ineptitude, despair, and restlessness

What a cheery title for a blog post.

Before Dan came to visit me from October 27th - November 15th (which is largely the cause for my internet quiet), we (thought we) were on the verge of having my interview date. We had resubmitted the things the National Visa Center (NVC) had asked us to resubmit (namely, the Japan Police certificate and the photo), and we were sure we were just a few days away from getting my date. Then they said "we need you to resubmit the photo again". So we did. And then we waited.

Finally, two weeks later, they said "we need you to resubmit the marriage certificate".

WHAT THE FUCK.

We submitted that in June or July, and seriously guys, if we have to adhere to a checklist of things to submit, why can't you check all the things that need to be submitted on the same checklist? And why not tell us all at once if there are things that need to be done instead of waiting five months?

So Dan dutifully resubmitted the marriage certificate and got the usual banal response "please allow up to 20 days for us to process".

So once again, or still, I have no idea what the next month or three or five holds.

I'm so tired of being tossed around. There is supposedly an "expedite" flag on my file, and given that my priority date is January 5, 2012, we really expected I would have been there by now. Are they really just messing with us? Because it sure seems like that with every single thing we have to do or step to take, there is a problem. It is so exasperating.

Prior to my medical exam, the appointment for which I am not allowed to make until I have the date of my interview in Montreal, I am required to get some vaccinations. The flu shot is easy, it's available anywhere. In September I called the public health clinic and was told I could get the other vaccination, Tdap, free, any time. I went to get these done yesterday. I got the flu shot at a pharmacy, and while the pharmacist did not have the Tdap (Tetanus, diptheria and pertussis) vaccine, she said I could just go to the public health clinic four blocks away and get it for free.

So off I went to the clinic. A snarky receptionist told me that NO they don't do the Tdap and that I would have to go to a travel clinic, that I would have to "purchase" the vaccine (why not just say pay for?), that I would need to make an appointment and phone around because it's not easy to find.

WTF.

Deep breath. Back to my truck. Look up number for travel clinic on my iPhone. Phone clinic. Get voice mail. Leave a message.

Two hours later they return my call. Nice receptionist. Appointment on Friday afternoon, $40 for the doctor's fee, $45 for the vaccination. So much for free health care in Canada.

Now I am mindful that Mercury is in retrograde so maybe after it goes direct on Monday then everything will work out. Even so, there is a limit to how much I can take.

I had a thing happen this morning which is not worth retelling because it is a minor thing, but it triggered an emotional response that basically broke the dam of emotions I didn't know I had been holding in. I cried for hours, felt gutted by despair, and wondered how the heck I am going to get through the next weeks or months until I can be with my husband again. I want to start living my own life again. I want to build soil and plant flowers. I want to be working and feel useful.

I'm not sure what I experienced this morning was actually a depressive episode. My last episode was some time in May, I think, and because I have had a number of them in the past year and a half that Dan and I have been apart, I am keenly aware of what it feels like. Today I was just sad and then mad. Why is my immigration taking so long? Do the letters of the senators and governors and other government officials mean nothing? Will I be with Dan for Christmas?


Yesterday I was installing foam insulation in the basement while listening to the Caithness Craft Collective podcast. LouiseJHunt has a segment called "Random Hellos" and she included me, saying "yarnsalad, how are you, O quiet one?" and that was very sweet. I have been unusually quiet-on-the-internet these past months, it's true. I have so much unstructured time you would think I would be able to put a blog post together a bit more often but alas, it has not been so.

So to wrap up, then, while I don't wish to speak disparagingly of the people who are handling my documents at the NVC, because we have had to submit and resubmit each document at least twice, it makes me wonder what their job qualifications are and what is happening to all the misplaced documents we have submitted. That's the "ineptitude" of the title of this post. Despair was me this morning, Restlessness is me now. I'm ready to move on to the next thing. There is a nice big house and yard waiting for me in Kinston and I can't wait to get unpacked. I haven't seen most of my stuff (in boxes in the basement) for a year and a half. How much longer will it be?

How low do I have to get?

I thought I had already hit bottom. Lately the phrase "things will get worse before they get better" has been hanging around me. I don't want to be a person who mopes all the time. I want to be happy, optimistic, and have faith that the Universe will take care of me.

