I will post more about relationships and eating disorders in the next week, but I wanted to quickly share a few of the ridiculous foibles and adventures I have had in the last few days.  If you follow me on Twitter, you may have read a few of these: 

• I decided to get my hair cut on a frustrated whim.  NEVER a good idea.  It’s also not a good idea to get your haircut someplace where they don’t take bills over $20.  At least assymetric is considered a “style” right now.  If you squint, my uneven haircut could pass for assymmetric…

• I was positive, so positive I would have sworn on my mother’s life, that I saw Denzel Washington walking down the street as I drove downtown today.  As I got closer, I realized: not only was he not Denzel Washington, but he was not even black.  And he was bald. 
   
•  On that same token, I recently read a sign and exclaimed to David, “why is that business named genital herpes?”  It turned out it said NOTHING of the sort, and was an art gallery.  Maybe it’s time to get my eyes checked…
   
• I am visiting my parents this week because my mom had reconstructive arm surgery yesterday and needs help with the 3 kids still at home.  Not only did she call me from the operation recovery room (still half sedated) to tell me something about a dinner for 50 that she was responsible for, but later she made me plan the next 5 dinners (this time, for 100) and contact “her crew” to assign different responsibilities. She was vomiting on and off this whole time, by the way.  She is not a caterer; she is just in charge of bringing dinner to my brother’s play cast every Tuesday and Thursday until their play.  Which is in three weeks.  How convenient…especially since she can’t drive, cook, or lift for six weeks.     
   
• Java made the trek with me to Minnesota since D is actually on a mission trip in Costa Rica right now. Java did great on the plane, but now that she’s here, things aren’t going so smoothly.  My parents’ 20 lb Cockapoo, Ginger, is terrified of my white, fluffy, polite 5 lb puppy.  Java tries to get her to play, and Ginger (my parents’ dog) runs and hides.  Lest you think that Ginger is antisocial, however, let me assure you: she has friends.   Online ones.  

She probably has a Dungeons and Dragons game somewhere, too.

• My physical therapist wants me to do Pilates DVDs.  I’ve written before about how I actually got STUCK in a Pilates position in the one class I’ve been to–let’s just say that “flexibility” is not my strong suit (nor is core strength.)  So anyway, I bought these DVDs and bravely set about doing one for the first time two nights ago.  My little brother legitimately got a bowl of cereal and sat down to watch me instead of TV.  He said, “I’m going to sit here and watch Sarah be unflexible.”  

  However, I got my revenge when I invited him to join me–and he accepted.  We moaned and groaned together, and he reminded me last night that we needed to do it.  Apparently, he’s viewing this visit as a Pilates boot camp for both of us.
   

• I went to a birthday party involving one of my scariest foods (pizza) at a restaurant called Chubby’s.  So good for the psyche…I did, however, choke down 1 and 1/4 pieces of pizza.  GO ME.  I am also going to be challenged this week to basically not exercise beyond the Pilates and short walks with the dogs, because my mom’s life is freaking BUSY and I am “her” this week.  Lack of exercise makes me quite anxious. Support welcomed and encouraged!
   
• D and I were prepping for his Costa Rica trip by looking in the camping aisle at Target. I saw miniature tents like these on display and exclaimed, “how CUTE! Are these tents for your dogs?”

 D stared at me like I was a complete idiot.  Apparently, these are just MODELS of tents.  This may qualify as my “Blonde Moment of the Year.”  But really, I try to avoid camping, so I wouldn’t know. 

• My final excitement: I am officially in the top 20 for the Sam-E Good Mood Gig contest! Now I just have to make a 90 second video, write a biographical sketch, and get voters and a panel of voters to see my true awesomeness.  Piece of cake? Ideas welcome… 

One of the most common questions I receive is, “what do you think about having a romantic relationship when you have an eating disorder?”  And some of the most common search terms that land people at my blog are, ”confiding ED to husband” and “husband + eating disorder” and “boyfriend + eating disorder.” 

My husband, D, has guest posted on this topic; you can read his post HERE.  But since I keep getting questions, I want to dive in a little deeper to this topic.  

