Breakthrough!

I've been in such a funk over the past year...I've felt emotionally shut down, physically bogged down. I'd fallen into a deep depression and didn't see any way out. Finally something in me snapped and I had to get help. I knew I was hurting my family. I wasn't taking care of myself, I was miserable at work, nothing was "right" in my world.

I finally went to the doctor and even he told me that he could see the sadness in my eyes. That was the biggest wake up call for me. He gave me a plan to help me. I also decided at that moment to actually DO something about my weight. it's been a thorn in my side for years now. I've been willing enough to complain about it, but I just couldn't get out of my own mind long enough to fix it. I finally made that breakthrough and realized that I was not only hurting myself, I was hurting my husband and my daughter. All the "reasons" I was giving for not having enough time to work out were just flimsy excuses for not doing it at all.

So, along with the meds, I've started taking care of myself. I'm eating food that's good, healthy fuel for my body. I've started exercising at 5 every morning. Even on my days off. No more excuses. No more self loathing and self pity.

So, this is it. My big breakthrough. I don't feel like working out is a chore, I actually look forward to it. My new meal plan isn't a "diet" but rather a whole new way of looking at food. I feel better. Mentally and physically. I am so excited to get to where I need to be. Where I should have been long ago.

AAAAUUUUGGGHHH!

*Whew* Glad I got that out.

Sorry I've been MIA lately. It's been so hectic around here that I feel like I've barely had time to breathe. In a nutshell, here it is.

*I had another birthday, yay for feeling old.
*We spent a week in NC with my mom and family. Good times! Except for the violent stomach bug. More on that in a minute.
*Came back from vacation and am back to work...and then the laptop died. Like, died permanently died. Hence the main reason I have been "unconnected" recently.
*I've been struggling emotionally with lots of crap, but I'm honestly working to fix it.

Okay, first of all. Another birthday. Ugh. It's not that I don't enjoy my birthdays, because I do! But it's also a reminder of how old I,m getting!!


A giant bouncy birthday cake? Makes my hips hurt just thinking about it.

Seriously. Birthdays always make me feel a bit introspective. Another year gone....where did it go? What the hell did I accomplish this past year? That type of stuff. Soon enough, life takes over again and we're back to the daily grind, forgetting all of the deep thoughts that plague us at times like that. On again on again, jiggety jig.

Vacation! Yes. We took 10 days off of work and drove the 11 hours down to my parents house in NC. Fun fun. Actually, it wasn't too bad. We left home at 1am (I slept for like 5 hours so I could drive first). Leaving that early made the trip go soooo fast! But here's a quick note for anyone thinking about driving through West Virginia. Before you enter the state of WV, make sure the gas tank is full and your bladders are empty...once you are on the "Expressway" (and I use that term loosely) there is nowhere to stop. And I mean NOWHERE. Hardly any exits. And the ones that are there are all dark and seemingly lead directly into the forest. It's truly bizarre. And scary when your GAS LIGHT comes on and there's no exit in sight. But we made it, thankfully. So chalk that one up to a lesson learned.

But the week with my family was really nice. We got there on Saturday. Sunday we had Sami baptized, and it was also my niece's 8th birthday. She had some kind of stomach bug, but she was a trooper. Monday we went to the NC Zoo and had a great time. Until that night. Sami caught the stomach bug...and spent all night throwing up. Mind you, she's only 3, so running to the bathroom is not an option. I had to sit up with her all night and keep a trash can handy. Poor peanut. It's absolutely pitiful to look in your baby's eyes when they are dry-heaving and they want you to make the hurt go away and there's nothing you can do. So I got literally no sleep. At 5:30am I finally woke up my hubby so he could take over while I grabbed a few winks. Tuesday was laid back...Sami was feeling better (thanks to Uncle Scott and the anti-nausea meds he called in for us) and we just chilled for a while.

Wednesday we went to a "paint your own ceramics" shop with my mom and sister. Sami chose a piggy bank, and had soo much fun painting it! Unfortunately, my sister caught the stomach bug next. So she was down for the count Wed and Thurs. On Thurs, Steve and Sami and I drove to Raleigh to go to the Marbles Kid's Museum. It was soo awesome! Except for the fact that I got the stomach bug too. Persistent little thing, it wasn't going to be happy until it systematically took out every member of my family. We had to leave the museum early, which didn't make Sami too happy, but vomiting in the museum wasn't too appealing to me. We got home and I spent the next 8hours in bed, fighting the bug. Fortunately for me, the bug was very violent but short lived, and I was feeling better by Friday afternoon.

We hung low Friday because we were leaving to go home on Saturday. I have such a hard time saying goodbye to my mom. I was a wreck and cried. And cried. It was awful, and I felt bad for Steve. I was a sniffling, snotty mess.

We finally got home and back to work. It was at that point that the laptop died. Corrupt hard drive. Yippee. Thankfully, it was still covered under the warranty. So they fixed it for free. BUT, they were unable to recover any data from it, so eveything I've done over the past year was lost. *sob* But now at least I have the computer back. And I've learned another lesson about backups.

And this is getting too long to go into the last part of my problems. I'll save that for another day. Stay tuned, it's sure to be fun.