Wave Hello!

Brandon and I are doin our part to re-spawn the earth with really awesome kiddos.  We are thrilled to announce a new little chicken into our family, due September 2013.

Geek Chic

I love my red hair and chunky glasses.

The Past Few Months in Pics

I've hardly posted any pictures lately, so here a few I've taken on my camera the past couple months.  If you follow me on Instagram, you may have already seen these, but if you don't, then enjoy!

This picture of me and my cats is epic.  And it's kind of sad, because I look terrible in it - no makeup or anything - but my cats...ah man, CLASSIC.  Bobbi's got TWO rolls of back fat goin on, and Hairy's sticking out her tongue.  Somehow, this pic just captures the essence of the nuttiness of my cats.  :)

My two besties, K and L.  So happy I have them.

I'm wearing a llama shirt.  A LLAMA SHIRT.  I loved it so much I went and bought it in blue too!

Me and Cade at church.  :)

Brandon and I went to the Waldorf Astoria in Park City and had an amazingly fancy dinner.  Afterward when we were waiting for the valet to bring us our car, we sat by a cozy fire.

This is my Gwen Chicken!  I want to eat her!  And she's technically not even mine, but still, gimme gimme!  Look how SQUISHY she is!!  :)

My quirky outfit today.  I dig it.  (Though, honestly the shoes didn't go well with the 2 F weather we have here...)

So, I talked about my llama blouse, and now onto my CAT BLOUSE!  My two nieces saw it in a store and nabbed it because they knew I would freak out and die.  Also, my cat ring Cade got me for Christmas.  Love it and wear it every day!

My Sleepless Child

I am going nutty!  For the past week or so Mila has just up and decided that napping is for losers.  She's not even 18 months yet, and she's already refusing to nap!  Granted, when she doesn't nap, she goes to bed by like 6ish, but STILL, I can't handle it.  I so NEED a couple hours during the day to chill and de-freak while she sleeps.  I hadn't realized how much I depended on that time to nap or clean or read or whatever.  Any advice or tips on how to get her to nap?  I've tried the whole route of letting her scream it out in the crib, and she wins every time...she'll NEVER stop crying.  She throws her bottle and all her blankets/stuffed animals out of the crib and just stands there shrieking.  FOREVER.  Listening to her scream is more horrible than just letting her roam free and stay awake.  :/  I am so not a happy camper right now!

I'm not much of a resolution setter, but with the new year I have been casually thinking of a few goals I'd like to set.  One thing I want to do more this year is write.  Whether that be in a personal journal, or on this blog, or maybe (but probably not) workin on my book, I know that I really do usually just feel better when I'm expressing myself through the written word.  My anxiety has been a killer lately and I really think this could help.  So, hopefully/maybe you'll see more frequent posts from me.

Mila, pictured above, in one of her Christmas outfits. I was SO jealous of it!

And, also, here's a pic of my red(der) hair.  I luuuuuurve it!  I'm going to go even more red next time.  :)  What think ye?

Hope you all have a great weekend.  I think we're just going to chill at home.  There's been a massive snow storm in UT over the past 24 hours or so...like we're talking FEET AND FEET of snow, but further south from SLC, where we live, we've only gotten like half an inch! So everyone's been complaining about how awful it is, and I'm very happily chillin in a house where there isn't too much snow.  Granted, we've already got a foot or so from the snowstorm from hell right around Christmas, but, luckily, no new snow.  (I hate snow and I live in UT.  Go figure.)  Anyway, we pry won't want to brave the streets this weekend and instead will stay cozied up in the house.

Also, there is a horrible influenza outbreak in UT right now with a TON of fatalities I hear.  :(  I live in mortal fear of this flu because if I caught it, with my lung disease, it seriously might kill me.  So I am happy to stay at home and steer clear.  Two of my sisters and their families have caught it...and I feel so sad for them!  Stay healthy and stay breathing!  Rah I hate snow and flu season.  I just want to lie in the sun and go swimming!!!  MAKE SUMMER COME!!!

A Big Update

Hello m'friends!  Thought I'd do a quick update.

