Day 309 - Guess Where I Am!

No, really!  Guess!  You'll never guess, so I'll just tell you.  It is 11:45 pm and I am IN BED!  Ready to turn the lights out and everything.  I decided I was going to HAVE to address my habit of staying up too late.  Have you seen that cartoon that says something like, "What I like to call 'insomnia' is often a combination of a good book and a lack of respect for the next day's obligations!"  So, I decided to prepare myself all day to go to bed earlier.  So, I had a good prayer time and read my Bible in the morning.  And then called my mother in the early afternoon.  It is just DEATH to talk to her on the phone.  My soul just curdles and cringes.  It's such a tap-dance trying to stay off all the things that she says that could launch something volatile from her.  I can't even hold the phone to my ear when I talk to her, I have to hold it away from my face.  This is a good thing because half the time I am saying things like, "oh, God ... I can't stand her!  I can't stand talking to her!"  Etc.  I haven't seen her for two months almost.  The last two times we've moved, she's called me within a month telling me to find her a place because she's moving up.  I would just curl up and die if that happened.  

But, anyway.  I didn't sleep well last night because of my husband being out of town.  So I was really, really tired today and glum because of him being away.  I hate it when he's gone!!  I really hope this new job will require less traveling for him than the last one.  

Current state of unpacking:  

Breakfast room - finished
Kitchen - finished
Den - one large box
Entry - finished, though I have to clean off a roll-top desk 
Living Room -finished
Dining Room - several picture boxes, a tiny bit at the bottom of one large box, and a medium-sized box that says "living room games" ... so who knows WHAT'S in it!!  Then I need to take the pictures to where they will be hung and hang them
Sunroom -finished
Bedroom - finished
Both bathrooms - finished
Daughter's bedroom- finished except for some books that have to be packed back up because they were moved here accidentally
Daughter's bathroom - finished

Shed - Finished
Pool house - mostly finishedMy study - DISASTER
Hallway outside of study - DISASTER
Guest bedroom - MODERATE DISASTER
Guest bathroom - finished
Study bathroom - finished 
Room that will be turned into a large closet - DISASTER!

I can't even talk about the basement!  But, as you can see, this is a lot of progress.  I think I only have 90 days to file a claim, so I actually need to get the basement unpacked before the end of August.  I have no idea how that's going to happen.  I'm hoping my husband will let me fly my former housekeeper up,to help me.  She wants to come and Southwest is having some great deals right now.  It's an idea, anyway.  

Speaking of Southwest, I have booked a flight to go to Tennessee for my mother's 91st birthday and to see my friend and my kids.  And also get a thorough set of Prolotherapy injections.  How I'm going to stay that long at my mother's I don't know.  I hope my kids will come down and hang out with me some while I'm there.  My son's birthday is tomorrow, and I'm missing both of them pretty badly right now.  

I sat outside under my pergola today and got pretty pumped u about cleaning it up.  The previous family left a pressure washer in the shed, so I'm planning on using it to clean all of the wood and to blast clean the concrete and bricks that form the floor.  I'm also planning on just shooting it up into the wisteria a lot to try to get down as much dead debris as I can. Then, the plan is to buy screen or screen cloth and tack it up on the ceiling of the pergola to catch the debris and keep it off my furniture.  I found a blog that says to use Clorox cleanup to clean porch cushions.  She showed some she had done and it was truly remarkable so I figure it can handle everything I've got.  

I made an appointment with a general practitioner for Monday.  Office is about a mile or two away.  And I called the functional medicine doctor to set up an appointment.  They emailed me a pack for me to fill out and email back and then they will set up the appointment.  So pushing that ball ahead little bit by little bit!

Working today wore me out, so I'm not going to set an alarm, I'm just going to sleep till I wake up.  Yum!  

Good night!
Lisa

Day 310 - Went to Manhattan ... All By Myself!

Dear Reader,

Well, I took the plunge and went into Manhattan by myself today.  Last night my husband told me there was a train at 11:40 so I could get it and be at the Grand Hyatt by 12:20. WRONG!  There was a train at 11:18 and then again at 12:18!  So I had a nice, long WAIT at the train station.  Happily enough, it was a beautiful day.  

I enjoyed the trip into the city.  A yang man was sitting across from me with a interesting tattoo and I asked him if he would tell me about it.  He did so very earnestly and eagerly.  It is a shape that came to him when he was a young child that he has drawn a lot and he thinks I some way represents his soul. Okeydoke!  I told him it looked like an island with two small islands off the coast and reminded me of a place in Hawaii where there were two islands off the coast similar to this.  We had a pleasant conversation the rest of the way into towel. There was a large, dour woman sitting across from me who kept her eyes closed and pretended to ignore us, but started chuckling here and there and I was able to lure her into the conversation.  As we pulled into Grand Central Station, I shook their hands and introduced myself.  It was so much fun.  The guy got up first and said,with a kind of puzzled expression on his face, "Well, goodbye, ladies.  Have a good day."  And I was so pleased because I had created a little community right there on the train that had not existed before and I thought to myself, "YES!  Changing New York one train car at a time!"

I had a good time visiting with my friend.  Made even better by a spiked frozen lemonade!  We ate at the Rockefeller Center outside by the fountain and it was marvelous.  I learned, though, that I MUST find more comfortable shoes!  In the terminal I had to buy band aids and bandage several toes where I was getting blisters from what I thought were my comfortable heels!  I looked so awful last time I went into the city that I may have overcompensated!  The lady at the kiosk was so nice and offered me a stool to sit on to apply the band aids.  It's telling you ... if you are at all friendly to these New Yorkers they are just as nice as anyone!

I found my train and made it back to the house uneventfully.  I was very tired out, though and slept for about two and a half hours when I got home.  After I got up, I just snacked some and ordered a video that I thought I could watch in tv, but it turns out I can only watch it on my iPad, apparently.  The kitchen floor was sooooo dirty.  And the cat had knocked off her dish and broken it everywhere.  So I swept the kitchen, laundry room, breakfast room and den.  It made me really tired all over again,  also brought home to me that I have lost a LOT of strength.  

I dared to weigh this evening.  It wasn't terrible.  It was 8 pounds above my pre-Christmas weight.  And that was at night.  

I wrote a long thing to someone online who is suffering badly from PTSD.  It's gotten stirred up from talking to her doctor and she was in a state of panic.  I don't know if you'll be interested, but I will include here what I wrote.  

My friend and I went into anthropologie today and I saw a dress that would be perfect for me.  Perfect!  But shipping is going to be $12.95 and I'm balking at that.  Wish I had just grabbed it off the rack and purchased it.  

I have a lot of goals for the house tomorrow, so wish me strength, energy, and FOCUS!!

Cheers!

Lisa

Honey, I am really sorry for the pain you are going through.  Unfortunately, there is no way through this except through it.  You can't back out and say you wish you had never started counseling.  You did.  And this is a good thing no matter how bad it feels.  I am also sorry about the problems you have had with counselors.  I don't know what you mean when you say that you talked to your doctor to see if you could go to counseling.  I presume you mean that your doctor has to prescribe it for insurance to cover it?  Whatever the case, you need to get into counseling as soon as you can and run with this pain while it's hot.  NOTE:  run WITH the pain, not away from it.  You want to deal with it before you have the chance to cover it back up and lose the emotion.  

I, too, would question the use of Ativan,  I know exactly the terrible panic feeling you are experiencing and it is awful.  But you need to head into the pain with guidance.  My doctors let me use Xanax and I learned that very small doses would stop the panic and extreme anxiety without causing any cognitive problems.  When it got too bad for me, I'd take just 5 mg and, in ten minutes, the panic would subside.  

