Christmas chore done

Tags

chores, Christmas cards, duty, mailing list, postaday2012

This may be a bit Scroogish of me to say, but I have always found writing out the Christmas cards to be a chore, a Christmas chore. I can’t remember if I wrote out Christmas cards before I was married, I don’t think so, since I was still living at home, my mother was still in charge of the card chore. My turn came when I got married, my side and his and the list has grown over the years to include our friends. I wonder if the baby girl will be writing out her Christmas cards or if she’ll have her future mate to do it.

I finished the pile today. I, for some reason, do it in groups, there are three; the Rolodex pile, the French family pile and the Blandford pile. I find splitting it up in three ways makes it seem less long. I went through four boxes of cards and I hope that I haven’t forgotten anyone. I usually figure it out once the cards start to trickle in, so I need to go out and grab a few more boxes of cards because I went through the extra’s from last year. This sounds like a lot, I know, but the boxes each only contained twelve cards so it only comes out to 48, I know that there must be a lot of people who send out many more than that.

Slowly but surely, the Christmas must do list is getting smaller. Hooray!

Get to 250

Tags

anorexia nervosa, eating disorders, editing, postaday2012, revision, writing

Write 500 words on any topic you like. Now remove half the words, without changing the essence of what you’re saying.

I haven’t written much about my challenges with anorexia nervosa, you would think that I would since it is as much a part of me and my mindset as is my need for approval. Eating disorders are so complicated, to describe and to diagnose, unfortunately. No one ever wakes up and says “today I will develop an eating disorder” It is so insidious in the making, it is frightening. I decided after my freshman year of college, where I was utterly miserable away from home in Albany New York, upon transferring to a school close to home that I needed to lose weight. Being the good student that I was, I read about ways to lose weight and exercise was one of the tools, forgoing fat and sugar was another, eating smaller portions and then I found other ways as well. Increasing exercise to several times a day, restricting caloric intake to 1000 calories a day and then the piece de resistance, eating sugarless gum when you are hungry does two things, keeps your mind otherwise occupied from thinking of food since your salivary glands are theoretically at work and the sugar substitute is indigestible so it builds up in your intestines and when you actually eat food, it impedes its digestion and forces it through your system so it becomes an effective diuretic. All of these strategies are what I learned simply by reading health magazines, lack of knowledge and information can be dangerous. What made the information so dangerous is that I didn’t have the knowledge that I was suffering from an eating disorder and that my body image was so beyond warped that I was basically putting my life in danger.I weighed myself on a daily basis and the only thing that registered in my head was that I could lose five more pounds, this continued despite seeing the numbers, 105, 102, 96, 92 and so on. I was at my worst in London where I used to go to Euston Station to weigh myself at the scale, I had to translate stones into pounds and it worked out into 87 pounds. I’m 5 foot 6 so I was perilously skinny and I couldn’t see it. After London I had to go to France to see my family who hadn’t seen me since the summer before when I had weighed 125 pounds, needless to say that they were in complete shock. My tantine immediately took me to the doctor because they were convinced that I was suffering from some type of wasting disease, ironically they were correct, just the wasting disease was psychological, the weight loss was a symptom not the actual disease itself.

Nowadays, I still find myself being dictated to by food and my love/hate relationship with it, am I in danger of a complete relapse? Eight years ago I went through a mini relapse and five years ago was when I almost died from my irresponsible behavior, but I am better now. Writing has helped me so much with dealing with my various afflictions; depression, anxiety and eating. I am much happier these days and I attribute a lot of my peace of mind to writing.

Here with 250 words less:

I haven’t written much about my challenges with anorexia nervosa, you would think that I would since it is as much a part of me and my mindset as is my need for approval. Eating disorders are so complicated, to describe and to diagnose, unfortunately. No one ever wakes up and says “today I will develop an eating disorder” It is so insidious in the making, it is frightening.Lack of knowledge and information can be dangerous. What made the information so dangerous is that I didn’t have the knowledge that I was suffering from an eating disorder and that my body image was so beyond warped that I was basically putting my life in danger.I weighed myself on a daily basis and the only thing that registered in my head was that I could lose five more pounds, this continued despite seeing the numbers, 105, 102, 96, 92 and so on. I was at my worst in London where I used to go to Euston Station to weigh myself at the scale, I had to translate stones into pounds and it worked out into 87 pounds. I’m 5 foot 6 so I was perilously skinny and I couldn’t see it. After London I had to go to France to see my family who hadn’t seen me since the summer before when I had weighed 125 pounds, needless to say that they were in complete shock. My tantine immediately took me to the doctor because they were convinced that I was suffering from some type of wasting disease, ironically they were correct, just the wasting disease was psychological, the weight loss was a symptom not the actual disease itself.

Nowadays, I still find myself being dictated to by food and my love/hate relationship with it. Writing has helped me so much with dealing with my various afflictions; depression, anxiety and eating. I am much happier these days and I attribute a lot of my peace of mind to writing.