So D and I took one for the team and spent two afternoons at Starbucks talking about what to write about this topic.  We’re so sacrificial.  We decided to just tell our story, and intersperse our “lessons learned.” 

When D and I met, I was in the throes of what I would now identify as a subclinical eating disorder.  I ran 3-6 miles every day, would often work out twice in a day, restricted after eating anything I considered “unhealthy,” and would occasionally try to make myself throw up.  I was honest with D and told him that I struggled with body image and with eating appropriately, but I would always follow up with “but I’m fine.” 

At the time, he thought that if he just praised me enough, that I would be able to get into a healthier frame of mind. He now says that this is mistake #1- thinking that unhealthy body image can just be “fixed” by compliments. 

During our sophomore year of college, I became increasingly reclusive and ritualistic in my eating habits.  Our schedules didn’t parallel at all, so we only ate together a few times a week.  In actuality, I could have eaten with him a lot more but “I” liked being alone when I ate because I was eating weird things.  I also became a vegetarian during this time, so any dietary changes were masked by this. 

One of the few social outings I went to that semester. I look miserable.

I lost quite a lot of weight during the semester, but D actually didn’t notice.  He only noticed after Thanksgiving when I told him that my parents had been on my case about my weight.  He now says that this was mistake #2: you should always be attentive to changes in your significant others’ body and eating habits, because even if they don’t signify an eating disorder they could signify depression.

Over Christmas and January break, I lost more weight and was diagnosed.  D didn’t understand the severity of my weight loss until he saw me in late January.  He said his heart just sank as I walked off the plane, and he could barely hug me because he was so upset.  

Still, he didn’t understand the mental aspects until a few days later when I broke down in front of him about how I couldn’t go to a leadership dinner and had to get coffee to take to dinner so I would have something in my hands.  He asked me gently, “aren’t you trying to gain weight?”  I began ranting and raving, basically letting the eating disorder have control of my mouth, and as I wailed and stomped my feet on the ground –he finally got how horrible I felt on the inside.    

Because of what he had witnessed, he refused to let me break up with him when I was sent home a few days later. He told me, “you’re not thinking straight and you need me.  I will be here as long as you need me.”  I cried and told him I was over him, but he just kept calling and emailing me until I realized that he was right–I needed him–and was grateful that he hadn’t left my side.

D wants me to point out here that any significant other should be true to their feelings. If a significant other does not really want to be in a relationship with the person with an eating disorder and doesn’t think there is a future, they should not stay just to “save” the person.  Staying in a relationship because you feel sorry for the person is not healthy for you or the other person; it may even cause more damage to the person when you break up later.  It is okay to help them get connected with help, and to support them as a friend, but unless you love the person (or feel romantically towards them) you shouldn’t just stay in the relationship to “protect” them.  

In our case, D says he felt tender towards me and wanted to stay with me for as long as I would let him.  He knew we might break up at any point, but he wanted to support me as long as he could.

So he learned about eating disorders.  He spent time asking lots of questions to try to understand all that was going on in my twisted little brain.  He made many mistakes, as did I, in communicating.   What did we learn? Be honest when things hurt your feelings; be honest and tell the person when you’re struggling and how they can help; be honest when the person with the eating disorder is hurting you; just be honest.  

During the recovery process, I was unusually irrational, irritable, weepy, and whiny. D walked on eggshells for a while, but then started to call me out on things.  We learned that it wasn’t very helpful when D tried to “out argue” the eating disorder logic, but it was helpful when he would present a different viewpoint.  

As an example: when I would cry that I was becoming ginormous, it would be fruitless for him to say, “no, you’re not fat.”  I would just cry back, “yes I am!” Our conversations would go a lot better when he would say something like, “what do you weigh right now?” and then talk about how big the gap was between my healthy weight and my current weight.  I never appreciated it when he told me that I was being illogical, but I always responded well when he led me to come to the conclusion on my own.  

