Diapers Deal

I just purchased a TON of diapers for a REALLY great price. I wanted to share the news and invite you to get an even better deal on a purchase, should you choose to make one. Here's the deal: go to diapers.com and check out the selection. Realize you can save LOTS of money? Now, use this code (SECR2371) and buy some diapers and receive $10 off your purchase of $49 or more! If you do this, AND make the purchase BEFORE 6pm, you'll get your diapers shipped FREE (about a $10 fee) AND receive them in 1-2 days!!!! Isn't that awesome?

I read about this in a blog, but couldn't make the purchase before because I didn't have the moolah all together at once. :( In the interim, I lost the code that would've got me $10 OFF... so, I only got the READY coupon (on the site) for $5 off. If you know me, you'll know that we have tight finances... well, if you use this code, you'll not only help yourself, but you'll help me, too! Each time you purchase some diapers, I will get a credit!!! AND you can do this same sort of thing and receive credits, too!! Isn't that awesome?? Additionally, you can send paper coupons in to diapers.com and they'll credit your account. Can you believe it? I'm thinkin, "TOTALLY SWEET!"

So, I hope you'll check it out and do it, too! I'm so happy to not have to worry about picking diapers up. I plan to use this until my need for diapers is DONE... hopefully sooner than later for the current users. (Tea is diapered regularly and Kat needs them for the night lately.)

Another Big Day

And this is going to be cheesy and a double whammy mostly because I feel sorta goofy putting it up two days in a row. Sorry guys....

A special HAPPY BIRTHDAY song for my sister and her man. Eve's birthday (that's what Ria calls you sometimes!) is June 27 and Chris's is the 28th! Neat, huh... specially with their first child on the 10th of the same month. Couldn't have planned that one, eh? :) I know they didn't. Anyway.

Happy Birthday to YOU (2)
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday Dear Evelyn and Chris!
Happy Birthday to yOoooouuuuu!
And many more!

And since I just realized they have this wonderful picture of their family up on their blog... that's the one I'm going to share! :)

Aren't they a lovely family? Well, they really are!

I love you guys! I hope your special days are full of fun, joy, and laughter. I'm sure they will be!

And I Thought Kat Was Crazy for Music...

So, Wednesday night Tea grabbed for a spoon I'd eaten some yogurt with. No biggie. If it would make her happy so I could chill out a few more minutes. We eventually got up and walked around a bit ending in the bathroom for a Mama break. While I was doing my thing, she was still playing with the spoon! She looked at something across the little room and went as if to get it. In doing so she lightly tapped the spoon on the floor. She was THRILLED by the resulting tinkling noise. She experimented a few times with sweet baby giggle interspersed.

Fast forward a little and she's WIDE awake and I'm trying to read the last blog I want to look at for the night. She's antsy and I want her to give me a few more minutes. So, I give her one of the cups I had water in. She goes as if to drink from it (nothing in it, of course) and makes a noise. She giggles. Then she sort of sings into it and giggles. She did that a few more times. She LOVES music!

I think I have neglected telling you that... she REALLY loves music. We've missed a few nights recently, but part of our night night routine includes spending a few minutes singing songs the girls want and a couple I want. Without fail, every time I start singing, Tea will pause what's she's doing (usually looking at a book) and listen and groove (she's actually rocking and swaying to the beat!). If she's standing it's even more obvious that she's close to or totally on the beat!

Additionally, she LOVES to play the piano. I've added PT to my homeschool notebook. PT stands for PianoTea... which means I'm supposed to make time for Tea to play piano sometime each day (except Sundays, no homeschool on Sundays). I do let her play piano on Sundays, if I end up there, but it's not something I feel I have to check off in my notebook. :)

On top of all that... and probably my favorite is a relatively new development in all this music love Tea has been showing. It's only in the last week or so that, when she's well and/or happy when she wakes up, Tea will SING! Seriously. It's SO sweet!!! Sometimes it singing with her mouth open and making a variety of tones. Other times it's more like humming. She's even mimicked a sort of scale I did one morning. I LOVE IT!!!

