed to be on the verge of a complete nuclear meltdown. Every little thing was aggravating the hell out of me, and I fumed and bitched and stomped around like a maniac.

Today I'm better, mainly because I'm just too darned busy at work, where I still am. I also think it helped that I actually let out my feelings and didn't hold them inside. While the fuming was pretty exhausting, it's a better feeling than the sedated, zombified feeling I was experiencing.

In addition, the more I feel and express, the less I'm turning to food. I had to go to the grocery store last night to get milk, and I noticed as I walked past or even checked out some of my recent binge foods that I just didn't want it. It still looks good, but that compulsive feeling that I NEED IT ALL NOW isn't there. What a huge relief!

I still like my sweets, but I find myself craving other things like nuts and cheese, and not huge amounts either: I'm finding myself content with one cheese stick or a tiny bowl of nuts. I'm feeling much more like an intuitive eater again instead of an out-of-control eating machine, and I'm so relieved.

So while my explosive bitching isn't the most pleasant thing in the world for me and my family, it seems to be paying off in more ways than one. It certainly got my husband's attention. Last week when I made the suggestion that we needed a date night he shrugged me off and said, "When will we find time for that?" Today he's e-mailing me from work telling me how badly we need quality time together. Like my pal Lori says, sometimes people just need that good old 2x4 board over the head treatment to finally get the point.

This morning I was much calmer and nicer, and when I dropped off Mabel at the bus stop I said, "So, was I better today?" She just smiled at me as she got out of the vehicle. Being a drama queen herself, I suppose she understands.

I wonder, now that I think about it, that the fact that I finally walked a couple miles this morning didn't help matters, too. Exercise does do wonders for my stress tolerance, which is something I have to keep in mind as I try to get back to a regular workout routine.

Pitching A Fit

2007-10-17T09:48:00.000-04:00

It's good to know there's a place for me to pitch my tent while I'm pitching my fit. (Is the term "pitching a fit" well known? I suppose it's a more hillbilly version of "throwing a fit.")

I felt like a psychopath this morning. At one point while I was eating my cereal and listening to Howard Stern I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes -- thank goodness I didn't choke on my Banana Nut Crunch!

Later I got totally overwhelmed trying to get my daughter ready for school that I pretty much pitched that fit I mentioned above. I have our morning routine down to a precise science, and when Mabel tries to start throwing additional stuff at me, I seem to crack. This week at school they're having theme days, and today is crazy hair day, so I had to help her do her hair. No big deal. But then she wanted me to figure out how to work her new MP3 player, and that seemed to send me over the deep end. I'm not afraid of technology, but I just didn't have time to figure it out and get her and myself ready for our day. Things just got worse as I dealt with the latest casualties to my dog's teeth and the state of my kitchen, which is utter chaos now and is only going to get worse as my husband prepares to build an island and replace our dog chewed flooring. I turned into a snarling fiend and growled continuously until I got to work. I feel bad about getting so crabby and snappy, and I even apologized to Mabel and told her I'd try to get myself under control by the time she got home this afternoon.

It just goes to show how poorly I do with chaos and changes to my routine, especially in the morning. But this week overall has been really taxing me; there's been way too much running around in the afternoon and evenings. It's all stuff that needs to be done, but I wish it wasn't day after freakin' day! By the time I get home -- after 8 p.m. -- I am physically and mentally exhausted, and nothing is getting done around the house because I either don't have the time or energy to do it.

The good news, I suppose, is that my emotions are back in all their glory, even with the Wellbutrin. I don't feel sedated, I don't feel empty, and I feel like I'm slowly starting to regain some motivation and concentration in my life. As for the eating, it's not "perfect," but like I said yesterday, that overwhelming need to hoard food and overeat it is weakening. Thank God! Is there a saint of pharmaceuticals?

This afternoon I'm going to see Dr. Karen again, and I'm sure I'll go over all of this stuff again with her. She's always good with her insights and suggestions, and of all the things I have to do, this is always a productive one. Then this evening we go once again to Mabel's gymnastics. I will be so glad when this week is over!

Getting Back on Track?

2007-10-16T11:58:00.000-04:00

Wow, I've really been missing in action online! I just couldn't seem to find the time to blog, and even today I'm squeezing it in between lunch and yoga -- and I couldn't even finish this sentence without being interrupted with a phone call.

Since Sunday I've been on Wellbutrin, and while I don't feel a big change as far as sedation or mood altering is involved, I do notice I'm not finding that drive to binge that's been making me so crazy the last few weeks. I'm not plotting and scheming about getting to a store to buy something "bad," then more plotting and scheming to snarf it down while no one's looking. Wellbutrin is also sold as Zyban and is used to decrease the cravings to smoke, so maybe this is slowly beginning to work on my cravings to overeat, too.

Along with not making the time to blog, I'm also finding it very hard to keep up regular exercise. Perhaps it's a good sign that this is beginning to bother me, and now instead of plotting how I'll inhale half a dozen doughnuts, I'm trying to figure out how to get back into the treadmill/ stationary bike routine again. I know, I just need to DO IT and quit thinking about it, but I'm moving in the right direction.

I hate to cut this short, but once again I've got things I have to get done. I really do hope this is the beginning of me getting back on track. I really need to get back to a point where I'm feeling good about myself again. And I don't mean the number on the scale. I mean my energy level, my ability to self-motivate and a general contentment with how things are. I guess I just have to keep trying, because the alternative is simply not an option.

Waking Up

2007-10-10T11:08:00.000-04:00

I'm close to the end of my two weeks of weaning myself off of Lexapro, and I really feel like I'm reawakening from some deep sleep. No, I'm not calling myself Sleeping Beauty! But maybe one of the scullery maids in her castle who also got put under a magical slumbering spell with the rest of the servants.

I'd rather describe it this way than say I'm feeling "better." The truth is, I wasn't feeling much of anything before, and now I'm beginning to find emotions again. And let's face it -- some emotions are pleasant, and some aren't. But I must say I'd rather be able to feel again than to be a walking -- and eating -- zombie.

The emotion that has been taking precedence the last few days has been anger, but I don't see this as a bad thing, really. It doesn't feel like a destructive anger, but more of a self-assertive strain of anger, one that forces me to take care of myself. It's dawning on me just how much crap I've had to deal with the last few weeks and I'm making a decision to not put up with it anymore.

The overeating problems still aren't solved, but I'm doing my best to do something about it. I managed to pry open Karen Koenig's book "The Rules of Normal Eating" again. Each time I read it I seem to have a different reaction to it: this time I feel like the prodigal daughter seeking forgiveness and redemption for my wayward actions. I just hope I can pick up the pieces and find some way to return to intuitive eating.

Tomorrow I call my doctor and we decide which way to go. Even though I had a bad experience with the Lexapro, I don't think I want to go cold turkey. I talked to my sister this morning and asked her about Wellbutrin (she's actually on the Zyban version of the same drug) and she had nothing but positives to say about it. She started taking it to quit smoking and to handle the stress of a messy divorce, and it's helped with that. But it's also helped her quit mindlessly snacking, as well as getting more organized and motivated in the rest of her life. Seeing that we have the same genetic sources, it would be logical that it might have a similar effect on me.

Looking over this post, it -- actually I -- am sounding more positive than I have the last couple weeks. Thank goodness. I couldn't take much more of the dreariness I was mired in.

Another Busy Weekend

2007-10-08T06:14:00.000-04:00

Another jam (or should I say apple butter) packed weekend.

Saturday morning Mabel and I went with some friends to the Springs Folk Festival. This is a celebration of autumn and the local history of the area. Springs is heavily populated with Amish and Mennonite so a lot of their culture is represented here. There are lots of demonstrations of agricultural-type work -- sheep shearing, hay baling, blacksmithing, rug making with looms, maple syrup production, to name a few. Mabel got to cut a piece off of a log with a two-handed saw, which she thought was incredibly cool.

There was also lots of good food -- homemade bread with butter and apple butter; bratwurst, corm meal mush and apple snitz. In past years I've tasted almost everything, but this year I stuck with the bread, while Mabel got some fresh cut French fries.

That night was Mabel's last night of cheerleading. Her team, the Wildcats, didn't do very well this year, but the girls definitely had a good time supporting them. During half time during the games they would do a little routine to one of the High School Musical songs (I don't think it's a coincidence that their mascot, the Wildcats, is the same mascot as the HSM team). I have to admit I'm glad the season's over, because it will finally free up our Saturdays.

On Sunday we began the week-long celebration of Mabel's 9th birthday. We needed ice cream and went to the grocery store, where we encountered this odd sight. I just realized you can see my reflection in the truck -- oh joy. The funhouse mirror effect of the truck helps to disguise how much weight I've packed on the last couple months. The good news is that most of my clothes still fit, but I don't have much leeway left. Good thing I got rid of all my fatter clothes, which will force me to do something about this.

Anyway, Sunday evening's event included the grandparents, the aunts and uncles and cousins. Hubby made the cake, which included layers of chocolate and French vanilla cake, and then covered the icing with pink m&ms (It's unbelieveable how many products in October are pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month -- our capitalist society has really jumped on this bandwagon, which can only be a good thing, even if they're taking advantage of it to make sales).

Mabel got lots of goodies, including a wad of cash (all ones) from her one Grandma, and a pile of Webkinz (for those of you without kids, this is the biggest thing right now -- stuffed animals that come with a code, which you then use to sign your animal in online on the Webkinz website, where you can play interactive games with your new pet). She's definitely in plush heaven right now.

Now that I've got all the weekend events out of the way, maybe I can get on here later and right about more internal/personal stuff. I'll be back.

The Best Revenge

2007-10-03T20:46:00.000-04:00

"Living well is the best revenge."
George Herbert, English metaphysical poet and clergyman, 1593-1633

There's a reason I go to therapy. When I'm stuck in the mire like I am right now, it's wonderful to go somewhere objective, where I can truly speak my mind without offending anyone or facing the possibility of rejection. It's a place where I can get an outside perspective, and often I get advice that I never would have thought of in my current state.

Dr. Karen didn't make me feel bad for being apathetic, sluggish, empty and driven to eat. She validated my feelings, didn't try to compare them to hers or anyone else's, and made it okay, not a failing or weakness or laziness on my part. (Not that you blogging friends don't often do that, too. But I guess it's different when I've got the person sitting in front me and hearing her voice.)

She confirmed my belief that this England trip controversy did send me "over the edge" as far as burnout/depression. Let's face it, it turned into a major battle in my marriage, and while I haven't mentioned it much here in my blog, it also became defining moment in my tenuous relationship with my in-laws. Their interference in this incident, not to mention their unsolicited and highly negative opinions which were shared with my husband and the extended family but not me, really was the crowning moment in my three year's worth of dealings with them.

Dr. Karen eloquently worded that while I won the battle of actually getting to go on the trip, the emotional toll it's taken on me has taken away a lot of the victory. And she advised me to not let them win.

"You know what they say," she said with a smile, "Living well is the best revenge." She encouraged me to not feel ashamed or bad about going on this trip, which is the current atmosphere going on around here as the in-laws will not bring the subject up in front of me and act like it's a big dirty secret. I need to start being openly excited and happy about this upcoming event and make sure they know it.

There was something about this advice from Dr. Karen that really changed my attitude. Instead of feeling like a victim, it inspired me to once again pick up the reins of my life and do something for me. She made me realize I need to make sure to "not let the bastards get me down." (I tried to look up the source of this famous phrase, a lot of people noted Margaret Atwood's "A Handmaid's Tale" but I'm sure it's older than that.)

While I'm not miraculously cured, I definitely have more of a bounce in my step today knowing I've got someone in my corner giving me the encouragement I so desperately need right now.

The Last Straw?

2007-10-03T08:55:00.000-04:00

What a miserable day yesterday. I had terrible cramps and spent the late afternoon and evening in bed waiting for my Ibuprofen to kick in. So it makes you wonder if yesterday's rant was mainly hormonally motivated.

But let's face it, there's more to it than that.

Lori made an interesting comment in yesterday's post that from my blog entries I seemed okay until this England trip saga. This morning I looked back over my blog and I could see her point. But I know it's not the whole story, and the truth lies in the gaps between the posts.

In truth, I feel like I've been on a slow free-fall since April. I've done my best to grasp at whatever lifelines I could -- intuitive eating, conscious living, medication and therapy -- and at times I did feel better. But underneath I always felt right on the brink of breaking down or burning out.

Yes, I do think the negative brouhaha over the England trip seemed to be the final straw that propelled me into a true depressive state, but I know there were a lot more straws that were already weighing me down. I've tried to cope with these issues, and over the summer I feel I've made some progress with some of them with some really productive conversations with my husband.

Yet I can't seem to unload myself from the feelings -- or the avoidance of those feelings -- that these issues have caused, and I can't seem to move on.

The worst part is, I know what I need to do, or at least know of positive things I can do to improve my life. But everything just seems to hard. It all seems like too much effort and I can't seem to push myself anymore. It's burnout to the extreme. Or else chronic laziness and sloth.

Today I see my therapist and I hope I can find some solutions there. I really need help to get myself out of this funk, and I hope I can find some soon.

Hitting the Wall

2007-10-02T12:37:00.000-04:00

My friend e-mailed me today to let me know how he's doing in his effort to quit smoking. He's trying to quit using a medication called Chantix. When I read the following paragraph I have to admit a surge of jealousy welled up in me (I hope he doesn't mind that I'm quoting him!):

"The Chantix works so well that even if I did have a cigarette now, within seconds I'd feel awful and wonder why I ever did it. What the drug does--and this is the freaky part--in "lame man's terms" ;)--is that it makes me forget why I liked smoking. There's a more scientific explanation on the website, but that's how it feels to me. "

God I wish I had a magic pill that would do this for me when it comes to compulsive eating. If I had a pill that made me forget why I liked eating in a disordered way, it seems like it would solve so much grief for me.

Of course, there's always a price to pay, even with my friend:

"The downside is I don't really sleep well--only a few hours at a clip. Hence, I've been cleaning, reading, blogging, walking...anything to occupy the time that I devoted for so many years to the act of smoking. That's the hardest part--especially after I eat, when I wonder 'What do I do now?'"

I've been there and know how hard that can be. You spend so much time concentrating on your addiction -- be it an eating disorder, smoking, alcohol, gambling, etc. -- that when you try to give it up it leaves a gaping hole in your life.

Right now I can't even seem to get close to quitting my disordered eating. I feel so lost, so adrift in the void, so caught up in the habit and compulsion of it, I can't even see a way out of it. Maybe it's the medicine, maybe it's PMS (time of the month will begin any minute now), or maybe it's some elemental weakness in myself I can't overcome.

Whatever it is, I'm feeling so low about myself right now that I'm mentally grasping for straws. I think about weight loss surgery, I think about going away to some intense program for eating disorders. Of course, in reality, I don't know how I'd leave my responsibilities (work, husband, child, house, etc.) to go away like that. And I'm always scared of WLS, even if it's the less invasive methods like LAP band.

I think maybe I'm hitting the wall. I feel like Wile E. Coyote here -- my head is spinning -- and I don't know what to do anymore. Dieting doesn't work; I think Intuitive Eating would work if I could get my head on straight. But how do I do that? I feel so helpless right now.

Of course, maybe feeling like I've hit bottom is actually a good thing, because it means I won't get any lower and I've got nowhere else to go but up. Feeling this desperation and hopelessness might actually be a sign that I'm beginning to feel emotions again, which is what I wanted, right? I don't know why it has to be so hard... God I sound like such a child right now. Life is hard! We all get handed our lot of challenges, and it's our job to work through them. I guess I just feel like I'm not able to handle mine right now, and I just wish I had a better arsenal of tools to cope.

To illustrate this point, I'm not at my yoga class right now. This is a bad thing, because I know how good it makes me feel. But I talked myself out of it with a list of excuses: feeling miserable from PMS and what is either the beginning of a cold or fall allergies. This triggers feelings of guilt and I proceed to feel even worse about myself.

What a whining, miserable post. I sure hope my attitude improves in the next few days.

A Little Better All the Time (It Can't Get No Worse)

2007-10-01T08:21:00.000-04:00

Has anyone asked you the question "Lennon or McCartney?" Your choice definitely reveals a part of your personality.

I'm definitely a John Lennon person. For example, when thinking about blogging this morning and figuring out how I'm feeling, I thought of the Beatles song "Getting Better," especially the chorus:

"I've got to admit it's getting better, better

A little better all the time, it can't get no worse."

The main lyrics are Paul McCartney's; the italicized lyrics were added by Lennon. He adds that little twinge of sarcasm, his legendary acerbic wit to temper the sugary sweetness of McCartney's optimistic song.

I am feeling a little better, but I realize I couldn't have felt much worse. I feel like I'm emerging from a thick blanket of fog. The visibility still isn't crystal clear, but I'm not completely blinded and overwhelmed by the fog anymore. Things are coming more in focus and I'm feeling less like I'm trudging through mud to complete the smallest task.

I talked to my sister-in-law yesterday on the phone and she said I sounded better. She's probably my best analyzer, the one person who can read me the best. So it was good to get a positive response from her.

Other signs that I'm feeling a little better: I'm not feeling as driven to hoard and binge on food. I wouldn't say I'm intuitively eating yet, but I don't feel that out of control compulsion to stock up on every binge food I can think of and eat them all until I'm ill.

Another thing: I'm realizing I'm missing my blog friends. I've been unable to concentrate long enough to read blogs, and I'm starting to wonder how some of my pals are doing. Being able to think about others is a good sign that I'm pulling myself out of my self-absorbed depression.

I've got at least another week to see how I'm feeling before I call my doctor back and let her know how I'm doing. At that point I have to decide with my doctor if I'll stay with this lower dose of Lexapro, switch to something else, or quit taking anything. I've heard good things about Wellbutrin -- my sister's doing well on the Zyban version, and others have told me it's worked for them, too. So we'll have to see.

By the way, thanks to everyone who commented on my last post and gave me such nice compliments about my writing. You've really inspired me to think about getting back into my fiction writing. Let's hope I can actually do something about it.

Woman of Heart and Mind

2007-09-28T13:36:00.000-04:00

Over the past 24 hours I've been doing a lot of thinking.

The doctor's appointment went okay. We're cutting down my Lexapro from 20 to 10 mg a day for a week, then see how I feel, and maybe do the 10 mg every other day. In two weeks I'm to call the doctor and let her know how I'm feeling. We're both torn as to what to do next: go off entirely, or switch to something else, namely Wellbutrin. It has less occurrence of the side effects I'm currently experiencing, which sounds good. She needs to check on the Wellbutrin and the binge eating, however, because there is literature saying that people with eating disorders shouldn't take it. This literature is based on anorexia, though, so I don't know if that applies to me.