I also really liked it when D got me outside of myself.  We went hiking, shopping, took road trips when I got stressed out by school, explored different coffee shops, went on photography expeditions, visited puppy stores, went to plays, and so forth.  He was responsive when I was feeling too overwhelmed to do something, but he tried to present me with a variety of non-food-based social activities so I got used to going out and doing stuff again. He rarely treated me like I was sick.  

I visited D one month before I was discharged from IOP treatment. It was my only break from IOP, and he took me hiking on Mt. Rainier. It was the most excitement I had had in months.

Hopefully this addressed some of the issues that come up when a couple is already dating when the eating disorder emerges.  Our next post will focus on the question: should you start a relationship when you’re in the midst of an eating disorder? 

I have some of my greatest epiphanies and moments of reflection in babysitting clients’ homes.  I think it’s because I’m alone except for a sleeping baby and cannot turn on music, clean, talk with another adult, or otherwise occupy my mind  (insert scary music.)

I am babysitting tonight and I haven’t had an earth-shaking epiphany yet, but I have come to some conclusions about where my life and recovery are right now and how I want to improve in the next few months.

So I’ll start.  Honestly, I am starting to feel very worn down by this semester, despite putting margins into my life. BUT, I am confident that I can take some corrective measures.

The bad news first: 

-My wrist still hurts (although I just spent $150 on an ergonomic workstation which is helping and I’m still doing physical therapy every Friday.) My wrist pain is worst at night, and prevents me from sleeping so I am averaging only 6.5 hours of sleep.  This has led me to start using caffeine in the afternoons, which puts me in a perpetual cycle of “ups/downs.”

-I am also not eating very well (I’m eating enough, don’t worry, but the nutritional content leaves something to be desired–I haven’t had an appetite and I’ve been doing a lot of convenience-type “meals” because of my low appetite, work, and night classes.) I almost cried in the grocery store the other night because NOTHING seemed appetizing and I just didn’t want to exert the effort to try to find something that would pique my interest. Everything just seemed blah and disgusting. The only things I’ve been craving are sushi and Smoothie King, which I cannot eat for every meal.  (Don’t use the “p” word.  Don’t even go there!)

-My house is perpetually messy as I live with a puppy and a roommate who sees no problem with putting his or her (I’m not naming names) dirty socks on a coffee table.  

(photo found online, prototype found in my home)

-One other factor that I haven’t really talked about this on the blog yet is that public health is not really where my heart and passion are. I am glad that I will have the degree and I am grateful for the education I have received, but I am realizing more and more that I want to work at the individual level instead of systems level, and this makes it hard to slug through a systems-based curriculum.

The good news:

-There are a few places I can intervene in my little “axis of evil.”  I can try winding down for bed sooner and stop my afternoon caffeine dose (I sense a painful withdrawal period in my future.) I can buy things like pre-cut fruit and pre-make my salads to make them just as convenient to bring along to class or work as a granola bar. Two weeks ago, I cooked ahead for the week so I had tasty, nutritious things every night, and I need to try it again. I can set up a cleaning schedule with D where we clean one thing per day. I’m not doomed to be stuck in this chain-there are lots of things I can modify!

Java obviously needs to detox too.  We’ll do it together.

-This spring is my last “full time student” semester–and I am actively pursuing ways to make my next graduate degree a reality.

-I haven’t weight trained since the end of July because of wrist pain and, more recently, my physical therapist’s orders. This means that my body has changed a little bit.  For years, my mom has told me that women’s bodies fluctuate in size and shape a little and that I will need to get used to it. I could have never imagined being here, but think I am finally close to a place where I’m okay with this.  This is an ”off” phase for my overall muscle tone, but the muscles I need are still getting worked through daily activities (lifting a baby, lugging my computer and groceries around) and it’s not my fault.  So why beat myself up? My body will fluctuate despite my desires and best efforts. I can fight it, or I can deal. I pick dealing.

-On that same note, I am reaching a comfortable balance with exercise. When I have exercised lately, it has been so stress relieving and enjoyable. When I haven’t exercised, OH WELL. I don’t waste time and I am doing something else valuable, so stick that in your pipe and smoke it, critical brain.

-I just ate my second Dove Promise of the week.