I don't know if I ever mentioned it here... I didn't have this blog at the time, but way back when Kat was little she hated riding in a vehicle in her car seat. Tea's in the same "hate feeling" now, I think. Well, when Kat was little and unhappy, Ria spontaneously started singing "Jesus Said Love Everyone" and by the time she was done with that REALLY short song, Kat was calm. THAT became the most reliable way to calm Kat in a vehicle! Well, Ria recently (with K. Christensen's kids, actually) started singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to similar efficacy with Tea! For Tea, it seems to work best with multiple voices. All Kat needed was Ria. Interesting, huh? :)

So, I have some music lovers!

Please Take a Few Minutes

There is a powerful letter I hope you will take a few minutes to read. If you click on this link, the first post contains the letter I think you really should read.

If you are my family, you have probably seen it.

Makes me want to stand up in the ashes!!! Do you want to stand up, too?

Adventures in Dehydrating

So, Jess and I have been preparing for his Food Storage Food Preparation Class (held tonight to a VERY good turnout) for WEEKS. Literally. As a result, I am kookoo about dehydrating! Tonight, having finished all of the required preps for the class, I was wandering around the kitchen trying to find something I could dehydrate! Strange? Well, I've become attached, I suppose, to feeling like I'm accomplishing something even though I only have a little bit of work at the beginning. This is a huge thing for me... I feel like I don't get much done most days. I know I get the most important things done (relating to and in relation to my girls), but I definitely don't have much to show for it currently.

Anyway, in my research, I ran across this lady who has 10 (maybe more) YouTube videos. They are quite good. I knew lots about dehydrating previous to watching them, but felt edified and learned some great tips from all of her shows. I just wanted to share her with you, if you're interested.

Father's Day

I'm going to jump on the blogging about Dads bandwagon!

HAPPY FATHER'S Day Dad Farrell, Dad Gollihugh, and my very favorite of all Dads... JESSIE!!!!

I tried to make today special for Jess by preparing peanut butter pancakes, swiss cheese omelet, and having the girls present him with a card we actually purchased. Jess loves toys. Christmas just isn't the same unless he gets something to play with. I believe that same idea carries over to anything I want to make special. To be special, provide a toy. ^_^ Well, in lieu of a toy, I purchased a funny singing card. It's really perfect and says that he's the whole enchilada (food related for the Chef) and sings "You're HOT HOT HOT!" :)

In addition to sharing those little bits above, I wanted to share some advice given me by the two first Dads mentioned that I still use today. (I heard this sort of thing on a radio program earlier in the week while driving.) As for Dad Farrell, the best thing I could think of it kinda silly, but then, if you know my Dad, that's sort of fitting (I mean that in a complimentary way). My Dad told me a long time ago that as a driver, one should always drive for the comfort of one's passengers BEFORE one's own. While this is pretty straight forward (and was explicitly meant for actually driving in a vehicle), I think it's pretty profound when generalized to parenting - as much as possible and definitely true for driving a vehicle. I have attempted to apply this principle to my driving ALL the time and to my role as a Mama as much as possible. My temper does get the best of me all too often, but I DO try... constantly!

I haven't known Dad Gollihugh all that long, nor all that well, but when he was here to surprise us for Jessie's birthday about 1.5 years ago he kept saying one thing that I believe is very good advice and I've been trying to apply. He said, "Just love each other. Keep loving each other. Take care of each other."

As for Jessie... well, he says WAY too much good stuff for me to even begin to describe. He offers me suggestions for problems I present him and I almost always at least attempt to apply his council. So, instead of even trying to describe any WOW (words of wisdom) from Jess, I'm going to describe why he is an AWESOME Dad.