The other thing that's been hounding at me the last 24 hours has been an odd thing: I feel like I've somehow lost myself, and that this loss of identity is at the root cause of my depression/anxiety (or possibly bipolar II, as Frances pointed out to me in her comments yesterday).

I seemed to step outside of myself yesterday and see this pseudo-soccer mom, struggling June Cleaver wanna-be, and I didn't recognize or particularly like what I saw. There's nothing wrong with being the carpooling, domestic wonder woman who fusses over home made cupcakes for the kids at school or stands at the door with her husband's lunch and brief case in hand to send him off to work. It's just that I never envisioned myself filling this position.

Instead, I suppose I envisioned myself following in the footsteps of one of my idols, like Joni Mitchell. Independent, a free thinker, pushing the boundaries and definitions of being a woman and of creativity. A painter, a writer, a musician, following my muse and not adhering to the antiquated standards of my parents and grandparents. A Woman of Heart and Mind, if you will.

Yet here I am in my Podunk little town, in my little church job, planning my daughter's ninth birthday party and spending my days sweeping and dusting and folding laundry. Where are the paintings? Where are the novels? Where are the albums (okay, it is the 21st century, I should say CDs)? Where is my little cottage in Laurel Canyon with the colored glass bottles in the window? Where are my musician boyfriends who write beautiful songs about me, and my songs about them?

I can't blame anyone else but me for this strange place I've gotten to. Although I did have one big warning sign a year or so ago when my husband gave me a string of pearls as a gift. Those things really freaked me out. He thought they were beautiful, and they are, but all I could think of was June Cleaver and a life of servitude to my husband and my children while chained with those pearls to the house I must clean and present to the world as a representation of my self-worth.

I was watching "Crossing Jordon" on A&E this morning and the one character Lilly (played by Kathryn Hahn, who I just adore, and not only because her name is spelled the same way my middle name is) was having this existential moment about her life. She said something to the effect of "I just thought I was meant for so much more," and it hit me like a rock.

I don't need to be a nationally-known singer/songwriter, some critically acclaimed painter or novelist. But right now I just feel like I should be doing something else, something more. Or that I should be more Me instead of what I think people want or expect me to be.

The problem is, I'm not quite sure what that's supposed to be. Thus my dilemma.

If It Looks Like a Duck...

2007-09-26T20:40:00.000-04:00

I'm sure most of you have heard the idiom, "If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it's probably a duck."

The more I think about what's going on and what I've written in the last few days, I realize that "if it looks like depression and feels like depression, then it probably is depression."

Why would I be in denial about being depressed? I've always been very pro-active in getting myself help when I need it.

I suppose it's hard to break the stigma/stereotype of depression being a sign of weakness, laziness, etc. And let's not forget how it ties in with obesity. I guess I'm trying to deny I'm depressed because I equate it with gaining weight and getting fatter. And I don't want any of it.

Yesterday I found myself really thinking about this realization and taking a good hard look at myself and my behavior over the last few years. It's been such a tumultuous time, and my moods have been so up and down, it's no wonder I'm crashing and burning now.

I guess the big thing I'm wondering is if this cycle of anxiety and depression could be a form of bipolar disorder. I have two members of my immediate family that I know have been diagnosed with it, a few more in my extended family that I suspect may have/had it, so it's not out of the question. Now granted, I know my highs and lows aren't quite as extreme as the typical bipolar case, but I would think that like any other disorder that there are different levels of intensity.

All I know is, I have to get this under control. I'm tired of being in this fog, of every little thing feeling like a climb up Everest, of not being able to muster up the energy to enjoy anything. Except food, that is.

That's the worst. I have reached the point that I am so sick of turning to food, yet I can't seem to break that compulsive need. I'm at that scary place that thoughts of weight loss surgery seem like my only option. Of course, I know it's going to take more than a Lap Band or cutting up my digestive system to fix this.

Well, today we'll find out. I'll also face the music with my weight. I took a preliminary reading at home over the weekend, so I basically know that bad news. We'll just have to see how bad the official weight will be. The only positive I can see in it is that it's proof that I'm not doing well with this medicine and that I need help. I just hope my doctor sees it that way, too.

Non-Emotional Eating

2007-09-26T08:17:00.000-04:00

I have a subscription to a clip art program that gives us royalty-free pictures for our church newsletter. I borrow some of these for the blog, because I figure it's still a non-profit publication that doesn't make me a penny. The best part is the edit caption option, which helped me create the clip art here.

I like having pictures or clip art in my blogs. They often illustrate my feelings, depict where I've been or just tickle my fancy.

I've written before how my husband likes to initiate bedtime discussions, and usually I'm too tired to really contribute or state my case. Well, last night I was lying there with my eyes wide open, and when he started, I was ready.

It wasn't an argument, but I was able to talk assertively and not aggressively about an issue that continues to bother me. To add to my good luck, he did not get defensive about it and was able to see my point of view. I don't think anything was resolved, but every time he can understand how I feel, it's one more step in the right direction.

In addition to discussing this issue, I talked about what I wrote here yesterday -- how I'm feeling and how it's probably associated with the medicine I'm taking. It was during this description to him that the light bulb popped up above my head.

I was talking about how I can't seem to hold on to any real emotion and how empty I feel, and I realized that I'm (over)eating because it seems to be the only sensation I can really enjoy. In fact, it's the only thing I can feel, positively or negatively. Part of it's habit, I know, but I can see that over the last couple months the only thing that has brought me anything close to euphoria is the sensation of eating.

Could you call this non-emotional eating? That I'm eating in response to feeling nothing? I'm to the point now that I'd actually prefer being upset or angry or even anxious, because it's better than this bottomless vacuum I'm in now.

This is an important discovery, and I'm glad this came to me before my doctor's appointment tomorrow so I can tell her exactly what's going on. I'm not sure what she's going to do -- switch medicines, add something else, drop everything -- but something has to change. Because if this continues I'll be back where I started four years ago. And that's NOT where I want to be, ever again.

Thanks, my loyal friends, for commenting yesterday. It was so nice to hear from you and get your support. I feel so bad that I haven't been reading your blogs and staying in touch. Like I said yesterday, my focus and attention is terrible right now, and I can't seem to muster the energy to do it. I'm hoping that will soon change. Please be patient with me. Thanks again.

Prayer of the Day

2007-09-25T11:46:00.001-04:00

While I'm a church secretary, I don't consider myself ultra-religious. Spiritual, definitely, but not in a strictly Christian way.

However, I just printed out next week's bulletin and I looked at the prayer of the day:

"Benevolent, merciful God: When we are empty, fill us. When we are weak in faith, strengthen us. When we are cold in love, warm us, that with fervor we may love our neighbors and serve them for the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
Amen."

I'm not saying that God is speaking to me directly, but it's odd sometimes how these little snippets of wisdom tend to fall in my lap when I need them.

Filling the Emptiness

2007-09-25T10:11:00.001-04:00

It's been too long since I posted. Granted, I've been busy -- somewhat.

But I just can't seem to pull myself out of this funk I'm in. I can't seem to focus and concentrate. It's virtually impossible for me to read -- and I've always been such an avid reader, so this is really frustrating for me. I'm apathetic, lethargic, and worse of all, I can't seem to stop eating.

I'm walking regularly, but last week I didn't get to Yoga or Pilates due to Mabel's illness and this huge party I had to help with. I'm getting the house work done and keeping my family on track the best I can. But I don't have the energy for much else.

And the final icing on the cake -- I'm having problems in the bedroom. This just adds to some issues I've been having in my marriage lately.

While this might sound like depression, I can't seem to even feel enough to be depressed! This includes all emotions -- happiness, sadness, anger, you name it. It's hard to blog when you can't get up enough interest to write about something.

I'm putting a lot of the blame on this medicine I'm on. I just don't think this Lexapro is for me. Fortunately I have an appointment on Thursday to check up on how the medicine is doing, and I'm preparing this list of complaints. Granted, I'm not having anxiety attacks, but this list of cons doesn't seem to make up for the one benefit.

I feel so lost right know. Very empty. Perhaps that's why I keep turning to food -- to fill that emptiness. I hope I can resolve these problems soon.

A Day Off

2007-09-19T11:56:00.000-04:00

I was home yesterday with a sick daughter. She wasn't horribly ill, but definitely miserable with a cold, and I decided she needed a day to rest, eat chicken soup and drink English breakfast tea with lots of sugar (her favorite).

Yes, it meant I lost a day at work, and it's a bad time since I've got a bulletin, a newsletter, two weddings and a baptism to prepare for. But I knew I was in a decent position since I'd done so much work ahead of time, so I didn't seek out someone to watch her and I stayed home.

I made it my own mental health day and did almost nothing at home other than cross stitch and the aforementioned soup and tea making.

Today she's back at school and I'm up to my eyeballs in work, but that's okay. I'm tackling one thing at a time, crossing things off my list and not feeling worried about getting everything done. I need to get back to it, but if I have time later I'll try to post some more.

Horsing Around

2007-09-17T12:00:00.000-04:00

This weekend was busy, but not in a greatly productive way. You could say I was horsing around.

Friday night Mabel had two friends, sisters, spend the night. They got along very well, no fighting or naughty shenanigans, and they even got to bed at a decent hour (midnight!).

We had an invitation to go out for wings that evening, too, but this sleepover had been planned well in advance. So instead of hanging out with the gang, we ate pizza, and the girls played Monopoly, sang High School Musical and Hannah Montana songs. I spent the evening subtly keeping an eye on them while I did my counted cross stitch.

The next morning I took the three girls out to my mom's place to see all the animals (yes, those are my mom's horses above). She's got a whole menagerie of horses, a pony, a sheep, two burros, goats, chickens, cats and dogs. The girls had a ball petting, and feeding the different critters and even rode the pony.

This visit felt like forever to me (I know, I'm a jaded "been there, done that" girl) and I brought along my newspapers and caught up on the news. But eventually we made it back home, and the girls' mom came and picked them up. I managed to get some more cross stitching done, and I finished this little project for my friend's birthday. This is a great weekend project and comes with the matting and glass with clips. It makes a great present for friends or family, especially those who appreciate "home made" gifts.

Saturday evening Mabel had to cheer at a game, and what a difference it was from the weekend before! At the Sept. 8 game we were fighting for a seat in the shade, and someone actually was dealing with the first stages of heat stroke. On Sept. 15 we wore coats, hats, gloves and snuggled in fuzzy blankets to keep warm.

After the game we stopped at my friends' house (J&M, who are going to London with me), chatted it up for a while and didn't get home until midnight.

I was going to go to church Sunday morning, but Mabel claimed she didn't feel well (sore throat, sniffles) and was being all demanding for tea, soup, etc., so I stayed home with her.

The majority of the day I worked on counted cross stitch again -- this big project I've been working on here and there for the last couple months -- and I really made a big dent in it. At 5:30 Mabel and I went to my friend's birthday party, while Hubby stayed home and started working on preparations for a big meal/party/event we're having next weekend. It was an interesting party-- while it was my friend L's birthday on Saturday, she was celebrating her dog's birthday that Sunday, even getting a cake with her golden retriever's name on it. It was a cute event and we had a nice time.

Oh, another weekend highlights: Mabel was celebrating winning first prize for two different pictures she drew of Tinkerbell at our local community fair. I will have to take pictures of them and post them here so I can boast and brag about my talented little girl.

So yes, another busy weekend. Eating wasn't the greatest, but not terrible. At least when I'm cross stitching I'm not eating. But when I take breaks, I don't make the best choices and have little portion control. But I'm not feeling completely out of control, so I guess that's good.

Crunched

2007-09-13T11:52:00.000-04:00

I have been so crunched for time this week. It's been run, run, run, for my appointments/classes, Mabel's gymnastics, piano lessons. Running to the grocery store, submitting Mabel's artwork to the community fair. Not to mention the constant vigilance I have to keep in my house to keep it from turning into a garbage dump. I swear, how many socks can one family litter all over a house? It's mind boggling.

There are so many things I have to keep track of, mainly because no one else seems able to, for one reason or another. At home it's getting the garbage out on Mondays, watering the plants, where we need to be. In the mornings I remind Hubby what's in the refrigerator for breakfast and his lunch (it's like there's some cloaking device in the refrigerator that renders everything invisible to him), help him find his phone, keys, sunglasses, etc., and ask him what he wants to make for supper. This morning I asked him and he replied for the millionth time, "I didn't even think about it." We have dinner every night, and he cooks 9 days out of 10. How can he forget?

After that I have to follow Mabel around and hound her to get dressed, brush her hair, pick out an outfit that remotely matches, make sure everything's in her book bag and keep her from sneaking out of the house without her eyeglasses.

That's just the morning. I need to start documenting how many times a day one of them asks me where something is. They both get so angry, stomping around throwing toddler fits, until I find it within 20 seconds and hand it to them. How did I become such a master of finding things? I suppose it's because I learned not to rely on someone else to do it for me.

And let's not forget my job. I've bailed one woman out twice this week, taking time out of my day to do things at the last minute that she either forgot about or lost that had to be done before Sunday. It's my job to remind people about meetings, about getting information to me, to make schedules and make sure all the supplies are ordered.

There are a seemingly endless list of things that everyone relies on me to take care of. There have been many times in my life that resentment has built up about this. Fortunately, right now I'm not feeling that. Instead I'm actually finding it kind of self-validating. "Look how needed I am. People rely on me, and for the most part I fulfill their needs. I do a good job and I'm proud of what I accomplish on a day-to-day basis."

I suppose part of me worries what will happen when I leave for a week in January. Not at work: I have become the master of getting work done ahead of time, making things easy not only for my fill-in, but also for myself when I return.

It's home that concerns me. I know how quickly my family can decimate our house. In a 48-hour weekend our home can go from clean and tidy on Friday afternoon to a cluttered shambles on Monday morning. Granted, no one is going to die in a week's time. However, my family will probably walk around in a daze (actually, probably stumbling through piles of shoes and socks), then roll around in the floor in a tizzy when they can't find anything, and they'll have to eat out every night because no one will remember to make supper plans.

I don't even want to think about the mess I'm going to come back to. But I'm not letting it keep me from going. I'll just have to slug through it and deal with it.

Another busy weekend coming up. I'll try to post if I can.

The Deed is Done

2007-09-11T08:24:00.000-04:00

Well, there's no going back now: the plane tickets have been ordered. I am London bound.

Hubby came home yesterday from work and said this issue is resolved, saying, "You do what you need to do." Not a resounding endorsement, but I didn't really expect a complete turnaround and overwhelming support from him.

On Sept. 10 Linda Moran wrote a blog that really struck home, especially with this situation. I am a person who really craves validation, and I went to several people to get their input on this decision. I realize this is a sign that my confidence is not the best, that I'm not content with my own thoughts and opinions and need someone else to tell me I'm right.

In this instance I received overwhelming support for my decision to go. I brought up my pros and cons, and time and time again I was told that this was an opportunity I shouldn't pass up. Not surprisingly, the only disapproval I've received about this has been from my husband and his parents. It's not that I completely discount their opinions, but taken with all the feedback I've received, they were in the vast minority.

Will I continue to deal with fallout from this decision? Probably. But like my IE gurus say, it won't be anything that I can't tolerate. And if it crosses the line, then I address it.

By the way, the eating has been going pretty well recently. There's nothing like being assertive and taking care of myself to lead me away from binge eating.

Torn

2007-09-10T11:57:00.000-04:00

Yesterday the tension between Hubby and I grew and grew. It was so uncomfortable, yet I wasn't completely sure if it was completely over this London trip or if had to do with other stressful events that have beset my husband this past week.

Nevertheless, I kept my distance, which wasn't hard since we spent the afternoon at our church picnic. A few of the kids wanted to come to our place to swim, so I watched them while he visited with his parents.

Later that evening, however, things came to a head, and he kind of blew a gasket over this trip. I did my best to stay assertive and not aggressive, or worse yet, shut down and give up. At the end of his tirade I had to leave the room. I truly felt at that moment that I was going to have to give up this trip, because it simply wasn't worth this much strife between us.

But then, after a few minutes, Hubby followed me into the kitchen apologizing for his irrational behavior. I said it was clear I couldn't go, because if I do he'll make my life miserable because he's so upset about it. He told me I should go (which honestly felt like deja vu from Friday) and that he's just going to have to get over his issues. I got some more apologetic emails this morning from him, too. Yet after all of this I'm still not sure if Hubby is okay with it.

So here I am, not sure what I'm supposed to do. My friends want to book our airline tickets tonight; SS is researching B&Bs in London. The time of final decision has arrived.

I've been put in an unpleasant situation. If I say yes I make myself happy, yet my husband won't be. If I say no he'll calm down, yet I'll be full of regret. Is it time to be selfish or selfless? Is it time to assert myself or back down?

You could say I'm torn.

In the Dog House

2007-09-09T11:33:00.000-04:00

This morning SS called to check in with me about the trip to London. I said I couldn't imagine getting a better deal on tickets (I expected to pay 2-300 dollars more) and knew I'd regret not going. So he and our other friends are going to finalize dates tomorrow night and get these tickets ordered.

My husband and my mother were in the room during the phone call. I overheard Hubby say to my mom, "Well, I guess she's made up her mind." And when I hung up, he said to me, "I guess you're more than leaning towards yes."

"How can I pass up a deal like this?" I replied.

But apparently he knows how, because he's been giving me the silent, unhappy treatment ever since. He and I are both people-pleasers at heart, and I think he knows that it kills me when I know someone's displeased with me.

It's so unfair. I've never given him any guilt or resistance to any of the trips he's taken without me. He claims it's because it's "mixed" company. For Pete's sake, the one guy is gay, and the other extremely devoted to his wife. There is absolutely no chance of any shenanigans.

He asked me what I would think if he announced he was taking a trip with a married couple we know and a lesbian. "Yeah? So?" I replied.

He claims our small town will "bash" me about taking this trip with these people. I responded that it's really nobody's business where I go and with who. "What am I supposed to tell people if they ask me where you are?" he asked. "I'm on a trip with some friends," I answered.

He's concerned about Mabel getting ready for school, because he has to leave early in the morning. My mother's already volunteered to stay here and take care of her in the mornings.

He brings up the money issue. I countered that I get money for Christmas from my parents and that should cover it.

I've answered every question he's raised, but it comes down to the fact that he doesn't like me leaving him alone, and worse yet having fun with someone other than him. I understand this, but yet again, it's a double standard. I know, life isn't fair, but in this instance I think it should be.

Anyway, I think I'll be in the dog house for a while around here. At least when something like this happens it makes me not want to eat.

Tickets, Money, Passport!

2007-09-07T21:45:00.000-04:00

Whenever I'm preparing for a trip, as I'm heading out the door, I cry out, "Tickets, money, passport!"

