It's been forever!

So, it has been forever since I last posted.  Getting ready for vacation to our home state of Michigan, having a wonderful vacation filled with life and love from our families and friends, then coming home and trying to get organized for school, which starts in 3 weeks, has had me pretty bogged down.  Also the let down from vacation and not knowing the next time we will see our loved ones has left me a little depressed.  I’m working hard to get back into my routine, but I am not quite there yet.

The Wednesday before I went on vacation, I was asked to lead my NAMI (National Alliance for Mental Illness) group as our regular facilitator was away on business.  The meeting went well, and hey, getting to use that Master’s Degree in Counseling was pretty fun.  Last week when I went into the NAMI meeting, the facilitator asked me to stay after so we could chat.  My first thought, of coarse, was am I in trouble?  However, he had a request for me.  He asked if I would take the NAMI training course and become a co-facilitator!  The thought was wonderful, but the logistics were unfortunate timing.  My husband would have had to take this coming Friday off so I could go, and as we just came back from vacation, there really isn’t a way for that to happen right now.  But, this really is just a logistic thing.  I let my NAMI facilitator know that I am interested and I would be happy to do it the next time the training comes around.  Having a young family like mine means we need more planning time than a week.  But I am going to do it.  I’d like to think that the hurt and pain that my family has gone through because of my mental illness diagnoses could help others some day, and again, getting to use those skills I developed while earning a 3.96 GPA in grad school would most definitely be wonderful.

On the diet front, vacation was a huge excuse for me to eat ice cream, and eat ice cream I did!  However, I did watch my potion sizes, and I even though I cheated., I only gained a half pound.  Last week, I got back to business with diet and exercise and I am now down a total of 53 pounds.  I have also realized I really need to buy new underwear, as my underwear are either giving me wedgies (ugh), or falling down.  I guess I never thought about needing smaller underwear before.  That, and my shoes are suddenly all too big.  Does this mean the days of only being able to buy shoes if they come in wides is over?  Stay tuned, as I will need to go shopping for me in the next month!