Jessie is an awesome Dad because...
...he loves and respects his children's mother.
...he loves his daughters unconditionally.
...he plays with his girls.
...he pretends with his daughters.
...he performs as his daughters' teacher on his days off.
...he works hard out in the world so his kiddos can always have a parent to take care of them at home!
...he wants to provide for ALL the needs of his family and some of their desires, to boot.
...he tries to quit smoking whenever he feels up to the challenge.
...he makes a strong effort to alter negative behaviors so as to provide a better example.
...he accepts his wife and daughters as the people they are and loves them in spite of every negative quality they possess.
...he is willing to work at home in the garden, cleaning, and in other ways as needed, as well as work a minimum of 60 hours each week as a Chef.
...he attends Church with his family just because he wants to enable them to do something they desire to do and he wants to be WITH his family while they do it.
...he makes it possible for his family to make a monthly temple trip just because they want to do it.
...he prays over his family.
...he protects his daughters and wife (with weapon in hand a few times!).
...he has the best interests of his family in mind.
...he is good and tries to always be kind.

I'm sure I could go on, but those were the easy ones to get down and Tea is feeling frustrated with just sitting. As she is still not feeling well, I'm trying to defer to her a bit more than usual.

HFCS

High Fructose Corn Syrup is something to steer clear of and here's a link to an article I was guided to that you might find interesting. I think I've mentioned that the only sweetener I can consume right now is honey, but I've used Agave Syrup for my girls since not using sugar (because I think using them was increasing illness). As a result of the article, I'm dumping the Agave today.

I've been worried about our food supply for a while now. The more I read and learn I come to KNOW ever more clearly how the commandment from our Prophets to have a garden is truly inspired! I'm so glad Jessie is all for gardening and supporting my efforts at tight record keeping of our gardens (which takes a lot more time than just placing seeds in the ground wherever. I want to know what produce we like best so we can plant and consume that which we prefer.

I wonder less (after reading this article) why I was gaining weight so rapidly! MAN, I had no IDEA about fructose and it's implications to weight loss/gain. I didn't even read every word of the article and learned a LOT.

Did you read it? What did you learn that you didn't know before?

Some Bits

It was a few weeks ago now that the Sister Missionaries were here when Jess was home. Spontaneously Ria sat on Jessie's lap and started to talk to him about quitting the smoking and getting baptized. It was really funny and one of the missionaries even said something like, "This is just too perfect. It's like a total set-up!" Ria has recently set herself on a quest to get Jess to quit smoking. On his days off, when he goes out to smoke (if Ria knows) she'll tail him all the way to the front door telling him he shouldn't go out there to smoke, that he needs to quit smoking because she loves him and doesn't want him to hurt his body, and any number of other chastisements. If I hear it, I do tell her to stop because she's not speaking to her Father in a respectful manner. I know, you might think that I should let her do her thang, but I really feel and believe that she needs to respect his agency just as she wants us to respect hers... but more so because he is her Daddy!

Thursday night, on the way to The River Grille, I was singing Primary songs to the girls. Tea was very fussy and it was a way for me to keep more calm than I otherwise would have felt. One of the songs I sang was Nephi's Courage. I definitely felt the Spirit as I sang it, especially the third verse (which I was really surprised I remembered correctly!). I know Ria felt it, too because right after finishing it she requested we sing it again. After we sang it again she, in a VERY determined way, told me that we needed to sing it for Daddy when we went to pick him up AND, she added, "When he hears this song, he's going to decide to stop smoking!" I thought that was really sweet, but I didn't think she would really expect us to sing it OR for him to decide to quit after hearing it. Well, I was wrong. As soon as she saw Jess she reminded me that we needed to sing for him. He was curious, so we did. He had a cig in his hand (cause he came from the smoking area to greet us) and went back to it after we finished singing. So much for quitting! But I just love my Ria's determination, even though I cannot condone the manner in which she lets her expectation or desire be known most of the time. :)

Ria definitely is my little missionary. Kat has taken to telling me that she wants to serve a mission! :) She LOVES the temple song, but really enjoys Called to Serve, as well.

Last night was our June Ward Activity. I think it was my favorite one so far! VERY few people were present when time to start rolled around. We had 3 families!!! By the end we'd more than doubled our numbers. heeheehee But it was FUN. I was easily able to speak to everyone present, which has been pretty difficult in the past - especially with the running around I generally do to keep pitchers/punches full and so forth. I was actually able to sit and eat my banana with Tea while everyone else ate. It was nice.