It's a quote from one of my all-time favorite shows, "Absolutely Fabulous." Eddie Monsoon (Jennifer Saunders, at left) is leaving for Morocco and is heading out the door, then comes flying back into the house screaming these words because she's forgotten all three important things. I say this so often my husband now sometimes rattles off this checklist before we leave the house.

I've lost my passport. I was sure I had it in our safe with our other important documents. Everything else was there -- Social Security card, birth certificate, marriage license, etc. -- but no passport. It was due to expire next year, but still, it would have been nice to find it. I'll probably find it six months from now in some crazy demented place. Oh well.

So, before I ventured to my new Pilates class, I went to AAA to get a new picture taken, then to my county Prothonotary's office to fill out the paperwork for the new passport.

Did I mention it looks like I'm going to England? SS sent me an email saying Virgin Airlines has a fantastic deal ($311 from Washington DC to London) in the time frame we want to go. It's hard to beat that and seems like a sign that I should not miss this opportunity.

So I told Hubby yesterday I was leaning towards yes on this trip. Let's just say he is not a happy camper about it. In fact, our discussion even got a little heated, with him coming up with a multitude of reasons why I shouldn't. But none of them were really legitimate, and he knew it. He finally grudgingly relented, but I know he is still against it. I'm steeling myself for the fallout that I know will continue to come.

Anyway, about my Pilates class. There were about six of us, I'm guessing in age from 30s to 60s. Some were regulars, some of us were newbies, and a variety of shapes and levels of fitness/flexibility. The instructor gave us a background and history of Pilates, then ran us through some very basic warm up exercises and focused on breathing and posture.

While it was different from the Winsor Pilates tapes I was doing at home, some of the basic principles were the same, so I didn't feel totally inexperienced. The yoga work over the past month helped me keep up, I think, since I haven't done any Pilates since May.

The great thing about doing Pilates is that through the rest of the day I kept pulling my navel to my spine (any Pilates people out there will know that phrase) and adjusting my posture. Even after an hour it really starts to effect me and gets me more in tune with my body. I'm very happy about this, because this has been lacking in my life recently, and now I have both the yoga and the Pilates to help.

The food/eating has been okay. Not fantastic, but definitely a lot better than the past two weeks. There hasn't been any all-out binging, the secretive hiding of binge foods has decreased, and I don't feel compelled to overeat to the point of misery. I've caught myself several times wanting to eat more but recognizing that it is a mental desire, not physical hunger, and that stops me.

If only eating and the sensations of the scent, tasting, chewing, etc., weren't so damn pleasurable! I realize that it is this what I'm addicted to, not necessarily the sugar or the carbs. It's the physical act that draws me in. It's a distraction from the thoughts in my head and an escape from stress, boredom, etc. That's why things like cross stitch, yoga, Pilates, etc., are so good for me; they are another kind of in the moment activity but are so much more positive, productive, and let's face it, less fattening!

So I must say, a week into this "revamping," progress is being made. I can't ask for much more than that.

Are You A Heffalump or a Woozle?

2007-09-06T11:54:00.001-04:00

Take the 100 Acre Personality Quiz! I was so sure I was going to be an Eeyore. But apparently my negativity and pessimism aren't as bad as I thought. My mothering skills, however, seem to have come to the forefront.

The Fruit of My Action

2007-09-05T08:07:00.000-04:00

I was feeling so cruddy last night and I went to bed early to read a little before Hubby came up and did his imitation of a cat -- he snuggles up to me, arms around me, and basically stares at me two inches away from my face as I read until I look at him, to which he replies, "Am I bothering you?"

I opened up "Practicing the Power of Now" to page 44, and here's what I found:

"DO NOT BE CONCERNED WITH THE FRUIT OF YOUR ACTION [his bold and caps] -- just give attention to the action itself. The fruit will come of its own accord. This is a powerful spiritual practice.

"When the compulsive striving away from the Now ceases, the joy of Being flows into everything you do. The moment your attention turns to the Now, you feel a presence, a stillness, a peace. You no longer depend on the future for fulfillment and satisfaction -- you don't look to it for salvation. Therefore, you are not attached to the results. Neither failure nor success has the power to change your inner state of Being [my italics]. You have found the life underneath your life situation.

"In the absence of psychological time, your sense of self is derived from Being, not from your personal past. Therefore, the psychological need to become anything other than who you are already is no longer there. In the world, on the level of your life situation, you may indeed become wealthy, knowledgeable, successful, free of this or that, but in the deeper dimension of Being you are complete and whole now [again my italics]."

While I'm no expert at being a conscious person, reading this passage did make me feel better because it reminded me that these little bumps in the road, these successes and failures, do not change my inner Being.

When Hubby did come upstairs I addressed last night's ice cream incident, and somehow in the process of telling him how it made me feel he said something to the effect of "now we're even." While I knew he was joking (although it's often said there's a lot of truth in joking), I threw the notion out there that it was a passive-aggressive way to get back at me for something he's upset about.

Last week my friend SS invited me to join him and our other friends J&M on a trip to London in January. SS and I are ginormous Anglophiles, addicted to British entertainment, and he's been there several times and knows his way around. His partner B won't be able to go because he's just starting out as the sommelier of a great Tapas restaurant in D.C., so I would basically be SS's travel companion and make the trio a quartet.

SS, J & M have been three of my closest friends for many years. They have been like siblings to me and have been there for the best and the worst of times. Since SS moved to D.C. and I got married, I haven't spent nearly as much time with them as I used to, and I miss that. So this would be a fantastic opportunity to do that as well as go to a city I've always wanted to explore.

When I brought up this invitation to Hubby he was not happy. He admitted this was irrational and a double standard -- I've never complained once over his Alaska trips and actually encourage him to spend more time with his friends -- but it wasn't changing how he felt. Hubby and his family feel that couples should do almost everything together and do very little apart. They are in to constant togetherness to the point of suffocation, at least to me. Both my sister-in-law and I deal with the situation of wanting to spend time with old or new friends and dealing with husbands who try to make us feel guilty about it.

After his displeased reaction last week, I let it drop for a while, telling him I was still thinking about it and nothing was set in stone. During that time I've talked to a few people about it, trying to get reaction and feedback, and every single person has said I should go.

Yesterday afternoon I brought home some books out of storage and found my book of walking tours of London (obviously I've always dreamed of this). Hubby saw it and asked if I had thought more about the trip, and I told him I was leaning toward yes. I could tell he wasn't happy.

About half an hour later I gave him a kiss on his neck and he responded, "Don't try to butter me up!" At first I thought he was busting me for saying something similar to him (when he first got home he went on this rant about me being the most perfect, beautiful, sexy woman in the world, and I asked him if he was buttering me up for something). But then I realized he thought I was trying to make up to him for saying I wanted to go to London.

I don't respond well to guilt trips, which is what this clearly was. Which made it even funnier when later that evening he got so insulted that I accused him of being passive aggressive and said he never does that. Actually, his reply was something to the effect that I may be used to passive aggressive behavior, but he and his family don't do that kind of thing. Which made me laugh right in his face because anyone who knows him and his family know they are well versed in this behavior. But my initial laugh quickly turned to anger and I told him I was not going to get into a p*ssing match with him about whose family is better, and he retreated on that subject.

While he denies the ice cream was a roundabout punishment for me telling him I'd like to take a trip with my friends and not him, he did admit that he screwed up. At first he thought getting the ice cream would make me happy, but when he walked through the door he realized that the happiness would last maybe two minutes and then I'd feel bad the rest of the night. But by then it was too late.

I guess I should see this as progress. At least he's beginning to figure it out. Maybe next time he'll realize this before he buys the ice cream and will prevent another incident like this.

I'm glad I confronted him about this. I don't know what the fruit of my actions will be, but at least I made the effort and stood up for myself.

Does This Mean I'm 12 Percent Evil?

2007-09-04T20:28:00.001-04:00

I feel like such a tool. A dope. A weak-willed addict.

I did so well today. I ate intuitively and felt really good about it. Hubby and Mabel went out this evening to the convenience store for an evening snack and I didn't ask for anything because there was nothing I really wanted.

Mabel walked back in to the house licking on an ice cream cone from the soft serve place across the street from the convenience store.

"Hey," I started to say in jest (because even after seeing her cone I really didn't feel hungry), "If I'd known you were going there--"

I was interrupted by my husband putting an Aloha Sundae under my nose.

"Mabel said this was your favorite."

Now, the assertive, intuitive, strong willed, non-compulsive me would have said "Thank you, but I'm not hungry right now, " and I would have thrown it away (because it wasn't the type of dessert that would keep, even in the freezer).

But no -- I'm weak, compulsive, and have it ingrained in my head not to waste food. So I ate it. And because I really wasn't hungry I had no gauge of fullness and ate it all.

I know I'm being hard on myself. I could turn it outward and blame Hubby for sabotaging me (he even said he needs to keep his wife "fat and sassy" --aargh!) but that's a cop-out. It doesn't help that he's now lost almost 40 pounds this summer with the help of Meridia.

I did say to him that he needs to call me next time before buying me food. But of course I've dealt with this behavior from him before, addressed it, and yet it's still happening. Maybe because I'm not getting angry enough. Good pal Lori always says people like my Hubby need the good ole' 2x4 over the head treatment for them to even begin to get the picture.

But it still comes down to me. I need to learn to look at a bowl of ice cream and consider myself and my body's needs more important than the few dollars that bowl of food cost.

Perhaps I need a 2x4 over my own head to finally figure this out.

Bound for Sainthood?

2007-09-04T10:24:00.000-04:00

I'm still kind of floored by this.

You Are 88% Good

You are not only a good person... you are a model citizen and a natural leader.
Whether you know it or not, your high moral standards and good judgment is truly rare.
You don't take ethical short cuts in life. You are able to do what's right - even when it's very difficult.
And while it may seem like no one else is as on track as you are, take heart in knowing that you set a good example for others.

You are also probably: Very sensitive and in tune with the world

Right now you are on track to being: A saint

To be a better person: Gently mentor someone who is taking the wrong path in life

How Good Are You?

(Thanks to Bigassbelle for this link)

The Tell Tale Tops

2007-09-04T09:40:00.000-04:00

Okay, first off, this is not a picture of me. It's some anonymous stock photo I found online. And in all honesty, I wish that was me!

Reality hit home this morning when I was looking for a shirt to wear and all my "skinny" tops were too tight. Mostly around the belly. What a bummer.

Now granted, today is the first day of my Time of the Month, so it is the most bloated day of my month. But still, these clothes fit me just fine in May, and now they look awful.

There's just no denying that I have been diving head first into food, solacing myself in fat, sugar and carbs, and now I'm facing the consequences. I don't need a scale to know I've gained weight, enough to make a noticeable difference.

Now on to the good news. This morning I arose with my husband's first alarm (his clock has two, one that goes off at 5:20 a.m. and and another at 5:30) and went out for a two-mile walk. It almost turned into a two mile kicking-myself for not keeping up with it this past month. I do feel so much better, more alert and awake when I do this.

This morning I also had a healthier breakfast, and I'm noticing I feel better with this in my system, too. Not a "diet" meal, but a reasonably portioned, well-balanced breakfast.

Today I'm starting new hours at work, which involves staying over part of the lunch hour. Because I have my yoga class at 1 p.m., I packed a lunch. Again, I didn't prepare a diet meal of celery and carrot sticks, but a "normal" portioned, nutritionally-balanced lunch that I will enjoy.

This morning I finally jumped back into my IE group digest emails, and if I have time I will try to visit some blogs and see how my Blog Friends are doing.

I know I'm full of optimism and excitement right now, and I do fear I'm tackling this like a diet. I hope the fact that I'm not counting calories, measuring food or making certain foods forbidden will keep that from happening. I don't expect any miracle results and will be gushing at the end of the month that my skinny clothes fit again. But I do admit that I'm finding great satisfaction in the fact that I've got a plan, I'm re-establishing routines, and it feels good. I just want to be able to look back at the end of my day and feel that I've taken care of myself -- physically and emotionally.

Happy Falliday

2007-09-03T20:43:00.000-04:00

On the Today show this morning they did a piece on Labor Day being the new New Years. Think about how much starts this time of year: school, football season, the new network TV shows, I could go on but I won't bore you. At the end of the segment they were using the phrase "Happy Falliday," which was kind of cute.

I realized as I watched this piece that yesterday's post could have easily been written on Dec. 31 and been a list of new year's resolutions. So I've definitely taken on this notion of the new New Years before I even saw it on TV. I'm such a trend setter!

I didn't really adopt any of my new goals today, but I didn't really expect to. But I didn't overeat terribly or have any kind of "last supper eating" either. It helped that we didn't have any picnics or events to go to and we lounged around the house most of the day.

Tomorrow, however, is back to the "grind," and even though it's going to be a shorter week with the holiday it already feels like I'll be getting back into the groove shortly. I sure hope so.

Making Goals

2007-09-02T09:29:00.000-04:00

It's Labor Day weekend here in the U.S. and it's a busy one for me -- no surprise.

I thought this past week things were "magically" coming back into place for me, but it's not happening as fast as I'd like. While I'm now beginning to catch myself in disordered eating and often talking myself out of gorging, eating seconds or thirds, what have you, it's not all the time.

I'm still caught up in a lot of mindless, emotional, and dysfunctional eating. Even after all those years of restricting and learning new behaviors, it's scary how fast I can return to the old ones and how normal they still feel.

And boy am I feeling the weight gain. I'm staying away from the scale, partly because it's the IE thing to do, but also because I'm terrified to see how much I've actually gained. I have a doctor's appointment at the end of the month and I know they'll weigh me then, so I'm forcing myself to wait.

The diet mentality would lead me to believe that if I start dieting now, by the end of the month I could probably knock a lot of this off. But I know where that would really lead me -- back to the diet/binge cycle.

What I need to do is get back to my routines, get some structure back to my life. Now that we're getting back into the groove of school, it's time.

Here are my goals:
1. Get back to walking at least four days a week.
2. I'll be doing my yoga class on Tuesdays and a Pilates class on Fridays. I want to try to do two other strengthening/toning sessions on my own at home each week.
3. I pretty much have all the binge foods out of the house. My goal for the month is to keep them out. I'm not banning all junk food, etc. But I'm going to either limit them to eating out (ice cream, dessert at a restaurant, etc.), or bringing home a single serving.
4. I'm going to get back to reading some kind of IE material every day, whether it's one of my books or one of my Internet IE resources.
5. I'm going to get back to blogging more regularly -- if not every day, every other day. It's too easy to fall into mindless, unconscious behavior when I'm not checking in with myself.
6. I'm also going to get back to reading my favorite blogs. I feel like such a bad Blog Friend by not checking in and commenting to those people I've really grown attached to. Again, my apologies.

That sounds like a big list, but a lot of them tie into each other. You'll notice that other than #3, there's no talk of counting calories or fat grams, banning foods, i.e. a diet. I know that #3 will be the most difficult, because this past week as the binge foods have been disappearing I've noticed myself walking around the house in a panic that I don't have something to gorge on. That's really not good. A real sign of addiction/compulsion. And something has to be done about it. I have to sit with this anxiety, break it apart and get into the reasons behind it. It won't be pleasant, but it has to be done before I find myself at a doctor's office reading 300 on the scale again.

I'm heading off to church shortly, then a bunch of us are heading to Johnstown for the Folk Fest. It's a lot of music and yes, food. But at least we'll be walking around and not sitting at a picnic table shoveling food in our gullets all day. I'll let you know how it goes.

Running With Scissors

2007-08-29T12:41:00.001-04:00

During my "down time," as I'm now calling it, I read Augusten Burrough's "Running with Scissors." I haven't seen the movie, which is nice, because I always get influenced by them about what the characters look like, etc. I like going into it with no preconceptions.

Anyway, if you haven't read or seen "Running with Scissors," it's about this teenage boy's very disturbing yet hilarious life with two highly dysfunctional families, his own and the family of the so-called psychiatrist who was "treating" his mother. There was a lot of talk of insanity, hospitalizations, and general wackiness.

Shortly after reading this book I had a disturbing dream that I was committed to a psychiatric ward of a hospital. I remember sitting in a bed (I can't remember if I was restrained or not), and while I was pretty much aware of other patients around me and a television set on somewhere in the background, nothing particularly bad was happening. I just remember feeling kind of freaked out that I had wound up in this place. I don't know who committed me, either -- whether it was myself, my family, the authorities, etc. I also don't know if there was a specific event that took me there (suicide attempt or other crazy behavior). I was given an injection of a sedative; I can still remember how realistic it felt as I began to get drowsy and fall into unconsciousness.

I later woke up in my Mom's house (in the dream) and felt all groggy and out of it. My mom looked at me and laughed, saying, "Boy, I don't know where you were partying last night, but you must have had a wild time."

I remember being so upset by this, that she didn't understand I wasn't hungover from a party; I was waking up from a scary, sad event.

There's a lot of symbolism in this dream that becomes more and more apparent as the days go on. At first it just bothered me; the concept of being "crazy" and locked up for it. But now, I can see that it's a representation of my life. While there was no one specific reason why I started to melt down this summer, I did. And when it became too much I went into action and went to the doctor for help.

As for the sedative? Let's just say that food became my knock-out drug the last couple weeks, sending me into a deadened, unconscious state. Now that I'm waking up from that haze, there are two ways of looking at it. I was on a wild "joy ride" of eating whatever I wanted, as much as possible. But one person's exciting ride is another person's trip of terror. It was a dark, sad place that was disordered, irrational and dysfunctional.

In an odd coincidence (if there is such a thing), last week my copies of "The Power of Now" and "Practicing The Power of Now" arrived in the mail after some delay. This morning I picked up the "Practicing" book and opened it to a random page. It just happened to be from the chapter entitled "Dissolving the Pain Body," and here is the paragraph my eyes settled on:

"This is not to deny that you may encounter intense inner resistance to disidentifying from your pain. This will be the case particularly if you have lived closely identified with your emotional pain-body for most of your life and the whole or a large part of your sense of self is invested in it. What this means is that you have made an unhappy self out of your pain-body and believe that this mind-made fiction is who you are. In that case, unconscious fear of losing your identity will create strong resistance to any disidentifcation. In other words, you would rather be in pain -- be the pain-body -- than take a leap into the unknown and risk losing the familiar unhappy self."

Pretty wild, huh? That's pretty much my recent behavior in a nutshell -- pardon the pun!

The good news is, "To suddenly see that you are or have been attached to your pain can be quite a shocking realization. The moment you realize this, you have broken the attachment."

Yes, I'm waking up and realizing I fell once again into my Pain Body. I know this is a good thing because it means I'm not actually in it anymore. But it still bothers me that I wound up there again. I do feel like a mental patient in those moments, out of control and sad that I don't seem to have a solid grip on anything. And even more frustrating, I don't feel like anyone around me in my day-to-day life can understand it at all.

