Roller Coaster Ride

I've never been able to handle rides that spin, but I love roller coasters, at an amusement park. When my life feels like a roller coaster ride, it's not so much fun. Things felt like they were getting better, but then they took a turn for the worse again with my son.

Winding down at work has been harder and more stressful than I ever thought it would be because I want to leave my soon-to-be-former team in a good place. But it's situational stress and I feel like I've got a handle on it and am dealing fairly well. Where I'm not doing so well is with the pervasive and sustained stress which is a result of dealing with my son's mental illness. I've reached a point where I think I'm the one who needs some help. I feel like I've been knocked down and can't get back up. Occasionally I manage to get back on my feet, but before I can get my balance, I get knocked down again. That kind of feels selfish, but it's like in the airplane when they tell you to put your own oxygen mask on before you help anyone else. Right now I don't really feel like I'm much help to my son, and won't be until I take care of myself.

I looked in the mirror last night and realized that I look...old. I'm sure the stress is the primary cause of this. So I decided that if I have to look that old, I intend to at least be skinny. I'm back on track with my weight loss as of today. I'm hoping that by the time I start my new job next Wednesday my clothes will be a little more comfortable. Then by the time I attend a wedding on January 1st I'm hoping to be close to my goal weight. By the time I have to put my snow pants on again in February, I want to be at my goal weight. I think I might accomplish the weight loss this time for two reasons:

1. The last time I managed to lose all that weight was when I was really stressed out and the weight loss gave me something to control.
2. It's easier to adjust habits when we change our environments. Since I'm going to be starting a new job I'm hoping that the food triggers won't happen in the same way and that I'll be able to form new, healthier habits.

I haven't decided yet if I'm going to post weekly weight updates or not. I'll think on that and provide an update at a later date.

Now to the pictures. All of these below are from my phone camera, so none of them are of really great quality. But they all tell a story of what's been happening outside recently.

This picture is of the sky while I was out for a walk, right before it started to storm and rain like crazy.

The next two pictures are from a recent afternoon walk. I loved the way the fence shadow looked and was falling on the leaves. The red tree against the bright blue sky was just so pretty that I had to share. I did not make any adjustments to that picture, those were the colors I saw on my walk.