Talk therapy is effective with trauma.  Trauma is stored energy in the brain. Not just stored memory, but the energy that accompanies that memory,.  Your brain has not moved the memory to the right portion of your brain, so the memory is still accompanied by the emotions you experienced at the time.  Your brain needs to re-process these memories and move them to the right place.  You do not lose your memory, you just lose the accompanying fear, anger, panic, etc.  the past becomes the past rather than a perpetually re-lived present.  There is a therapy that is very effective for,this, and I would suggest you look for a therapist who is trained in this.  It is called EMDR and is being used with traumatized soldiers with excellent results.  You can look it up online to learn more about it.  

I think with a combination of talk therapy and EMDR you will find significant relief.  There is more to your story than you have shared here, of course.  A counselor would be able to help you walk through many of your life decisions and learn what those choices mean and how to heal so that you can begin making choices based on your value, not your feelings of shame.  And, sweetie (yes, I'm from the South, this is how I talk!) I want to prepare you that you are looking at a LONG journey.  Each step of healing will be won by fighting hard for it.  You will need to work long and hard with a counselor to work your way through these memories and toward a healthy life.  

I've been in therapy for years because of childhood abuse and PTSD.  What's rough is that, just when you think you're done, your brain offers up a whole new area and says, "Oh, by the way ... it's time to take a look at this, too."  When that happens, it means that your soul is saying, "It's time.  You can face this now, safely."  Right now you are overwhelmed, and --  OH MY GOSH, do I know how you are feeling!  

I would recommend that, for now, especially until you are back in a trusting and secure counseling relationship, that you learn about and begin to practice The Welcoming Prayer.  This is a very beautiful way for dealing with bad emotions.  There is a pretty good basic article about it at this site http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philfoxrose/2013/10/the-welcoming-prayer/. With this type of prayer, you acknowledge the feelings you are having rather than running away from them, and you allow yourself the space to consider them and what they mean and to what extent they have captured you.  And then you begin learn how to release them.  You don't release what happened, because you can't.  You just learn to release the domination the emotion is having over you.  

One other thing I would suggest is that you begin to tell yourself, when you are panicking, that you are safe now.  You are no longer in that horrible relationship.  You are no longer treated with contempt and used for someone else's needs.  You are safe and that YOU will keep yourself safe.  That you are actively seeking healing.  That you are going to take care of yourself and get yourself the help you need.  That you are no longer being a victim.  You are no longer helpless.  You are seeking the resources you need  to help yourself.  YOU are going to take care of you, now.  

I would also suggest you contact your doctor and ask him if he would be wiling to switch you over to Xanax and tell him that you would like to find a counselor who can do EMDR therapy.  In the meantime, focus on taking good care of yourself.  Focus on feeding yourself well, on making sure you get enough sleep.  Get a hair cut or give yourself a manicure.  Buy some nice-smelling soap, lotion, or bath powder.  Do things for yourself so your psyche can recognize that it is now safe and is being cared for.  And get to a counselor ASAP.  PTSD is not something to be taken lightly.  It is frightening and paralyzing.  


I wish you well.  If you are a Christian, remember that God loves you and forgives you and receives you as His child.  If you are not, I hope you find peace in some other way.  Dear sister, may the peace of The Lord be with you.  

Day 311 - ?

Dear Reader, 

Sometimes I don't know how to title my post until after I finish writing it.  How WAS my day?  Gee, I don't know, there were so many disparate parts of it. Painters came, physical plant people came, dry cleaners person came, the guy to measure the carpeting for the stairs came, and the guy fixing up the security stuff came.  It was pretty frazzling, especially with alarms being tested on and off for two hours or so.  Finally everyone left the house and I raced to the post office to mail both kids a rechargeable bank card.  Then we went to a very fine Indian restaurant and went home.  

I had to iron clothes for my husband today.  I bought a beautiful new ironing board cover hoping it would make ironing more pleasant.  It doesn't!  It wasn't wasted money, though, because it is really beautiful.  

I didn't get to call any doctors for appointments today.  I did research last night and decided on a general practitioner very near who gets great reviews.  

I still haven't weighed and my fingernails are back to being nubs again.  So, lesson learned ... don't let them grow past the tips of my fingers because that's when I start tearing on them.  

My husband leaves for a trip tomorrow morning.  I hope to be able to get a lot of work done on the house while he is gone.  And I purchased tickets for a trip to Tennessee to see my mom, kids, and friends, and to get a million Prolotherapy injections.  Yeah, me!  My shoulder will definitely be getting treated!  

I am going into the city by myself tomorrow for the first time.  A nice, older couple from Tennessee is in town staying at the Grand Hyatt, so I'm going to go in and spend some time with the wife.  She is very nice, but so very feminine and proper.  I feel like I have to really reign myself in around her because I'm a good bit more boisterous than she is, and I fear I will alarm her!  :-).  I wanted to stay home and just work, but my husband talked me into going and "having an adventure"!  Since adventures seem to come my way without any invitation, I doubt that tomorrow will be boring!  

I'm fairly distraught at the moment. You know that I read "Unbroken".  Well, I am now reading "Last Man Out" which is about the Japanese massacring horribly U.S. POWs by getting them to go into bomb shelters that had been dug into the ground, and then dousing them with gasoline and setting them on fire.  Then they systematically hunted down almost all of the men who escaped and bayoneted them and burned them.  One man saw six guards torturing one man they found by first stabbing him with their bayonets and then setting one foot on fire, and then the other, and then his hands, before they set his body on fire.  And not only did they do these things, but they howled with laughter while they did them.  People can't understand the "inhumanity of mankind", but I don't have any such problem.  I believe our sin nature inclines us toward sin and the Bushido culture these soldiers were brought up in made them especially inclined to terrible things.  Plus, I think they were, by this point, full of the devil, literally.  But not until they gave an inward consent.  The most revealing passages about this is given in the gospel of John.  It is at the last supper and Jesus says that the person to whom He gave the bread would betray Him. Then He handed it to Judas, who took it. Then it says that "at that moment the devil entered him."  I think that, by taking the bread, he was saying "yes, I will betray You" and thus saying yes to the devil to use him since it was the devil's goal from the beginning.  

So.  Anyway.  I was looking up whether or not Japan had ever apologized for their actions.  They have over the years, but they've also denied many things that they did.  I found one Japanese person talking about how they weren't taught about WW2 in history except very briefly, and nothing about the atrocities they committed.  It wasn't till he got older and the internet became available that he learned more.  

I then came across in one of their apologies a reference to "the comfort women".  I looked that I and it turns out they abducted some 200,000 women, Chinese, Korean, Philipino, and Dutch, etc, and forced them to become prostitutes for the troops, which meant being raped, beaten, and tortured day and night.  75% of them died.  The remaining ones were so ashamed and traumatized that they didn't tell anyone what had happened to them when they were finally rescued.  Plus, the Japanese told them they would kill them and their families if they told anyone.  It's only been fairly recently that these women have begun to tell their story.  

In looking up one of these books, "Fifty Years of Silence," I came across more information about what the Japanese did to Nanking, the city that was the Capitol of China.  They then systematically went about killing 300,000 men, women, and children.  

We know about the genocides in Africa and other place.  But I don't think any of them have equalled this number of victims.  But most of us know nothing at all about Nanking and what happened there!  And, again, I found that it was because of the Cold War and the threat of communism that the West just wrote all of these things out of the history books!!  It's appalling!

Well, my arm is starting to hurt pretty bad again and I need to be getting to sleep.  It's 11:40 now and I almost feel like I could go to sleep right now!  

You know what's ironic?  We have had movies for decades casting Germans and Nazis as the evil bad guys.  Now, Hollywood has started casting Koreans as the bad guys.  What happened to the Japanese?  How have they missed getting to be Hollywood villains when it begins to look like they were the most horrific villains of all?  I mean, this Nanking massacre alone was 300,000 civilians.  That beats the number of people killed by the two atom bombs combined!   This is an interesting piece about the major massacres the Japanese committed:http://www.cnd.org/mirror/nanjing/NMNJ.html

I tried briefly to find figures on how many civilians the Japanese killed during the war, but couldn't.  But I did find one figure putting the number at 24,000,000; almost twice the number of people killed by Germany.  