I keep thinking about this one section of "Running With Scissors" and how much I relate to it:

"Natalie leaned in and put her elbows on the table. 'Don't you ever just feel like we're chasing something? Something bigger. I don't know, it's like something that only you and I can see. Like we're running, running, running?'

"'Yeah,' I said. 'We're running alright. Running with scissors.'"

Waking Up

2007-08-28T11:37:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the first day in a while that I actually felt like I was starting to "wake up." I'm not sure how to describe it -- if you've read "The Power of Now," I'm becoming more conscious again, emerging from the grips of the Pain Body. Yesterday I just felt more like me again, not some deadened, numbed version of myself.

I suppose you could call what I've been going through a period of depression. I know I've been shut down emotionally and didn't have the "oomph" to do much of anything other than the bare requirements.

I'm still not totally "there." But slowly, I feel like I'm returning. Things are by no means calming down in my life, but at least we are getting back to a regular routine, which is good for me. By the end of the week I hope to be back in the swing of things.

P*ssing Around

2007-08-23T08:46:00.001-04:00

This is my scenery every morning when I come to work. These silhouette yard decorations were really popular in these parts a few years ago, but not so much anymore.

An older couple lives in the building in between the church and the church office (you can see the block glass window of our church basement in the background) and this guy is in their back yard next to their garden.

Can you see the metal hoop that is bolted on to the silhouette's crotch area? I suppose this has been constructed to hold the guy up, but every morning I look at this guy relieving himself while balancing on one leg quite gracefully and have to smile.

I can't believe I went a whole week without posting. Other than vacations, this is the longest I've gone without writing since I started this thing last October. I'm definitely p*ssing around here, malingering in some quasi-depression, and it's getting old fast.

Maybe it was the oppressive heat followed by the oppressive rain. Maybe this medicine is just not right for me. Maybe it's not exercising and eating too much junk food, which makes me feel sluggish and perpetuates the vicious cycle. Maybe I've finally been beaten down in the home stretch as I wait for my family to go back to school.

Today is my first semi-day of freedom -- Hubby went back for his first in-service day at school today. So I've got one down, and Mabel's first day is next Tuesday, so by this time next week I will be on my way to reclaiming part of my life again.

I'm hoping this will help to revitalize me and get me back on track. I feel so disconnected and apathetic right now; I feel lazy and fat and every other negative thing I can conjure up. I need to get back into my IE and conscious living, because I know I feel so much better when I am in tune to my body and the world around me.

Sorry about the lapse in writing. Now that I've made the effort and posted, I think it's a sign I'm regaining some normalcy again.

By the way, today is the first anniversary of my neck surgery. If anything should give me a good feeling, it's knowing how well I recovered from it and how much better the quality of my life is since having it. I have so much to be thankful for and need to start appreciating and living the life I've been given.

My Apologies

2007-08-16T11:19:00.001-04:00

I want to add that I have been very remiss in reading blogs this week, let alone replying on them. I just can't seem to focus or have the attention span right now to do it, for some reason. I can't bring myself to read my IE group digest emails, either, and I just deleted a bunch of them because looking at that long list of them in my Inbox makes me feel like I'll never catch up. I figure I'll just jump back in when I'm ready.

Maybe it's because my eating is all out of whack right now and I'm in avoidance/denial mode. Perhaps I don't want to read about someone else's mindful eating or successful diet because I don't have a good handle on my own "stuff" right now.

But I know I'll be back, because I do miss hearing how everyone's doing. So bear with me and I'll be back on track in Blog Land soon.

Vacation Time Is Over

2007-08-16T10:17:00.000-04:00

I just got a phone call from Hubby; he was picking up his luggage in the Pittsburgh airport and will be home in 2-3 hours.

I love my husband, but this week went way too fast. I am guilty of enjoying these past seven spouse-free days. No adult-sized socks to pick up (still had some kid ones), no tissues to pick up around all the trash cans throughout the house, no newspapers to pick up off the bathroom floor, and no mountains of dishes to wash. No father-daughter evening altercations that usually result in tears and slammed doors (the daughter, not the father), no bedtime conversations that get me aggravated or worked up and unable to sleep while Hubby rolls over and immediately starts snoring.

Yes, there were things I missed: his "I love you"s, hugs and kisses; his cute phone calls (he forgot his cell phone charger or I probably would have heard from him more). I had to scramble to find people to watch Mabel in the mornings while I was at work, had to deal with all the dog duties by myself, and I haven't had time to mow the lawn, so I realize how much he does help me around the house. And I've been totally nonchalant about supper this past week, so I do look forward to his good cooking when he gets back.

His return also signals the quickly ending summer: when he gets back we only have a week left of summer break, then he and Mabel go back to school. Next week is the other harbinger of summer's end, the Somerset County Fair. We'll go at least once next week, maybe twice. I have to go get my favorite Stromboli, look at all the livestock, Mabel will ride all the carnival rides, and we might go see my friend's brother do some mud bogging. (For those of you not living in rural, backwoods USA, it's kind of like a tractor pull, except you're driving your truck around in a bunch of mud to see if you can get farther than the other people competing. Scintillating entertainment.)

Back in my newspaper days this was always a crazy, hectic time of year: I was rushing around covering fair events as well as compiling football, soccer and volleyball articles and photographs for special sections of the paper. August was always the month from hell back then and I dreaded it. Now it's almost the reverse: I see the end of the chaotic summer in sight and look forward to returning to some normalcy. It's funny how things change.

Dealing with the Mess

2007-08-15T08:11:00.000-04:00

Now that I've returned home from my vacation I'm tackling my project for the week: cleaning and organizing Mabel's bedroom.

I Googled "messy kids bedroom" trying to find a picture to go along with this post, and while I didn't find one, I did see lots of articles. Some give advice on how to organize your kid's room, while another article said to let your preteen's room alone and let them deal with it. The point of view being that they need their privacy and independence.

My daughter's 8 and thinks she's a preteen, but I can not leave her to her own devices when it comes to her room. At least not yet. In a few years I'm sure she'll forbid me from touching her things, but right now she's still willing to let me get in there and sort through the debris.

The main problem in her room comes down to having too much: too many toys, too many clothes. I took out a ton of clothes that are now too small, as well as toys she hasn't touched since we moved in this past December. I took them to the attic just in case there's something she will spaz out over when she discovers it gone, but I doubt it. A lot of them are kids meal toys from restaurants, which shows just how often this kid talks the adults around her into eating fast food.

The second problem is a lack of organization. I spent a couple hours yesterday sorting through boxes and bags of things that were thrown in willy-nilly with no rhyme or reason. I am now labeling metal boxes "pens and pencils," "crayons and markers," "tape, scissors and stapler," etc., so these things can have a home. I couldn't believe how many pencils I found in that girl's room -- I'm guessing near 100. I'm reuniting CDs with their cases; dice, instructions and other paraphernalia to their games; clothes, shoes and accessories to their doll owners.

I'm also pulling out special works of art for the Mabel Archives: her stories, drawings and letters that are particularly cute or funny. It would be a shame to toss these out with the pages of scribbles, so it's taking time to separate the wheat from the chaff.

I'm starting to see some real progress now, and I'm hoping it will be done by the time Hubby returns from his trip tomorrow. I think Mabel is pleased with what's going on, although it's hard for her to envision the finished project while things are still lying around and not put in place yet.

I have to admit I feel like Mabel's room right now when it comes to my eating. I've been really messy with my food, picking out lots of unhealthy things and eating too much of it. Over my trip away I would do okay with Intuitive Eating when I was out eating with my friends, but in our hotel room at night I'd tend to overeat. Exercise hasn't been regular other than my weekly yoga class, and the walking has been sporadic.

I'm not pleased with this current behavior, and I feel like I'm gaining weight, but I refuse to weigh myself, which I think is a good sign. I also feel myself starting to slowly lose my love affair with junk food, and I'm starting to crave healthier things. I'm eager for school to start and for our routines to return to normal, because I'm sure that I'll be able to get my eating and exercise more regulated. I don't mean dieting or busting my butt at the gym two hours a day. I think I'll be able to get my routines stabilized for regular enjoyable exercise, and I think once things settle down I'll be more in tune with my body and less prone to overeating.

No matter how much we try to control the world around us, things get messy. We may not be paying attention, or there's too much going on, but we turn our heads and suddenly everything falls into chaos. But with a little time and patience we can work with the chaos and find some ways to organize and keep a handle on it. It may not be permanent, but we have to keep trying anyway.

Virtual Tour of Morgantown

2007-08-13T10:39:00.000-04:00

I didn't really take any pictures while I was in Morgantown, so here are some photos I found online of different things:

Here is a nice shot of the Monongahela River, part of the Wharf District and a little bit of the West Virginia University Downtown Campus. This is the view from across the river, which puts you in Westover. We did this drive a few times in our travels.

I took Mabel through the Downtown Campus and showed her Stewart Hall, which almost looks like an old stone castle. I worked here as a temp worker several times in the Registrar's Office. It wasn't my favorite job -- it was mostly data entry for student registration -- but it was definitely a good introduction to life in Morgantown. I loved this building with its carvings, like this one at right.

One thing that has really boomed since I left town is the Wharf District along the Mon River. Friday night I met up with my friends DS and LS at this Mexican restaurant, and we had a fantastic time. I used to sit beside LS when I worked at the newspaper in Morgantown, and even though I'm only two years older than her, I was her "office mom" and took her under my wing. She and D got married after I left town and they have an adorable (and ornery) 3 year-old daughter. Mabel and DS got on like a house on fire and had us laughing all evening.

The most bittersweet part of our trip was going back to the townhouses where Mabel and I lived. I pointed out our place, showed her where the kitchen was, which bedroom was hers, as well as the playground and the nearby countryside. I really loved this little place and had really considered buying it before my life changed and I moved back to Pennsylvania. There are great memories of Mabel's infancy created there, and even she felt a little sad that what was once our first home isn't ours anymore.

Now we're home, back to our doggies and my job. We have a few more days before Hubby comes home, so it still isn't back to "normal" yet. But our back-to-school shopping is done, I was able to reconnect with four old friends, and Mabel and I had a great time together. I call that a raging success.

Stormy Weather

2007-08-10T07:43:00.000-04:00

If you live in the Pennsylvania - West Virginia region, you are well aware of the severe storms that went through yesterday. Pittsburgh is in a state of emergency from all the flash flooding and wind damage. (I can't take credit for this incredible photo, it's from NASA.)

Yesterday morning I was at work and suddenly realized it was black outside. The cute UPS guy showed up (yes, I'm married but I still have eyes) and told me there were 70 mph winds in a nearby town and sightings of potential funnel clouds.

Being me, I panicked: I turned off and unplugged all non-essential office equipment, rushed to complete all the tasks I needed electricity for, as well as called my mom, who was keeping Mabel, and told them to hang out in her basement/den until the storm passed. Ten years ago I never would have worried about tornadoes in our area, but after the tragedy in Salisbury, Pa., not far from us, I'm not so confident anymore.

That storm passed us, then I went home and cleaned up all the water in the house (too bad Hubby wasn't home to shut the windows!), then finished packing, tidying up the house, and hit the road.

We didn't escape the rain in Morgantown. At 5 p.m. the heavens opened up again, and when we went out to shop after the worst of it, we were sloshing through water-filled streets (thank goodness we were in Hubby's SUV). We did a little clothes shopping for Mabel, then we headed to my favorite pizza joint. The sky filled with another show of lightning and the heavy rains started again.

It's a little bit of a bummer to have all this rain, but according to the weather report it should be nice (but still hot) for the rest of the weekend. Mabel's in love with our hotel (one of her favorite shows is "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody"), so it's not upsetting her too much.

She's still sleeping, and I'm relaxing in our air conditioned room. Hubby called last night and said the good news was that they all caught Halibut on their chartered fishing trip. The bad news was his wedding ring slipped off and fell into the ocean. Oops.

I'm going to go get ready for my day and see if I can rouse my daughter from her slumber. Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Let's Blow This Pop Stand

2007-08-09T10:39:00.001-04:00

Even though this trip of mine is supposed to be a leisurely, fun adventure, even though I have no pressing deadline to get there other than checking in to our hotel, I still feel harried. I've been scrambling around last night and this morning trying to get us packed, clean things up around the house, set up arrangements for the dogs and make sure everything's taken care of at work.

Maybe I should have given myself a real vacation by just staying home and doing nothing!

But I am really looking forward to this mini-vacation. I finally got a hold of my long-lost friend JB yesterday, who was really hard to track down, and we have a lunch date for Friday. Then my other friend LS is meeting us for supper Friday night, and on Saturday afternoon we're getting together with PQ and her daughters for a swim date. I simply can't wait to catch up with everybody and find out how they're doing.

I don't have any problems with the laptop, but I'm having trouble locating the disc to download the software for my card reader. So the pictures may have to wait until I come home. I'm also going to try to blog while I'm away, but I'm not forcing myself to do anything this weekend.

Besides, if I stayed home, I'd just find things I "should" be doing, like my excavation/cleaning of Mabel's room. I left her to her own devices for far too long, and now it's a disorganized, chaotic mess. While packing I was trying to find part of her cheerleading outfit, which she needs when we return from our trip for her official portrait, and I wanted it laid out and ready when we got back. Well, I was going to wait to start the excavation next week while Hubby was away, but I wound up digging into it yesterday afternoon, determined to have this cheerleading outfit together. I wound up carrying bags of garbage out of that room, not to mention a ton of clothes that are now too small, as well as toys that she hasn't touched in ages. I finally found the missing article of clothing, but by then I had to keep going, because everything was ripped apart and all over the place. As of today it's still not done, but the hardest part of it is, and next week I will do the fine tuning -- the organizing of all her stuff.

I know eventually she will be a teenager and not be happy about me me tearing her room apart, digging into every nook and cranny and going through all her personal items. She will want her privacy, and I respect that. I just hope by that point she gets a little better about organization and throwing things away. Not likely, but a mother can dream.

Okay, enough procrastinating. I have to get back to work and get my sh*t together so I can blow this pop stand (I included a link in case no one knows what in the world I'm talking about with my antiquated idioms)! I'll check in later this weekend!

Yoga Girl Saves the World

2007-08-08T10:02:00.000-04:00

This post's title is inspired by my daughter, who will kill me if and when she discovers I've relayed the following story here. When she was younger and it was bath time, she revelled in getting naked and would run through the house yelling, "Naked Girl Saves the World!"

By the way, I love this print above, and if you click on the picture it will direct you to the website where you can order it.

Yesterday was my first yoga class. I wasn't sure what to expect, either from the instructor, my classmates, the location or the intensity of the poses. I turned out to be a small class, consisting of me and two other ladies. I'm guessing here, but one was in her 50s, and the other was maybe late 60s or early 70s.

Our instructor was Rachel, who I liked immediately. She had such a warm, inviting demeanor that I felt comfortable right away. She's my age (30s), with a cute blonde bob that looked very easy to maintain. What I liked about her was that while she was definitely toned and healthy looking, she was by no means skinny, which made me feel even more at ease. Is that being discriminating? I don't really have anything against skinny people per se, but knowing that my instructor isn't looking at me thinking "what in the hell is this fat broad doing here?"made me feel better.

The room was dimly lit, some nice relaxing music was playing in the background, and the air conditioning was a relief from the horribly hot and humid weather outside. The hour of yoga was a nice combination of poses I knew and some that were new to me. Some were easy and some challenged me a little, but none were impossible for me to do. Throughout the hour Rachel would read snippets from a book that talked about being conscious of our bodies, tapping into our positive energy and seeking out our spirituality.

When the class was over I felt mentally relaxed yet energized, even though some muscles in my legs were definitely feeling the work I had done. Rachel said she thought I did great and couldn't find anything to correct as far as posture, etc. It felt so good I wished I could go every day!

I know there's nothing stopping me from doing yoga at home every day -- except for my daughter, my husband, the dogs, the telephone, the doorbell, household chores and errands... As you can tell, there are a lot of distractions and "shoulds" that keep me from doing it. That's the great thing about this class -- it's paid for, so I'm more inclined to "get my money's worth," and it's away from the house, so I don't have all those interruptions and to-do lists to use as an excuse. It's time set aside just for me, and it's time spent toning my body, centering my mind and rejuvenating my spirit. You can't get much better than that.

*****

My husband left this morning for his Alaska trip. For months I've been looking forward to this husband-free week. You know, those little things like stretching out in the middle of the bed, not putting the toilet seat down every time I go to the bathroom, or picking up his dirty socks in every room of the house. And there have been times this summer, with him home on summer vacation from school, that I was counting the days -- heck, the minutes -- until I could get him out of my hair for a little while.

Yet when he hugged and kissed me goodbye this morning at 4 a.m., I really felt sad. And instead of enjoying having the entire bed to myself, I tossed and turned and couldn't get back to sleep. Mabel was missing Daddy this morning, too. But I know once we hit the road tomorrow and get busy with shopping and visiting we'll be fine.

Now that I have Hubby shipped off now it's my turn to pack and get everything ready. I'm taking my laptop along because our hotel room is supposed to have free wireless Internet, so I should be able to blog on the road. I just need to install my photo card reader on the laptop so I can upload pictures from our trip. So many things to do... it's always something.

To Shred and Remember

2007-08-07T09:54:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow my husband, his dad and two buddies are going to Alaska for a week of fishing salmon and halibut. Hubby has been counting down the days like a kid waiting for Christmas, and I have to admit I'm looking forward to a little "single girl" time, too.

During his week away Mabel and I are heading south to Morgantown, West Virginia. I lived in and around this little college town for five years, and they were five eventful years. When I first moved there I was a temporary employee and worked at several different places. I was a temp the longest at West Virginia University (Go Mountaineers!), and then I finally got a full-time job at The Dominion Post newspaper. I made so many good friends there, and it was while living there that I adopted Mabel.

There were a lot of good memories about Mo-town, but there were some bittersweet ones, too. I moved down there for a man, thinking this was The One, but after trying hard for almost four years, I had to quit banging my head against a brick wall and walk away. I don't really consider it a bad memory, though, because I left on my terms and felt stronger and more self-confident than I ever had in my life. I suppose that's why I took the leap and went through the adoption process -- if figured I could survive that relationship, I could handle anything. Which is funny, because since the adoption I've said in difficult times, "If I can get through an international adoption, I can get through anything." Funny how we change the barometer of stress and difficulty in our lives.

Anyway, the purpose of this trip is twofold: do some back-to-school shopping for Mabel (what joy to go to an area that has more to offer than just a Hell-Mart like our little town!) and to visit old friends. Yesterday I spent a good amount of time on the telephone and e-mail tracking people down and scheduling times to meet up with these people.

