Thankful

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!

Hitting the Wall

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.

Let's Blow This Pop Stand

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!

To Shred and Remember

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.

Lunch Break Post

Finishing up my lunch hour from my busy day of housework. The local bank had a customer appreciation day and had free hot dogs, potato salad, chips and cookies. I had a hot dog (with sauerkraut), potato salad and two cookies -- I'm not much of a potato chip fan.

Today's one of those days that I actually haven't been thinking about food that much. Cleaning does that to me. It's almost a meditative kind of thing -- I get caught up in the dusting, vacuuming and putting things away and my brain goes into autopilot.

For about the last 10 years I've noticed that when I get angry about something one of my favorite things to do to blow off steam or distract myself is cleaning. Even back in 1997, even though I was still in the midst of my compulsive overeating, I was beginning to make some progress and found that I usually couldn't eat when I was angry, and cleaning was one of the few things that helped.

I keep bringing up anger, so you're probably wondering if I'm angry. Well, yeah, I am. Something happened yesterday that has left me kind of hurt, a little down, but mostly angry. And it's the worst kind because I've been cornered into a situation that I'm not happy about but can't fix it to make myself happy without hurting someone else's feelings and causing all kinds of other problems for myself. The worst thing is, this wasn't even my own doing -- this situation was created without my knowledge, even though it affects me. That's what has me the angriest -- being left out of decisions I should be a part of, my thoughts not being considered before others go ahead and make plans for me, without me.

I did make sure the person who informed me of this decision was fully aware of the fact that I'm uncomfortable with this, and while I don't want to hurt or insult the other people involved, I am not happy about having to "suck it up and deal with it" (my actual quote). While I'm glad I made my feelings known, I still feel defeated and helpless because there doesn't seem to be a way to change it. Hence the anger.

So I've been cleaning since 6:20 this morning, when I got done with my morning walk with my sister-in-law. This was the second day in a row she's joined me for my walk, and it's nice to be able to talk to her without interruptions from husbands, kids, pets, etc. I don't know if she'll go every single day with me, but we'll walk together off and on until fall.

Tomorrow morning is my 5k race. I'm really not nervous at all about it because I did it last year and survived it, and since then walking 3.2 miles is a regular thing for me. I'm looking forward to it because I can then catch up with another friend who is also walking on my team. We don't get to see each other much, and this will give us some time to chat.

Last year I was hell bent on beating a 15 minute per mile pace, and I did that, and then some. But I also think walking as fast as I did on hard pavement made my neck problems worse, because two days later my left arm and hand were numb, and my shoulder was in agony. This year I'll probably still be close to walking 4 miles per hour, but I'm not not push myself too hard.

I noticed this post has very little to do about food and eating. I consider that real progress, because the goal is to quit being so obsessed and controlled by food, dieting and bingeing. It feels amazingly normal to have a day filled with activities and emotions and not fretting about what I can eat and what I'll weigh because of it.

Time to get back to work. I'll let you know how the race goes!