I have so much, really, that I could say, but Cade's about to walk in the door from school, and Mila is sneaking M&M's on the new carpet when she should be eating them in her high chair, and I'm feeling rather distracted.  I just sat down and tried to catch up on a few blogs that I haven't read since before all the holiday madness.  Thought I should do a quick recap of what's been happening with us:

Christmas was awesome - it really is an even funner holiday filled with more joy when you have it so spend with your own kids.  I love the innocence and excitement and joy that sometimes adults don't let you see on Christmas, but on kids, it's transparent on their faces.  Does that make sense?  Anyway, we all definitely had a great holiday.  Brandon got a whole new wardrobe, which he needed because now that he is in a managment position at work, he wanted to class things up a little.  And by "class," I mean "slim straight" jeans instead of "bootcut."  He still refuses to wear skinny jeans, but I am working on it!  ;)  He also got a hella huge TV.  And I mean that literally; I have quite honestly never seen a TV so big!  It's 73", and to give you some perspective, I'm 5'11", and only 71" tall!  So the TV is longer than me!  But it's fun.  :)

Cade got lots of presents and even a tramp that we're going to set up in the spring.  He also got a dog which we had to promptly find a new home for after a week, because I had a severe allergic reaction that made me swell and hive up and has had me glued to my neb and a massive dose of steroids.  :(  So that was no fun.  But...he still had a great Christmas.

Mila was still rather clueless about it all, but seemed to have fun opening her presents and just basking in the excitement of the day.  She is freaking OBSESSED with candy and won't EVER stop talking about it.  It's seriously embarrassing - I promise I feed her healthy crap too!  At the end of this month she'll be 18 months.  Can't believe how fast time has flown by!

I am loving living here and we are very happy and well adjusted at the new place.  I have found two amazing friends that I'm still kind of baffled I was even able to find!  K and L live next door to me and right across the street, and we have become fast friends and confidants.  This is basically my first time making "normal" friends that I didn't meet in treatment, so I've had my share of challenges and insecurities, but I am having so much FUN and am just loving getting to know them and be their friend.  I feel like God gave me a little blessing that I was able to find them.  When we first moved here, the loneliness I felt was so crushing.  But I don't feel that way at all anymore.  And it's great.  :)

I'm also still hangin in there with treatment stuff.  Still have quite a bit of weight to gain but have already gained a significant chunk and am sort of just plugging along.  I've definitely had my share of hurdles to get past medically that have interfered with weight gain...a stomach infection, horrible diarrhea, crippling anxiety, and barely functioning lungs have kind of made things tough, but for the most part I feel pretty past all that and am starting to balance out a little.  I am so invested in going to therapy and dietary and group and making it work and stick this time.  Things are tough but I ultimately feel good with what's happening and with the direction my life is going in right now.

Been dealing with some horrible sleep stuff...I don't know if I mentioned earlier, but the past several months have been pretty bad, because I've been trying to deal with lucid dreams.  They've gotten so bad that a lot of the time I am unsure if things have really happened, or if I just dreamed they happened.  In the morning when I wake up I have to check my phone and text messages/emails/etc to see if I can find any evidence of something happening, or if it was something I only dreamed.  It sounds nutty, I know.  But my memory is kind of horrible right now and the anxiety + lucid dreams are making me so crazy that I'm kind of losing touch with reality.  :/  My tx suggested writing in a journal every few hours (super quickly) about the things that have just happened, so that I can return back and read it to stay grounded, and that is helping.  I'm also going to get into a psychiatrist to help with the anxiety/sleep thing because I just cannot function like this.

I dyed my hair RED!  And I LOVE it.  Proper picture to come soon; mostly I am not posting one today because Blogger still wants me to pay to post photos and that's just ridiuclous.  :/  I've wanted to dye it for years and have never dared...and so finally, I just decided to get over it and do it.  And it's so great - you can definitely tell I dyed it, but it's not so overly done that it's terribly overwhelming.  It's subtle.  And such a fun change!

Okay, that's all I guess - just a rudimentary and rather boring update.  Maybe next time I'll try to think of something more scintillating!  I hope 2013 has treated you all well so far!  And also - if you haven't seen "Les Mis" yet, get your butts out the door to see it!  That movie is making me a little more human, a little less robot - I NEVER cry in movies, but I was unabashedly sobbing during this movie - a total life changer.  So amazing!

Okay, random, I'll stop now, bye!

So I Will

Hi ya'll.

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.  I had a great time with my sister and her family; they let us crash their dinner this year and it was small and cozy and really nice.  Now I'm completely prepping for Christmas; we've strung lights up on the house and I have completely outdone myself and put up TWO trees in the house - one for the living room, and one for the family room.  I feel kind of silly, but it's been fun.  :)  I am nowhere NEAR done with Cmas shopping so feel a bit overwhelmed with all that, but I am looking forward to all the holiday parties coming up.  So much fun to reunite with family and friends.

