GiST #13

1. Today I decided to work on my all-or-nothing thinking by setting a goal to myself to write at least a half hour a day. I don't mean blogging or reflecting on my issues. I mean real writing. I've always wanted to write and I did have a couple of spurts of writing energy...once as a child and once as an adult. My creativity dried up mostly because of my negative thinking: it's no good, been told before, not interesting, waste of time and so on. Well I have been telling myself that shouldn't stop me anymore. First of all, it's not that I'm "no good", I'm afraid of not being perfect, of failure. Well...only God is perfect. Why should I deprive myself of something I enjoy because of my own negativity? Why should it have to be correct the first time? So...my goal. I accomplished it today!

2. I got fairly good news from my bariatric surgeon. My labs look great and I've lost 60% of my excess weight. He thinks I'm losing too fast, though, and prescribed an enzyme that would slow down my weight loss. And the thing I'm telling myself not to be scared about is that my liver functions came back high. He wants me to see a specialist. He *did* say that he is proactive, not reactive and he tends to want to do something when he sees some hinkiness going on. This isn't the first time my liver labs have been high. So I will look at this as positive: we'll be able to figure out what's going on NOW before it gets to be a big deal. Yeah.

3. We got a nice box of stuff to help us out with our pantry needs. It's a big help because things are really tight right now, especially because my son got fired. There is more good in the world than there is evil.

4. My husband and I were talking about what things were like when we were growing up and times were rough. Both of us remembered that when we wanted extras, we went out and got jobs. Both of us were babysitters. He went on to car repair. I didn't get my first "real" job until we were out of high school. With the extra money, though, I got myself a guitar and a stereo and other little things I wanted. My youngest must have heard us talking because she got on the computer and started applying for part time jobs. She'd been complaining recently about how unfair it was that we couldn't afford this or that. Sometimes eavesdropping is a good thing!

5. My older daughter pitched right in and helped get the house cleaned up to pass mother-in-law inspection for tomorrow! Usually she complains about helping so this was wonderful!

Goal: Prepare for Thanksgiving.
Affirmation: I can take my time with this. I can forego all-or-nothing thinking. Only God is perfect. :D