What is going on??!  I wouldn't have thought that this level of distortion of history would have been possible in a country with a "free press"!  I am soooo very glad that Spielberg is making a major motion picture on this book, Unbroken, because hopefully it will open this up to the public more.  

Anyway.  I guess that's enough theology and history for the evening, and I shall bid you adieu!

Lisa

Day 312 - How Did It Get to Be Midnight???

Dear Reader,  

I'm up to my usual tricks ... working in bed.  I was going to wash my hair, but I guess that will have to wait until tomorrow morning. Unless I can pull off a third day by putting my hair in a bun.  Hmmm ... 

Today was spent almost entirely in trying to get a driver's license and my car registered in New York.  Guess what you have to have to get a car registered if you have a lien on it?  You have to geta certified   copy of the title (we can't find my title anywhere) and you have to have a letter from the lien holder saying that they hold the lien, yada yada, and that they know you have taken the car to New York!  Crazy!  And to get a license, you have to have your social security card!  Maybe that is normal, but it's causing some problems for me.  I keep my card in my desk because I change purses and wallets all the time and I don't want to lose it.  But ... my desk is still packed up!  So,I have to take on my study far before I'm ready! I found a bunch of boxes for the hallway armoire in my study, and a bunch of book boxes, but I haven't seen anything for my desk contents.  I have found that they seem to have lost parts of my stained glass lamp as they have for one of my husband's mica lamps.  

My shoulder hurt me so badly last night, that I couldn't sleep.  And typing this is making my bicep hurt like crazy so I'm pecking with my left hand now.  

I called the doctor nearby, but had to leave a message.  This evening I looked for a regular doctor and decided on one very close.  I'll call them tomorrow.  I HAVE to go to the chiropractor tomorrow!!!

So that's it for tonight.  Except that I'm chewing my nails off even as I write this.  The nail polish chipped on a couple of them and that was all it took!  Rats.  

Cheers!
Lisa

Day 313 - Okay, So, I'm Back

Reluctantly, but I'm back.  I'm just tired of doing this, you know?  Tired and discouraged. Nothing has changed in my life yet, and it's tiring to try to stay focused on my weight and life and health, and I kind of wanted to just let the whole matter drop and just shift to neutral and let my life idle for a while.  

But, that's probably not a good idea, so I will go back to using this blog to keep me accountable to you... whoever you are!

Very briefly, my friend was an enormous amount of help and rip-snorted her way through my kitchen boxes.  She even figured out how to organize my kitchen!  Since she left, I have emptied all of the remaining boxes in the breakfast room, arranged my tea sets in the corner china cabinet and put my antique pitchers on top of it.  I even came across a tea set from my mother that I had forgotten about!

I have found a functional medicine doctor who is about 15 minutes away ... and is in network for my insurance!  Yeah!  I'm going to schedule an appointment tomorrow.  

I have finished all the decorating decisions, even squeezed the sunroom into the budget!  There are a few items that I will have to find because I just wouldn't pay their prices.  $798 for a ceiling mount light fixture for the powder room, for instance.  

I have bought a battery for my scale, so it's working.  I am going no where near it yet, though!

I checked out the YMCA and is is just SAD!  So it's jazzercise, for sure.   

I tackled cleaning the shed and going through all my boxes that they just threw in the backyard.  The boxes had rotted and the wrapping paper was molded.  I washed all of my pots and cleaned up all if my things and cleared out a lot of things I don't really use.  The shed is half the size of the one I had before, but I got everything trimmed down to wear it all fits.  

I have around 8 more boxes of things set aside for Salvation Army that I've culled out.  I've gone through and organized most of my jewelry.  I haven't found one very special set from Nordstrom's yet. It's gorgeous and I wear it with several dressy outfits.  

I've decided not to continue with the counselor I saw a few weeks ago.  She's just too far away down a very windy, curvy highway.  When it snows, I know I'm not going to ant to drive it.  So I'm gong to look for someone closer.  

I took the leap and went to a salon.  One girl did my color and a different girl did my cut.  This is probably the best cut and color I have ever gotten.  

Oh, and it let all my nails grow out past my cuticles on the underside of your nails.  Then we went to see "Lucy" and I was so bored I took several of them down.  Not totally, though ... yay.  

So, that's all I can think of for now.  

Oh, we went back to that church that meets in the afternoon and liked it again.  Though I just don't get the jazz music!

Cheers!

Lisa 

Day 324 - YAY!!

Dear Reader,

I'm so glad that my good friend has arrived!  She's already just about figured out how to organize my kitchen, which is great because I have just been baffled!  I have asked her to wake me up tomorrow, but not before 7:00.  I'm going to see if she can make me into a morning person in four days.  Who believes it could happen??

I woke up this morning to another really bad dream of my husband breaking up with me.  I couldn't even get out of bed for an hour, and it had me really sad most all of the day.  Gotta get some EMDR!  

I have the go ahead to order all of the furniture as soon as he designer and I get everything finalized.  She wants to come back to the house one more tine before we place the order.  

I'm in the tub doing this because my husband was asleep when I came to bed.  My cat reached under the door with her paws and pulled it open so she could come in here!  She is so cute. 

I wonder if you could chart my anxiety or depression by the number of exclamation points I use per word in these posts?

I was telling my friend about the dog who is blind, deaf, and incontinent, but has the blood of a five year old.  Then I told her about the dog with Cushing's and how that is affecting her weight and weakening her muscles and tendons in her back legs.  And then I told her about the fog who has low thyroid and she just about died laughing!  Said she doesn't know how I keep it all straight, between my dogs and myself!

Heading to bed now.  7:00 is going to come awfully early!  I've sent in an email asking if the painters, etc., can not come today.  They're also working on campus so they've told me to let them know if there's any day I want the house to myself.  

The top of my big toe isn't getting much blood.  It's super white while the rest of my foot is reddened from the heat of the water.  Sounds like Raynaud's Syndrome, which I do have ... of course.  But it happens in this one place frequently, so I wonder what that's about?

I expect to have a goo, fun, and productive day tomorrow.  Hope you do, as well.  

Cheers!
Lisa 

Day 325 - Aaargh!

Dear Reader,

I am sooooo annoyed!  I called the office of that functional medicine doctor and found out I couldn't get in to see her for a YEAR.  I told my mom and she suggested that I write her.  I decided that it couldn't hurt, and so I sat down and was writing her a letter explaining all my medical issues, hoping to pique her interest so she would want to see me.  I was almost through when I could not remember the name of the blood chemical that I might be deficient in that could be the cause of the high mercury levels.  So I opened another tab to check the name, and when I went back, my entire letter was gone.  Aaaaargh!!  I should have copied it before I opened another tab, but I didn't think of it.  Darn it.  So that will have to wait until tomorrow. 

My husband told me before we went to bed last night that our college enrollment is down pretty significantly.  He was anxious about it and that got me anxious.  So I couldn't get sleepy.  When I decided to make a go of it, I took a whole Xanax instead of a half of one.  Well ... you know how the light alarm woke me up yesterday within about twenty minutes yesterday?  Didn't exactly happen today!  I woke up AN HOUR AND TWENTY MINUTES after it went off.  That is NOT the way to wake up to a day.  Especially when you're trying to get hold of your life!

I realized last night that one of the many things I need to stop doing in bed is shopping.  My internet connection in the bedroom is very poor and so it takes forever for each page to load.  But ... having said that, can I remark upon the fact that Mario Badesco has FIFTEEN DIFFERENT SKIN CLEANSERS???  How am I supposed to decide which one to buy if I don't properly research all of them???  A slow internet is just part of the price I have to pay!  

