My very best Lent was back in the early 90s when I gave up guilt. I decided to be conscious about how many times a day/week/month I felt bad because I was letting down my kids/husband/friends/neighbours/community/the world in general and it was a lot. So I quit for Lent and have never been that guilt-ridden [...]
10Feb10
Faking It
My long awaited specialist appointment can be summed up in the following conversation:
Me: Can you explain the ultrasound results? My gp said they were unusual.
Doc – with many many years of training: No. We can explain the usual but not the unusual. That’s why it’s unusual.
Ok, thanks. He was actually a good, non-patronising human being [...]
27Jan10
Paying Attention
A mildly depressive personality is the flip side of some great blessings in life. I don’t want to stop being creative or visionary. Therefore, I have to put up with the fact that sometimes my mood will dip below “fed up” and into a place that I’d rather not be.
I’m also very very [...]
25Jan10
Two Minds
Well.
It turns out that feeling a bit depressed is, in fact, the same as being a bit depressed.
What a bizarre day I had yesterday.
I spent all day with my brain in two places at once. Sane brain was thinking about all the things I could be doing to take care of myself in a positive [...]
14Dec09
Health and Weight Loss
I rarely get sick. My viral history for 2009 was a three day cold in January.
But I get things. Things that require prodding and poking and scanning and sometimes slicing and dicing. And when I get these things I find it hard to think of anything else.
I guess you’ve guessed [...]
10Dec09
Change is…good?
Today is moving day at my office. My department is moving about 40 miles away, which means a commute where there didn’t used to be one. There are both positive and negative aspects to this. Negative is the time and cost of the commute. We’re talking 90 minutes to 2 hours a day, depending on [...]
18Nov09
Saying Goodbye to Old Favorites
That’s what it feels like I’m doing since my blood sugar issue began–saying goodbye. But it’s turning into a much longer goodbye that it ought to be. I really believed that I would take responsibility for my health when the chips (no pun intended) were down. But it’s turning out to be harder than I [...]
After years of damaging my health by using food in the wrong ways, and for the wrong reasons, it has finally almost caught up with me. My blood sugar stepped just over the line into “pre-diabetic.” This is a little scary, but not totally unexpected. Not long ago, my dad heard the same word from [...]
29Oct09
The Teetotal Experience
I love wine. Yes I do.
But recently a lot of things have conspired to make me realise that maybe it doesn’t love me back.
Over the years, and especially lately, I’ve tried to quit drinking for all sorts of reasons. I’ve been worried about:
my liver
how often I use wine as a stress-buster
the cost
how [...]
28Oct09
Rhythm of (Middle) Life
I’m sailing on a calm pool this week. The perimenoapausal hormones and accumulated minor anxieties which combined to send me round the bend last week are at a standstill today and I feel like a completely different person.
This is how I know that I have finally made it past the half-way mark in life.
I certainly [...]