-If you follow the last 3 statements and the one where I talk about how I’m having a hard time eating enough fruits and vegetables to their logical conclusions, I would say that I am making some awesome recovery progress!

-I am currently #22 in the Sam-E contest. If I move up to #20, I will be in the running to be PAID to blog!!! (This is not just a plug…although you CAN vote…come on people, I’m always in a good mood and I have a wicked fashion sense!)

-Because of the busyness of our weekdays, I have taken two full days off from schoolwork per weekend. I have never done this before in the history of my schooling, but I am loving it. I almost cry when the weekend is over because of how much I have been able to “escape” from school mode. It’s such a blessing!!!

-My boss just gave me a Coach purse. The EXACT one I like.

So yes, thanks for reading one of the more self-indulgent posts on Bearing, Eating, Being. I just wanted to honestly share where I’m at–both the good and bad, for accountability and encouragement’s sake.

D and I are working on our first “joint” post on a question that many of you have asked: can you have a healthy romantic  relationship while you have an eating disorder? We took the opportunity to brainstorm the answer to this question at Starbucks (a “working date”) but we didn’t write it.  Darn! Looks like we’ll have to go back to Starbucks….so expect it later this week, or next week at the latest (I have a big Powerpoint presentation on Thursday and a big exam next Monday so I may not blog this week.)

In the meantime, I’ll give you a different sort of inspiration (or indigestion) by sharing these amazing photos of Halloweens gone by! 

Okay, obviously this is a horrible quality photo, but I don’t have a working scanner so I took this out of my scrapbook and Mac Photo Booth-d it.  This is D and my first Halloween together in 2004. He forgot to bring a costume, so he wore my friend’s mom outfit and went as a woman.  I (obviously) went as a ballerina.  A HOT ballerina.  

Our friend in the back went as a Whoopie Cushion.  Our friend to the left went as a pirate, but people kept guessing that she was a “wench” or a “prostitute” and she was upset.  We went trick or treating in said wench’s neighborhood, and all of her neighbors gave out full-size candy bars.  This was the last year I ate Halloween candy and, tragically, the last year I went door-to-door.  I guess it should have been, considering that I was a FRESHMAN IN COLLEGE.

  2006.  Reason #4343 not to be too thin: you look like a lame 12 year old. I am, in fact, 20 here. 

My old roommate went as a white trash pregnant woman and I went as Britney Spears (please don’t leave hateful comments about how insensitive we were-Britney hadn’t completely melted down yet.) 

Is my friend Tim’s costume not AMAZING?!

The year I went as Britney, D went as K-Fed.  Unfortunately, he and I never got a photo together, which is perhaps appropriate.

Last year on Halloween we hosted a high school tailgate party before their football game.  We did not have a single Trick or Treater, which made D ecstatic because he got the huge bag of candy all to himself. 

What are your Halloween plans? 

EDITED TO ADD: whoops, my competitive spirit is apparently lacking tonight. I completely forgot to plug myself and my homegirls. Vote for us! Yay!

People to vote for:

Me
Lindsey (www.soundeats.com)
Meghann (www.graduatemeghann.com)
Ashley (www.dailygoods.wordpress.com)
Monica (www.runeatrepeat.com)
Amanda (www.runtothefinish.blogspot.com)

I found out about the Good Mood Gig yesterday from Lindsey, a fellow blogger who has also applied for the job.  I immediately decided to apply since the job is right up my alley.  

Unfortunately, it results in the rather awkward situation of competing against a friend. I’ve spent my life competing against friends for theater parts, vocal solos, the Homecoming Court…you name it.  I never really cared if I lost though as long as one of my friends won!

my beautiful best friend, who wound up being our Homecoming Queen in 2004

So Lindsey came up with a great idea: a few of us bloggers who are applying for the “Good Mood Gig” should work to help one another get votes!  

All of us could technically get into the top 20, because you can vote once per day per entry. So we don’t have to fight against each other for votes–you could vote for each of us! If we each combine our networks, we can have one huge network giving all of us a greater chance of getting into and staying in the top 20! Once we get there, it’s “every woman for herself!” 