I have many reasons to be happy. I am living with loving friends, my cat is happy, spring is in full swing and on the verge of summer. Going for walks brings wonderful fresh air with intoxicating blossom scents. The heat of the day warms the wood resins to bring out that woody smell I love so much. I started volunteering at Providence Farm this week past and that has caused me to think more deeply about where I'm at right now, as I have been asked a number of times "what kind of work would you like to do?" and "how long have you lived in Cowichan Bay?" I have so many stories to tell and I really enjoy meeting new people. I try to tell my story in a way that does not evoke pity because honestly, I don't want pity. Everyone empathizes of course, and they tell me it must be hard.

I have to remind myself that this separation from my husband is not permanent. It's not like he has gone off to fight a war from which he may never return. It's not like we can't communicate. On the whole, all things considered, we are managing pretty well despite the three hour time difference.

The latest news is that we'll have our next Notice of Action in 30-45 business days, which will land between mid-June and early July. And that could mean anything - rejection, approval, a request for more information. So now we're looking at July at the earliest that I will be with Dan. July. At the earliest. That is hard to swallow. We felt a small sense of hope when we had correspondence from the Senator, but all he has managed to do for us is find out that we are again further delayed in the system more than we thought.

For a while I noticed that my feelings of sadness fell into cycles, the worst of it often, naturally, around the time of my period. Once I identified that it became easier to deal with. I'd have a feeling of sadness - feeling particularly low - about once a week.

Lately it has been more frequent and intense. A female family member strongly encouraged me to seek medical help, offered to drive me to my doctor, and really feels like I should be on anti-depressants. Well, no. No thank you. I have been on anti-depressants and they messed me up far more than the depression itself did. And what I am experiencing can be cured by the arrival of my green card and husband - I don't want chemicals to numb my senses.

Crying takes a lot out of me, so I've been really tired a lot lately. I put my game face on and I'm perhaps quieter than usual. Something good will come of this. I have to think of this time as the rain before the rainbow that leads to the pot of gold. And I suspect that the reason these sad feelings have been getting bigger and more frequent is because we're coming up to one year since Dan left for North Carolina. One year. We certainly didn't expect it would take this long. Gosh, I sure hope I get there before the fall!

Every so often Judith, who has been waiting for years for her immigration, reminds me to not to expect anything from the USCIS, because the green card is this ethereal thing that you can't count on until it is tangibly in your hands (I'm paraphrasing). I guess the trouble is that when we ask when we can expect something, we are given an answer and then it turns out to be much longer than they said. Or the rules change and there is a new step.

Still. Something good will come of this. We will get through it and start our adventures all over again, together.

What can I tell you?

I haven't felt like blogging lately. There. I've said it. On the one hand, when I'm doing things and taking photos of things, I think about their blog-ability, but then I think well, if it fits into 140 characters, then I'll just tweet it. I know I have a few readers who aren't on Twitter, so I apologize to you.

I'm still knitting a lot, and I've started meditating. This week of the Sounds True course, we are to meditate for an hour each day. So far, after two weeks of meditating every day, I have already experienced the benefits of meditation by having improved sleep.

A few mornings ago, just as I was getting up, I turned my head the wrong way and pinched a nerve in my neck. This led to subsequent shooting pain down my shoulder and back, had really impaired my mobility. This used to happen to me a lot, like once a month or so, but it's been quite a while since the last time. It's annoying for a number of reasons, but I am loathe to take medicinal relief for this. Muscle relaxants make me feel dopey and drunk, and I don't like feeling like I don't have control. Ibuprofen could help but I don't want to be reliant on pain killers. I take only the bare minimum to get me through. Hot water bottle, rest, baths. I have also decided that a bit of physical activity is good for me, so I have been out walking, doing gentle yoga, and pulled a couple of unwanted bushes out of the garden yesterday. Another night or two and I'll be back to normal.

My bread production has slowed down, I have put the sourdough starter in the freezer. We had all gained some weight (!) in the time I was baking bread so I thought it might be wise to take a break.

I'm also doing this thing on Twitter called #plankaday. The idea is that you hold yourself in plank position, as in like a pushup but you have your forearms under the ground, shoulders directly over your elbows, for as long as you can. I'm up to a minute. The idea is you hold yourself rigid and it builds core strength in your abdominals and lower back. Then you tweet about having done it.

I am currently listening to The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon as an audiobook through Audible. Claire and Jamie are in North Carolina!