I talked for about an hour with B., who is the sister-in-law of my Ex. We became very good friends during my relationship with her brother-in-law, so close in fact that she went with me to Vietnam when I adopted Mabel. We caught up on each other's lives, our families and our work. I had to bite the bullet and ask about the Ex, and I was actually kind of glad to hear that he got a good job and is doing charity bike runs with his motorcycle. He's still battling his diabetes and his fondness for alcohol, but it sounds like he's making the effort to deal with both.

Is it odd to wish the Ex well? It didn't help me to hold on to old hurts and slights, so they've just kind of faded away. I don't carry around a lot of hatred or resentment for the guy, because the truth of it was he just wasn't cut out to live with another person. And like I said, it made me a stronger, more self-reliant person, so there was some good that came out of it.

To further this look back, I finally started one of my Procrastination Projects this morning and started shredding old receipts, most of them from my Morgantown days. Even though they were only old utility bills or bank statements from closed accounts, they all brought back memories. Names I hadn't thought about in years popped up at me, and recalling things I had purchased and thought important at the time.

It's moments like these to see how far we've really come, how we've matured, learned and changed. While I'm still Me, I do feel like I was a different person back then, and the extra 100 pounds was only a part of it. I've learned so much about myself, about what's really important to me, and I'm making headway with issues I never thought I'd be able to come to grips with. It's a good feeling to know that in many ways I'm a better person than I was then. Not perfect, but better. That's all we can ask for.

Missing In Action

2007-08-05T09:04:00.000-04:00

Before I get into my actual post, I have to quote Crazy Aunt Purl, because she totally sums up what I was writing about on Thursday:

"But when you have a Sunday morning to yourself, and it's not hot yet outside and the windows are open and the breeze is nice and you have on some music or maybe a book-on-CD or maybe just silence, and it's just you and a single cleaning project ... well, that's when the act of cleaning becomes more than a to-do list item. It's accomplishment and activity and self-care all in one. This is the same reason I love knitting, because it can be a form of active meditation, too, and I have always loved sewing for the same peaceful freedom from my own thoughts and worries. Intense concentration on one action, one very productive action, is something I just lose myself in.

"I think sometimes I forget to put "cleaning" on the list of activities that zen me out because I often associate it with duty and work. But cleaning, when it's just for the sheer joy of a pretty sink or a sparkling fridge or a single shiny pane of window glass, can be happiness and meditation all in one. (This works particularly well for those of who who find sitting still and meditating a near impossible task.)"

Okay, on to the present.

I've been Missing In Action this past weekend, not only here in Blogland but in my head, too. It was PMS weekend, my first on the new medicine, so maybe that has something to do with it. But every time I'd try to read my usual IE blogs, IE posts or try to post on my own blog, I kept losing focus and concentration and thinking "I can't deal with this right now."

And man did I overeat. Saturday was the worst -- I felt like an empty pit that I couldn't fill no matter how hard I tried. Part of it was being at a birthday party I didn't really want to be at: I was surrounded by tall, thin, perfectly accessorized blonde women and felt like an ogre. So I dove into the food and ate way more than I should have.

The good news is that Saturday was by far the worst day and Sunday I definitely scaled back on the eating. The best part was I didn't do it out of a desire to diet or deprive myself, it just felt natural not to eat as much.

But as we all know, it's more than just the food. I feel very shut off from my emotions right now, and I don't know if it's the Lexapro or PMS or a phase I'm going through. It could very well be hormonal, because as you know last week I was feeling really good, the best I've felt in ages, and suddenly, the three days before my TOTM, I'm in a fog. By the end of this week I could feel great again. I just have to work through it.

Tomorrow I'm starting a yoga class, and I'm hoping that it will help me get more in touch with my body and being conscious in the moment. I've done yoga with tapes before but never had an instructor, and I'm looking forward to have someone make sure I'm using proper form and posture. Let's just hope I'm not in a class full of tall, thin blondes. Not that I have anything against TTBs, but a little more diversity would be nice!

Dreaming of Peaceful Fridays

2007-08-02T09:35:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was the first day in a long while that I truly felt upbeat and energized. It wasn't forced, like I was pushing myself in any way to be happy for someone else. It was very natural and comfortable and even my husband noticed and commented on it.

This morning I did have to force myself out of bed, though. I laid there debating whether I should sleep in a little longer or get up and walk. I knew I wasn't going to get any more beneficial sleep, maybe a little dozing, but nothing substantial. And the main thought that propelled me was, "You know you're going to feel better if you walk."

And I did. I can feel a real difference in comparison to last week. On the days I don't walk I skulk to the shower, feeling drowsy and finding the whole effort of getting ready for my day tedious and a struggle. On the days I do walk, I seem to have more zip in my step; my brain is more alert and I seem to fly through my routines and I'm motivated to sneak in more chores as I prepare. This week I've managed to pop a load of laundry in the washing machine each morning, and today I started a load in the dishwasher, too. And on these days I feel more "entitled" to spend my afternoons doing something leisurely like my counted cross stitch or reading.

A lot of this is getting in tune with my body and its energy cycles. I've discovered I'm more productive and energetic in the morning, so it's the best time for me to get housecleaning and other chores done. I tend to have a low point in the afternoons when I'm decompressing from work and my motivation and energy hits bottom, so it makes sense to do relaxing "me time" things then.

Taking all of this into consideration, I'm looking into making some changes in my schedule. I went to the local arts center yesterday and signed up for a yoga class, which will be held from 1 to 2 p.m. on Tuesdays in August. In September there's also a Pilates class starting on Fridays at noon, and I'd like to take that, too. This ties into the changes I'd like to make at work: this summer I've been taking Fridays off, and I'm realizing how much I love having this day for myself. It's become my housecleaning morning and I've been amazed how much I can get done in a few hours when I devote myself to it. If I continue to take Fridays off, I could then clean in the mornings, then zip over to Pilates at noon.

Of course, I need to get approval from the Church Council, but I don't think it'll be a problem. My predecessor took Fridays off, and currently my Pastor doesn't come into the office that day, either. But as my seminar instructor taught me, the best way to get what you want is to point out how it will benefit your boss. My pitch will be that I'll extend my office hours on Monday-Thursday. I know in many instances that congregation members have trouble getting to the office before noon, which is my current closing time. If I extend that to 1 p.m., that will enable people to use their lunch hour to get to the office to drop off/pick up items, etc.

And just think, in a month my husband and daughter will be back to school and I'll have the house all to myself on Fridays. Ahh, it seems like a dream come true!

The Logical Solution

2007-08-01T10:48:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I wrote about feeling a lack of motivation, but today I realize that's not really an absolute truth -- in fact, I think it's from negative thoughts plus some perfectionism that have been accepted as truth, albeit irrational.

For example, since my seminar last Thursday I have been much more motivated at work. I have been getting myself better organized, filing papers on a daily basis, as well as writing a goal/to do list at the end of the day so I know exactly what needs to be done the next morning. I do a little bit each day and I find myself feeling more productive and pleased with myself.

While I felt like I was a lazy bum yesterday, I know that wasn't true, either. I helped Hubby move the furniture back into the foyer, dusted and put things back in place; I set the table for dinner and washed the dishes; I did a load of laundry; and I did a lot of counted cross stitch. I probably did more that I'm not even remembering like general tidying up and mommy stuff. Granted, the house wasn't cleaned from top to bottom, but who says I have to be an indentured servant in my house every day to feel like a good wife/mother?

At my seminar the instructor told us that the average person has 20,000 thoughts per day (who knows how this number was derived) and that the grand majority of those thoughts are negative ones. It's no wonder there's so much pessimism, depression and anger in the world. Some people try to always look for the positives, but it can be pretty difficult trying to stay upbeat all the time. We all know someone in our lives who drives us crazy always looking for the silver lining in our black clouds.

That's where conscious living becomes the logical solution. Instead of fighting the negatives or forcing the positives, doesn't it seem easier to just accept what is without judgment or criticism? The more I approach life this way, the better I feel. Not ecstatic, but not down in the dumps, either. It makes the bad things more bearable and makes the good things less crucial for happiness. Either way, we're less affected by the external world and can find peace in our internal Being.

Peachy Keen

2007-07-31T09:58:00.000-04:00

I was getting ready to start typing this post when I decided to try one of the donut peaches my husband picked yesterday at a nearby orchard. I took a bite and proceeded to have peach juice squirt down my leg and on the plastic mat at my desk, and I had to run to the restroom to get paper towels to clean up!

Donut peaches are by far my favorite peach, and unfortunately they're the most expensive. I don't buy them in the grocery stores because I can't justify paying almost a dollar each for these things. But when we can get them at the orchard, hmmm boy, talk about a little piece of heaven! They're called donut because they're flatter than the typical peach and indented in the middle, just like a donut. They are so sweet and fragrant and just the right size for a quick little snack.

I notice I haven't been posting daily and have been down to every other day. I could use the excuse that Hubby was doing the final layers of Varathane on the foyer floor yesterday and I couldn't access the computer again, but I really couldn't think of anything important to relate. I worked on the counted cross stitch, played with the dogs, took Mabel to gymnastics. Normal everyday things.

Things just aren't bothering me as much. I suppose that's the medicine doing its magic. I'm not worrying myself to death about what I weigh, I'm not spazzing over my eating and I'm not driven to binge. But the sad thing is, I almost miss some of my over-reaction because it does get me motivated. When I freak out over the house being messy, it propels me to clean it thoroughly. Now it's like, "Oh well, I'll get to it eventually." I guess there's a fine line between letting things be and apathy, and I've got to fine tune that balance.

For example, last week I only walked once, and while I felt a little bad about not exercising, I didn't beat myself up about it. I guess it was because in my mind I knew I'd get back to it, because I honestly enjoy it. Now that my sister-in-law is on vacation I don't have to get up quite as early, so it's not so hard to pry myself out of bed. There's something about exploring my little town at sunrise by foot and being outside that makes me feel more connected to the world. The rest of the morning I feel more energized and awake when I take that time to get my body moving and my heart pumping after a night of rest. So there was really no point in smacking myself around for taking a week off.

As for the food? Well, I do kind of play Mother with myself sometimes when I see what food choices I've been making lately. But I've been permissive with myself and letting myself work through this legalization phase of Intuitive Eating. And as I suspected, I'm not permanently craving cookies and cake. On Sunday I made a beeline for the strawberries and blueberries, and of course today I'm having my love affair with donut peaches. I know I have to work through this period where I'm still dealing with thoughts of deprivation and need to allow myself to have what I want, and with enough time and patience my love of all kinds of food, healthy and not-as-healthy, will balance out.

I should find contentment in things being peachy keen right now and not wish for my old drama. It sure is a lot easier living this way.

Taking Care of Business

2007-07-29T07:17:00.001-04:00

So much for back to business.

I couldn't get to the computer for the majority of the day because my husband is working on our foyer floor. After he stains it we can't go upstairs for hours, so I was kept away until bed time. And then I was just too tired!

It's going to happen again today, so I'm trying to get some kind of posting done before I'm barred again.

The seminar was interesting. We spent the majority of the day talking about confidence, assertiveness and communication. The instructor explained the difference between passive, aggressive, and passive-aggressive behavior in very easy to understand win and lose terms.
(When you're passive, you lose and the other person wins; when you're aggressive, you win and the other person loses; when you're passive-aggressive, you both lose) Of course, assertiveness was the preferred method of being (with a little tact and compromise both people win) and the instructor gave us lots of tips on how to phrase requests to get the best impact.

The greatest part of the day was when she illustrated cognitive behavioral therapy on her overhead projector. I had to suppress a smile because it's so odd how this seminar on being a better administrative assistant tied in almost completely to my work with Intuitive Eating and conscious living.

I had a doctor's appointment on Friday morning to check on my new medicine. Of course I had to get on the scale again, and I was up a couple pounds from the last time I was there, which was no shock, really. I've been overeating quite a bit this week and can definitely feel it in my midsection. But I was glad to see that I'm still staying within a 5-pound range. The other good news is that my blood pressure was at an all-time low -- 110/60 -- which pleased me to no end. All that walking must be doing some good!

The doctor has increased my Lexapro from 10 mg to 20 mg, which is supposedly the standard dose. She said my side effects shouldn't increase, but I do seem to be getting a little drowsier again. But nothing terrible.

I do need to address the eating I've been doing the past few days. It's been some mindless eating, snacking out of the box kind of thing, as well as eating past the point of comfortably full. Some of it might be hormonal, some of it might be coping with the extra-hectic week. I know on Thursday and Friday I was quite irritable and snapping at my poor family members, so I do think there were stress issues there.

The good news is I've been able to be in an observational kind of mode as I look at this and not in the judgmental mode. Because of this I feel my need to eat like this slowly waning and not getting worse because I'm not adding to my stress by bashing myself and calling my behavior "bad" or "failing." It's a phase, one of those "cycles" I mentioned in an earlier post, and it will run its course and pass.

I think I'm caught up now. I've started another counted cross stitch project; actually, it's one I started years ago and decided to try to finish. I went up to the attic this week to find my old needlework supplies and found several projects I started and never finished. So I decided not to buy another blessed thing until these are finally completed.

That seems to be the theme of my life right now: finally tackling things I've let lie around for years. Seems like a good thing.

Stupified by Potter

2007-07-27T20:34:00.001-04:00

I meant to write a nice big post today about my seminar yesterday and how what I learned not only related to my job, but to my personal life, too.

But Hubby bought the 7th and final Harry Potter book, and I couldn't pry myself away from it until it was done. I was so wrapped up in it that I didn't do my housework; I forgot to do something I had told someone I would do (and I'll probably get in trouble for it, too!); and I was darn near rude to my mother in my distracted responses when she called me in the middle of it.

While part of me feels like an irresponsible layabout for all of that, isn't it wonderful when a book can do that to you? The rest of the world fades way and you're so swept up in the action your eyes are racing across the pages. I haven't felt so absorbed and involved in a book for a long, long time.

Now that the series is done I feel a sense of sadness; J.K. Rowling's wizarding world became so real, the characters so alive, that it's hard to see it come to an end. But like the other great works of fiction, these volumes will live on for my daughter, her children, and so on down the generations.

As a some-time writer, I admire Rowling's ability to make this story so universally loved by people of all ages. It's a feat I only dream of attaining. As for today, I'm unfortunately short on words because my other beloved British fictional character, Doctor Who, will be on the telly in about 20 minutes. I'll get back to business tomorrow, I swear!

Busy Day

2007-07-26T06:39:00.000-04:00

I am going to a seminar today, then have to meet my family for dinner to see my uncle who's in from out of town. But I can't stay long, because then I have to take Mabel to her Vacation Bible School finale.

Phew. I'm tired already!

I'll be back tomorrow!

The Ride of Negativity

2007-07-23T10:42:00.000-04:00

Yesterday Hubby and I took Mabel and her friend to Idelwild Park. It's one of the oldest amusement parks in the country, apparently, at 130 years old. We had beautiful weather for the first half of our stay, then dealt with a little rain and some thunder and lightening at the end of the day. The girls still managed to get in a lot of fun with rides, water slides and games.

I will confess to you my goal for this trip was to get my favorite treat, a funnel cake with ice cream and strawberries on top. Usually when I get this I clean my plate, but this year I didn't finish it -- I got to my satisfaction point and felt quite okay with throwing the rest away. A sign of progress, I think.

On the way home we stopped at a little diner for supper, and I was really torn about what to get. I wound up ordering a Reuben sandwich with a side of onion rings and ate it all. This morning I paid the consequences for that salty corned beef and sauerkraut -- water retention.

It's amazing how a little bloat can trigger a flood of negative thinking. I started thinking that I'm not eating "healthy" and will start gaining more weight. Add that to the fact that I haven't gone on my morning walks the last two mornings, and the negative diet mentality thoughts only escalated.

But I notice that I catch myself being negative a lot quicker than I used to; I am more conscious of this behavior and can quickly realize it does me no good. So I find myself able to shake myself out of this attitude before it can evolve into depression, self-loathing or disordered eating. And fortunately, this conveniently ties in to some of the notes I took on "The Power of Now" before I took it back to the library.

"All inner resistance is experienced as negativity, in one form or another. All negativity is resistance. In this context, the two words are almost synonymous. Negativity ranges from irritation or impatience to fierce anger, from a depressed mood or sullen resentment to suicidal despair. Sometimes the resistance triggers the emotional pain-body, in which case even a minor situation may produce intense negativity, such as anger, depression, or deep grief."

And in my case, anxiety attacks or binges. Eckhart Tolle also delves into why it's so hard for many of us to let go of this resistance, which leads to negativity and the subsequent dysfunctional behavior:

"Once you have identified with some form of negativity, you do not want to let go, and on a deeply unconscious level, you do not want positive change. It would threaten your identity as a depressed, angry, or hard-done-by person. You will then ignore, deny or sabotage the positive in your life. This is a common phenomenon. It is also insane."

You could say negative emotions can deliver a message -- a signal from our body that something's wrong, that something needs to change. In the past this negativity would have been a signal to me that I needed to get "back on track" and be stricter with my diet and exercise. But I've learned that there's so much more behind it besides the "eat less, move more" solution, and Tolle agrees:

"Yes, recurring negative emotions do sometimes contain a message, as do illnesses. But any changes that you make, whether they have to do with your work, your relationships or your surroundings, are ultimately only cosmetic unless they arise out of a change in your level of consciousness. And as far as that is concerned, it can only mean one thing: becoming more present. When you have reached a certain degree of presence, you don't need negativity anymore to tell you what is needed in your life situation. But as long as negativity is there, use it. Use it as a kind of signal that reminds you to be more present.

He even gives some advice on how to stop negativity:

"Whenever you notice that some form of negativity has arisen within you, look on it not as a failure, but as a helpful signal that is telling you: 'Wake up. Get out of your mind. Be present.'

"...whenever you feel negativity arising within you, whether caused by an external factor, a thought, or even nothing in particular that you are aware of, look on it as a voice saying 'Attention. Here and Now. Wake up.' Even the slightest irritation is significant and needs to be acknowledged and looked at; otherwise, there will be a cumulative build-up of unobserved reactions. As I said before, you may be able to just drop it once you realize that you don't want to have this energy field inside you and that it serves no purpose. But then make sure that you drop it completely. If you cannot drop it, just accept that it is there and take your attention into the feeling, as I pointed out earlier.

"As an alternative to dropping a negative reaction, you can make it disappear by imagining yourself becoming transparent to the external cause of the reaction... Feel yourself becoming transparent, as it were, without the solidity of a material to pass right through you. It is no longer hitting a solid 'wall' inside you... practice with little things first. The car alarm, the dog barking, the children screaming, the traffic jam. Instead of having a wall of resistance inside you that gets constantly and painfully hit by things that "shouldn't be happening," let everything pass through you.