Speaking of shopping in bed ... I found the most gorgeous ironing board cover last night after searching for longer than I care to say.  But trust me, it was TOO long!  I hadn't looked at my ironing board for a long  and glorious time, so when I got it out and set in its holder, I saw that the cover was in really bed shape.  If I'm going to be doing the ironing, I at least want a pretty ironing board cover.  And look at this Cath Kidston I found:
http://media.cathkidston.com/pws/client/images/catalogue/products/401937/xlarge/401937.jpg
I don't think it will make ironing pleasurable, but it should make it a little less awful.  Especially with my right shoulder messed up ... it is definitely hard and painful to iron.  

My decorator and I are working a out a lot of things for the final decisions on the house.  I think were almost there.  I had to spend a pretty long time today working on our last email, but I can't tell you how wonderful I think it's going to look.  

My friend comes in tomorrow!  I'm so excited!  I'm torn, though, because it know she has so graciously decided to come and help me unpack, but I also want us to just knock around and go to antique stores, and shopping in the city, etc!  I am going to have to drive in to LaGuardia tomorrow by myself to get her!  Why won't Siri always talk when giving you directions!?  That is a big problem! I'm going to try to see if I can figure it out ... tonight, of course.  

Cheers!

Lisa

Day 326 - Good Day!

Dear Reader, 

 I had a pretty good day today.  I actually did feel some depression today, but didn't succumb to it.  I got some good work done today, which was exciting after having several low days.  I finished ALL of the boxes in my bedroom!!  I cleaned three toilet bowls, (Really not a fan of doing that!) and I got most of the laundry Donal. But best of all is that I got a LOT done in my laundry room.  I need a new ironing board cover, though, I realized.  I've been looking at some pretty Laura Ashley ones on line, but my internet is running unbelievably slow!  I'm about to go crazy.  

Since I didn't get anything accomplished today that moves me forward toward any of my goals, I don't have much to share with you this evening.  I set my light alarm for 9:00 and had it set for the birds' song.  It actually woke me up at 9:20 and I actually got out of bed at 9:30.  So that's definitely a step forward and encouraging.  I texted my realtor asking abut doctor recommendations and she told me about a doctors' group that she sees, so I guess that's an itsy, bitsy step in the right direction.  

So I guess that's it for tonight.  Except for one thing.  The preacher yesterday talked about an interesting quote by a woman I had not heard of before and referred to her as "the theologian, Amy Oden" or something like that.  And I had this longing run through me of wanting to be a theologian!  Not every little girls' dream!  :-)

Cheers!
Lisa

P.S.  This house will be finished at some ponta right??

Day 327 - Feeling Much Better Today

Dear Reader, 

I am happy to say that I am feeling much better today.  My husband came in and one me up at 11:00 this morning.  He got in bed it's me and we snuggled and dozed together for a while.then he asked me what was going on with my medicines.  I told him that I had been it of my anti-depressants for a few days, but was going to pick it up today.  Then I realized -- that's why I've been feeling bad the last few days.  It usually takes me being off of them longer than this for me to start feeling the effects.  But I guess with so much underlying stress I started feeling the lac much more quickly.  I was so relieved!  This makes sense.  It's not even my body being especially weird, it's just my body needing the Welbutrin which, as far as I'm concerned, is a gift from God!  Later this evening I asked him how he figured out it was my medicine when I hadn't figured it out.  He laughed and said he'd been doing this for a number of years!  I said but, I hadn't been irritable.  He said usually "unreasonable anger" (ha!) is how he knows, but sometimes, including this time, it's sleeping too much.  We picked up my med and I took one right away, and took one this evening.  Im hoping very much that I'll have my energy level back up by the time my friend get here, Wednesday.  

I was able to do some work this afternoon and evening.  I got started on the laundry and unpacked a big box of china and a big box of kitchen things.  Found my big mixer, but what I'd really like to find is my toaster!  I still don't know how to organize this kitchen.  The upper counters were hung too high and I can't reach above the second shelf at all.  So annoying.  That really limits the amount of space I have.  And in the island, underneath the stove, there is some large rack organization thing.  I can't figure out what it's supposed to do or be.  Maybe they mounted it wrong.  I can't find it on amazon, and it's taking up a lot of space.  I know where several kitchen boxes are, but I haven't unloaded them yet because I can't figure out where to put things.  

We visited a church today, the one whose worship service is at 4:00 in the afternoon.  I really liked it!  You may have realized that my attitude towards church is ambivalent at best.  But I really liked this service.  It's a small congregation and they are meeting Ina very old Presbyterian church. The church itself is small, but just gorgeous.  Beautiful stained glass windows, light and open feel to it.  It has a high church format, which I am most comfortable with since that is my background.  The music was refreshing, the musicians were very good, put a jazz spin on a lot of things they did which was odd, but not off-putting.  The preacher gave a simple message about the Pharisees attitude towards "sinners" and their complaint that Jesus ate with sinners.  It wasn't scintillating, but it was well-presented and brought some new insights to this.  The congregation was very friendly and I felt completely comfortable and at-home.  There was one hitch.  And, since it try to always be honest and Up-front in this blog ... hit helps that it's anonymous! ... there was a child there who is remarkably ugly.  Birth defect, obviously, but of a sort I've never seen before.  I only got a couple of glimpses of him since I didn't want to stare.  I would guess that he was between 4 and 8.  He had course brown hair, but was curiously bald on the top of his head.  Think George in "Seinfeld,"  He did not appear to have eyelashes or eyebrows and his eyes were two-different sizes and slightly misplaced on his face.  Not markedly, just not quite right.  His expression was completely blank.  I am sorry to say that I saw him when we entered the church and wanted to sit as far away from him as we could.  I was revolted by his appearance.  During the service there was a loud wet, aspirated sound, I don't know how to describe it better.  Maybe like his lungs were flooding and it had come up into his bronchial tubes or something.  The parents turned on some sort of loud pump and, I gather, suctioned him out.  Later in the service, I saw that they had moved to the side area.  I heard that sound come from him again and looked over that way.  What I saw surprised me.  He was standing in the row in front of his parents.  After making this sound, he turned towards them and gave a shrug as if to say, "Whew!  That one caught me by surprise."  Very curious.  My revulsion lifted.  He wasn't a blank after all.  There was something so normal about the way he shrugged, so little-boyish.  Wait, I just realized.  He didn't look,like,George, his hair looked like Larry, of the Three Stooges.  

I thought about St. Francis and his attitude towards lepers.  He was terrified of them and revolted by them. But, one day, he was riding down a road and a leper stood in the road in front of him.  Francis went against his revulsion and embraced the leper.  Off I recall correctly, this was a pivotal moment for him and it wash shortly after this that he renounced everything and began the life of simplicity and preaching that we know him for.  This is a beautiful avaunt of this moment that you might like to read http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Catholic/2003/10/Saint-Francis-Meets-A-Leper-On-The-Road.aspx?p=3

Maybe I will have the opportunity to let love overwhelm my own revulsion.  

Cheers!

Lisa

Day 328 - Still Not Up to Par

Dear Reader,

I've had another low-energy day.  Not really sure what causes this, but I'm trying to not fret or fight or fume over it or beat myself over it.  It will pass and I will feel better and will be ready to take everything on again.  I'm really trying to keep to the mindset of, "I have a complicated body and it is unreasonable to expect it to function like "normal people."  Plus, like it or not I've still got inner wounds that keep me from functioning at full tilt all the time.  Sometimes I can shrug them all off, but sometimes they creep up and drag me down into depression or inertia.  Hopefully, though, I'll feel better tomorrow.  I really need to.  The house isn't getting any better and nothing is getting unpacked when I'm not functioning well.  And I really need to wash clothes, etc. tomorrow.  

