Wow, been too long

I had no idea it's been a month since my last post! My life continues to be very busy and I admit that completely taking care of myself has not been at the top of the list. Although, I have been trying. I have been eating abstinently and working out 3-4 times per week. Actually, I've recently kicked that up. However, I haven't been to an OA meeting in a while and need to do some step work. I'm not going to beat myself up over it, though. I've been working 60 hours/week, going to school, submitting applications to transfer in the fall, putting bids in for my first house and getting up at 4:30 a.m. to work out. I have been zapped of energy and worried about getting sick. There have been FOUR people at work, that actually work very close to me, that either just had or currently have swine flu. I do have a resentment against those people that have continued to come to work even after they have gotten gravely sick. Not only are they making themselves worse, but they are infecting the rest of us, too. I have diabetes, a chronic condition, so my immune system is already compromised. So I'm trying the best I can to walk through things one day at a time. That's all any of us can do really.

Up at oh dark thirty

Tomorrow morning I'm going to be meeting a friend at the gym at oh dark thirty. When is that? The time when crazy people go to work out at the gym. That's me! We meet between 4:30 and 5 AM to get in a workout before starting our days. We don't necessarily work out together, but we wave at each other, say good morning and, most importantly, just hold each other accountable. I have found that it's what I need ... to make a commitment and follow through on it. Sometimes that's the hardest thing to do in life, that good ole keeping promises thing.

My life has been so busy and it's so easy to make bad choices. However, I'm purposely taking care of myself and doing what I can to be abstinent. Sometimes that means staying away from sticky situations or people, but it's what I need to do for me. For so much of my life, it's been about other people but no one is going to take care of me except for me. That's what makes me get up in the morning and go for that workout. And I have to say that it's a complete high that I love. I put in my headset to my mp3 and just go for it. Sweat is pouring off my body in no time flat and I know that I am doing great things not only for my physical body, but emotionally and spiritually as well.

These things take great courage for a compulsive overeater, who hides behind that food like the Berlin wall. But just as that wall came tumbling down, so does mine. I mean, it takes great courage for me to step out of the shadows and into the light. The shadows seem safer because it's what I have been used to my whole life, but the light is a beautiful place to be. I can still be scared, but I do not have to live in fear. Tomorrow morning, I will walk into the light again, taking care of my body and being present in this world. Just the way God intends for me to be.

Handling overwhelming stress

Things at work in the last several weeks have been very tense and extremely busy. Actually, I've been crazy busy since going back to work after summer break, but especially so because of the staff reductions we had due to budget cuts. In an unfortunate twist to all of this, all of the volunteers I had may have to go away. The union is accusing us of displacing laid off workers, even going so far as to say I am in cahoots with the principal to disguise the work they're doing. Totally ridiculous. I have had the volunteers years before the layoffs happened and they are doing nothing to displace anyone.

The snippiness, gossiping and everything else that has been going on at school has been really difficult. I am trying to stay out of the ugliness, but I also have friends that have confided in me and it's hard not to take sides. All of this is reminiscent of what I was dealing with at my last position at the district office. It's not there completely there yet, but it's getting there. It was so bad that I ended up leaving and taking a demotion to do so. There's a big part of me that just wants everything to come out so that we can deal with it.

In the meantime, I'm personally getting buried in my own workload. I am trying so desperately to prioritize and do what I can, but it's hard. I have so many demands on me and I don't know at what point I can put my foot down. The kids always come first, but there are so many other things that involve them that it's just hard. I am committing to not taking work home any more ... I need my break. Sometimes it's nice to take things home because it's much quieter than being on a busy high school campus with thousands of students. However, I need my time to myself. I'm in college and have demands there, as well as taking care of the diabetes and just having some me time. I'm fortunate that I'm not married with children at this time in my life, that I have the opportunity to have some time alone to regroup. However, how do I handle the stress that seems to keep piling up?

I think that is one for the God box. At this time, I need to work my program of recovery that much harder. That means going to a meeting, reading the BB, working on a step question, etc. Those things work to give me peace and I miraculously lose more weight when I'm active in OA. I hope those things will give me more balance in other areas of my life.

Moving forward on the house

I'm in the process of buying a house, which has really been an adventure in learning about my character defects. I knew that I was an impatient person, but it really has been proven to me over and over again.

This has not been an overnight process. I've been actively searching since the end of June and it took 11 offers on houses to get one accepted. I have been battling with people swooping in with all cash our offering double the asking price when what I am dealing with is my little first time homebuyer's program loan. I even had one in which I bid $50,000 over the asking price and I still didn't get it!

However, I have been turning it over to God, trusting His will on all of this. This doesn't mean I didn't cry along the way. For me, buying the house is not simply an investment. It's my home. I have never lived in a house before except when I was a baby and couldn't remember it. This means something to me. So, anyway, the short sale process has begun. I will be going into the house on Thursday, which is the first time I have stepped foot in it. I decided to stop going inside potential homes and looking because I wanted to do whatever I could not to be emotionally attached as much as possible. I have seen pictures, but of course pictures are far different than the real thing.

I'm excited and not scared at all anymore. I was gripped by fear, at first. Now I am at this place where I feel this is the right thing to do for me. I'm done with apartment living and done with throwing my hard-earned money away every month. My lease is now almost $1,500/mo. for my one-bedroom apartment. It's a lovely apartment with stainless steel everything, washer/dryer, fireplace, etc. But I am paying through the nose for my location and I'm done. Stick a fork in me. I even tried moving to another place on a short six month lease while I'm waiting for the short sale process to run it's course (usually takes 3-6 months), but it ended up not working out. I'm moving forward now and I couldn't be happier. Yay!