"Somebody says something to you that is rude or designed to hurt. Instead of going into unconscious reaction and negativity, such as attack, defense, or withdrawal, you let it pass right through you. Offer no resistance. It is as if there is nobody there to get hurt anymore. That is forgiveness. In this way, you become invulnerable. You can still tell that person that his or her behavior is unacceptable, if that is what you choose to do. But that person no longer has the power to control your inner state. You are then in your power -- not in someone else's, nor are you run by your mind. Whether it is a car alarm, a rude person, a flood, an earthquake, or the loss of all your possessions, the resistance mechanism is the same."

This is great to remember when someone you know says something hurtful or rude, but even more important when the perpetrator is yourself.

So, instead of falling into diet mentality, these negative thoughts remind me to be more conscious, to stay the course with Intuitive Eating. I keep myself from falling back into the restrict/binge cycle, which just leads to more negative thinking, and on and on it goes, like an amusement park ride.

Cycles, Judgment and Joy

2007-07-23T08:23:00.001-04:00

I have to return "The Power of Now" to the library today. So I'm trying to get some last-minute tidbits of wisdom from it before I take it back. (I have a copy ordered, but it's going to be a while until I get it because it's being shipped with something I pre-ordered that won't be available until September.)

Wouldn't you know, I found something that directly related to my previous post about my lack of energy and need to be productive:

"Your physical energy is also subject to cycles. It cannot always be at a peak. There will be times of low as well as high energy. There will be periods when you are highly active and creative, but there may also be times when everything seems stagnant, when it seems that you are not getting anywhere, not achieving anything. A cycle can last for anything from a few hours to a few years. There are large cycles and small cycles within these large ones. Many illnesses are created through fighting against the cycles of low energy, which are vital for regeneration. The compulsion to do, and the tendency to derive your sense of self-worth and identity from external factors such as achievement, is an inevitable illusion as long as you are identified with the mind. This makes it hard or impossible for you to accept the low cycles and allow them to be. Thus, the intelligence of the organism may take over as a self-protective measure and create an illness in order to force you to stop, so that the necessary regeneration can take place."

While some of this fatigue is probably a side effect of the medication, I do think it's my body telling me it's time to rest, to recuperate and regenerate from ... everything. I shouldn't fight it, let it be, and let the cycle run its course.

The weekend was interesting as far as food went. Saturday night we went out for dinner and I ordered eggplant Parmesan, which came with a side of spaghetti, a salad and bread. I ate all of my salad and one piece of bread, then my entree came. It was very good and I was really enjoying it, but halfway through I just knew I was done. I hit that satisfaction point where I felt good: not hungry anymore, but not stuffed, either. I knew I could pack the rest of it up and eat it later. I'm still at the stage that finding that moment is a shocking realization to me. I'm hopeful that it will eventually become an everyday occurrence.

Sunday morning went well, too. I had the same thing for breakfast that I ate Saturday, but I found myself very content with half the amount I had the day before. The problem came in the afternoon. I got an attack of the "snackies" and had more than my share of sweet and salty snacks. My feelings of fullness went dead on me and I had to consciously stop eating because my body wasn't sending a strong enough signal, or else my brain wasn't getting the signal. It wasn't until an hour later or so that it caught up with me, but by then my family wanted supper so I cooked our meal. I could have easily skipped that meal, but I went ahead and ate anyway. Then our neighbors invited us over and they had this incredible homemade cake with mandarin oranges in the cake and fresh blueberries in the layers and on top. I ate a piece, then my SIL, who was also there, and I picked at a piece that had fallen apart on the serving dish.

Last night I really felt like I had overeaten and wasn't thrilled about it. The good news is, instead of falling into binge mentality and thinking, "Well, since I've already blown it today, I might as well go all the way," I didn't eat anything else. I could have easily broken into my stash of candy bars (that I bought a week ago and haven't touched) and sucked them all down in a combination of self-pity and self-hatred. But there was no need to empty my cupboards, and there was no point in punishing myself.

This all comes down to that "good" and "bad" mentality, that all-or-nothing thinking when it comes to eating and especially dieting. Eckhart Tolle once again discusses this in "The Power of Now:"

"As long as a condition is judged as 'good' by your mind, whether it be a relationship, a possession, a social role, a place, or your physical body, the mind attaches itself to it and identifies with it. It makes you happy, makes you feel good about yourself, and it may become part of who you are or think you are. But nothing lasts in this dimension where moth and rust consume. Either it ends or it changes, or it may undergo a polarity shift: The same condition that was good yesterday or last year has suddenly or gradually turned into bad. The same condition that made you happy, then makes you unhappy. The prosperity of today becomes the empty consumerism of tomorrow. The happy wedding and honeymoon becomes the unhappy divorce or the unhappy coexistence. Or a condition disappears, so its absence makes you unhappy. When a condition or situation that the mind has attached itself to and identified with changes or disappears, the mind cannot accept it. It will cling to the disappearing condition and resist the change. It is almost as if a limb were being torn off your body. "

The problem with judging things as good or giving you happiness is that it inevitably leads to its opposite, the bad and unhappy. "What comes up must come down," the old saying goes. When we merely accept things as they are, to accept what simply is, there's no opposite, no downside. We don't experience happiness or unhappiness, but peace.

"Through allowing the 'isness' of all things," Tolle says, "a deeper dimension underneath the play of opposites reveals itself to you as an abiding presence, an unchanging deep stillness, an uncaused joy beyond good and bad. This is the joy of Being, the peace of God."

So, in looking back at my weekend, what good does it do to judge my eating as "good" Saturday and "bad" Sunday? If I just view both events as inevitable cycles, it eliminates the emotional ups and downs that I feel about my "performance." There will be days that I will be in tune with my body's hunger and fullness signals, and there will be days that I won't. It doesn't make me a good or bad person. It just is, and I am simply Being.

This means I need to surrender and accept the good with the bad. Because the minute I begin to seek happiness from one behavior, I am also taking in the inseparable unhappiness that accompanies it. This doesn't mean I should give up or shouldn't still strive to learn healthier behaviors. Tolle writes about this, too:

"This is not being negative. It is simply recognizing the nature of things, so that you don't pursue an illusion for the rest of your life. Nor is it saying that you should no longer appreciate pleasant or beautiful things or conditions. But to seek something through them that they cannot give -- an identity, a sense of permanency and fulfilment -- is a recipe for frustration and suffering... The more you seek happiness in this way, the more it will elude you. Nothing out there will ever satisfy you except temporarily and superficially, but you may need to experience many disillusionments before you realize the truth. Things and conditions can give you pleasure, but they cannot give you joy. Nothing can give you joy. Joy is uncaused and arises from within as the joy of Being. It is an essential part of the inner state of peace, the state that has been called the peace of God. It is your natural state, not something that you need to work hard for struggle to attain."

I can still strive to be an intuitive eater, but doing that will not solve all the problems in my life. It will not give me joy. Only living consciously, accepting what is and not resisting the natural cycles of life, will give me peace from judgment and unhappiness. Now the trick is to actually do it!

Getting Productive

2007-07-21T13:40:00.000-04:00

This is part of the reason why I didn't post yesterday. I finished this just a few minutes ago, although I did a lot of work on it yesterday.

I need to get this framed now, along with the tomato and pepper ones I did eons ago. I hope I can find a framer who won't cost an arm and a leg.

This wasn't the only reason I didn't post yesterday. Other than this and a few household chores, I was feeling really lazy, tired and sluggish. After my usual 2.5-mile walk with my SIL, I felt so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open. I couldn't muster any oomph to get online and write, so I skipped it. I also noticed I felt really hungry several times and ate more than I have in the last couple weeks; not compulsive binge eating, but definitely some overeating with snacks in the afternoon and the evening.

I suppose after the last couple weeks I'm allowed a day to be sluggish and eat a little more than usual. I know since starting the Lexapro I haven't been eating near as much as I had been, so maybe my body was just letting me know that it was a little depleted, both in energy and calories. Today I'm feeling a little better, a little more energy and motivation. I've had two rather big meals so far today, but nothing extraordinary, and no urge to binge, either.

This lack of energy thing is beginning to get a little tiresome. I hope this side effect will soon pass and I'll have more get-up-and-go soon. I'm still trying to figure out the best time to take this Lexapro, too. I thought taking it in the evening day would make me less tired in the day time, but it doesn't seem to be working at all the last two days. So I may go back to early evening/late afternoon and see how that works.

I know I'm still in the very early stages of this medication and it will take time to get regulated-- where have I heard that before? As usual, there's no overnight cure, no instant gratification. You think I'd get used to that by now.

I should go and get productive around the house -- Hubby has been working like a maniac sanding our foyer floor so he can then stain and varnish it. It's made me feel like even more of a layabout, so I need to make myself useful somewhere. I know I've got laundry to put away and a kitchen to clean. There's always something.

Signs of Progress

2007-07-19T10:15:00.000-04:00

My husband has been complaining for some time about our bathroom scale. It is a digital scale, and apparently the battery is dying, because the weight measurements are wildly off.

I got on this morning to see for myself. My first weight was way too high, 30 to 40 pounds higher than I expected. Then I got on again and it was fluctuating somewhere between 90-100 pounds. Um, yeah, time to change the battery!

After putting in a new 9-volt battery, I tried the scale again. After seeing the reading, I tried it one more time, just to make sure it was accurate again. I noted that I've lost about 4 to 5 pounds from my post-vacation high.

While this was good news, I was pleased that I didn't go into squeals of delight and dance around the house the rest of the morning. I don't want to get into that losing weight "high" that led me into the diet/binge cycle. I took it as a sign that my body is slowly beginning to self-regulate now that I'm not binge eating, and I'm trying not to attach anything else to it.

I had my first therapy session in a month yesterday, and I was trying to explain to her how this medicine has seemingly turned off a lot of the compulsive thoughts that had taken over my brain. Here's an example: last night after Mabel's gymnastics practice, she was hungry, so we stopped at the grocery store nearby. She picked out some chocolate chip cookies from the bakery and we each had one on the way home. We both were satisfied after the one, although I had to think about it a little bit. The habit, the old behavior would have been to eat two, three or four because the sensations of eating are so pleasurable. But I realized that eating more would not make the experience any better, just longer. So I let it go and I was okay with that.

I was at work for a few hours this morning when I realized I completely forgot about the cookies in the house. Last night I had thought about bringing one or two in the office with me for a snack, but today their presence in my home totally slipped my mind. The old compulsive me would have had those things calling to me all night. Now I can't even remember where I put them!

For years I've always wished that I could be nonchalant about food, one of those people who forget to eat a meal or can shrug off typical tempting foods like cake, cookies, etc. I can't imagine not remembering to eat, but I do seem to be letting go of some of my obsessiveness with both food and my weight.

But who knows? Maybe someday I'll realize I haven't binged or weighed myself in six months or more. But I can't focus on the future; I'm in recovery now, the signs of progress are all around me, and that's the important thing.

Apathy or Spiritual Enlightenment?

2007-07-18T08:58:00.000-04:00

I'm having trouble coming up with some big pressing issue to write about here today. I normally have some little drama, some problem that I expound upon or allude to here and try to break it down until I can make sense of it or find a way to work on it.

Nothing's really striking me as pressing today. I still have some irritations (another dog diarrhea incident this morning, but fortunately it was contained on linoleum), some family issues that are fluttering around like some pesty flies, but nothing has me fired up.

The IE continues to go well. At supper time I was feeling a little nauseated again (I'm slowly moving my medication time from morning to evening to try to counteract these side effects), so I ate a very light supper. Before, in diet mode, because it was meal time I 'd stuff myself with as many vegetables as I could because it was "guilt-free" food and a permissible time to eat. Later I made Mabel a little ice cream cone and decided to make one for myself, too. It tasted great, and although it was much smaller than anything I'd get at an ice cream stand, it was just as satisfying. It all felt incredibly normal.

My first reaction is that it has to be the medicine. I told my SIL this morning on our walk about something that came up yesterday. I said if it had happened the week before I'd be seething, but today I'm just shrugging my shoulders and thinking, "Oh well, there's no point worrying about it now; I'll address it when it actually happens."

I keep thinking about Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now" and his idea of people incorrectly identifying themselves with their problems. I caught myself almost feeling disappointed that my anxiety and urges to binge are vanishing so quickly with this medicine, because there was a part of my mind that was identifying with these problems and wanted to cling to them for a while longer, whether it be for sympathy or to be treated with kid gloves by my family for a while.

He writes about it very well here:

"To suddenly see that you are or have been attached to your pain can be a quite shocking realization. The moment you realize this, you have broken the attachment. The pain-body is an energy field, almost like an entity, that has become temporarily lodged in your inner space. It is life energy that has become trapped, energy that is no longer flowing. Of course, the pain-body is there because of certain things that happened in the past. It is the living past in you, and if you identify with it, you identify with the past. A victim identity is the belief that the past is more powerful than the present, which is the opposite of the truth. It is the belief that other people and what they did to you are responsible for who you are now, for your emotional pain or your inability to be your true self. The truth is that the only power there is, is contained within this moment: It is the power of your presence. Once you know that, you also realize that you are responsible for your inner space now -- nobody else is -- and that the past cannot prevail against the power of the Now."

This is pretty shocking for me. It's like my brain is going, "Uh oh. If I can't identify myself with Generalized Anxiety Disorder or Binge Eating Disorder, I have to be my true self. And what is that?"

On my walk yesterday I was by myself and listening to my Sirius satellite radio. I was flipping through the channels and came across Janis Joplin singing "Me and Bobby McGee." In this song (written by Kris Kristofferson) she sings "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose," and that's how I'm feeling right now. I'm being freed from the compulsive thoughts that lead me to anxiety and bingeing, and I'm feeling at loose ends.

When I have these aggravating moments now and I don't (over) react, I actually worry that I'm being lulled into a drugged apathy, a zombified state. But read this excerpt from "The Power of Now:"

"Do you resent what you are doing? It may be your job, or may have agreed to do something and are doing it, but part of you resents and resists it. Are you carrying unspoken resentment toward a person close to you? Do you realize that the energy you thus emanate is so harmful in its effects that you are in fact contaminating yourself as well as those around you?...

"Maybe you are being taken advantage of, maybe the activity you are engaged in is tedious, maybe someone close to you is dishonest, irritating, or unconscious, but all this is irrelevant. Whether your thoughts and emotions about this situation are justified or not makes no difference. The fact is that you are resisting what is. You are making the present moment into an enemy. You are creating unhappiness...

"Either stop doing what you are doing, speak to the person concerned and express fully what you feel, or drop the negativity that your mind has created around the situation and that serves no purpose whatsoever except to strengthen a false sense of self."

He then explains in simple terms how to drop the negativity:

"How do you drop a piece of hot coal that you are holding in your hand? How do you drop some heavy and useless baggage that you are carrying? By recognizing that you don't want to suffer the pain or carry the burden anymore and then letting go of it."

Later in the book Tolle elaborates on people creating drama in their lives and what happens when you let go of it:

"When you feel sorry for yourself, that's drama. When you feel guilty or anxious, that's drama. When you let the past or future obscure the present, you are creating time, psychological time -- the stuff out of which drama is made. Whenever you are not honoring the present moment by allowing it to be, you are creating drama.

"Most people are in love with their particular life drama. Their story is their identity. The ego runs their life. They have their whole sense of self invested in it. Even their -- usually unsuccessful -- search for an answer, a solution, or for healing becomes part of it. What they fear and resist most is the end of their drama. As long as they are their mind, what they fear and resist most is their own awakening.

"When you live in complete acceptance of what is, that is the end of all drama in your life. Nobody can even have an argument with you, no matter how hard he or she tries. You cannot have an argument with a fully conscious person. An argument implies identification with your mind and a mental position, as well as resistance and reaction to the other person's position. The result is that the polar opposites become mutually energized. These are the mechanics of unconsciousness. You can still make your point clearly and firmly, but there will be no reactive force behind it, no defense or attack. So it won't turn into drama. When you are fully conscious, you cease to be in conflict. 'No one who is at one with himself can even conceive of conflict,' states A Course in Miracles. This refers not only to conflict with other people but more fundamentally to conflict within you, which ceases when there is no longer any clash between the demands and expectations of your mind and what is."

It wasn't too long ago that I was wishing to achieve a state like this. Now that I'm beginning to get it, I'm questioning it. Am I in a drugged stupor, or is the medicine a tool that's helping me to stop resisting what is and stop creating unnecessary unhappiness for myself? Am I apathetic or enlightened?

I need to quit doubting or second-guessing this gift I'm receiving, whether it's drug-induced or not. I'm becoming more conscious, I'm becoming less resistant to what is and creating less drama in my life. These are all good things. Whether I'm ready for it or not, my life drama is coming to an end. I need to learn to accept it and be at peace with it.

A Stitch in Time

2007-07-17T10:28:00.000-04:00

According to Urban Dictionary, "a stitch in time saves nine" means "that it is better to deal with problems immediately rather than later as things will worsen and take longer to amend."

Hmm, tackle a problem now instead of letting things build and grow worse... doesn't seem to apply to me at all...

Enough sarcasm. On Sunday I started a counted cross stitch project that has been sitting around collecting dust for years. It's part of a set of three pictures of garden vegetables that will match my kitchen nicely. The other two pictures (of tomatoes and peppers) have been completed and sitting in a shirt box for ... holy crap, 9 or 10 years! Once I get this final project, the artichoke, done, I plan on getting all three framed and will hang in my kitchen.

I can't believe it's been 10 years since I seriously cranked out any needlework. Actually, it was 15 years ago this summer that I learned how to do it.

On July 14, 1992, my dad, my sister and I were in Alaska on a rare (in fact, only) father-daughter trip to salmon fish the Kvichak River. Dad got a call from home and came to us later to inform us that his dad, my Grandpa Harold, collapsed at his favorite diner that morning and was life flighted to Pittsburgh with a ruptured aorta. Despite their attempts to save him, the damage was too severe and he passed away.

A few days ago my mother and I were talking about this 15th anniversary and how this event was really a major turning point in our family, or should I say the eventual dissolution of our extended family. Grandpa Harold was a quiet man who sometimes came off as gruff, but he was truly the keystone of our family, the stable, solid presence who kept everyone civil and smoothed over ruffled feathers. Without him, the petty bickering, old resentments and festering issues that he managed to keep in check went out of control.

For me personally it was also a watershed moment. The day of his funeral was the day I finally realized that my father would never be able to be there for me emotionally in any capacity. I don't know what I cried over more: the loss of my grandfather or the death of my dreams of having a close, loving, supportive relationship with my father.

I don't hold any bitterness or anger about my father's actions during that time. He was under a massive amount of stress and trauma, and for a person who always avoided confrontation and unpleasantness when he could, this was unbearable. His method of coping was running away from us, which isn't that unusual, and turning to his coping device, alcohol. How many of us run away from our problems or escape into some kind of substance? I've certainly had my drug of choice all these years.

