Good Things Ahead

I saw the podiatrist last week for both of my feet. Luckily I don’t have anything requiring surgery! I have Achilles tendonitis on the right and Sinus Tarsi (inflammation of the sinus near the ankle) on the left. I got a cortisone shot on the sinus tarsi and that has gotten so much better. For the Achilles tendonitis I was given a lift for my shoe, put on a short, strong round of oral steroids and will have physical therapy for it. I can tell it is slowly healing and right now it feels better than it has in the past 2 months. Today I actually walked down the stairs like a grown up instead of having to put both feet on one step like a little kid. Baby steps! I start physical therapy in a couple weeks. My mind has not been in the right place for starting a restrictive diet. I know I need to and keep worrying about my health, but I just don’t have the drive for it. I have a few challenges that I am thinking through, one being textures and how when something has a texture I don’t like I give up on it. I often don’t have a backup plan in place so I just eat any old junk I can find to replace the planned meal. I have probably wasted hundreds if not thousands of dollars on veggies over the years due to this. The lettuce tastes crisp and fresh on day one, but by day 3 the texture and taste are different so I give up on it. This week I am having a wrap with egg, cheese, veggie sausage, peppers and onions. I love the smell of the peppers and onions cooking on the skillet in the morning. Then when it comes to eating it…maybe I didn’t remove enough layers of onion when I was cutting it because there’s some tough, hard to chew pieces in it. So my mind immediately goes to what else could I have for breakfast this week? I give up. And if I were not aware of it I would probably just have sugary cereal because it’s in the house and no one has been eating it. But since I am aware of what I’m doing, I am going to make an adaption and have the wrap without the peppers and onions and substitute some alfalfa sprouts and spinach instead. I think things like this are where I have been easily derailed because then it feels like a diet/ temporary instead of a lifestyle. So I am learning I need to build in some modifications. I don’t love most vegetables so I will need to be creative AND have plan B for when forcing myself to eat healthy stuff isn’t working texturally or taste-wise. I need to be able to either keep things really simple or put effort into learning new sauces or spice combinations. My longterm goals branch out in multiple directions (plant based, low sodium, low saturated fat, low carb) but I don’t know how realistic these things are in combination with one another and it will involve some compromise. I do know that I have a tendency to over-think things and try to do too much at once, so maybe my idea of doing South Beach Diet was a wise one. It is focusing on one thing and once I reach my cruising altitude with that plan I can make other tweaks. One of the reasons (and I have many excuses) why I haven’t started already is that the work stress is really getting to me. So much that I have fantasies of walking out on nearly a daily basis. My boss was fired (and he was the best boss I ever had but his immediate supervisor has mental health and power issues) and another optician left to take a work-from-home job and we remaining opticians are sad and frustrated and the COVID stuff doesn’t help since we are in a health clinic and have people who just barely passed their 10 day isolation before coming in for appointments. I could go on about the stress and reasons, but I have whined enough. I am about halfway through my course in medical coding and despite it being a really really difficult course I am really praying I can finish it quickly (by the end of the year if I am really fantasizing) and I am praying with so so much energy that I pass this super difficult certification exam on the first try. I really need to be able to switch departments soon. I don’t think I can stay in this field another year at this point. My husband and I had some things happen recently that made us aware of our need to get a house sooner than we thought, like by summer, and my being a certified coder will make our house hunting much easier and open up a lot of options to us, so a lot is riding on this. Plus, the exam is $300 each time you take it. I don’t want to have to do it more than once! So that’s where I am at right now. I feel the absence of writing, it feels bad inside of me but by the time I finish with tasks and studying I barely have enough energy to write. I can’t make promises that it will get better between now and whenever I sit for my test, but it does feel good when I get the chance. If I do commit to the South Beach Diet I will likely have more to talk about too. This all takes time and management/planning so we’ll see if it pans out. At this time of year I always think it’s better to wait until after Halloween since the candy is always in my face (and going into my face, lol) but then there’s food-related holidays just around the corner too, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I’m not sure what will transpire this year as my mother-in-law, who usually hosts holidays is just getting done with chemotherapy and we are in a super-mega hotspot of cases right now, sitting at about 30% positive cases. I prefer quiet holidays home and can cook a yummy dinner that’s not off the charts in carbs so maybe we will rewrite those food holidays this year. I’m looking ahead to the year ending and it always feels powerful to start a fresh chapter. I knew 2020 would be a great year- whatever we feel about the challenges of COVID-19, it did push me to pursue a career change, which I have been too timid to pursue until now, despite feeling unhappy in the field for the past few years. It will ultimately make things so much better for my mental health and overall happiness, and will make things easier for our future move. I do feel like 2021 is going to be an even better year and I am planning to make it so! I count my blessings that I haven’t gotten COVID19 and I pray I don’t even though I know my chances are much higher working so closely with the public. I hope I can get out of this field before that happens. Fingers are crossed on many many levels. This morning I saw a shooting star for the first time in years so I know good things are ahead!