I slept till almost 11:00 this morning, but I stayed up till 2:00 working on an email to the Ethan Allen woman with a million questions and changes I wanted to talk to her about.  When I got up, I decided to get in the pool.  My husband came out and sat down to read a book.  Since we were in this part of the yard, I decided to let the dogs come out to see how they handled the pool.  Our old, blind, Jack Russell walked up to the edge, paused, slipped, and fell in.  I swam to her quickly and got her and took her to the side where I held her for a long time and dried her off until she stopped shaking so bad.  I finally let her go and she walked to the same place, leaned over lie she was trying to see what this glistening thing was, her foot slipped, and she fell in again.  She must have done this at least seven times!  After that I took her upstairs and gave her a bath, removing mountains of hair from her!  She sheds sooooo badly!  

After this I took a bath and washed my hair.  By then, I was really tired and went back to sleep for about two hours until my husband woke me up.  I sat outside with him for a while.  Even though the pergola and my furniture under it are still really dirty, it's not bothering me as badly since I know what's causing it now and know that it will be taken care of next week.  

I was feeling pretty low today and went to amazon looking for books to help me become the person I am meant to be.  Yes, I do know how unbelievably trite that sounds!  But it just seems like I can't get on top of things in my life and I really do want to!  I know I made a good step ths week picking and going to see a new counselor.  And I picked a store and a designer and furniture for the house, so that's pretty big, too.  I even picked out a white trim paint color, for crying out loud!  I tried to see a doctor, but that got messed up because of insurance issues.  I've found the functional medicine doctor I want to use in a town about 20 minutes from here.  I decided against the doctor here who got the insurance information all wrong.  Hopefully this other doctor takes insurance.  

So I've made some progress, but just hit a wall the last couple of days.  Inertia has seized me.  My good friend is coming up next week and I'm so glad!  It will be so great to have a friend up here and some fresh energy to use on unpacking!  

I downloaded a couple of books today.  One called Time Warrior, which is about how to stop procrastinating, etc.  And one called "God's Power to Change: Healing the Wounded Spirit." This is from a series of four books on inner healing and spiritual transformation that get five-star reviews.  

I'm having difficulty finding an ordinary doctor in the area. I don't know anyone really to ask when they recommend.  And many of the people at the college live elsewhere.  

Tomorrow will be another day.  Were visiting a church that has it's service at 4:00 in the afternoon.  Now, that's an idea I can get behind!  Going to bed now.  Early for me ... it's not even 1:00 am!  Did I mention that my friend who is coming into town gets up at 5:00 each morning??  Just wakes up!  

Good night!

Lisa

Day 329 - A Nice, But Low-Energy Day

Dear Reader, 

I woke up at 11:00 this morning.  My fitbit says I slept 9 hours and 23 minutes.  So, though I was rested, I had no energy at all.  Rather than try to fight it all day, I decided to just accept it and roll with it instead of fighting myself to artificially produce energy.  So, I put on a pretty dress and did my hair and makeup nice, and even gave myself a pedicure.  I read my bible and had my prayer time early in the day.  I also worked a lot on the Ethan Allen proposal.  I only just now finished it and was ready to send it when I saw that some images I had included were not showing now.  I started to try to fix it, and then saw the time,  of course I had no idea it was 1:00 am.  None at all!  Which brings mento another thing.  I had completely forgotten that my good friend who is coming up Wednesday is an VERY early riser!  As in 5:00 am type of riser!  Maybe she can convert me!  

I successfully caught my doggie's early morning urine this morning.  Yay!  She was not at all happy with me and at first refused to go to the bathroom at all!  

I got online to read up on the welcoming prayer and found a wonderful website called www.contemplativeoutreach.org. It has some really good stuff on the welcoming prayer and the centering prayer.  They have retreats and all sorts of other things.  One is a nine-month course in which you meet for one weekend a month for nine months in a town about an hour away from where we are.  This contemplative prayer is something I really want to do more.  It used to come pretty naturally to me, but then life tightened it's grip around me and now I've pretty much quit any form of meditation.  Even my prayer time right now is more of a discipline than a longing.  My mind is just too tied up in all of the millions of things I have to do.  I still haven't been to the DMV or even registered my dogs with the city or gotten a New York car inspection done.  Since stress exacerbates my health so badly, I keep having my health slow me down or bring me to a stop. It's hard to have a good prayer time when every where you look you see chaos and things you need to do!  

So, I did a little research and found out why we don't know anything about the Japanese atrocities during WW2.  I had thought that, if I were a conspiracy theorist type of person, I would believe it was a conspiracy!  I mean, how can all of this insanely terrible stuff have been forgotten about!?  At one city, they talked 90,000 Chinese soldiers into surrendering.  They bound them ALL by hand, and then proceeded to SLAUGHTER THEM ALL, taking laughing pictures of themselves with the corpses!  It took weeks for them to kill them all and they were praised for their diligence in Japanese newspapers!  They then proceeded to start raping, torturing and killing many of the citizens of the town.  And there's so much more.  The percentage of POWs they killed is SO MUCH higher than the number that died under the Germans!  Well ... turns out it IS a conspiracy!  And such an awful betrayal of our soldiers by the government.  

Thousands of Japanese prison guards were captured, imprisoned, and tried.  Many received death penalties.  But, the trials were carried on by Americans, and the Japanese deeply disliked this.  S, after a few years of this, China became communist and America wanted to keep Japan a democracy.  So, along about 1957 or something like that, the U.S. Declared an amnesty.  All of those imprisoned were released, even if they had been given life sentences.  Those who were given the death penalty, but had not yet been executed were pardoned and released.  One of these went on to become the prime minister of Japan.  Those who had not yet been caught but were being hunted were suddenly Scott-free.  The whole thing was quietly packed up, put away, and forgotten.  And the whole story of the war in the Pacific was erased out of history.  Makes my heart just break for these men and their families.  

Oh, before I get off let me tell you about something surprising today.  I woke up with no discernible swelling, AND STAYED THAT WAY for most of the day! That is a first!!  It was wonderful and it felt so, so good!  I swelled a little after lunch, and then I swelled a lot after dinner.  This is making me wonder if I am allergic to caffeine or to artificial sweeteners.  I had water with tea drops in it at lunch, and then I had a coke zero at dinner.  For breakfast I had an English muffin, vanilla yogurt, and fresh blueberries.  No coffee or tea.  And I didn't swell at all!

Well, that's it for tonight.  I hope I have some energy tomorrow because I really need to do some more unpacking and get some laundry washed.  And sweeping!  Still can't find my vacuum, and fighting the fur is a constant problem!

Have a great Saturday!

Lisa

Day 330 - Crazy Day!

Dear Reader,

Today got off to an interesting start because I was supposed to catch my sheltie's morning urine! Fun times!  To do,this, I decided to use one of my things that you carry with you to give your dog water while you walk or travel.  It's long and narrow, and I decided to slip it under her once she go to going.  When I let them outside, there were two men in the back yard for some reason.  I made them come inside, which was surprisingly hard to get them to understand.  Then I saw some guy who was here with a crew to paint the fence picking up a big branch and breaking it into pieces and tossing it over into the next door neighbor's yard!  I told him not to do that.  Stella started to pee and I put the trough-like-ting under her to catch it.  You should have seen the outraged look she gave me!  Right then, though, some other man comes around the corner and startled her and me, causing me to spill some of the urine. . I told the guy to go back out of sight and started following her around, even though she was eyeing me very suspiciously.  Right then, four more men came walking around the other corner, causing the dogs to just go crazy!  I think I got two tablespoons of urine ... maybe.  So I get to do it all over again tomorrow.  It's just a great way to start off your morning!  

