wicked busy but good news for cassi

the last month has been a whirlwind of work. i am burning out and resenting the fact that i feel like my work owns me. not to mention that i feel like i have so much to do that i can do none of it right. but...i have learned some lessons.

• anxiety is a function of not living in the present. the best way to combat anxiety is make myself be in the now. i have been doing that by just doing the stuff i am worrying about. it is amazing how much less daunting things are in reality. my imagination makes everything horrible when i am anxious. also, on the few occasions i have not been able to do whatever it is that i am perceverating about, i have started journaling about what it feels like to be anxious. it brings me back to the present and makes the anxiety dissipate.
  
• you can really only do one thing at a time. so i have just been picking the tasks that is due earliest and pushing through to get that done. then just moving on.
• that vacations are NOT vacations if you are taking work. that is what i almost did. thankfully i have a wonderful friend in lindsay and a great boss at work who helped me to a) see that i was running myself ragged and b) not feel guilty about postponing st. lucia. so now lindsay and i are planning to go to st. lucia in january. there are many reasons this should be better, none the least of which is the fact that i won't have to work while i am down there.

lots of other cool things have happened that deserve their own blog.

• holly, dianna, brigham, jennie, and i started a dinner club. we have been trying new restaurants around town. i will share a post with reviews soon (hopefully)
• saw dc united loose a seat in the chapionship to stupid columbus fire.
• went to slc to meet with the church on pandemic flu.

all of these will be posts soon... promise. as soon as all this work is done i am going to hold myself up and just clean, go to the grocery store, and do some blogging.

last, but certainly not least, i want to direct you all to the blog of one of my "sisters". i am lucky enough to have adopted two families as my own. the packards and the allreds. they are awesome and i really wish i lived closer. the oldest of all of the "sisters" is cassi. she is a dynamo! she can best anyone in a passionate debate on just about anything. smart as a whistle and adventurous to a fault at times. i love that she is always trying new things. we met up in cambodia a couple of years ago when lindsay and i were traveling through on our fateful trip in vietnam where we had "the accident". bekki (another allread sister) was living in singapore so cassi and jana (mom allred) flew over to hang out then they met lindsay, diane and i in angkor wat. it was awesome!

cassi started a blog that i think is really worth watching. it is called metamorphosis. tomorrow she is undergoing gastric by-pass surgery and she is going to share her experience on her blog. below i am going to paste her first entry. though i must say, that her second entry is the one that really got to me most: she lists her top 10 reasons for getting the surgery.

i am excited for cassi and i am humbled by her courage and humility. she is a wonderful example of what it means to take chances. i am praying that all goes well tomorrow, and that the all goes welledness will continue until she is at her desired weight.

love you cas! good luck!!!!!!

The game begins...

Where to begin? I was small when I was born (6 lbs, 6 oz) and that was the last time I remember being small. Okay, I don't really remember that. Which means, I cannot remember a time--ever--that I didn't feel overweight. Which is not to say I was always obese. My younger sister was naturally skinny, and I was naturally somewhat chubby. In my mind, compared to her, I was fat. I look back at my childhood pictures and say, "Wait a minute! I wasn't as fat as I thought I was!"

Fast-forward forty years, and I am exactly what I always thought I was. Fat. Very fat. If there were a category for super super morbidly obese, I'd be in it. The weight began creeping on during my high school years. I weighed 140 lbs as a freshman (age 14) and I thought I needed to lose 50 lbs. Granted, I'm short, but still, I wasn't as fat as I thought I was (that seems to be a theme). By my early twenties I was around 240-260. I lost 80 lbs at one point, just before I met/married my husband. But after baby #1, I was right back up to 260. After baby #2 (seven years later) I was up to 320. After about 10 years of rigorous dieting and vigorous eating (cuz you know they go hand-in-hand!) I found myself over the 350 mark. 358 to be exact.

The last 15 years have been a gradual climb of 100 lbs. It was so slow you'd almost not notice. And when you're already fat, it seems to all just "blend in". However, when I see myself in photographs, I now have the opposite reaction than I did as a child. It always surprises me to see how large I really am. Apparently, my sense of "what size I am" is rather warped. That is something I will have to deal with on my way down. I'm sure other things will come up as well. I am 100% convinced that extreme obesity has as many emotional connections as it does physical.So, after years of resisting the idea of weight loss surgery (thought I was giving up, wanted to do it on my own, didn't want to take the easy way out, etc.), I have finally learned that a) it's okay to ask for and/or accept help, b) it's NOT the easy way--but it's almost always the SURE way, and c) I'm pretty darn stubborn. Now I'm going to take that stubbornness, which we shall reclassify as determination, and put it to good use.

The game has begun...