Just wanted to give you guys a quick update on what's been going on and how I'm doing:

Since going back to treatment 3ish weeks ago, things have been kind of crazy and up and down physically and emotionally.  I have been at a re-feeding risk so for awhile I was constantly getting my labs drawn, and my poor little arms were all sore.  I also had an endoscopy done and they found a wicked bad stomach infection goin on, which help explains all the terrible nausea and tummy pain I've had over the last few months...who knew it wasn't all just anxiety, like I was blaming it on?  So I've been trying to get that under control and also dealing with some really really bad acid reflux.  This is all so delightful, right?  Gah.  So, medically, I've kind of felt crappy over the last few weeks, also with lots of migraines thrown in there for good measure.

But, over the last 5 or so days, I've begun to feel much better.  I've nailed down a time that I take my two tummy meds for them to work at their optimum, and that is helping.  I sleep sitting up to help with the reflux.  Stuff like that - just experimenting and adjusting to help me feel better.

Weight gain wise I am on the right track - have gained some weight, but also have a long way to go.  I think the initial weight gain process has been a little slow because of the re-feeding risk and the tummy issues.  But I'm gettin there, and what's MORE important - I WANT to get there.

I have lots of little morsels I could share with you all, but the most pressing thing I wanted to share was this:
The reason I think my eating disorder recovery will stick this time is because, this time around, with this relapse, it is the first time I have ever felt remorse for what I've done - for engaging in my eating disorder and hurting my body and my husband and kids and those who love me and care about me.  Before, I never took responsibility for it - it was all like, "Poor me, I'm just a product of some crappy things that have happened in my life and therefore I have an eating disorder and I really can't help it blah blah."  And now, I'm more like, "Yeah, life has been hard at times, but I chose to go down this path and I chose my eating disorder, and I need to take responsibility for that and I need to fix it."

I actually feel bad about what I've done to myself.  And I really want to fix it.

So I will.

And also, congratulations to my twin brother Brett and my sweet sis-in-law Angela on welcoming their new daughter, Gwendolyn June Brown, to the family.  She is an absolute doll and I am completely in love with her.  Little Gwen already has a little chunk of my heart.  :) 

(I WOULD HAVE POSTED A PICTURE OF GWENNY PIE BUT STUPID GOOGLE IS TELLING ME I'M OUT OF STORAGE SPACE AND NOW HAVE TO PAY MONEY EVERY MONTH TO PUT PICTURES ON MY BLOG.  I AM MAD.  HENCE THE ALL CAPS.  I WILL EVENTUALLY GIVE INTO THIS DEMAND BUT I NEED THE ANGER TO SETTLE.)  Rah!!!!

My Mess

Why hello everyone.

So few posts from me, I know.  I think I'm just going to stop apologizing about it...I mean, one day, I could very well go back to blogging daily, but for now...just ain't going to happen.  Let's be real.

Just wanted to stop in really quickly to say that I have gone back to treatment.  For the couple months that I didn't have a treatment team, I kinda let things get out of hand.

So, on November 12th, on the 3 year anniversary of losing my baby, I was wondering how I could honor her.  What could I do to remember her and honor her?  And then I decided that the best thing I could do to honor her would be to outline a treatment plan to start to get better.  Kendall  would want that for me.  She would want me to be happy and healthy.

So that's what I did.

It was tricky...financially, and with our sucky insurance...and some providers who specialize in ED's wouldn't see me, because they said I needed to be inpatient.  But I have an excellent provider who is working with me outpatient and I am getting this back under control.

I am scared and I am sad and I am flabbergasted I let it get this bad again.  I am mostly embarrassed of my body and want to hide it.  I am lonely.

But, for the first time, I actually feel remorse for what I am doing to my body, and I think now, that's why this is finally going to click and I'm going to recover.  Before, when I relapsed, my mindset was "Poor me, life sucks and I've been dealt a crappy hand in life, and I'm angry at God and everybody else and life is just so hard I can't do this so I have to keep my ED blah blah."  But now I'm more like, "Life does suck sometimes, and it IS hard, but I'm the one that made this choice to backslide.  I did this.  I need to take responsiblity for it and fix it.  This is no one's fault but mine - not God's, not my parents, not my husband's...nobody is at fault here but me.  So just grit your teeth and DO IT."

And so, I am.

I am working to gain weight but am currently dealing with some re-feeding issues.  I am following my treatment team's recommendations, and while things have gone a little slow because of re-feeding/medical issues, pretty soon I hope that will clear up and I'll start gaining faster.

So, this is me taking accountability.  I got myself into a mess.  But I'm getting myself out of it.