Tea has a fever again today. I can't help but think that a large part of the reason for her constant illness must be teething. I mean, we did go to Story Time on Thursday, but only one person touched her and that person was not sick. *sigh* If you think of us, please pray for her and an easier time at cutting teeth (if that's what it is) OR just generally improved health for her (especially). I'll thank you, in advance... THANK YOU! :)

The Recital

Ria did well in her dance Recital. I think one of the things she was most excited about was receiving a flower afterward. We did give her a flower last year and she seemed to expect that was a part of it (and so does Kat now!). She was SO excited and pleased that she received not 1, but TWO roses. We couldn't locate a purple one, which was her special request, but she was just tickled to received 2! :) Ria was definitely a good line leader for the Tap and pretty good for Ballet. For the dances she was placed on opposite ends of the stage because, I guess, they could count on her most to do the steps she was supposed to do. We could tell she was checking the teachers who were off-stage and that was pretty funny. During one of the dances Ria was doing what she was supposed to do, but the rest of her line was not... so she ended up totally away from the rest of the group. The audience laughed and she looked pleasantly surprised. Ria definitely loved being on stage again this year! She's been talking about it a lot and VERY much looking forward to performing again next year.

Additionally, (I'm pretty sure I already told you) since her piano teacher told her she's going to do a Piano Recital she has had a renewed focus and desire to work on her piano practice. Well, today she told me she was going to play "Red Drum" instead of "Ten Little Indians". It's totally fine with me because Mary Kay told her she could choose her recital pieces. But now she has to memorize Red Drum... I think she did that, for the most part, already today! Can you believe her? She's just amazing to me.

OTHER NEWS

Jess
Still working LONG and hard in all his roles. He's also been helping me in important ways when he is home. I'd been having some tremendous difficulties getting Ria to focus on school and Jess stepped in a couple weeks ago and things have been improving dramatically, yet still bit by bit. He's being Daddy-teacher! I've read about other homeschool families and it seems Daddies most often take a stand-back-and-watch position. I'm so grateful that Jess is willing and able, in such a productive way, to take an active part in our homeschool!

Jess works Wed. through Sun., though Sundays he's off in the morning to go to Church with us. It's a pleasure to have him home on Mondays and Tuesdays, but having him gone from about 8am until 9:30pm or later is really rough much of the time.

This past Tuesday he made it possible for us to go to the temple together as a family. Every month I feel such a renewed gratitude for him support of my Spiritual Life!

Jess agreed to start having "Couple's Prayer" each night and he also reads his Bible out loud to me almost every night. I think I've mentioned this, but I'm just so thankful and... really... joyful over it, I can't brag on him and my God enough over it! I know Father has been working on his heart. Jessie's prayers are amazing! And when he has prayed over the anxiety and other problems I've been experiencing I've always felt a greater peace than when I was praying for myself. I know Heavenly Father is creating miracles in our lives (SO OFTEN!!!) and I know Jessie is recognizing them more, too! What an awesome blessing and even miracle, in itself!

Jess also makes our garden happen. It's been ridiculously difficult to get any work done the times I have tried to do it on my own, so it waits until Jessie's weekend. So, our garends are still not all planted out (one box is untouched as far as seeds being put in the ground while the other is almost completely planted now), but I'm going to pick my first BIG zucchini today! We'll have a BUNCH of yellow-crookedneck sqaush ready soon! I'm so excited! We have eaten quite a few raspberries and I even made some raspberry frozen yogurt (out of my homemade yogurt)! The girls LOVE the berries and enjoyed the "ice cream". What fun! I would like to get some blueberries from the Spring Hill Nursery that I got my raspberry plants from. No moolah for it right now, but I may be able to scrape some together next month? I DO hope so!

