[splitimage]

Congratulations on the weight loss. Not drinking all those empty calories really helps.

[bizi]

thanks split, yes and watching how many almonds I snack on is helping too.
bizi

[bizi]

Lunch was a big one. 6 oz of ground beef" salsbury steak"
chard mashed sweet potatoes andcauliflower.
I over did dinner tonight and snacked before. Ate an ounce of almonds, a slice of cheese, had dinner of talapia fish sauteed in coconut oil and butter with a side of cauliflower, 2 servings. Half an avocado.
lower carbs today but too much food.
bizi

[bizi]

Had 2 1/2 cups of coffee with cream.
lunch:
small amount of chicken, I took home most of it.
tabouli made with quinoa, parsley, lemon delicious!
smothered cabbage
swiss chard
Dinner:
slice of raw sharp cheddar cheese
6 almonds
half an avocado
pork chop sauteed in coconut oil
steamed broccoli and corn
then I was snacky and had 1 tablespoon of peanut butter.
I have been drinking tea and plain water since dinner
and chewing gum while I did billing and other paper work.
It feels good to be caught up. I still have some filing
and posting to do but that won't take up too much time.
We are planning to be away from home for 2 weeks
over christmas break and new years. My twin and I
usually celebrate our birthdays together(jan 1st) on new years eve.
Don't know what we will be doing this year.
I was the designated driver last year and it sucked.
Someone else can take a turn, or use uber better yet.
I am so heavy my pant scrubs cut at the waist.
sigh
Need to keep my eye on the end goal.
It is going to take time to lose this weight.

Still not drinking, day 27.
Have been toying with the idea that I would only
drink a few times per year. like vacations.
Still need to think about this.
Drinking has not been any fun for me lately.
I did not have control of it...maybe my meds
were out of whack because I was drinking so frequently.
I know that I like myself better sober. And I am losing weight!

Tomorrow is the christmas concert with the
ULL symphony and choral department.
We are bringing my friend Karen to the concert,
picking her up at 5;30 show begins at 6;30.
I will probably eat left overs(chicken from today and left over chili)
for dinner before I get her.
It should be a great concert!

Dinner on my own for thursday and then Friday the christmas party
at our friends house. William (the choral director) and molly
host this christmas party for the past few years.They serve delicious food,
we play white elephant game(steal presents from each other).
I won 2nd place for the ugly sweater contest 2 years in a row!
I will wear the same sweater this year too.

This party will challenge my being sober because there will be
many people there that I don't know, my social anxiety rears its ugly head.
But I plan on drinking hot tea again like last year.
It worked out fine and I will know some people there this year
so should be able to keep my "dry november" goal.

anyway, sorry this is so long....
thanks for reading and listening to me ramble.
bizi

[bizi]

[bizi]

The christmas concert was just fair.
I literally slept thru the first half nodding awake it was embarressing. Karen teased me about it a bit too much after word. I did not like that. Even jeff said something about her teasing me. She said I even snored....
oh well the second half was better. But the over all concert was boring.
Even the traditional christmas carols medley at the end lacked life.
Oh well they can't all be great!
Jeff has a gig this evening so another dinner alone tonight.
I will have left overs again...I have some chicken and beef and lentils to eat.
There is nothing thawed so I don't know what we will do if he does make it home briefly, maybe go to the express pizza place a few blocks from us where we can get a great thinned crust pizza in no time flat!
I will just eat the toppings and fore go the crust, that worked fine last time.
175.5 This morning, the least I have weighed in months. So happy to be losing weight....still can't tell when I look in the mirror. I still look very pregnant. That is 11 pounds in 4 weeks time.

Today is the 29th day AF.
I feel strong in my resolve about not drinking.
Being on 2 anti psychotics at the same time is finally letting me sleep.
Being on meds for decades has contributed my memory issues.
I used to be able to math in my head...now I can't...I have to use the calculator for all simple calculations.

sigh
It is warming up today some rain in the forecast. Some wind which I don't like but I will take the warmer weather.
Thinking about Kay this morning and how her surgery went. I think she said it would be a long surgery like 6 hours, maybe I am wrong about that.
I hope you all have a fine thursday.
bizi

[splitimage]

Bizi,

I can relate to your saying that meds caused memory issues for you. I have the same problem. But it's a tradeoff. Take meds and be stable, but feel stupid, or go off the meds, hope memory improves and risk losing stability.

splitimage

[bizi]

split, thank you for replying and for your support.
I hope you are well.
((((HUGS)))))
bizi

[bizi]