Then I went to the Ethan Allen store to see what the decorator had come up with.  And let me tell you, it is classy and fabulous!  She really listened to me and put together something very, very chic and warm and inviting and youthful and romantic with just a touch of southern and a touch of shabby chic.  She prepared choices for the living room and the dining room, including two custom-made rugs and including a new rug to go up the stairs, a glorious chandelier and matching sconces for the dining room, two crazy wonderful lamps for the living room and one standing lamp, and a very, very cool looking "stripped-down" chandelier for the living room.  Wallpaper, shutters, blinds, draperies, mirrors, etc.  Gorgeous!  Sharp!  Crisp!  Happy!  And only around $75,000!  (WHAT!?!?!?). I didn't freak out, but I came close.  I told my husband all about it this evening and showed him mock-ups and pictures.  He was less disturbed by the price than me, but was very disturbed that it will take 2-3 months to get it all in.  He's going to talk to his Chief Operating Officer tomorrow about it.  We've had the fence installed already, and are getting the interior of the house painted, so he needs to find out where we are expense wise with the house already.  But, I tell you ... I wanted something that would not intimidate our low-income students and was not ostentatious, did not represent who we are, etc.  Well ... no one could walk into this house without feeling happy!  And welcomed!  It's all just so friendly.  

So, well see what happens with all this.  But I'm starting to see it pull together and it will be just beautiful ... if we decide to go with it.  One place where I can save some money, though, is on lamps!!  I'm sure the two table lamps were a minimum of $500 each and the floor lamp was $999.  I'm sure I can do better than that.  Anyway ... moving on.  

My insurance does work for out-of-network doctors, so I don't know what to think about the doctor who told me it didn't.  I mean, if she got this wrong, how good of a doctor could she be?  Or is that unreasonable?  Maybe she just got hold of someone at the insurance company who confused her.  I've got to look at this all over again before I make an appointment.  

I did drive out to see the counselor I decided to try.  I liked her a lot and the drive is beautiful.  I wanted someone who is not right around here

I only had an English muffin before I left the house and didn't get a chance to eat again until I got back home after 5:00. So, you'll be pleased to know that, although I was quite hungry and feeling very stressed, all I ate was AN ENTIRE BAG OF POTATO CHIPS!  So ... well done, Lisa!  

Tomorrow's a new day.  I'm going to have workers in my house for months, so I'd better get used to it.  I don't have anything scheduled for tomorrow, but I think I'm going to have to get in to see the chiropractor, try to catch Stella's urine and take it to the vet, and maybe take my Jack Russell to the vet, too.  She has bitten a place on her foot so much that it's made an ugly looking growth.  Seems like she's done this before, but I don't remember what the vet did.  

Have a great day tomorrow.  Oh, one other thing.  In researching the possibility of my dog having Cushing's disease, I am now wondering if I do, too.  I've got to find my notebook that has all my tests in it and see if he's tested me for this in the past.  

Cheers!

Lisa

Day 331 - Trying to Get to Bed Early

Dear Reader, 

It's 11:42 pm, yet I say I'm trying to get to bed early!  Nevertheless, I am really tired again, which is a good thing.  I should be tired and able to go to sleep!  I was able to sleep last night without a Xanax which was also a good thing.  

The morning began at 9:00 with people hammering on the exterior of the house to install some IT lines and my dogs just went crazy!  It took a while for me to go ahead and get up, though, because I was so sound asleep when it started.  Happily, I noticed that I wasn't swollen and my stomach and abdomen were flat! That was encouraging.  Men were all through the house today, working.  Some were painters, one was a locksmith, and several,others were with the college.  It was a madhouse!  Tomorrow starts at 8:00 with someone going into the attic to work on internet connections.  YUCK!

I'm still not feeling well.  I started overheating badly at one point, and then five more men,  one of whom is really loud, came in and I started feeling feverish and having chills.  So I'm still pretty sure it's my immune system being a problem.  I had a smoothie,for breakfast and got really sick afterwards and pretty much stayed sick at my stomach all day.  Even now.  I was able to eat a salad for lunch, but wasn't able to eat dinner.  

I called the functional,health doctor to check on my insurance situation.  She said that they called and the plan I have does not let you go out of network AT ALL!  They won't pay anything if you do.  So, I'm supposed to see a counselor tomorrow and I wante to talk to them about it because I didn't want to,get hit with a big bill.  But they called in to be sure and were told that, yes, I could go out of network.  It was a separate $500 deductible, but then they paid half of each session, which is pretty much standard practice.  So I have to call the doctor again tomorrow and see what's up.  

The vet called today about me sheltie. It looks like she has Cushing's Disease.  This is when they produce too much cortisone and cortisone.  Her corticosteroid levels were about ten times the highest normal.  I'm supposed to catch her morning urine tomorrow!  Yeah, right!  I'm supposed to sneak up while she's peeing and try to catch her stream.  Sure.  No problem.  

I'm reading the book "Unbroken" and it is so tremendous.  After he returns from the war, he is just ruined.  He was tortured so much by an insane Japanese official for so long, and he had nightmares constantly of the man attacking him brutally.  He became an alcoholic and was sustained only by his plan to go back to Japan, find this officer and murder him ... slowly.  There was a huge manhunt for this man, but they couldn't catch him.  And then... BILLY GRAHAM comes to town!  His wife goes to hear him and has a remarkable spiritual experience.  She begins asking, cajoling, threatening, and lying to her husband to get him to come.  He did, but rushed out when the invitation started.  He went again the next night with his wife with the agreement that they would leave as soon as the invitation started ... but he couldn't, and he wound up being SAVED!  He was immediately set free from the nightmares, the rage, the murderous intentions, the flashbacks, the hatred, and the alcohol.  Even the cigarettes!  Wow! You just don't come across that in secular books.  I was told that he died last week.  I hope he got a heros's send-off.  

I found my sheets tonight.  In the bottom of a tall box that is marked, "Master Bathroom, Glass Decor."  Aaargh!

Cheers!

Lisa

Day 332 - Short and Sweet ...

... because I'm exhausted! 

Dear Reader,

I did let myself sleep till I woke up which was after 9:00. I felt some better and decided to sweep and mop the room the painters worked in yesterday, arrange neatly the remaining boxes in the room they were going to work in today, and take care of a lot of empty boxes.  I decided to do,this first thing so it would be finished and ready for them when they got here.  But for some reason my body temperature went crazy and I was incredibly hot and sweating so badly that my jeans were wet.  I kept having waves of feverish chills despite how hot I was.  I decided I was going to have to go upstairs to bathe and lay down because I was just miserable. But then the person from the physical plant arrived with two people to handle measuring windows and putting up blinds.  They were very nice, but very garrulous even though they knew  I didn't feel well.  After a while I said I had to go to bed and did som though I was unable to sleep.  

I got up in time to get ready and take my sheltiw to the vet.  Loved my new vet.  A little older than me and she seemed so sharp!  She's doing blood work and putting my dog on a very strict diet food and plan by Purina,  She said she wanted to get at least ten pounds off of her bad that should help her back legs a lot.  

I went to the store to get my Western Union refund.  It was a different girl, but she didn't know how to do it either!  I was there FOREVER getting that taken care of.  

I'm super tired and ready to go to bed now.  I'm supposed to catch my Sheltie's urine tomorrow.  Right! That's going to happen.  I came close to my goal with my fitbit. I still have a LOT to unpack, and I haven't even started in my study!

That's it for tonight.  Sleep well!

Lisa

Day 333 - Not Exactly the Day I Had Planned

Dear Reader,

Well, all the well-laid plans did certainly go astray today.  As I told you, I'm trying this "Habit Stacking" book's ideas.  So, I set up three habit stacks, basically following the routine of my usual day, but shifting things up a little.  Like, before I start on housework or unpacking or exercising, I'm going to try to do desk work first.

I didn't take even a half of a Xanax, because I only had one left and I didn't know if my doctor had sent me a hard-copy prescription or not.  I slept fairly well, better than the night before, but not great. When my alarm went off after about 8 hours I felt just exhausted.  I kept pushing dose until, by a huge act of will, I got up and started on my day, as planned. I kept expecting to shake it off, but I never, ever did.  I made some coffee and enjoyed about three swallows before it started messing with my stomach.