Back at 24 Hour Fitness

I am a silly girl, I know this for sure. For years, I belonged to 24 Hour Fitness. But, I stopped going and thought paying the $9 dues every month was too much money. Can you believe it ... $9 being too much to have access to any club?? Crazy! Last week, I went to a physical therapy appointment, trying to deal with the osteo arthritis in my injured knee from the car accident. There are exercises I need to do that I just don't have equipment for, so I decided to get back to the gym. I'm now paying $35 a month. Yet, this is where I'm at and I need to do it. I need to do it and get over the money. This is about taking care of me and my body, mind and spirit. Besides, paying that much every month will (hopefully) ensure I get there because that's a little bit too much to throw away. $9 feels like change but $35 is almost a tank of gas or a small bill. And, truly, feeling healthy is worth more to me than almost anything. So, I'm going to be the working out fool yet again. Love it!

Trying to find balance in my life

Things have been a little bit overwhelming in the last week or two and I realized today that I really need to get back to basics in my life. I haven't been to an OA meeting in a week, maybe even two. That's not good for me because I start to feel a disconnect from program and that's so not what I want to do. It's been a challenge balancing being back at work, in school, dealing with my medical issues,trying to buy a house and possibly moving temporarily while I wait for it to go through all at the same time. Serenity now!!

That's easier said than done, I realize that. I also realize that most of the things that are making me feel stress right now are positive things (outside of the medical stuff). I'm grateful to still have a job given the current state of education in California. I'm grateful that I'm progressing in school. I'm grateful that I have an accepted offer on a house and I'm just waiting for the short sale process to do it's thing. There are far worse things in life. With that said, I also am reminded that I am a compulsive overeater and it never takes a break in my life. In fact, it's in these times that I have so much going on that it becomes more cunning, baffling and powerful than ever before. If I am not deligent in my recovery process, then it seeps right in.

I've already seen the effects. I've been a little snippy with other people and I've been a lot impatient, even if I keep it to myself. The other day I was in the store and I gave the clerk cloth bags to use to load up my stuff (trying to do my part to be green). She didn't bag things very well and I was cussing inside as I left the store. After I got in the car, I thought to myself, "So what? You don't have to a B about it." And truly, in the greater scheme of things, not a big deal at all. Yet, I know what I was doing. It was easier to be picking on things like that then my powerlessness over the big stuff, like waiting for the house to go through. I'm so excited about it, but nothing is ever definite. The sellers could pull out, the bank could decide they don't want to go through the short sale, etc. There's so much that is completely out of my control.

What is in my control is to take care of myself. Injecting with insulin has been going good overall, but now I'm having the problem of going too low in my blood sugar. I realize I can't tell the difference, whether I'm too high with my blood sugar or too low. The symptoms are practically identical. So, I'm carrying my monitor in my purse now and keep glucose tablets with me just in case. Anyway, I need to do what I can to destress. Doing some writing about that here is really a good thing for me. I pray that I remember that more often and jump on here more than once every week or two. Things were so much better when I was posting daily or every few days.

I'm still alive!

Sorry, I haven't posted in a while. Life has just been a little too crazy lately that all I want to do at the end of each day is just veg out. I'm not, but that's what it feels like. I have some really great news, though ... after two months of trying to negotiate the absolutely insane housing market and 11 offers, I finally, finally had an offer accepted. I know that was totally a God thing. I wasn't the highest offer, but I was the first one. It's a short sale and the bank won't even start the approval process until the house has been on the market for 60 days. In fact, I can't even go in until October 1st. So why am I excited you might be wondering? Because I have been shot down time and time again on my offers being outbid by investors or people with all cash. This feels like something special. I'm still putting in other offers and will keep doing my work until I go into escrow with somebody. In the meantime, my apartment lease is expiring at the beginning of October and they're raising my rent again (shock and dismay). So I'm going to move to a place on a month to month basis until the house comes through, probably 5-6 months or so. I'm cool with that because I'll be saving at least $500 per month in rent. Totally worth it to me.

I have gone back to work and the kids are back as well. This has been a real challenge and they've only been back for two days. We have far less staff to do the same work, if not more. On top of that, all of the unions voted for a salary reduction to save jobs. I do have to say, though, the people who are left, at least the ones I work with, have such good attitudes and are keeping as positive as possible. You know, that's all we can really do right now. My college classes start tomorrow. I'm only taking two classes, but on top of working full-time, it's going to be a challenge.

Things are going really well on the diabetes/insulin front. I do have a spot on my tummy where it looks like someone took a good punch to me, though. I think I injected wrong on that one particular spot. I notice the difference, though. I feel like I'm not so zapped of energy and I'm also not scared of what the meter is going to say in terms of my blood sugar. As an example, the other day my readings were no higher than 130 at any point in the day, and that was on the high end. Before, my reading would have been near 300 or even over it. I start physical therapy soon on my knee, so I'm just trying to pace myself with everything.

Yes, I have got a whole lot going on right now. It's exhausting just thinking about it. But I'm here, I'm abstinent and I'm grateful to God for the blessings He showers me with.