Today was my first day in a month that I have been sad. I wasn't flat-on-the-floor depressed, just a little down. And that could be hormonal. Let's face it: I'm a pre-menopausal woman. When I had my tubes tied, they told me I could experience early onset menopause, having not had children. My first thought when they told me was "great! Maybe I'll be done with acne then!" I did go through the five-month course of Accutane in 2007, which more or less cleared up my severe nodular acne, but I do still get little breakouts from time to time.

I have also been reading a lot. Like a lot. In fact, I have discovered that I am able to get through some of these books, cover to cover, in less than a day. Okay okay I'll tell you. I'm reading about - how to even describe it? - lots of things: animal communication, psychic abilities, spirituality, meditation, Reiki, etc. There is a lot going on in my head that I'm still not able to set down into one coherent blog post, but I am encountering lots of similar messages that confirm some truths for me. At the same time, I am confronted with my own ugly truths. I want to be less judgmental and be filled with lovingkindness. I want to feel inner peace. I want to be able to forgive easily.  After two years of having declared myself irreligious, I am once again finding myself in prayer. It's kind of blowing my mind.

I thought I had some photos of all my current knitting projects but apparently I don't. With my 2012 knitting plan to knit 12 hats this year, I have five done already, and I have only blogged about one! So I'll get on that soon.

Still no word on immigration. If the "five more months" thing from early January is true, then that will have me here another three and a half months. But I have a plan, see, and you can help! Here is my plan: the next step is the third Notice of Action. This will mean a package comes to me that tells me how to set up my appointments for the immigration interview and health check in Vancouver. I would like that to happen in the next week. Then, with everything being approved, all they need to print my green card and send it to me. With a miracle, this will happen in mid - late march.  Then Dan books a flight and fly here for Easter weekend, where he'll get to see his family before we start our journey south on Easter Monday.The good people reading this blog may just help by praying for me, that I may be reunited with my husband soon so I can begin my life in North Carolina.

This is my plan, Universe, and I expect a miracle.

Rabbie Burns day

I know, I know. It's "Robert", but see last night when I was listening to the Caithness Craft Collective podcast, Louise in her Scots accent made it sound like "Rabbie" so I'm going with that.

In the middle of last week's depressive episode fell Robert Burns' day. I've never celebrated this nor even knew how, but Toni and the Skipper decided we should have a haggis and a special meal. They were both at work so I was sent out to buy the haggis. I didn't even really know what haggis was. I was told that basically it's ground up (lamb) organ meat traditionally, but now they probably just use the meat itself, along with oats and spices. I know, right? Doesn't sound awesome. I don't like the taste of lamb. I have tried it in all kinds of ways, because I would like to like the taste of lamb but I guess the fiber artist in me just can't bring myself to eat a fiber animal. Having said that, I was willing to try haggis because dear reader, you know that I am always up for adventure and having an Interesting Cultural Experience.

 So here it is. I had a slice of haggis. Also featured is sausage gravy, "tatties" (mashed potatoes), token greens (cabbage), and "neeps" (mashed turnips). I tried a wee bit of the haggis. I could have just given it to the Skipper, because in truth I didn't enjoy it, but I thought no, I will do this. I decided if I was going to get this down, I would need to have something strong to wash it down with.

Enter the Scotch.

Toni and the Skipper have been trying for more than a decade to get me interested in drinking whiskey. They have tried me out on all kinds of awful things which they love, and they have quite an impressive collection of them. I think the Skipper especially was always trying to get me into the smokey flavors, and there are very few things that are smokey that I like - bacon and salmon are the exceptions. I'm not fond of chipotle (am irritated, in fact, that a chipotle somethingorother is an integral part to most restaurant meals because it's fashionable right now), don't like smoked cheeses, and I sure don't like smoke flavor in my beverage.

So on Wednesday when we were sitting down to have our Rabbie Burns supper, I smelled Toni's glass, smelled the Skipper's glass. He had a smokey whiskey, she did not. When I tasted the haggis and said "I'm going to need some whiskey to get this down", it's like I won the lottery. There was triumphant music, there was confetti, flashing lights, dancers, and a fair amount of squeeing.   Ok not entirely true. There was definitely a "woo hoo!" and a "finally!" I tell you, I have never seen the Skipper move so fast as when he was leaping up to pour me a dram of Glenlivet.