I've written a little about my dad before, but if you're new, this moment of realization actually helped me. Once I let go of those old expectations of what I wanted from my father, I learned to accept what he could give me. Since that time our relationship has actually improved because I know his limits and don't set myself up for disappointment like I used to.

Anyway, back to the needlework. I was home from college that summer, and after the funeral I moved in to my grandmother's house and lived with her until the fall semester began. My Grandma Kate and I had a lot in common -- to this day people tell me I look like her and have her caring nature. She was such a well-loved person in our little town and to this day I catch myself wanting to emulate her.

Grandma was famous for her prolific needlework. In the spring she would have us grandchildren go through her catalogs and pick out projects we liked, and that Christmas we would get it as a gift. My house is filled with beautiful needlepoint pillows, framed pictures and a foot stool, among other things. She was also part of our church's needlepoint group and contributed a large part to the altar paraments and the Christmas Nativity set. She also contributed to a plastic canvas reproduction of our Main Street district from the turn of the century.

Up until the last year of her life Grandma was dedicated to her needlepoint. After supper she would sit on her sofa and stitch away through the 6 o'clock news, Wheel of Fortune and all the prime time shows, then finally finish up for the night with the 11 o'clock news. I have stacks of photographs of all the pictures she took of each project before she gave them away; it's amazing how much she produced.

That summer, the summer she lost her husband of more than 50 years, she taught me how to do needlepoint. I remember sitting on her back porch working on plastic canvas bookends (you put bricks inside them before stitching them shut) and a tissue box cover that looked like a goldfish bowl. Before long I graduated from plastic to fabric backed projects which were much more intricate and detailed.

Then one afternoon Grandma took me to her friend's house. Mary was a counted cross stitcher, and she gave me a little starter project of a little owl. After that I still did some needlepoint, but after that I veered more and more toward counted cross stitch projects. Part of it was because I knew Grandma would be making me a needlepoint project each year, so it freed me up to do something else.

I remember being so proud when I gave Grandma a framed counted cross stitch picture of a cardinal on a snowy lamp post as a Christmas present. Grandma loved cardinals and often wore a sweater with the red bird embroidered on it. It felt wonderful to be able to give her something made by my hand, after all the years of giving to us.

But the gift she gave me continued throughout the years. I loved doing needlework. I would get so absorbed by a project I'd stay up half the night stitching away. When I lived with my ex-boyfriend some of our best Sunday afternoons were spent on the couch watching football games while I worked on some cross stitch.

As I've mentioned before, I quit doing needlework when Mabel came into my life. It was hard to concentrate on a project when I had a toddler who needed constant supervision, and I couldn't afford to stay up half the night when I needed all the sleep I could get.

Even now, as I'm beginning this new project, I feel like I should be doing something else around the house: cleaning, organizing, etc. I've allowed my life to get so hectic and stressful with things that need to be done, not necessarily what I want to do.

But, as my daughter is fond of saying lately, "How's that working for ya?" Obviously, not very well.

So I'm paying attention to the old idiom "a stitch in time saves nine." I'm resurrecting what was once a very pleasurable, stress relieving, and non-food recreation for me, and I'm enjoying it greatly. I'm not waiting when I have more time, or when my home office is finally organized. I'm doing it Now.

Better yet, Mabel is interested in it, and I've started her on a latch hook project. But she's already got her sights on needlepoint and counted cross stitch, too. If my grandmother is able to, she must be smiling as she looks down at me and my daughter as we work on our projects together. It's a tradition being handed down to another generation, and it's me putting conscious living into action.

Noises Off*

2007-07-16T08:37:00.000-04:00

In my last post Katcha made a comment about my current progress with Intuitive Eating and my question of whether my new medication is part of the reason:

"For whatever reason, this is wonderful progress. If it is the medication 'assisting' you, then I say its helping you to settle into IE so bravo! I think its really all YOU and when not driven by whatever demons beset you in the immediate past, you are able to find that YES you can do this, all to your own credit too."

I focused on the word demons. Not because I feel like I've been possessed by the devil or his minions. But I do feel like a switch has been flipped and someone has turned off the constant voices in my head.

These are the voices that during a meal are already planning for the next eating opportunity. The voices that point out every restaurant and food vendor that I drive past and make me think about stopping and getting something. The voices that encourage me to clean my plate even if I'm full or the food doesn't taste that good. The voices that encourage me to sneak away to eat where no one can see me.

It isn't all about the food, though. I have been on an emotional runaway train lately. As I barrelled downhill I kept gathering speed and less control with each new layer of stress and each new irritating incident. When I did hit bottom last week it was the tiniest thing that derailed me, something that I would have shrugged off and laughed about normally. And when I derailed, I definitely crashed, and hard. But even though the cars were in a crumpled heap, the engine was still running at full throttle.

That engine has been stopped now, and it's a relief. I don't feel that constant tension inside of me that felt like it was ready to explode at any moment. Now when something annoying or aggravating happens it doesn't feel like a 50-pound weight dumped on my back; I notice it, but it slides off now. The good news is, I'm not turning into a zombie; it's actually helping me to react to things in a calm, rational way. Before, when my Hubby left the newspaper on the bathroom floor for the 40th time, I'd silently rail and rant in my head about the lack of help I was getting around the house. On Sunday I simply went to him and asked him to please pick up his papers when he's done with them.

This morning, when I woke up to discover that our dogs escaped their kitchen abode and Pearl had diarrhea in three different rooms in our house, I didn't freak out and boil over in fury. I wasn't happy, but a week ago this would have sent me over the edge. It was nice to be able to simply deal with it without going crazy.

And this weekend I was able to laugh and really enjoy my time with my friends. So the good emotions are still there, too.

This sounds like a fairy tale, but here's the reality: I am dealing with some side effects. I've got the most common ones -- nausea and drowsiness -- plus some restless sleep at night. The doctor and the web site for the medicine both claim these side effects fade with use. Since I'm just in the first week, I'm hoping these side effects will go away soon.

But right now these complaints pale in comparison to the benefits I've had when it comes to stress and eating. Yes, I slept a lot yesterday, but I didn't get much sleep the last couple nights since I had to get up early for all our activities. And it's almost a given you should be able to take a nap or two on a Sunday! I was a little nauseated, but it kept me much more in tune with my body and my appetite. And it kept me from overeating, which is something I usually do when I have a busy weekend like this. None of it is bad enough to consider stopping the medicine.

*In theatrical stage directions, the term "noises off" specifies sounds that are meant to be heard from offstage, such as crowd noises or gunshots. There is also a a famous play/movie with this title. (Thanks to Wikipedia for this info)

Observation Mode

2007-07-14T16:59:00.001-04:00

It's been a very social 24 hours with lots of eating and food, yet I've been doing okay.

I went out with the gang again for one of our wing nights. As usual, it was the cheese fries, the fried breaded zucchini, of course the chicken wings, washed down with soda or beer, then followed by a trip to another restaurant for dessert.

I found myself in observation mode a lot during the meal, able to consider the food and my appetite very well and not under siege by the usual concerns of "how many calories is that," "how can I resist eating it all," or "poor me, I can't eat like they do." I found myself easily resisting the requests of several people (of course the thinnest ones there) to help them eat their food. That's another oddity I hadn't noticed before -- the thinnest people there ordered the most food; in fact I was thunderstruck by the one couple who came, the most physically fit of the whole group, who usually don't come with us. They ordered two dozen wings as an appetizer, then also had a huge calzone and an enormous fried fish sandwich as their entrees. I didn't notice if they ate it all, but I was astounded at the pile of food surrounding them.

I ordered six wings, ate one piece of fried zucchini, and probably about a dozen of the fries. And about 1/3 of a glass of beer (they ordered a pitcher). This sounds like a lot of food, but compared to everyone else it must not have been, because I was done before everyone else. I was able to sit there feeling pleasantly full (I could tell by the last wing that I didn't want to eat anymore) and didn't feel the urge to pick at things out of nervousness or boredom.

As for the dessert run, Hubby and I both agreed that we weren't hungry, and Mabel was tired and wanted to go home, so we were naughty and called one of the gang on the cell phone and told them Mabel was asleep, so we wouldn't be joining them. Hubby and I didn't want to sit there and order nothing while everyone was slurping down their ice cream or pie, and since Mabel wasn't in the mood either it was an easy decision to skip it. Instead of feeling deprived, it actually felt like a relief.

This morning we were out bright and early to meet four of my friends, two from around here and two from out of town who are staying at our house tonight. We went to this little town in our county that is predominately Amish and Mennonite for their weekly Farmer's Market. First we went to the little country store nearby the market, which is famous for its doughnuts. I personally don't like them and didn't get any, but instead found my favorite cookies this store makes, orange with orange icing with real orange zest. Thank goodness they didn't have any of the orange sweet rolls in stock, because they are one of my big binge foods. It has the same icing as the cookies, but for some reason the rolls are more addictive to me. I also got my favorite trail mix combination, called Banana Split, but decided to go with the single serving bag instead of the multi-serving bag.

The Farmer's Market was loaded with Amish and Mennonite as well as us "English" vendors selling all kinds of things: fresh produce, baked goods, crafts, toys, antiques, and even hunting accessories. Mabel found a great deal on a Boyds Bear, and I bought my mom some of the little figurines you can get from the Red Rose Tea company that she doesn't have yet.

One disturbing find during our travels in the flea market section of the market: some guy had amongst his antiques a collar and shackles used by a slave trade company in Virginia in 1854. My one friend, ever the skeptic, wondered if they were knock-offs, because something like that should be in some museum somewhere, not at some little country farmer's market. Whether these items were real or reproductions, I couldn't imagine displaying something so inhumane and a sad reminder of a terrible part of our past.

Anyway, after our bargain shopping, we went off to breakfast. We went to this quaint Mennonite restaurant/inn that my grandma used to take me to when I was little. Mabel and I ordered the breakfast buffet, while the rest of our friends ordered off the menu. My daughter always does better when she can get little tastes of a lot of different things, and I've discovered I am getting more like her. We both got small portions of a variety of different things, and what we liked we ate, and what we didn't we left behind.

Again, I found it easy to keep tabs on myself during this meal; I found myself getting to a point where I was starting to fill up and began to figure out in my head what to leave behind so I could have a few bites of something else. I ate what I considered to be the "best bites" of each item and left the rest alone.

So, you may be asking yourself, as I am, if this relative ease is due to the new medication. It might be. I know I'm feeling calmer, despite a few twinges of anxiety here and there throughout the day. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

Gotta' go. My friends have arrived and I have to get ready for dinner.

Funny Friday the 13th

2007-07-13T14:27:00.000-04:00

How funny is it that today's Friday the 13th? Thirteen is a lucky number in my husband's family, and in our case we met on a Friday the 13th and were then engaged on another 13th. The wedding didn't work out that way -- it was on the 23rd -- but my BIL's birthday is on a 13th and he and my SIL did get married on a 13th. So there's a lot of it going around.

This morning I felt another wave of anxiety building, and I was really afraid of having another full-blown attack. I got online and read some blogs, wrote some emails, and tried to distract myself.

The problem was, I knew I had to address a problem and was procrastinating about it. The more I avoided and waited for the right moment, the more the anxiety was building.

So this morning I finally took the leap and dealt with it.

It helped that I had gone over the discussion I needed to have in my mind and had responses ready for several things I figured I would encounter. I'm a much better writer than I am an off-the-cuff speaker, especially in a tense or upsetting situation. I get tongue-tied, flustered and tend to shut down. So having some replies and comments already there and ready to use were a big help to me.

There were a few uncomfortable moments where I could sense the other person was starting to get defensive and throwing up the shields, but I managed to talk this person down and get them to stay calm and not feel blamed or accused of anything.

I am pleased to say that for the first time I really feel like I've made some major headway with this person. For the first time I feel I got some real honesty about some things that are going on, and for once I felt like this person finally understood where I was coming from.

What a relief. This has been a situation that has been going on for some time, and at times I didn't think I would ever be able to make any progress. The actual problem will not be going away any time soon, but I think for the first time I've really gotten through to this person how important it is to me that we deal with it together.

I wish I could say this has made me feel 100% better and I'm completely cured. But it's not so easy. I tackled one source of stress that has piled up on me lately, and while it's progress, I've still got a lot of work ahead of me.

But for today, I can be content with the fact that I fought my fears of confrontation, anger and rejection, and everything came out okay. I don't know if I consider myself lucky, but I don't think this Friday the 13th will be so bad.

P.S. Another thing I can celebrate is that throughout all of this, there has been no bingeing!

Go Ask Alice

2007-07-12T21:14:00.000-04:00

Even though this is a personal blog and I'm here to write about my personal experiences, my feelings and reflections on life, I have to admit I do a bit of censoring. Because this is out there on the World Wide Web and I don't know exactly who is reading this, I keep some things private: my daughter's and husband's first names or faces, our last name, exactly where we go to work or to school. I really don't want that personal information out their for people to access.

But I've also been keeping some issues off of this blog. I've alluded to them from time to time, but because it involves other people I don't go into details. It's really not for the public domain, and I don't want anything I say here coming back to haunt me.

However, these issues (along with the ones I do mention openly here) have been getting worse lately, as you can tell from my Saturday run-away-from-home freak-out. Since then my nerves have been shot; every little minuscule irritation has been a major event, and every time I think I can get through a day without some incident setting me off, I seem to get sandbagged when I least expect it. Then came this morning.

It's been several years since I had a full-blown anxiety attack. But I recognized it oh so well; the shaking hands, the racing pulse, the panicky thoughts and feelings of helplessness and being overwhelmed by everything. It's a scary thing.

And it made me realize that yep, today, July 12, I have hit the wall. I have been doing everything I can to get me through these issues: the talk therapy, the cognitive behavioral therapy and biofeedback involved in Intuitive Eating; relaxation techniques and meditation; journal writing here on the blog and reaching out to others in online IE groups. But despite all of this, I seem to be spiraling into this vortex of stress and anxiety and can't seem to find a way out.

So I picked up the telephone with my shaky hands and called my doctor's office. They had an appointment open this afternoon, and I took it.

I had two surprises when I went to the appointment. Number one, despite what felt like a horribly racing pulse, my blood pressure was 130/80. A little high, but much lower than I expected with as wired as I felt.

The other thing was the weight. Granted, I'm not thrilled with 224, about 10 pounds higher than what I was maintaining before my vacation, but I have maintained that weight ever since, which is better than continuing to gain.

The doctor came in and asked what was up, and I wished I had this blog to hand to her and say, "Here, read this." But I gave her the five-minute summary and let her know about the binge eating, the intuitive eating approach and my escalating stress and anxiety. I think she was impressed when I brought up my Internet reading on medications for anxiety in combination with eating disorders and the common use of SSRI drugs for treatment. These include Prozac, Paxil, Lexapro, among others.

After some discussion of my symptoms, both with the General Anxiety Disorder (oh joy, another label) and the Binge Eating Disorder, it was agreed that I would try Lexapro. Apparently this drug is supposed to have less side effects and is tolerated better than some of the other SSRIs. She gave me a three-week sample, and I'm to go back in two weeks to see how I'm doing.

My doctor commented twice that she was impressed with my "insight" and thought I was on the right track with the methods I'm taking to recover.

I'm trying not to see this as defeat, but rather taking care of myself the best way I know how. Yes, I've hit a low point emotionally, but I was able to recognize immediately when it was getting beyond my capabilities to handle alone and when I needed some help. And maybe this is what I need to do to get me through what is becoming the most difficult challenge of my life.

I don't expect any magic results from this or any other pill. I don't expect my anxiety or urges to binge to miraculously disappear. But if this medicine can take the edge off my frazzled nerves and help me work through what's causing the anxiety and urges to binge, then it can be a tool in my growing bag of tricks to beat this thing.

Thanks to Lori for not only helping to get me through this harrowing day, but for giving me the title for today's post. Mabel and I just watched "Alice in Wonderland" a few days ago, so when Lori gave me this title, it made me smile and remember just how wacky that book and movie is. And of course I can't forget the killer song by Jefferson Airplane.

Today wasn't great. It could have been worse. Things will get better.

Detour from the Road to Bingeville

2007-07-11T13:37:00.000-04:00

It's a rainy afternoon here. Mabel spent the night at a friend's house and is still there until I pick her up in an hour. Hubby's outside with his dad working on our new porch. My mom was here for a few minutes to visit and has just left. I have the house to myself and can do anything I want.

So why do I want to eat?

I'm not hungry -- for lunch I had half a sandwich that was left over from last night's supper, then half a brownie (probably a 2"x2" square) and just a few minutes ago I had a candy bar. The candy bar was bordering on excessive, but I was still hungry, so I let myself have it.

So now I'm pleasantly full, yet in my mind the urge to sneak off and stuff myself is lurking there like a shady character under a lamp post. Ominous but not quite an immediate threat.

And here I am, the Watcher, looking down from my window at this scene, and I can't help but wonder why. This is a reoccurring theme for me -- I get some time by myself, and the urge to binge arises. It's not that I'm lonely -- good Lord I've been so inundated with people lately that I'm been eager for an afternoon like this. I'm not stressed out or angry today -- work was calm and quiet with my Pastor still on vacation. It is that time of the month, but I feel fine.

Someone, and I can't remember who now, figured this situation out on their own blog, and I knew she had gotten me pegged, too. This comes down to the old food for comfort syndrome. I get some time to myself, I want to "treat" myself, and the first response is food.

This isn't anything out of the ordinary. We comfort and treat ourselves with food all the time. As a kid, after a victorious baseball or soccer game the team goes out for ice cream. As an adult, you get a promotion and celebrate with a fancy dinner. As a kid, you scrape your knee and your mom gives you a cookie. As an adult, we have a rough day at work and treat ourselves by stopping at the grocery store on the way home and picking up our favorite comfort food. When someone dies, the family gets trays of food from friends and neighbors.

But when that comforting gets excessive, when it becomes a compulsion instead of a treat, it's time to learn different ways of taking care of ourselves. My first thought was to come here and write about it, to make myself blatantly conscious of what was going on and to separate myself from the old thoughts and behaviors that lead me down the road to Bingeville.

Now the trick is to find something else to do that will be satisfying enough to not make me feel deprived because I'm not giving in to these thoughts.

But you know what? Just writing about it here, lifting myself out of that mind set before the momentum kicked in, has made the urge less intense, less important. I'm not identifying with it, so it has lost its power over me. It's still there under the lamp post, but it's slowly withdrawing out of the halo of light and back into the darkness.

I think the best thing I can do for myself right now is to take 15 or 20 minutes to meditate. Then I'll go pick up Mabel from her friend's house and get on with the rest of my day.

Thank goodness I was willing and able to take this detour from the Road to Bingeville. It's a different path than the one I'm used to, but the scenery's a whole lot nicer.

