Weekend Update

I just finished a Mother's Day FaceTime sesh with my parents. The usual: my mom had to be dragged inside from weeding her garden and my dad fell asleep halfway through. My mom was super confused about the difference between FaceTime and Snapchat, so we spent some time reviewing that. (And I mandated that she is NEVER EVER allowed to get Snapchat.) My mom just got her first iPhone this past Christmas, and still can't figure out how to change the default weather forecast from Cupertino. So, baby steps.

I was pretty worried about having a completely open weekend to fret about my health and stuff, so I tried to fill it up with activities. Yesterday I went for a long, leisurely walk in the morning (no pain yesterday, but I had some with walking today, unfortunately) then drove downtown to work in the food bank for a few hours. It was a pretty slow day, probably because the weather was so nice, but I got the chance to chat with several people from the city who were either picking up food or volunteering, which is always very cool. I'm totally my mother's daughter when it comes to chatting with strangers; I literally cannot not make conversation with people, whether it's in a cab, an elevator, a doctor's waiting room, a coffee shop, etc. It leads to a lot of interesting conversations with a lot of interesting characters. Yesterday I met the nicest guy—a vet who spent several years at Fort Hood; he wasn't there for either of the shootings in the past couple years, but had many friends who were. He had LOTS to say about the state of the VA, mental health care, the military, etc. Very cool guy to meet!

source

After that I got a late lunch with my cousin, who lives over by the food bank. We scarfed down some Panera and soaked up the sunshine (My nose got a little pink) for a couple hours, then I dropped her off and came home. I had about an hour to myself before heading out for drinks with some friends. Overall a long and lovely day, and I was mostly able to keep my nagging worries shoved to the very back of my mind.

This morning I tried going for a walk again, but the pain was really bothering me so I called it quits early. Then I came home a did a Pilates video on youtube, which made my abs BURN LIKE THE SUN. Then I showered, ate breakfast, got weepy and sad and stressed out for about five minutes, pulled it together, stress-cleaned my apartment, felt better, went to the mall to exchange a shirt I bought a couple weeks ago for a different color  (I am suddenly obsessed with shopping! What is wrong with me? I can't afford this!), stopped at a coffee shop to research PhD programs/drink coffee, debated buying a scone for my afternoon snack, bought the scone, ATE the scone, felt okay about it, started to drive home, realized it was too sunny and beautiful to be inside, stopped off at campus, strolled around for a while (with much less pain than the morning, oddly), then came home and did the FaceTime thing. Not sure why I felt the need to fit that all into one sentence.

YUM

More random updates from my first weeks of summer: My new thing for dinner is to stir fry some veggies and mix them into a frozen pasta dinner. Pasta is a HUGE HUGE fear food for me, mostly because the portions in restaurants are usually enormous and I have no concept of what is a reasonable amount to eat. And non-whole wheat carbs have always seemed off-limits to me. It had been so long since I'd actually eaten pasta that I just convinced myself (and everyone else) that I didn't like it. Well, turns out, in a calorie-controlled setting in the safety of my own kitchen, I actually like pasta quite a bit. This week I've had tortellini and ravioli, believe it or not. I guess the next step would be to actually make it myself, like from a package rather than an individualized frozen dinner, and then even order it in a restaurant, but I'm not there yet.

dinner tonight

So, all in all an okay/busy weekend. Still working on staying positive, still working on kicking this damn ED.

Peace!