Me and SCD
So, I've been plugging along with the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. It's difficult still. Even though I have more variety of things that I can eat, it's still very difficult for me to NOT be able to eat everything I fix for my kiddos. I'm pretty sure I'm through the worst of the "die off" period. Lots of the peeps on SCD go through such a period, but MAN, I had no idea it was SO difficult and even traumatic!

How "die off" was rough: anxiety became much worse, my chest hurt a lot and often, diarrhea was basically non-stop (it had been regular, but not every hour on the hour previous to SCD), I was more exhausted than when preggie!, my "fuse" was shorter than ever, head aches, cold/flu symptoms, and generally feeling BAD. Currently anxiety is much much decreased. I still have had troubling thoughts, but not in the overwhelming-can't-do-anything sort of way I was having. My chest hurts less often. I have not had diarrhea at all in at least 3 days! Energy levels are improving. Fewer head aches when I drink enough water. Cold/flu is basically gone.

I'm in the Pecan Bread Stage 2 of implementing the diet. I'm most excited about adding in nut butter and nut milks. :) I also successfully added in eggs recently, which will broaden my food preparation horizons!

So, it seems good.

Ria
She's fighting less. As I implement "Bible Character Studies" more regularly, she seems to understand why the way she was behaving was wrong. She's totally NOT doing all her work independently and happily, but there is a lot less fussing and fighting about it! Currently her favorite classes are Math (MUS) and piano practice.

Can you believe she's almost through the Laura Ingalls Wilder books? She's read more of the series than me! I definitely want to read more of them, but am currently reading ahead books that I would like her to read before too long.

Kat
Did I tell you she's starting Dance this summer? She is SO excited! She's already been talking about going on stage a getting a flower! :) Isn't that so cute?

Kat is progressing slowly (but wonderfully) through Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. She also enjoys numbers, though she's still not identifying them correctly on a regular basis... except for #s 1 and 2, maybe.

Kitty Kat loves playing with Tea, but Tea doesn't enjoy or tolerate her well, much of the time. Every once in a while Tea will enjoy Kat and I feel hopeful that they will be good friends like Ria and Kat are almost all of the time.

My middle daughter does not enjoy hanging out outside as much as Ria. I think Kat doesn't tolerate heat terribly well. In this way she's definitely more like me. I suppose she must needs be like me in some ways since she's SO much her Daddy's daughter in most ways. It's kinda funny, too, cause Ria is more like Jess in heat tolerance and more like me in personaily (among other things)!

Tea
Almost 8 months old. Can you believe it? She's cruising confidently now. She crawls like a Speedy Gonzales on all 4s! ^_^ She loves to play Peek-A-Boo. She has started to prefer having her LONG bangs in FRONT of her eyes (a-la-Ria... do you remember?). Tea has been pulling her hair out of it's clips and ties to get it in front of her face. I think she has too adorable a face to hide behind her hair. I guess she doesn't agree. Who knows!

Tea is still a happy girl, but she DEFINITELY wants attention when she wants it! She does NOT like it one bit when I can't make time for her right when she wants to be with Mama. Thus, she can be pretty fussy sometimes. She also does not sleep more than 7-10 minutes without me with her. This is definitely reminiscent of both of her older sisters! I think my babies just become this way after about 5 or 6 months.... It's exhausting for me to have no time alone. I NEED my temple time to be completely off duty!!! I'm so grateful Jess is so willing to make the trip so I can nurse my nursling right before and right after my work/time off! ^_^

Dress Rehearsal

I really don't know what's wrong with me lately. I've been making SO many big mistakes. I feel like my brain is half fried and the other half fluff or something! :-p

Ria was supposed to get to the Auditorium for rehearsal at 3:30pm. I had her there at 4:16pm and that was only because a friend accidentally called and then asked if we weren't going to be able to make it! UGH! Part of the problem is that I didn't want to wake Kat, but I honestly thought I was planning it out all nicely and that we were totally on time! :( WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME!