So I cleared my plate, emptied my glass. Really. I had that whole dram of 48% and didn't feel so much as a buzz (this is good, I am working on building up my alcohol tolerance for when I get to North Carolina and hang out at the brewery a lot). I felt happy, to be sure, as we were celebrating. CBC radio was on and the Burns poem was read.

Part of the nightly routine here at Backyard Feast is that after we have dinner, we head downstairs to what has been coined "the comedy room" where we watch last night's episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report via the Comedy Network website. Sam comes out to join us, jumps up on my lap, then she walks over to Toni's lap and settles in. Given the Republican primaries that are happening right now, these two shows have a lot of material to work with in their political satire. It's good. In this way, I am getting my education about American politics.

Last night, as mentioned in the opening of this post, I was listening to LouseJHunt's episode "Mr. Burns". In her podcast, she threw a party to mark the event. What a scream it was! She made sure everyone had enough to eat, more than enough to drink, and there was music and dancing. My name (yarnsalad) was mentioned, so apparently I was there! All the guests were given two tea towels (I'm imagining their awesomeness). Louise is great, dear reader. Even if you are not a knitter or crafter, she has a great wit and lively conversation. A new segment at the end of her show is called the Drams section, where she and her husband sample whiskey. How could you not love that?

O Hey

There I go again, neglecting my readers. Sorry friends.

I had a fantastic weekend chicken-sitting in Cowichan Bay last weekend. Sam and I drove up on Thursday and we stayed four nights.  The photos below don't really reflect what I did over the weekend, but hey, it's all I have to show for it.

Soon this place will be home to a wood stove. I can't wait. 

Mittens for my niece! She asked me for yellow mittens before I left Alberta. I didn't have enough yellow yarn, so I had to use white as well, which made them look a bit like scrambled eggs. O well. I have discovered that an afterthought thumb is my favourite.

 Sam slept on every surface in the house, I think.

 Cherry brandy! Earlier this year I was reading one of Diana Gabaldon's books and Claire was visiting an apothecary in Paris, drinking cherry brandy. So I needed some too.

 On Saturday morning I went into Duncan (the closest town, 10 minutes drive away). I don't know what happened to my old travel mug but I have been without one for - well, I don't even know. Five months? I don't really go into stores very often, not wanting to be tempted, but I thought I'd pop into London Drugs to look around. They had a not great selection of travel mugs but I did like this one. I'm thinking about something that will fit into the cup holder in my truck (I really think the people who design travel mugs should get together with the people who design cup holders in vehicles), something that is dishwasher safe, and something that will match with the car we might own in two years. Brown is a popular colour for newer vehicles and I really dig it. But I didn't buy this mug. It was 26.99.

 I had to buy lottery tickets. That's what one does when one needs hope, right?

 Action shot of Sam. Here she is rolling around on the floor. That's how I know she was happy!

 Aw. Sam is cleaning her cute kitty face. So cute.

 This! Ok so Toni had grown way more tomatoes than they could possibly use, and for about six weeks, they had tens of pounds of tomatoes ripening in crates in their dining room. These tomatoes really needed to be used up, so I cut up as many would fit onto a baking pan. Added a few rather large cloves of garlic, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with rock salt. Put it into the oven. That was as far as I had gotten in my plan, but it was going to be a component of the dinner I would make for my friends when they got home from Vancouver.

I can't remember what temperature I put them at, but boy they sure smelled good. I decided they would either go into a pasta or perhaps on a pizza, would let my friends decide. The vote was for pizza, so I threw together a crust.

Toni helped out by spreading pesto on the crust. Then on went the tomatoes & garlic mixture, we threw on some chopped artichoke hearts, Kalamata olives, feta and some amazing cheddar. Oven was set to 400 degrees, we had it in for about 25-30 minutes.

I didn't use a recipe for the crust, just sort of threw it together. During the pizza assembly we were drinking beer too :-) so the 'throwing together' was a bit more literal than figurative. It turned out well though and between the three of us, there were almost no leftovers.

What else did I do? I watched Brokeback Mountain. Have you seen it? I had heard a reference in the news to the 'gay' penguins in the Toronto Zoo (who are probably not homosexual but are just very good friends, ah how we humans have to anthropomorphize everything) to the movie and decided it was time I saw it. Holy crap. I won't drop any spoilers here but gosh that movie had me thinking about it for days and days. I even tried to overwrite my memory with a few Miss Marple episodes (so much knitting while sleuthing for the murderer!). I'm not a fan of murder mysteries, but a few months ago on Twitter during a #knitchat, we had a discussion about knitting in movies and television, someone mentioned the Miss Marple series. Hey - it's BBC and has knitting in it, so it has to be good. And it is! The stories are all expertly woven together a la Agatha Christie. What I love, though, is the setting. All the stories are set in post WWII England in the late 1940s to early 50s. I love that era, especially the fashion of the times. That alone is reason enough for me to watch the series. Nuff. said.