The christmas party was a success.
I drank chocolate flavored water all night.
The food was not as good as last year: cabbage rolls tasted funny. and white beans with smoked sausage which I did not eat because I am on a diet. I also did not eat the short bread cookies and I ate some salad. Before, I ate at home because I did not know what they were going to serve. I ate some chicken and ground beef with a few lentils.
So between eating and drinking I am full. I really did not want a drink, just dealt with my awkwardness and social anxiety issues by holding a cup with a tea bag hanging off the edge.That cup of tea got me thru the evening.
There was a white elephant christmas game where people can steal your gift. It was fun!
My poor hubby still has a head ache for the past 3 days which I did not know about. It is worse tonight...I think it is a migraine, is light sensitive. I gave him 4 advil. WE kind of left the party earlier than normal to take home jeffs friend Sarah. He came right home and went to bed. I am glad it is the weekend..for him to recover.
I work out of town tomorrow morning to see 3 residents at a retirement/assisted living facility. I go there once a month. I will check out a chatroom to see if there are still chatters there. They have been having friday nights chats which have been nice/fun.
I have to leave the house by 8:15am, so will set my alarm for 7:30.
bizi

[splitimage]

Congratulations on making it through a challenging social situation without drinking.

[bizi]

Thank you split for reading and for your support.

bizi

[bizi]

Yesterday was a good day.
Worked out of town and then came back in time to go for gumbo with Jeff.
I ate a bowl of cabbage with a remulaude dressing to make a slaw.
The gumbo was fantastic and I told them so.
They are so friendly and we have been going there for years.
They built a new location free standing building right across from the gas station where they used to be. It has been fun seeing them get all of the finishing touches in place. They have been at the new location 3 weeks. It was warm outside high of 78 so not many people eating gumbo so it had cooked down to make it thicker.
It was delicious!!!!

I raked up some leaves in the after noon and put barrels in the front yard to be picked up on tuesday morning. They recycle yard waste, I think they mulch it.
Any way I am glad it doesn't just go to a land fill like they do in Indiana.

175.4 this morning...so happy to see the numbers go down, I have been yo yoing around 177-175 now for a week.

I went to the nail shop to get a nail fixed. They are so nice there. I always tip them really well because they are very hard working folks, husband and wife. It is a little shop.
Jeff had a gig with his big band group called the sky liners. He was gone for over 5 hours, and that is how long I was on the computer. But this time I did productive things.

I did some research for my friend karen about electrocuted and with the help of a forum friend was able to find a support group for survivors of electrical shock. So am anxious to give her some of the printouts of what I found out about after care. I think I will see her tomorrow.

After that I worked on my policy and procedure manual.
I had put together one from 15 years ago. so pulled that out of the filing cabinet. And redid the contents. I made it much more simple to read and follow what it is that I do.
It is about 20 pages long. I had to re word and type up 4 new pages of text combining several redundant pages making it easier to read. It took me forever to do this as there was not a spell check and my typing is some what slow and I make errors in spelling. So I had to constantly reread the pages to make sure they were all correct.
Printing them up took many tries getting them each to fit on a single page.With some rewording, I was able to do it, just finished up when jeff came home at midnight.

The reason I put this together was in fear.
Last week I saw a client for the first time and was horrified what I found. She had an ingrown toe nail that had been going on for quite some time. It was the worst one That I have ever seen. They did not prepare me for what their mothers big toe looked like. They told me that this had been going on for a month and hospice/nurse practioner sawit ans just said yep it is ingrown.
I just did what I always do, they had been soaking her feet in epson salts as I had instructed them to do before my visit.
They medicated her with some morphin and I went about cleaning her toe and getting rid of all of the dead debri, and cut the nail back as best as I could to discover it was all the way down to the bone.
I was horrified.
I would have sent her to the emergency room had she not been on hospice.
I was irritated that the hospice people did not do anything and called me into take care of the ingrown nail. I gave the family member instructions for wound care and applied a dressing.
That was all out of my scope of practice.

Later the hospice nurse called me and started questioning me about why I did not call them with my findings. I told them the family members had said that this had been going on a month, I was a bit defensive. She said that she had my phone number if they had any other questions. This made me very nervous. I hope they don't report me.
They were negligent.
Looking back at it I should not have done it but I always do what has to be done.
So in doing the procedure manual I feel confident that I have covered my tracks and wrote it in such a way that I followed my guide lines.
This was the only thing that I could do to cover my tracks and to deal with my anxiety.

Got up this morning and am onto my 3rd cup of coffee. The sun is shining and I don't think we have rain today so that is good. Cooler weather is coming again...it is now december!
Perhaps we can take the tree down out of the attic and decorate it. I have not done any shopping or planning for christmas presents for anyone yet.
Although the 3 daughters have come together to combine gifts for them.
Dad wanted a new pair of shoes, Jill bought them, They needed a new tv, gretchen bought that, we are paying for the cat boarding for February's annual trip to florida. They will be gone 3 weeks.

I told mom that I would be coming home to celebrate her 80th birthday, feb 3rd.
This is the coldest and snowyist month for them I will stay about 3-4 days and allow time after that in case I get snowed in from a snow storm.