*sigh*

Basically, because the whole thing was taking a while and because of mis-communications between the event organizers and the helpers in back, I still got to see Ria rehearse both tap and ballet! And that's with me dropping her off, going home to pick up the rest of her costumes (that I forgot because I was in such a rush out of the house!), and getting back to the Auditorium. I felt really REALLY blessed through all of it! I plan to make sure Jess can sit and watch Ria this year since he let me sit with my Dad last year.

It's been a busy day.

Last Night

I was able to attend Enrichment with JUST Tea! It's the first time I've been to any Church related function SO unencumbered in SO long. I didn't have a blast, exactly, at the function, but I certainly wouldn't trade the time to have so few littles around. It was really pleasant. I'm so grateful Jessie was happy to take over the Dance Stage Rehearsal trip and keep Kat to boot.

Another nice thing from yesterday... I wore some pants to enrichment that I haven't worn since before I had Ria (and some during the pregnancy with her... I've always lost weight when preggie). It felt so nice! And they were not tight in my legs at all and only a little snug at the waist.

This week's weight drop was less than last week (last week it was 6 pounds). This week it was 2. I'm totally happy about it still going down. I expect it will for some time. Part of the Specific Carbohydrate Diet that helps me stick with it even when I feel like stepping way off (like last night being around those chocolate brownies!) is that it helps regulate weight to be what is actually normal for the person on the diet. That would be nice. I don't think I've ever been what is "normal" for my body. I'm excited and curious to see what that looks like!! I'll try to get a picture sometime... but even though I may have it, it'll probably take a long time to get it up here. I've come to accept that lengthy computer time is not meant to be for me at this season in my life.

Happy DAY!

Happy Birthday to YOU.
Happy Birthday to you.
Happy birthday DEAR Addie!
Happy Birthday tooooo YooooUUUUuuu!!!!!

I'm amazed that my little sister's daughter is ONE today! I've not yet met her, but I feel like I know her from all the wonderful pictures and posts my Sis shares. Even though I don't post many pictures because of the time it takes (and I don't like the feelings of frustration I often feel toward my kiddos when I try), I wanted to post some of my niece to show my Sis how much I love her and her fam... AND MISS THEM!

So... in homage to Addie and her family:

Newborn Addie (above) with her Daddy.


Addie at about 4 months with my lovely sister.



The whole fam.
(I was going to do pics from each quarter of her first year,
but I couldn't pass this family picture up.)
Addie was right about 5 months old, I believe.



Addie around 8 months with
her beautious Mama.




Addie during her birth month,
though not exactly 1, she's close.


HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BABY!!!
(So, she's technically a toddler now, but still!)

Recital

Ria is SO excited about this Saturday! She's going to be on stage again. I think if it weren't for this one day of the year, she might not be so consistently excited about ballet. You may wonder why I say such a thing.

Well, recently Ria wanted to quit piano lessons. This is not an option. There are many reasons I would like Ria to learn piano, but the main reason I wasn't going to hear anything about quiting is because I feel that I was never REALLY encouraged to continue with things I started... which has created a long-term/life problem I have been struggling to over-come for many years now. Anyway... In Ria's very next piano class her teacher mentioned something about a recital. Since then she has been SO excited about piano and working hard without complaint to complete her lessons and memorize her performance pieces! I mean, it's like I have a new little girl because her attitude is SO changed!

I'm wondering if there's some way I can plan a sort of "show" for her to share what she's learned in school... a sort of Recital of Learning. Our homeschool has been going better than it had been for a while. For a little while there she was fighting just about everything! :( Currently she's more willing to do what needs to be done, but it would just be really nice if she were excited about it and more self-motivated. With this most recent experience (becoming SO excited about piano after learning that she would get to perform for others) I can't help but feel something similar would benefit our other efforts as well.

Do you have any suggestions on a sort of recital of learning? I haven't even really been able to THINK about it, so your ideas will be REALLY helpful. :)

Stepping On

Tea is now 7 months old. And she's getting over her 7th or 8th illness currently. Can you believe how ill we've been? This time it was Kat, Tea, and me. I'm hoping and praying really hard that Ria and Jess will stay well. I'm so tired of any of us being ill.