So help us get into the Top 20 for the SAM-e Good Mood Gig and support inter-blogger cooperation. I’m voting for each of these women every day; will you also vote for each of us once a day until October 30th by clicking on each of our names below? With your help we can all make and stay in the top 20, and it will only take seriously 1 minute of your day (just click “vote”!)

People to vote for:

Me
Lindsey (www.soundeats.com)
Meghann (www.graduatemeghann.com)
Ashley (www.dailygoods.wordpress.com)
Monica (www.runeatrepeat.com)
Amanda (www.runtothefinish.blogspot.com)

Guys, I am having a BLAST with this contest. I haven’t been this excited about something in a long time. Like I said yesterday, I usually don’t try for “shots in the dark” out of a fear of failure, but I am realizing that is a very limiting approach to life.  I would rather fail with great enthusiasm and effort than not try for things that interest me.  

I have been really touched that (as of right now) 472 people have taken time from their days to vote for me. My mom, hairdresser, little brother, best friends–everyone is posting this and sending emails on my behalf.  My little sister even made cards with the voting address, sat in her old dorm lounge, and passed the cards out to students.

Celebrating my sister’s high school graduation–2006

It’s fun to have a community excited for me and working for me.  I have not experienced “communal collaboration” to this extent before, and I am just so happy. Even if I don’t win, it’s been fun to get excited about something!

And for those of you who want to punch me in the face, the good news is that this contest ends next week, and after then I will no longer be shamelessly plugging myself on all forms of social media Until then, VOTE! EVERY DAY! FOR ALL OF US! 

Love, Sarah

I try to avoid solicitation here on my blog, but I can’t pass up this opportunity. Please vote for me for the “Good Mood Gig” contest.  The contest is hosted by Sam-E and offers a contract blogging position.  If I obtain the position, I would be responsible for writing five blog entries per week for six months.  

Good Mood Gig from SAM-e

My entries would focus on issues of health, happiness, and positive coping skills. More specifically, I would write about why I have a good mood, how I have a good mood, and how others can have a good mood, among other things. In return, I would get a new computer and make $5000 a month.  I would spend some of this money on a sweet vacation and save the rest for my next college degree (what can I say? I have an addiction to higher education that has not been satisfied yet!)

I am very serious about wanting this job. It would be a perfect fit for my lifestyle, my talents, my financial needs, and my personality. It would also give me a chance to try blogging “professionally” (at least for six months)

Plus, if you click on it, you get to find out what city I live in (a BEB “secret” I’ve at least attempted to hide…) Just pretend you never saw it!

The first phase of the contest ends October 30 and I just found out about it today.  Eek!  The 20 people with the most votes will proceed on to the next round of the contest. You can vote once per day and help me catch up!  

As I said in the mass email I sent to friends and family, it is kind of a shot in the dark and I usually shy away from anything that could potentially humiliate me, but I figured I might as well apply and put my all into it–the worst that can happen is that I fail with great enthusiasm!

Thanks in advance for your help! 

Sarah

When D and I got married, we were encouraged to write a rough draft of a “five year plan” for what we wanted to get done within the first five years of marriage.  The last few months have held a lot of deeper conversations between D and I about that plan, and revisions have been made to it.  It’s been stressful and exciting and scary and joyful, sometimes all at once.

This weekend. we made a big step forward to one of the next items on that plan when we attended a seminary preview weekend.  The seminary was amazing, the people we met were amazing, and it was really nice to get away on what felt almost like a paid spiritual retreat (they put us in a cozy hotel and fed us all weekend, spiritually and physically.)  

This seminary offers a flexible online/intensive class format, so D would keep his current job and do seminary part-time through online classes, weekend classes, and weeklong classes.  He would be able to immediately apply what he is learning to his ministry.  I am really excited for him (although he has one more school to check out in two weeks, so don’t congratulate us yet on settling on a school!)

Anyway, on our way to the seminary, we wound up getting really lost and ended up in “the wrong part” of the city we were in.  My own school is in “the wrong part” of my city, so I was familiar with the neighborhood style and type of people.  For some reason, though, this time it struck me so hard that I have a fear response to this type of neighborhood and these “type” of people (which sounds bad to say, but it’s my blog so I feel like I have the right to explore my prejudices on here as long as I’m not putting out stereotypes as truth.)  