I got completely dressed, even my hair and makeup done and put on tennis shoes because I intended to really work.  But then the painters got her and emptied the living room into my large entry and my dining room, which I had not expected.  These were the first two areas I was going to sweep once I started the housework!

But ... I never got to the housework.  I cleaned off the breakfast table and set up my computer on it.  The plan is to do computer work first, then male phone calls, and then do any written work I need to do, like paying a bill or writing a note.  I began with reviewing world news.  This is one of the suggestions of Habit Stacking and I decided to try it having been caught completely  off-guard by someone bringing up ICE in a conversation and I had no idea what they were taking about.  I think I covered it okay, unless they interpreted my blank face as embarrassed ignorance, which it was.  I found a fantastic app/website called, unfortunately, "inkabinka".  It sums up the world news in a two minute presentation.  It breaks down each item into four points for you and the will send you to the full article if you want.  So, I did know about the Palestinian teenager who was killed already, but I now know that thy have arrested six men, one of which made a confession.  Then I worked through a bunch of emails and checked Facebook.

Then I made a bunch of necessary one calls that never made it to the top of any to-do list.  Grueling!  But, I do have an appointment with a vet tomorrow for my sheltie, and I did find a functional health doctor who accepts insurance, though she is out-of-network.  I'm going to keep looking, but she sounded like she was saying that she would adjust things to equal what my insurance would do if she were in network.  So, well see.  I called my bank and ordered a debit card and checks.  And I even got  my Western Union problem worked out and they are refunding me my money.  Yeah!!  I did some other calls and then took care of some written things I needed to go through and a couple of bills I needed to mail in.  Whew!  I HATE doing stuff like that!  I tried to print off some return slips for amazon, but couldn't figure out how to print them off with my husband's new computer/printer set-up.  During all of this I kept feeling worse and worse and like I really needed to go back to bed.  But there were four strange men in the house painting and I didn't want to go to bed while they were here, so I kept,working until they got finished and left.  But by then, I was very sick.

Now, when I say "sick," I mean my immune system started acting u like it was being attacked.  My doctor once told me that my body thought it was a village under siege and anything could make it go screaming into action.  I'm very sick at my stomach and having various digestive complaints, but I'm pretty sure I'm not sick from a bacteria or anything.  But my body is trying to kill whatever it is that made me feel so tired.  So, tonight, I'm not going to set an alarm and will just get up when I wake up and that should take care of that.  I went to bed around 3:00, I guess and just laid there pretty comatose until around 8:00.  I ate a couple of gluten-free English muffins and drank some coke.  I expect to feel fine tomorrow. But it's very frustrating to lose so much of the day because of my body misinterpreting fatigue.

Had a few interesting things happen today.  I had worked long and hard at picking out the white paint for the ceilings and molding and had gone with "Simply White" by Benjamin Moore after reading a lot of articles by designers taking about their favorite whites.  This white has no grey to it and works equally well with warm colors or cool colors.  But, after they started painting they called me in and were all worried about the paint color, asking me if this was what I wanted, wasn't too,late to change my mind, etc.  the problem was that they were painting the ceiling and it looked like a cream instead of a white.  I assured them that it was the right color (inwardly I was groaning and thinking I had made a terrible mistake, but I wasn't going to second-guess myself at that point).  I showed them how the ceiling looked mind of grey, but this fresh paint did not, etc.  They were still very worried, but I insisted that it was fine.  I was pleased to see, though, that I had been right.  I couldn't think that I had made a terrible mistake because I had gone through all the paint swatches and everything. Once the ceiling was painted, though, it looked great and, more importantly, WHITE!  Whew!  When the contractor came back to the house I showed it to him and he was amazed.  Said he thought I had made a mistake and that it was almost a beige, etc.  I told him that I had been moderately terrified.  He exclaimed that I didn't show it at all, that he never would have guessed that I had any doubt at all. I told him that I'm really good at poker, and he said he would never play poker with me!

My husband posted on Facebook a picture of me from when I was 27 and, frankly, I had had no idea that I was that pretty!  I mean ... I look GORGEOUS!  Oh how the mighty have fallen!  Oh, by the way, one thing I like about this doctor I talked to today is that weight is one of their main areas.  My weight problems are all tied up in my immune system problems, so I'm hoping she can help my body decide it can give up the extra pounds.  One time a few years ago I gave it a very concentrated effort. I worked out a lot, diets, and even took diet shots and pills.  In four months I think I lost maybe six pounds!  And I screwed my immune system up so much worse.  I had not told my doctor I was doing that, but I finally had to go in to see him for extreme fatigue.  He ran some tests and when I went back on, he showed me how very much worse all my immune system markers were and how extreme they were ... seriously, off the charts!  He told me about it and then said something had changed and asked me if I knew what had caused this!

I haven't done anything stupid since then.

But, dear Lord, I want a waist again!!!

I can't remember what the third thing is that I was going to tell you, so I'll tell you this instead.  I'm down to one box in the bedroom which is pretty exciting.

Oh, now I remember!  The college got me a new washer and dryer, and I selected a whirlpool front-load washer with the matching dryer.  I washed some sheets today and -- OH, MY GOSH -- they were practically dry when I took them out of the washing machine!  I literally could have put them on the bed as they were and let them finish up!  One of the things I rad was that they spun the clothes more gently, but still removed more water than a top-loading washer and that this would save on the costs of drying.  Well, I didn't pay any attention to that because I thought, yea, yea.  Sure.  But it's true!

I woke up this morning from an awful dream.  So interesting how my mind works through things in my dreams.  It apparently has decided to take on the incident from several years ago that broke our hearts when a group of women at the church we were in kind of ganged up on me.  The most bizarre period of our lives!  Irrational hostility!  So, in my dream, I was at a women's retreat sort of thing and they started criticizing me about everything from my boot-cut jeans to my narrow face.  My best friend at the time, who did stand by me during it all,  told me that I had to go before a group of them to hear all,of,their accusations.  I said I wouldn't do that and got on a bike and rode away in the pouring rain.  Then the dream shifted to my childhood home, and they were all there at the house next door.  And the woman who became my arch-enemy, for real, was there making all kinds of notes about me in a book.  I was trying to ignore them and go I about my business just having nothing to do with them.  Part of this involved going to the back of my yard and walking through a gate to the house behind my house, which was a diner!  Weird, huh?  But I was very aware that they were all ganging up against me.  A couple of things interesting is that my childhood home represents a lot of shame I felt growing up. And so, my mind takes this incident in which I was attacked for no reason and puts it in the setting of this house.  The other thing interesting is that I used to have nightmares quite frequently in which I was running in terror, pure terror, away from my house.  I always ran through the backyard and leaped the fence into the yard of this house and then kept on running like the hounds of hell were after me for block after block after block, leaping fence after fence.  So, I this dream, the first yard into which I used to leap now has a place of refuge in it in the form of a diner.

My husband never would have started looking for jobs if this horrible incident had not happened, so we count it now as a blessing and think that God allowed something this extreme to happen because nothing less would have shaken us loose as effectively as this did.  You know how Exodus says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart against the Israelites?  It seems almost unfair then, when He punishes Pharaoh afterwords, doesn't it?  But, if you pay attention, you see that the first few times, it says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart.  What I think this means is that Pharaoh made the decision to be hostile towards Israel all on his own.  But then, God used that hostility to effect His will in releasing the Israelites from slavery and get them out of Egypt.  So, while God may have augmented the hostility, He was only using what Pharaoh already had.  I think this was sort of the same thing.  I realized later how this couple already had hostility based in envy towards me.  Then they saw their opportunity and began playing it out.  But then God took their hostility and kept them at it to the point of being ridiculous to effect His will in our lives which was to release us from that place and that life because He had something infinitely better in mind for us.