I am not going to florida this year and don't plan on going ever again.That trip last year is not my idea of vacation. Even though it is a family thing, I believe I have the right to bow out of going. The first time that I joined them for that trip was a disaster. When we first got there I cried because I did not now what to do. and made a scene. It was awful. And then for the entire week I drank like a sailor...it was not pretty. I told my sisters that I did not want any thing to do with that time share, that they could have it.
Any way,
I am sorry this is so long.
Thank you for reading.
I better get going. Jeff is ready to go to brunch.
No bloody marys for me! Being Alcohol free suits me well.
bizi

[bizi]

Another great weekend!
Had brunch at the diner:
3 eggs scrambled with fresh spinach and a side of spinach and mustard greens and smoked sausage. It was delicious!
Jeff got the christmas trees down from the attic and set them up.
One is on the floor in the living room it is about 6 feet tall.
The other one is 3 ft tall and it is on our dining room table.
I put the other decorations up around the living room, including a one feet tall mini tree with IU decorations from indiana and red and white colors and ornaments. It is cute.
WE were invited to dinner at jeffs best friends house.
So we went there at 5;30 and we ate at 6.
He prepared a chicken dish with a red sauce with tomatoes and peppers and asparagus. It was very good. I did not eat the rice. He also fixed a cucumber salad and his daughter was there and she brought some now safe to eat romaine lettuce and some dressing that was very good.
They ate ice cream treats for dessert and I had a mini resses peanut butter cup. Drank sweetened tea and water while they drank gin and tonics.

Did not miss the alcohol at all, I knew that if I had one I would want more and more. sigh
Came home and ate 2 squares of dark chocolate which was very satisfying.
chewed gum to keep my mouth busy.
I ate just the right amount of food as to not be too full.
I need to watch portion sizes at sandras for lunches they always give me so much food. Tomorrow I will bring a little cooler with me.
I look forward to karens stories at lunch. Will bring the info that I printed off for her. Don't know how she will take it. Alot of it talks about needing therapy to work thru issues and about ptsd. I believe she suffers from this as well. Well I had better sign off as my back is starting to bother me.
bizi

edited to add that it was 80 degrees as I listened to christmas music and then the ice cream man drove by. lol gotta love the south!

[splitimage]

Bizi,

Sorry about the client with the ingrown toenail - that's totally not fair to you.

I'd say it's a good call to not go on the FL vacation, I'd find it very triggering.

Glad you got your Christmas decorations up. I want to put my tree up today, it's just a little 3 foot tree, but it's really pretty when it's lit up.

Well done on staying AF, diet is a great motivator.

splitimage

[bizi]

Thank you split....
have a good day!
(((((HUGS)))))
bizi

[bizi]

I don't think I told you that our cat hattie had surgery today.
She had a tumor on the side of her back about the size of an egg. It got infected and we treated her for that the past week. Jeff is great at giving her meds. He got this thunder coat that wraps around her protects the incision and comforts her but she is having a hard time getting up and walking around freely. It is supposed to help with anxiety and we thought it would be easier on her instead of that cone collar they put on her. Jeff said she went crazy with it on her...so we opted for this.

I just hope the incision is ok.
bizi

[bizi]

jeff said he saw her eat and drink but she still is not waking quite right. so he loosened the coat and she promptly went under our bed.
sigh
bizi

[splitimage]

Aww, I hope your poor kitty is ok. It's never nice when are fur babies are sick.

[bizi]

last night she wiggled out of her coat....
This is going to be an ongoing struggle, put it back on her.
we both work so we will see how she is doing after we get home tonight.
bizi

[bizi]

I met with my psych doctor today. She was thrilled that I was doing so well being alcohol free, and losing weight.
I felt very strongly about my being AF. I told her that I have this trip coming up and they are triggers for me.
She prescribed Inderall for my anxiety 3 x day.
I am supposed to try it first on sunday when I am not working to see how I respond to it.

I am feeling like my motor is running.
I purchased/picked what goes inside these baskets at fresh pickens open air market. I bought 10 of them and will give them to the woman in my family.
yesterday I bought 10 big bags on sale at hobby lobby, and some name tags and tissue paper and dove chocolates from the dollar tree.
I picked them up this evening...it took half of the space in my car.When I put the basket in the gift bag it seems huge. They will take up a lot of room in the car.

I hope my rosacea stops doing its thing. Am hoping the BBL treatments help.
It is supposed to help with spider lines in my face and red nose etc.
Am excited/nervous about that.
Having it done next tuesday before we leave.
I just went to home depot and ordered new business cards and bound the manual. And bought some books used for my billing. Abigail is coming on saturday to help with some paper work. I get my hair colored that afternoon. WE vote that day!
Feel drugged. antsy, yet tired so that I may go to bed early tonight.
I hope I am not becoming hypo.
bizi