I HATE that that is my response. 

I think it’s good to have a radar of sorts that goes off when you are personally being endangered, but it was the middle of the day and no one was threatening me by doing anything but being different than me and being outside the “safety” of my car.

As I felt my anxiety rise and my finger move towards the lock button of my car, all I could think about was “Jesus would have gotten out of the car and moved in here.” 

The more that I grow in my faith, the more I realize that Jesus was decidedly not a Republican, a Democrat, or a capitalist.  He was a radical, and He was focused on engaging in the darkest places, with the poorest and neediest people.  

One of the professors this weekend talked about just that, sharing two examples from Mark–one where Jesus engaged with someone “unclean” on the Sabbath in a Jewish center of town, and one where Jesus engaged with someone “unclean” in a graveyard (“unclean”) in a Gentile town (“unclean”) by a herd of pigs (also “unclean”) by Jewish standards.  In both of these situations, Jesus healed the “unclean” person only to be chastised and asked to leave the area.

The professor said that the message she takes away from this was “in darkness–Jesus.  He is there. He is not afraid to engage with the darkness.  His heart is for those in the darkness.”  

I thought about this, and what else I know about Jesus’s heart.  I know that He loved the poor, that He wanted people like me to be blessed by giving up my extraneous things to help those in need.  I know that He had a heart for social justice, for helping the oppressed.  I know He exists even in a capitalistic society like ours, but I think He finds it soul killing for us. 

I know He told a rich young man, “if you want to be complete, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in Heaven, and come, follow me.” (Matthew 19:21).  The rich young man went away “grieving, for he was one who owned much property.”

A common interpretation of this is not that we are supposed to sell ALL we own (this seems really impractical) but rather, that for this young man, personal wealth was the barrier to being all Jesus wanted him to be. We all have our barriers (for a while, my anorexia was mine.)  

This is all very inarticulate, but I am really glad that my husband (and thus, by extension, myself) are going to spend our lifetime being educated and challenged to further get rid of our barriers, to engage with darkness, to practice social justice.  

I am not satisfied with my response to the neighborhoods we drove by.  God is in those neighborhoods as much as he is in my own.  I need to be in them more.  

I am excited to continue my journey towards promoting social justice and knowing what my own role is in the kingdom of God. 

How important is social justice to you in your belief system? What do you do to practice it? 

Edited to add: ERIN, you won the contest! I’ll email you to get your address! Thanks to everyone who entered

D told me to make two clarifications about my giveaway post: 

(1) He did not drink Sunny D in college unless his mom bought it for him when she would visit or we would visit her.  He doesn’t like Sunny D, but she thinks it’s his favorite and he is too polite to turn it down. And apparently, too polite to throw it out once she leaves.  Is that better, honey? 

(2) I didn’t put a deadline for when the contest ends! Duh, Sarah.  The contest ends Saturday at 6 pm EST.  Just because I like Saturdays.

Also, Java has a message of holiday greetings for you all: 

Again, GO FIGHT WIN! At least til Saturday at 8 pm.

Inspired by Carrie’s post on juice, I ordered my first-ever iced green tea at Panera while I studied today.

Boy, have I been missing out.

As I've stated before, whoever got me a MacBook didn't know they were feeding a monster of egotistical self-portraits...

After I started drinking it, I looked up its nutritional facts to impress myself with how brave I was being. 

I was actually sort of lamed out to learn it only had 90 calories, because I thought there was a good reason I was avoiding it all these years (like it would be on one of those lists of “Calorie Shockers” that is always flashing at me on “news sites” without my consent.)  Alas, I only ASSUMED it was highly caloric and could have been drinking it without fear this entire time!

Carrie, I participated in spirit at least. 

Anyway, I guess this is as good a time as any to make a late confession: Pom Wonderful contacted me and generously sent me coupons for free Pom Wonderful juice to review on my blog in August. 