So, once again ... "Deep Thoughts with Lisa McNichols!"

I hope to have a good day tomorrow and wish you a good one, too.

Cheers!
Lisa

Day 334 - Got an Extra Day With My Girl!

Dear Reader, 

Well ... we had a great visit with our daughter.  Very strange to have her come for a "visit" though!  But, we did at least get an extra day. Saturday, we were having lunch at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and she called to confirm her return flight.  But, a recording told her that she could not confirm for a flight that was past.  We had some confusion regarding the confirmation number and wondered if there was supposed to be a separate confirmation. Umber for the return flight.  So, I called Southwest customer service to find out what was going on.  While I was on hold, I kept looking at her flight information in my notes on my iPhone.  It slowly dawned on me that it said spher return flight was on July 5th.  It finally broke through my consciousness that this was July 5th!  Right then the operator got on and I told her what had happened.She said that we had not called to cancel her flight, so we could not get reimbursed or credited and just had to buy a new ticket for the next day for $369.  Gulp!  She nearly had a panic attack.  After I finished getting her a new reservation, I asked to speak to the supervisor.  The end of the story was that they credited our payment for her return flight to the new flight, and we only hadn't pay the difference, $170.  Whew!  We had planned an expensive meal that evening, so we changed plans and made hotdogs, and that evened out the extra we paid for her extra day.  My husband is making a by good salary, but $369 is nothing to be sneezed at!

S, she got home safely today.  We didn't know how long it would take us to get there, so we left pretty early to be sue we were on time.  This resulted in her having a two hour wait before her flight took off!  

Since we were up and out, and I even had makeu on and my hair fixed, we decided to visit a church nearby.  It was pretty much a cookie cutter church.  Meets at a hotel, everything was exactly like the church we used to go to, except the sermon.  For a wonder, he is tachng from the Old Testament.  In fact, he is teaching THROUGH the Old Testament and is even having his church memorize the books of the Old Testament.  It's been a long time since I heard anyone do any teaching from the pulpit.  So, it was okay, but I don't think well be returning.  It was very racially mixed, which we early liked.  And it was mostly middle to lower class people, whch we also liked.  But other than that, it was pretty boring.  It is also clearly one of those churches where we would not be able to teach, so ... moving on.  

Tomorrow I am going to try to do an overall house-cleaning like I did last Monday.  I'm wondering if my energy level will be any better the time?  It won't be as hard as last week because I will only be dealing with a week of dirt, instead of a month.  

I'm trying a new tactic for unpacking.  I have a box in the bedroom, dining room, family room, and breakfast room that I am working through.  Each time I go into the room, I unpack one item.  Keeping it fresh!

They delivered the new washer and dryer today.  I researched that quite a lot and am happy with my choices.  But I had it checked on the size of the washer and dryer.  These are standard width, but they come out about eight inches further, which is going to make a pretty tight squeeze in the washroom.  This is, incidentally, the best wash room I've ever had.   

I've been reading a book called Habit Stacking.  It's basically just about forming routines and adding in small habits that will improve your life.  Im going to try it tomorrow. I'll let you know how it works out.  I hope I don't tense up as I try to go to sleep.  

I did some more looking for a functional medicine doctor in the area.  There's one nearby and I will call them tomorrow to see if they take insurance, unlike the doctor I have made an appointment to see.  I also found a vet.  I was going to use a spa that gets super high ratings that's very near me ... but then I checked their prices!  A hair cut alone is $100!  I've got to find someone and get an appointment for this week because my roots are almost an inch long.  

I haven't gotten the hard copy Xanax prescription yet either.  I'll have to call tomorrow and see if that's been taken care of.  

Tomorrow I gong to try to take a fifteen-minute "constitutional" after lunch.  I read about this in a health book last year.  For my sort of person, the doctor recommended a short walk after all three meals.  I'm going to start with just trying to get in one.  

My husband wrote me the sweetest poem today.  I told him, as we were preparing to head to church and were walking into a Starbucks to get some coffee, that it was like when we were teenagers again.  Just him and me!  It's really nice to have the bulk of the actively parenting years behind us and to be starting something so gloriously new at the same time.  

Have a wonderful week!

Lisa

Day 336 - Found My IPad!

Dear Reader,

I've missed posting the lat two days because I couldn't find my iPad.  Finally realized it must have slipped down beside my car seat.  Went to look and was relieved that it was there!

Were having a good time with our daughter here, thigh I've given up all pretense of working or getting anything done.  I'm doing pretty well with wearing my fitbit.  It's not sync he'd right now for some reason, so I can't see my exact steps.  But I've made my goal the last two days and came very close today.  

I staying pretty careful with eating.  Had a problem tonight after eating some cashew-based ice cream.  I swelled u pretty badly and couldn't figure out why. Mathis was about the third time I had eaten it.   And then I remembered ... I think I'm allergic to cashews! I remember vaguely noticing it on my last test and thinking, darn!  Cashews are my favorite nut!  

We went into the city to see Jersey Boys.  The singing was amazing!  The cussing was amazing!!  They made it be quite authentic, considering it's a bunch of guys from Jersey!  The star makes those high tenor pieces sound effortless!

We went to my favorite rewtaurant before we went to the play.  I had grilled octopus for an appetizer and a risotto with calamari and sweet peas.  A little too much invertebrates for me!  Got almost sick afterwards.  I'm really having problems with bread these days. The bread there looked wonderful!  

Today it was raining and so we didn't do much of anything.  We did drive into New Jersey and went to a rally large mall to see a movie, the Tom Cruz one.  Our daughter hadn't seen it, so we took her.  It's really good.  The mall was crazy-packed, though!  

We were almost late to see jersey Boys because I spent two and a half hours try got track down the $350 I sent our son on the first bynWestern Union.  The girl acted like she didn't know what she was doing and, apparently she didn't because he never got it.  I started trying to find out what happened and it got sent to a bank in MARYLAND!!  But they can't find it, but Epwestern Union won't refund us our money because they say it's been processed!  It's ridiculous!  And he had to have the money for his rent!  So I had to just send him another $350 and hope to recover the first on Monday.  So frustrating!  And I don't here of this sort of thing happening to other people, but it seems to happen to us call the time!!!

Tomorrow we are going into the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I'm really looking forward to that.  

The decorator from the Ethan Allen store I'm using came out to take a lot of measurements of the downstairs.  Do you remember my goals for the house?  Bright, warm, friendly, elegant, youthful, and in the French Country style.  I want it to be comfortable and not intimidating to our low-income students, but appropriate to the neighborhood in which we live and the house itself.  Plus a house that our VERY HIGH-INCOME donors will like.  Something that has a touch of our being from the South, a broad stroke of my love for romantic decorating , and that we will be comfortable living with.  

And ... I think we have hit it, by Jove! The cost will be staggering, by my standards.  Especially by the time you add lighting and a rug.  We are meeting next Thursday for her to show me her suggestions for the window treatments, rug, and etc.  

So, it's moving along.  Slowly, but not necessarily surely.  More like haltingly, like I'm walking with a limp.  I did, however, pick out the color white for my ceilings and trim.  And if you think that's EASY ... then that proves that you aren't me!  Benjamin Moore,has more than 150 shades of white!

Well, that's it for me.  Oh, I did get all of the things I'd collected for Salvation Army taken off by the physical plant.  I also gave them our washer and dryer because the college is buying new ones for the house rather than spend much money in fixing ours that have been in storage for seven years and are suffering from it.  Personally, I'd just keep getting repairs.  But they spent more than $200 just to have a switch fixed on the washer.  And now the dryer quit heating, so that was going to be anoth $200 just to have someone come out.  

I hope you had a good Fourth of July!

Oh!  I've lost some weight.  I work today a lightweight jacket that was very tight and uncomfortable in the arms befor I move here, but it felt fine now. Main I can't find my scale yet, that's a relief. 

Cheers!
Lisa