Sunday June 16th – Last Day off, work tomorrow

It’s been 7 weeks and never in my life have I taken 7 weeks off of work!  The time has flown, it might seem like a month has passed but no more.  Crazy how depression (and healing of course from a major surgery) steals your time but you have little to show for it!  Thrilled that I’m mostly better and only have to focus on my eating (with the excellent help of my little appetite) and exercise.  I’ve still not built in a regular routine of exercise yet, just bits and pieces and I guess I’m lucky that I live an active (with the help of my ADHD) life.

After 4 days at a conference with food being the main focus (not my main focus but it was hard to ignore), I’m trying now at home to shift back into my “norm” of eating.  At the conference it seemed that I was hungry every 2 hours or so (breakfast/snack/lunch/snack/HUGE supper and REPEAT) for 4 days!  When I did eat, it was still small quantities but it worried me how my body said it was hungry more often than I was used to.  When hungry my quantities stayed small but the frequency of hunger surprised me.  I’ve not weighted myself yet to see if there was a measurable impact but I’ll chance it in the morning.  My new goal is to stay away from sugar.  Of course I don’t expect I’ll be silly-stupid with my choices but I had a hard time avoiding it when it was a built in part of my life at the conference (2 desserts – half eaten and 2 timbits in 4 days) but in perspective, compared to the old me, that’s tiny.  The new me would like to hardly have any sugar that is not natural and only natural occasional.  The second meal in the “ballroom” was turkey and without initially realizing, I felt ill and nauseated and had to rush to the bathroom for the first time in almost 3 weeks and I blame the turkey.  Once, about a month ago, I tried turkey with the same effect.  Never did I expect the same reaction but I had been a very responsible eater during that meal (not even one bit of dessert) and with old symptoms cropping up?

Tiredness has crept back in a wee bit, but I could easily suggest that’s just life, not any cause for concern just yet.  I challenged it when I got home today (after my 4 days away) and cleaned most of the house including carpet and furniture steam cleaning and 3 loads of laundry.  So I chased the tiredness away with no problem.  I think I drank very little at the conference too (thinking back) but I’m happy to report that I’m very thirsty now that I’m home.

Picture below are more of the conference, my fellow foster parents and a training I was in (including Irwin Elman from the Child and Youth Advocates Office, Advocacy 1 Training and shots from the “Grand Ballroom” where our meals were served)