I opened the juice with the best of intentions and basically did what Carrie describes: let it rot in my refrigerator. 

Really, I should have finished it, if nothing else than to get over my juice issues. I took a few shots of the juice, mixed about ½ of one the blueberry pomegranate bottles to make some sangria, and let the rest go bad because I didn’t really enjoy it and didn’t feel like “wasting the calories.”  D didn’t really like it either (don’t take his as an educated epicurean opinion though, because homeboy still drank Sunny D in college.)

I still have two coupons, and I’ve thought of making myself use them to “get over my fear,” but I’d rather get over my fear with something that tastes good to me, as I discussed a few posts ago.  Pom Wonderful  has lots of antioxidants, and it’s good for you, but I just can’t come up with a convincing reason to swallow. 

But I know many of you may like Pom Wonderful, may want to try it, or may want to use it to practice getting over your own juice issues, so, it’s time for my first blog giveaway!

If you’d like to win two 16 oz bottles of Pom Wonderful, leave a comment. 

 I’ll just pick whoever leaves the most flattering comment and mail you the coupons, plus an autographed photo of me.  Just kidding; I’ll use Randomizer to pick a random comment and I’ll try to restrain myself from including an autographed photo.  It will be difficult…

You can enter multiple times if you want; I really don’t care.  Family members (that means one of you, unless D develops a sudden sense of possessiveness over this once-scorned juice) are welcome to enter too. 

GO FIGHT WIN!

“I’m on my feet 4 hours a day 3 times a week here. Now I have to go home and I have to cook dinner for myself too?!” -Teri from Glee

I’m not as spoiled as Teri from Glee (I cook dinner without a fuss, after all!) but D and I do sometimes joke that I’m living the good life right now.  Since school is my full-time job, I’m not in an office 8-5; instead, I nanny at my clients’ home from 8:30 am-3 pm two days a week and do homework during the rest of the “work week.”  Often in sweatpants.

And–don’t kill me–I get a 3 day weekend.  Our weekend is Friday and Saturday, since D works Sundays.  While he works, I “work” on homework, but let’s just say I am easily distracted by Starbucks dates with friends who don’t share my unusual weekend calendar… 

But lately, I have been calling Friday a work day–after all, for a few months I was going to therapy on Fridays and now I’m going to PHYSICAL therapy on Fridays. I think that deserves a paycheck, no? 

(Back story: my wrist was getting worse, so my doctor ordered physical therapy.  I started two weeks ago.  Apparently I don’t have tendonitis–I have ulnar and median nerve entrapment–and my new exercises + cold laser therapy are making me feel a lot better, but I’ll be going for a while.)

My insurance company only covered 3 physical therapy places–none in my large city, much to my annoyance.  This also happened with regular therapy this spring, when D and I had to drive 45 minutes to a covered provider who actually returned my phone calls.  It’s almost like the insurance company wants a barrier to be in your way so you can’t go…oh wait…

Because of the distance, there was no way I could go to therapy or PT during the “work week” (heh heh heh) so D and I made and have been making the drive together as a sort of twisted, weird weekend date.  I know how to treat a man.

After regular therapy, we’d usually hit up the beach and Starbucks.  With PT, we are now exploring small coastal towns which tragically DON’T have good coffee shops (although the town we explored yesterday had a store selling gifts blessed by angels. And why does every picturesque small town have a Celtic store?!)

Because I haven’t met my deductible, we’re paying out of pocket for PT right now.  So I tried to explain to D that the last two Fridays have basically been “really nice dinner dates, minus the dinner.”  He didn’t quite buy it, especially when I made him make dinner later that night.

I’d been on my feet, after all. 

My Hot Date Fridays have made me realize therapy is a lot more tolerable if you can pair it with something fun. I used to go compulsively shopping after therapy in Minnesota (let’s just say I was in the early stages of learning coping skills) and then I progressed to getting coffee (cheaper and less likely to provoke a breakdown destroying any progress made in the therapy session.) 

I find my current solution the most enjoyable though.

What do you do to reward yourself for hard work, whether it’s recovery work or just doing a lame task you didn’t really want to do?