I also went running a few times. It was so nice running around on country roads where cars aren't going highway speed and there isn't actually much traffic to speak of. I found some lovely enclaves, long straight flat stretches, and some beautiful scenery. The weather cooperated while I was there also.

I didn't take any photos of the chickens this time around, but I did hang out with them. The first night I was in charge, it was super stormy and blustery. The row coverings for the raised beds threatened to blow away. I worried about the chickens, but they seemed not to notice the storm. They were just excited when I came out to give them their treats (involving sunflower seeds). Chickens. The Skipper had built an automatic door opener to the chicken coop that is set on a timer, so that all I had to do was open and close the door to the outdoor pen. Happy chickens!

I also went into a feed store on Saturday, while I was in Duncan. The vet Sam saw in Alberta for her pre-border-crossing checkup & vaccinations gave us a free sample of dental formula crunchy food. Sam loved it so I promised her when it next came time to buy food, she would get that brand. It's amazing how much she likes it. And I don't know if it is having some variety, something different, or if it's just the 'new' bag of food. No matter. She likes it and that's all that matters.

I did a fair amount of knitting on the weekend too. Finished the mittens for my niece, started another pair for some other family member who doesn't read my blog, and also cast on for the Mezquita shawl. Three hundred and sixty one stitches. 361. Do you have any idea how long that takes? Because first you cast on, and you're counting, and maybe you're also watching Miss Marple so you lose count once or twice, but casting on takes a l o n g time. And then you recount your stitches like five times, getting a different number every time. Then you decide you need stitch markers but didn't bring any, so root around the kitchen for twist ties and voila! I put a twist tie every 50 stitches, counted them twice to be sure, and ended up with 362. Off by one. Easy to fix. I have since learned that one episode of Miss Marple, about 100 minutes, sees me knitting exactly two rows of this shawl. I'm not a fast knitter, but I'm certainly not a slow knitter. It's just lace and counting and thinking and going back and fixing. I'm 10 rows in now, have 10 more rows of the lace section before I get to the short row stockinette section. I haven't taken a photo of this yet or I'd show you. Maybe tomorrow.

I try as best I can to be cheerful and optimistic about my situation, but sometimes it's hard. The immigration lawyer Dan hired filed the application on Friday, having sent it registered mail. Immigration processed the cheque on Monday already, so that was very encouraging. When Dan filed the first time in the summer, they never even processed the cheque, so this seemed like a big thing. Apparently this is a slow time of year for applications for green cards, meaning I should get processed fairly quickly. Fingers crossed. Then yesterday I had an avalanche of sadness. This seems to be happening on a weekly basis at the moment, where I'll just feel like I'm scraping bottom. I'm oversensitive to everything at the moment, it seems, particularly my cat.

Sam fully recovered from the fight on Halloween, but on Saturday night she started oozing some pus out of her right eye. I called the vet hospital on Monday, the same one she got her sutures from, to see if the two might be related and she said no. She said it's probably not much to worry about unless it was accompanied by loss of appetite and lethargy. Well, her appetite is just fine. And lethargy? It's hard to tell. She doesn't have a lot of space to roam so she's probably too bored to do anything but sleep. I don't know.

Then, two days ago, she stopped being lovey with me. She's not an especially lovey cat but still. I haven't heard her purr since Monday night. She's all I have right now, you see, my dear cat that I brought home with me from Korea in 2003, this cat who has been by my side through all my depressive episodes and a few of my surgeries. I need her to love me. That's her job as my cat. Her eye goo is lessening and she is otherwise acting perfectly normal. I just want to hear her purr.

Yesterday this lack of affection hit me really hard and I just crumbled. Had an anxiety attack, actually, which is something I've not experienced in quite a long time. And you know, it's not just because of the cat, it's a combination of everything. I am bothered by this not so much because of the sadness but by how much it inconveniences me. Crying like that takes a lot out of a person so you're left exhausted. And I have things to do! I may not be working full time but I do have this little project I need to get finished. And the sooner I get finished, the sooner I can get to my knitting, non stop, in front of Miss Marple and underneath the electric blanket, tea to hand. Sam will be fine, she's just having a mood (just like I do). I will be fine too.