The Specific Carbohydrate Diet is going well, I think. I've added a couple foods and my body slowly adjusts to them. So, I think this thing will be a long-haul kind of deal. By that I mean that I think it will take me a while to make it through the process of adding in fruits and still having a healthy BM. It's only after all the adding in and still having healthy pooh that the time starts on the 2 years to a full-body replacement. (YOU know... the body replaces itself every two years!) In one way that's all right because the SCD has a side bonus of speeding up my weight shedding efforts. Today I checked (I weigh myself on Wednesdays) and I'm now down 10% of my weight. It's come off in 6 weeks, which is WONDERFUL. I'm not willing to say how MUCH the 10% is because it's embarrassing, really. But I'm pleased about the change for the better in this as well as my bowels.

Jess has finally said that he can see a difference. (I ask him when I feel/see one.) When asked, he thought it's mostly in my face. Makes sense since that's the last place to put it on heavily (last on, first off). I'm really happy to have loose clothes and looking forward to digging in boxes for my small sizes, which I haven't worn since right after Ria was born before I started gaining!

I said that the number is embarrassing because the extra weight I've been carrying around tells a lot about me. I don't know about others' weight issues, but for me the fat on my body tells all of the following and probably more!
>This girl LOVES food. She lives to eat, rather than eating to live and using food as fuel.
>Tori is addicted to food. She uses it to numb pain, anger, frustration, to overcome feelings of worthlessness, and sometimes even to punish Jess (since he made it clear a while back he wanted me to lose weight).
>Food is a constant and the most reliable friend Tori has! She especially favors chocolate and other sweet things when eating for companionship and other emotional reasons.
>Can you tell this woman never learned good self-control? Thus the fat piles on!
>Eating is a race and who ever eats the most and finishes fastest wins! (This one hasn't been EXACTLY true for a while, but I had been finding myself eating too fast WAY too often even though I don't need to race anyone!)
>Tori eats when she's bored (mentally) and when she'd like to talk to someone, but doesn't feel able to reach out... food fills in!

I could probably go on, but the only additional thoughts are sort of versions of the above. Pretty pathetic, huh? I'm working on forgiving myself for the poor way I've been abusing my body with food these last 6-ish years as well as off and on before that... it's difficult to forgive myself. Always has been. If you've ever thought I was hard on someone, imagine how much hardER I am on myself!

Regarding my bowels: there has been a lot less pain. Even after I introduced a new food about a week ago and had the dreaded D (diarrhea), my belly hurt a LOT less than it would when I had D before. I'm pretty sure the anxiety I've been feeling is tied into my bowels in some way or another. I've been sort of experimenting to see if I can figure it out. Actually... I think it's hormonal AND bowel related.

Does any one out there know what RED SPOTS on the skin are indicative of? I've had some for quite a while now. For the most part they are small... about the size of a pencil eraser is the largest, I think. Most of them are like tiny pricks of blood that get ever so slowly larger over time. I've found information on something like them one place on the web and it says they are benign, but the spots are increasing in quantity dramatically as of late. It's been really upsetting and a subject about which I've been feeling anxiety.

We'll be getting insurance in the next couple of months... I hope. It's not set in stone WHEN, but it's supposed to happen. I just keep hoping that if the spots are something serious, then I'll be able to get help for them before it becomes dire. Pray for me, if you would. I certainly feel the need for lots of support. :( THAT totally does NOT feel good because I've usually been pretty independent in the past and many days lately I just feel like a pile of mush inside! So not a good feeling.

So, I'm having a hard time. Some days are better than others, of course, but generally it's been REALLY difficult. Most of the difficulty is emotional and mental. Of course, I have been sick on top of it all (almost a week, but I AM feeling better from that thankfully!).

I figured it would be uninteresting to read constant whining if you clicked on over, thus the lack of posts.

I keep moving ahead as I can, though. That's the best I've been able to muster most days, but I have been feeling more hopeful in the last couple days. It certainly feels easier to feel that way when Jess is around and the last 2 days were his/our weekend. *sigh*