catch up

fudge!!!  i don't want to write right now!  I'm totally addicted to the novel i'm reading right now, and i should have gone to sleep 21 minutes ago, but i want to stay up and read, but i feel guilty for not having written for a few days.  so much has been going on, i haven't had time to keep up.  ok...not guilty...unsettled.  i guess i have a lot of ideas floating around in my head that i may or may not have processed yet.  I did a lot of driving yesterday and today.  12 hours on the road with no phone, no music, no distractions whatsoever.  it was interesting, i guess.  i practiced the zen way of thinking - appreciating everything for what it is, being present in the moment...i think that's what it was about.  so i appreciated the beauty of the clouds behind the mountain even though they were pretty much the same as the last 20 mountains and clouds.  Does the fact that i've seen mountains before make the ones i'm looking at any less beautiful?  it shouldn't.  I did pretty well with that.  I rewrote the lyrics to the song "Gotta have faith" so that it's all about eating disorders and recovery from them.  I did a lot of singing to myself.  i had this one "great" experience where i knew i was running out of gas, and probably wouldn't make it to the next rest stop.  i prayed and prayed, and coasted down the exit ramp into the rest stop.  Hooray!  Yay God!  awesome, right!?  NO!!!  This rest stop - the one they'd been posting on billboards for 60 miles, apparently only has bathrooms, benches, and a broken pay phone.  yeah.  and my phone got no service.  So the good news?  I found convincing evidence that speeding is way less fuel efficient.  at 55 mph, I can go twice the distance on one tank of gas that I can go at 125 mph.  Yes.  I was speeding horribly.  But I was going to be late for a very important job, and if I averaged 120 mph for the last 2 hours of my drive, i could make it on time!  there's some self will.  lol.  so once again, i didn't get to control that outcome.  I got AAA to come give me gas, but when i found out i'd have to wait 45 min for them to arrive from the nearest town, i started crying hysterically.  can u blame me?  but this wonderful lady who had let me borrow her cel phone reminded me that it's ok, i'm safe, healthy, and alive, and it's all going to be all right.  "No it's not!"  I wailed.  "I'm gonna be late for work!'  she let me call to tell them i'd be late, and you won't believe it.  Apparently, she'd already called my phone (which wasn't working) to tell me that we wouldn't get to my scene for several hours, and that I should take my time getting there.  It was all OK.  i couldn't believe it.  the lady gave me a hug, made sure i was allright, and went on her way.  

My food was kinda squirrely, and i want to be accountable.  My late evening snack was dried fruit, almonds, cashews, and beef jerkey.  I try not to have dried fruit, because it's so high in sugar, and i have abused it so much in the past.  Once of the fruits was sweetened mango, and i'm allergic to mango.  i ate it anyway, and loved it.  it was a reasonable portion at the right time, but not totally what i wanted, and of course 5 minutes after i finished eating it, they brought out what i had wanted.  An actual warm meal.  It was chilli and quesadillas.  it was so hard not to eat it then and there.  I tried to stay away and distract myself.  When i finished working, I packed some of the food, wrapped it up, and brought it back to my hotel with me.  I hadn't looked at the time when i finished my last snack though.  I think i ate the chilli and quesadillas too soon.  I'm pretty sure i did, and i knew it at the time.  and i may have had too much, but that's a judgement, not a certainty.  i didn't feel full.  it's just more fattening food than I'm used to, so i don't know how much is ok.  then all they had for continental breakfast was sugar and carbohydrates.  I had a bowl of oatmeal mixed with raisen bran and a small bagel with cream cheese.  I'm not really comfortable with any of that, but I didn't binge, and i didn't beat myself up for it.  I'm mostly looking at that meal as an accomplishment that I could accept what was available, and not have to panic or go on a rampage looking for exactly what i wanted.  I was very hungary later though - perhaps a result of all the high carb foods that may have given an insulin spike?  i dunno.  i was also freezing, so i stopped at denny's for breakfast, and got the lumberjack scramble.  This was really borderline, but i think i consider it a success.  I had scrambled eggs with bacon, vegi's, potatoes, and cheese.  hash browns on the side, and 2 pancakes.  I ate syrup on my pancakes.  syrup.  that's sugar.  that's anti-food plan.  ugh.  i have chills.  the thing is, that before, that would have triggered an uncontrollable binge.  I ate all the pancakes and the syrup, but i didn't order anything else after.  i wasn't uncomfortably full, and i left a bunch of the hashbrowns on my plate.  i used to have a problem with hash browns too, but not today.  I really needed some time to sit down and warm up, and maybe i ate a little compulsively, but it wasn't a binge, and i was present.  i accepted it.  i don't know how much that had to do with my semi-anorexic desire to not eat my next meal 4 hours later, but i had my salad anyway.  and my next salad 4 hours after that.  and tonight i went to an extra meeting, and did my grocery shopping.  then i had all these plans for cooking up some exorbidant hot meal, but i decided to eat a nice little organic chicken wrap from whole foods instead.  i had a sober dinner.  I'm getting settled back in at home.  I did my inventory.  I read "just for today".  I made a bunch of phone calls today.  and I did it.  I accomplished something pretty impressive on this little trip, and I can acknowledge that I'm proud of myself.  I'm still struggling to plan out my next few days, but I'm doing really well.  I'm always gonna be OK, and in each moment, I can choose to live that way.  I can choose to be more than OK.  and I am.  I'm glad i took this time to write.