Something is Seriously Kicking My Butt

Well hey, you all wanted to know about my health, right?

I'm now in my eighth week of work at the hospital. My shift is 8:00-2:30, Monday to Friday. It's a pretty sweet shift, really. I have to drive 41km from Ucluelet to Tofino, which on a good day takes me about 35 minutes. During the past few months, however, the tree service guys have been out holding up traffic while they shear the side off the forest, lest it should get blown into a power pole during one of our winter storms. There have been several crews out, which means no fewer than four sets of flag people with their "SLOW" or "STOP" sign.

So this delay means I have been leaving around 7:15am to get to work, getting home around 3:15pm, give or take. It makes my work an eight hour day. My job is also pretty physical: I'm walking around a lot, up and down stairs, lifting boxes (with correct posture, I might add), moving supplies and equipment. Nothing I can't handle, but it is physically demanding.

Because I hadn't worked in so long, starting a new job and a new routine took some adjusting. I was in my third or fourth week of work when I got sick, had to take two days off work. It was around this time that Ellie asked me (it was before I got sick, I think) if I would be willing to take part in the relay team for the Edge to Edge marathon. Add to this my self-imposed committment to knit as many Cookie A socks as I can before the retreat. Not to mention housework.

The Saturday after I was sick and unable to work, I had a bit of a relapse. I was feeling achy and fatigued, didn't feel like I would be safe to drive much less babysit that night, so I had to cancel.

That was a few weeks ago now and I have to admit I still don't feel like I'm getting healthy. I still have tightness in my sore throat and a productive cough.

I have a history of depression. Not really bad, but I was on quite a cocktail of antidepressants for a few months several years ago. In the spring and summer after we moved here to Ucluelet, I had several depressive episodes, probably springing from our uncertainty about what our options were at the time.

I've been knitting a lot and writing a lot and typing a lot and otherwise using my hands/arms/wrists a lot and I am forced to admit that they hurt. My hands, arms, and wrists hurt. I should be taking it easy and not breaking my neck over some self-imposed challenge of knitting so many socks.

This past weekend Dan & I took a trip to Powell River, to check it out. (That's fodder for another post). We left on Saturday morning around 8:30am, got home around 9:00pm on Sunday. While it was tremendous good fun, it was also exhausting. It meant I didn't get time to rest, rejuvenate, or clean the house like I usually do on the weekend.

I have a number of health issues that have been creeping up on me. I'm not going to go into them here, but I did make an appointment to see a doctor in Tofino. We've lived here a year and I hadn't gotten around to finding a family doctor yet. Well I finally chose one (based on the ones I met while working at the hospital) and I'll see her tomorrow. I'll go in to talk about my sore throat and the fact that I don't feel like I've gotten better from that cold.

Tomorrow I turn 37, and while I don't want to be melodramatic or paranoid, I have real fears I might be admitted to the hospital I work at. I am feeling absolutely depleted, physically and mentally. Doing laundry seems to take the piss out of me. I even like doing laundry. I feel like I can't get anything done and because I have a mountain of things that need to get done, the list grows. Is my immune system giving me trouble? Am I having another depressive episode? Is this the early onset of menopause I was told to expect?  I eat well, I take vitamins, I usually get enough sleep, and if it didn't exhaust me I would be exercising. I'm at my wit's end. I'm used to being physically strong and full of energy; I am a generally happy person and often all I need is a coffee go perk me up. But now... the coffee just kills my appetite and I go to bed hours later with nausea and an empty stomach.

I think about some of my favourite podcasters that have recently had major health issues. Dr. Gemma and Susan Dolph are the ones I am thinking of. We pushpushpush ourselves because we believe that what we are doing is so important and at the end of the day, our energy stores get depleted. I forget sometimes that I need to recharge my battery. The problem is that I don't know what that looks like right now. I still have to go to work, but perhaps I will take the weekend off of everything, laundry and vacuuming be damned. I might even have to take a break from my weight loss program - two pounds a week is agressive and it means that at the moment, I am allowed only 1166 calories per day (not counting any exercise I do, which increases my allowable intake). It's been going so well and I am pleased with the results, but shrinking sick me isn't as good as healthy me.