My Love/Hate Relationship

2007-07-10T08:28:00.000-04:00

The great thing about "The Power of Now" is that even though it isn't a book about eating disorders or Intuitive Eating, a lot of the concepts and ideas in the book can be related to these issues. In the chapter "Enlightened Relationships," Eckhart Tolle writes about love/hate relationships, and as I read the following excerpt, I could help substituting love/hate with dieting/bingeing (I'm adding my substitutions below in brackets):

"Unless and until you access the consciousness frequency of presence, all relationships [diets]... are deeply flawed and ultimately dysfunctional. They may seem perfect for a while, such as when you are 'in love' [losing weight], but invariably that apparent perfection gets disrupted as arguments, conflicts, dissatisfaction, and emotional or even physical violence [deprivation, setbacks, plateaus, or even bingeing] occur with increasing frequency. It seems that most 'love relationships' become love/hate relationships before long... When a balance between the positive/negative polarities is lost and the negative, destructive [binge] cycles occur with increasing frequency and intensity, which tends to happen sooner or later, then it will not be long before the relationship [diet] finally collapses."

That's what happened to me. At first I was in love with losing weight, with counting calories, cutting out unhealthy foods and getting in as much exercise as possible. Then the feelings of deprivation started. A setback or plateau would start negative thoughts, not to mention the guilt and self-loathing caused by a binge. Then the drama would start all over again as I "kicked myself back into gear" and went back on the diet. Before long the destructive parts -- deprivation, bingeing, negative thoughts -- became more and more prevalent, and the emotional roller coaster never seemed to slow down.

The next section of the book validated for me why I had to give up dieting:

"It may appear that if you could only eliminate the negative or destructive cycles [bingeing], then all would be well and the relationship [diet] would flower beautifully -- but alas, this is not possible. The polarities are mutually interdependent. You cannot have one without the other. The positive [dieting] already contains within itself the as yet unmanifested negative [bingeing]. Both are in fact different aspects of the same dysfunction."

The next section of the chapter is how we become addicted to another person or relationship, but again, it's very easy to substitute here with my disordered eating:

"Every addiction arises from an unconscious refusal to face and move through your own pain. Every addiction starts with pain and ends with pain. Whatever the substance you are addicted to -- alcohol, food, legal or illegal drugs, a person -- you are using something or somebody to cover up your pain. That is why, after the initial euphoria has passed, there is so much unhappiness, so much pain in intimate relationships. They do not cause pain and unhappiness. The bring out the pain and unhappiness that is already in you. Every addiction does that. Every addiction reaches a point where it does not work for you anymore, and then you feel the pain more intensely than ever."

This is where I was in April, when I seemed to hit bottom and could no longer take the up/down turmoil of the dieting and bingeing. And I think that's why I've been dealing with so much anxiety and I have these overly emotional days. Now that the bingeing isn't working for me anymore, I'm forced to face and move through my pain. Tolle addresses this as well:

"This is one reason why most people are always trying to escape from the present moment and are seeking some kind of salvation in the future. The first thing they might encounter if they focused their attention on the Now is their own pain, and this is what they fear. If they only knew how easy it is to access in the Now the power of presence that dissolves the past and its pain, the reality that dissolves the illusion. If they only knew how close they are to their own reality, how close to God."

Yes, taking the Path of Intuitive Eating and trying to give up the diet/binge roller coaster has forced me to face fears I've been avoiding. It hasn't always been pleasant, and I haven't always been able to fight the old, familiar habit of escaping into food. But when I do manage to ride it out, to stick with those feelings, I find out I don't break down into a pile of jelly. I don't burst into tears and cry for days. I don't curl up in bed under the sheets for a week. I may be miserable and not fun to be with for a day, but no one hates me, no relationships come to an end because I've let my unpleasant feelings show.

In fact, it happens much like Tolle describes above. Once I push past my fears of the bogey man and force myself to look under the bed, there's nothing there. Because in the Now, there is nothing to fear. The emotions I'm holding in are reactions from the past, and once I let them loose, they quickly dissolve because they have nothing to do with the present. It's like placing a lit match in a vacuum -- without a source of oxygen, the flame quickly dies out.

When I keep myself aware of these things -- when I don't let the anxiety and fear of my emotions take over, when I don't immediately give in to the easy way out (food) -- it suddenly doesn't seem so hard to fight what was once uncontrollable and compulsive.

Yesterday I was able to eat half a candy bar. I tore it in half, wrapped the remainder in the wrapper and set it aside. And it's still sitting there now. This is absolutely revolutionary for me. Yet it didn't seem bizarre when I did it. I wasn't shaking and craving it like a junkie, didn't hear it calling my name the rest of the night.

While it's unheard of behavior from me, I know this is an every day occurrence with my daughter. And the last few days I've almost felt like a little kid again, especially since I got my bicycle out of retirement. Mabel and I rode around town again yesterday, then managed to get ourselves invited to swim at a friend's house, which was wonderful in our current heat wave. It was a great, calm, fun summer day like the ones I had as a kid.

And I feel especially childish (in a good way!) the last two days since I've been riding my bike to work. My neighbor, who was putting his garbage out Monday morning, caught me going to work, and I said I was doing my part to be "green" by not driving my vehicle. But that was a lie. I'm doing it because it's fun. Suddenly going to work is a mini-adventure, the world around me somehow seems new and more alive when I'm not looking at it from behind a windshield or in a rear view mirror.

Is it possible to be in love with a bicycle? I jest: I know that this piece of metal and rubber is a tool that's allowing me to be more in the Now. And I'm loving every minute of it.

Salvation is Here and Now

2007-07-09T08:42:00.000-04:00

It's Monday, back to the work week, so I ought to get back to work on processing "The Power of Now." I read this section last week during my trip to the woods, and it really spoke to me, especially now after this past weekend and the subject of taking up hobbies:

"Most people pursue physical pleasures or various forms of psychological gratification because they believe that those things will make them happy or free them from a feeling of fear or lack. Happiness may be perceived as a heightened sense of aliveness attained through physical pleasure, or a more secure and more complete sense of self attained through some form of psychological gratification. This is the search for salvation from a state of unsatisfactoriness or insufficiency. Invariably, any satisfaction that they obtain is short-lived, so the condition of satisfaction of fulfillment is usually projected once again onto an imaginary point away from the here and now. 'When I obtain this or am free of that -- then I will be okay.' This is the unconscious mind-set that creates the illusion of salvation in the future.

"True salvation is fulfillment, peace, life in all its fullness. It is so be who you are, to feel within you the good that has no opposite, the joy of Being that depends on nothing outside itself. It is felt not as a passing experience but as an abiding presence. In theistic language, it is to "know God" -- not as something outside you but as your own innermost essence. True salvation is to know yourself as an inseparable part of the timeless and formless One Life from which all that exists derives its being.

"True salvation is a state of freedom -- from fear, from suffering, from a perceived state of lack and insufficiency and therefore from all wanting, needing, grasping and clinging. It is freedom from compulsive thinking, from negativity, and above all from past and future as a psychological need. Your mind is telling you that you cannot get there from here. Something needs to happen, or you need to become this or that before you can be free and fulfilled. It is saying, in fact, that you need time -- that you need to find out, sort out, do, achieve, acquire, become, or understand something before you can be free of complete. You see time as the means to salvation, whereas in truth it is the greatest obstacle to salvation. You think that you can't get there from where and who you are at this moment because you are not yet complete or good enough, but the truth is that here and now is the only point from where you can get there. You 'get' there by realizing that you are there already. You find God the moment you realize that you don't need to seek God. So there is no only way to salvation: Any condition can be used, but no particular condition is needed. However, there is only one point of access: the Now. There can be no salvation away from this moment. You are lonely and without a partner? Enter the Now from there. You are in a relationship? Enter the Now from there."

This is such an important thing for me to remember. I can take up all the hobbies in the world, but not one of them is going to give me happiness. Doing them may bring out the happiness that is already within me, but they won't provide it. Finishing my novel will not give me inner peace; completing a cross-stitch project will not make me a better person.

On the other side of the coin, I need to quit saying "When I finally get the house organized I'll get back to needlework again, " or "I'll get back to writing once Mabel heads off to college." This is just like saying "I won't dance in public until I'm a size 8" or "I can't wear a sleeveless shirt until I work out and make my upper arms firmer." All we have is Now. If I want to do something, this moment is the only one I have.

Can I tell you how wonderful it was to ride my bicycle yesterday? What an exercise in staying conscious and present: you have to stay constantly in the moment, watching for traffic and potholes, staying balanced, leaning into the turns, judging which gear to be in as I'm pedalling uphill. And it enables me to be in my body and appreciate what it can do; I feel the burn in my legs, my lungs taking in more air as I increase my pedalling.

Best of all, my daughter is in seventh heaven that she can go bike riding with me. We took two bike trips yesterday, the second at her request. With me at her side she could go down streets and into neighborhoods she's not been allowed to go down before.

"We should do this every day!" she exclaimed as we rode down one tree-lined street, and that moment still makes me so very happy. See? The bike riding itself wasn't making the happiness; it was being in the present, sharing a moment with my daughter that didn't involve the distractions of a blaring TV set, computer game or CD player. It was enjoying the Now.

On the surface this post doesn't have much to do with food or eating issues. But then, that's the whole point of this journey: I'm finding my happiness in the Now, not using food and eating to gratify me, console me over past hurts or numb myself so I don't worry about the future. When I allow myself to be in the Now I am free from compulsive eating and negative thinking. That freedom is salvation, and that salvation is here and now.

Get A Hobby

2007-07-08T16:00:00.000-04:00

For once my husband was right. Yes, I'm admitting it here for the world to know.

Last night, after my harrowing day, we talked for a while in bed about what was going on with me and why I was such a mental case. I tried to explain it to him this way: I'm doing this Intuitive Eating thing, which means I'm eating what I want, but it also means I'm trying to find ways to stop using food in negative ways: numbing, punishing, or treating myself. The more work I do with this, the more I realize I have to become a more conscious person, and I'm becoming more and more aware of my need for silence and meditation.

I explained to him that this hectic, go-go-go lifestyle, this constant noise and togetherness is exhausting me mentally. I described myself as a cell phone whose battery reading is on its last bar. With everyone home this summer and so little alone time, it's like putting that phone on the charger for five minutes and expecting the battery to be at full strength again. It just isn't working. But I don't know how to solve it.

At first my husband's response to this felt way off, but the more I thought about it, I realized he had really hit on something I've been letting slide.

"We do so much to please other people all the time," he said to me. "You need to do something for yourself. When I think about it, is there anything, other than reading or blogging a little, that you do that you really enjoy? I think you need to get a hobby."

Get a hobby. When I first heard this I wanted to punch him! Hobby?!? I'm going through major mental issues here, my plate is already overflowing with family and work responsibilities and he wants me to load on some more things to do? How about some of our family members get some hobbies so we don't have to do so much with them and keep them entertained? Oh, here's a hobby for me -- how about husband smacking?

But the more we talked, the more I realized he was right. I told him I used to do needlework (needlepoint and counted cross stitch) and worked for years on a novel, but once I got Mabel those past times fell by the wayside when all my free time became dominated with baby things, chasing a toddler around then chauffeuring my busy bee to her lessons and meetings.

I told him how I've been thinking a lot about finding a yoga class in our area, and that every summer I bemoan the fact that I never get around to finding my bicycle and getting out on the Allegheny Highlands Trail.

"Well, now you can," he said. "I'm here to help with Mabel. Do some of these things."

So guess what. This morning I was in the mood for waffles and was in the middle of putting them together when I realized I was out of oil. I called my mom, who had some, and I just happened to ask her if my bike was out at her place. Yes, it was.

I was out there in a few minutes' time, and before long we had my bike hauled out of her garage. I felt so bad -- it was filthy from being forgotten for two years, and some rust had begun to spread here and there. Mom assured me it would clean up fine with some soap and a little steel wool.

After filling the tires with air I took it home (yes, my independent, self-sufficient mother has an air compressor in her garage), and this morning after my waffles, I scrubbed it down and was thrilled to see that nearly all of the rust came off with a little scrubbing. After it dried I oiled up the gears and I took it for a ride around the neighborhood.

I bought this bike back in 2003, when I was still in the 290-300 range. I was in the very early stages of getting physically active, and I decided this sounded fun. The main selling point of this specific bike was its big seat, for my big seat. I had done enough work at the gym by that point that I could actually do pretty well on the bike, even at that size. The hills were tough and my quads screamed with the effort, but I could still do it. Then I met my fiance, got married, and since then my bike has been lodged away in my mom's barn, gathering dust and collecting hay in the tire spokes. But no more. I need to buy another helmet, and I have to remember how to work my bike rack, but otherwise, I am ready, to paraphrase the words of Freddy Mercury in the AFG anthem "Fat Bottomed Girls,"
"Get on my bike and ride!"

Pretty Mental Saturday (Alternate Title: Food Is Not the Answer)

2007-07-08T15:09:00.001-04:00

As the title above suggests, I had a rough PMS day yesterday.

I'm not sure why it happens exactly, but once in a while I have a lethal combination of hormones and pressing issues that come together like vinegar and baking soda. I really felt as if I was on the breaking point and would explode into a thousand tiny pieces.

Every irritation seemed amplified. Every little annoyance in my life was collecting into an ever growing snowball and heading for the peaceful little village in the valley of my being.

It finally got so bad I ran away from home. Yes, I bolted and didn't tell anyone where I was going. I had to get away from the husband, the kid, the dogs, the in-laws, my mother, all the noise and questions and demands.

When I told my husband where I went later that evening, he told me it was "morbid." I drove a few miles out of town to a little village and parked at the country cemetery there. I walked around for about 20 minutes or so, looking at the gravestones, marveling at how old some of them were (for American standards). I was impressed at how many Revolutionary War Veterans were buried there, and I looked at the tombstones written in German and wished I could read them. Some of the people I knew, I found my great-uncle's stone, and I thought it was a little sad that some of the stones were so old and worn that all of the writing on them was gone and you had no idea whose remains rested there.

I'm not turning Goth, I swear. But I couldn't think of another place to go that was more peaceful and quiet. This cemetery is on top of a hill that overlooks the surrounding countryside, and the view is really a sight to behold. My dad's family farm borders this cemetery; in fact, he donated a piece of the land to the cemetery association, and I've been looking into getting a lot of my own so I can be planted there too someday.

After walking around there for a while, listening to the corn stalks rustling in the breeze, realizing how life can be both temporary and eternal at the same time, I was able to catch my breath for the first time all day. My freight train of a brain finally slowed down, and I felt like I was finally sane enough to go home again.

Unfortunately this tranquility didn't last too long; on the car ride home Hubby was calling to see where in the hell I'd run off to, and once I did get home I dealt with the starving child, the bored dogs, the family all calling to coordinate yet another trip to see fireworks. Before long I was knee deep in anxiety and misery again.

I am going to confess here that I did something I almost never do: I poured myself a drink. Yes, I mean alcohol. Now I know some of you may be thinking-- "Red flag! She's transferring her food compulsions to alcohol!" -- but I'm just a little too self-aware for that. I grew up with two parents who turned to alcohol to cope with life, and I know it doesn't work. But at that point I didn't have any Valium in the house, and I figured one drink wasn't going to send me over the deep end.

In fact, it helped a lot in the fact that it dampened the anxiety just enough that I could handle it in more beneficial ways. I pulled out one of my Wayne Dyer books (which has very similar information to Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now," now having read both authors), then spent some time in some relaxation techniques and even managed to meditate a little.

Believe me, this downing a shot of booze is not going to become a regular event. But desperate times called for desperate measures, and in this case I was able to come to the realization that nothing was so bad in my life that I needed all this anxiety; no one feeling I was experiencing could not be tolerated and survived. I wasn't thrilled about having to go out with the extended family yet again (the second time that day!), but since there was nothing I could do about it I had to just accept it and find some sense of peace within myself.

I will say that by the time we went for fireworks I was pretty much shut down. I couldn't really gather up the energy to participate in any engaging conversation, so I just sat back and laid low. My good friend and SIL picked up on this and asked me what was wrong, but we both knew we couldn't get into any details with everyone around. So I figure she'll be grilling me on our morning walk Monday morning.

Here's the thing about this Pretty Mental Saturday: even though I felt awful most of the day, there was never one moment that bingeing seemed like a viable solution. Not once. And maybe that was part of what made the day so harrowing! My old stand-by was gone and I had to find alternate methods of coping! In the very few instances that I did think about food, I remember this one phrase coming to me again and again: "Food is not the answer."

However, I did have to deal with one more incident before the night was through. After the fireworks Mabel was starving, as 8 year-olds are want to do, and the only thing she wanted was McD's and one of their Crappy Meals. Hubby relented to her whining and drove there, and the drive-thru lane was packed with other fireworks attendees, so he pulled in and went inside to order. Before he went in he asked everyone in the car if they wanted anything. In-laws said no, and I said no.

So what does Hubby do? He comes back with a Crappy Meal for Mabel, an order of fries for his mother, and two (2!!!) baked fruit pies for me! MIL is all atwitter and happy with her surprise present of fries fresh out of the fryer, all hot and greasy and salty. I looked at the pies in horror.

"What's this?"
"Pies," Hubby replied, "I know they're your favorite."

How I didn't throw the damn things out the window in a fury is still a mystery to me. How long have I been battling, first with losing weight, and now with the binge eating? How many times have I told him that doing this to me is like bringing a bottle of vodka to an alcoholic? Yes, I've told him I'm doing Intuitive Eating now and I'm trying to legalize all foods, but I've also told him that in addition I'm learning to not use food to cope with problems and numb myself from my emotions.

I know I've told him these things, but apparently he hasn't really heard me. I know he didn't do it to be mean, I know he was worried about me all day and was beside himself trying to figure out what to do to make me feel better. In his mind, in his family's tradition, food is always the answer to the bad day, to the crushed ego, to help you forget about the boo-boo. He was only doing what comes naturally.

But, here it comes again, FOOD IS NOT THE ANSWER! (Sorry to yell.) It would have been one thing if I had asked for the pies, if I had been craving them and actually wanted them. But I didn't! I had actually had a fleeting thought of getting a small vanilla cone, but after an internal scan (what, am I on Star Trek now?) I knew I wasn't hungry for it. I told him no, I wasn't hungry, and I really meant it. So why can't that be respected?

Those pies are still sitting on the kitchen counter, by the way. I haven't been able to bring myself to throw them away, because in the back of my mind I figure I might be hungry for them later. Something tells me they're like the rest of McD's food -- they taste great when they're piping hot, but once they cool down it's just nasty -- especially those nuggets!

But yes, I survived my Pretty Mental Saturday, and without a binge. I think I may need a medal for surviving this battle.