Annabelle Speaks

The Beginning of Happily Ever After

This weekend was a crazy, non-stop party of BUSY with family in town visiting, a surprise party for my friend Jenn, an unexpected visit from someone I've known on-line since 2003 but never met (she lives in the Netherlands), and, most importantly, my little sister's ENGAGEMENT.

You guys!  My baby!

That kid is one of my favorite people on the planet, and has been since I met her when she was about 14 months old.  She's not actually my sister, but a neighbor.  For all intents and purposes our families have merged though, so it totally counts.  I've known her almost her entire life, and her brother for his entire life, and they are just the sun and moon to me.  So it was with much excitement and a lot of happy tears that I helped Heather's now-fiancé John pick out the hotel, restaurant, and other assorted plans for the Big Weekend.

John assigned me a "super secret spy name" in his phone so if Heather saw his caller ID at any point she wouldn't know it was me and get suspicious.  He named me Veronica, declaring that it was a perfect sexy-sophisticated Russian Spy name for me (Teryn has since named herself Betty, and now we will never have proper names in John's phone EVER).

After a baseball game and dinner at a fancy restaurant, Heather and John headed to Navy Pier to see the fireworks.  Thanks to under-the-table texting I was able to catch sight of them coming in and follow them all secret like to get photos of the proposal.

She didn't know I was there until after the fact, when John pointed me out and she started crying again.  She hugged me tight and cried and told me how happy she was and said that it meant the world to her that I was there for that moment and my heart just about exploded from happiness for her.  I didn't think it was possible for me to get any more emotional about the evening until she called her mom on the phone to tell her and only managed to choke out "Mommy!" once before bursting into happy-sobbing-tears again.

The next day Heather's mom emailed me and thanked me for being there for Heather and for "loving [her] daughter as much as [she] does".  I told Teryn about the email and she said it best with her response, "How could you NOT?"  I know, right?

Congratulations, Heather and John.  I couldn't be happier for you if I tried.  John, welcome to the family.  I love you both to pieces.

Ready Or Not

I intended to come here today and write a nice, happy post about my weekend camping at my family reunion and how much fun I had spending time with all of my aunts, uncles and cousins.  And maybe I will write that post, but this morning something else happened that I need to write about first.

This morning I learned that my therapist is moving back east, to New Hampshire, at the end of the summer.  Frankly I fell to pieces when she told me the news.  I cried for pretty much the entire hour of therapy this morning, and I'm still reeling.

For those of you who haven't known me as long/as well, the backstory is this: I've struggled with on-and-off depression and more-on-than-off anxiety my entire life, but it was never treated in any way, I just slogged through.  In January of 2008 I was assaulted on my way home from work late at night, and by March of 2008 my wife and I knew that I was, to put it bluntly, Not Dealing Well with the fallout of the assault.  I sought out therapy, eventually getting a diagnosis of PTSD (along with major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety, just for fun).  I've been seeing Therapist ever since, along with other specialists, and if it weren't for her I wouldn't be here right now.  There were months at a time where the hour (or several hours) of therapy I had each week were the only thing keeping me on my feet.

But I've been doing well lately.  My depression and anxiety are mostly under control, and life is going well.  This is good!  But I certainly wouldn't be considering leaving therapy entirely yet, if not for the fact that my therapist is leaving me.

I am not a fan of change.  I have serious fears of abandonment.  It feels like it is my fault that she is leaving because I neglected to worry enough about that possibility.  If I worried more, clearly the power of my worry would have kept it from happening.  I'm torn between falling back into all my unhealthy coping mechanisims and just saying to hell with it all, and wanting to do everything 100% perfectly for the next ten weeks so Therapist can leave with a positive image of me, and be proud of me.

Straight up - I'm scared.  I know I'm in a completely different place than I was a few years ago, and I am in no way a danger to myself anymore.  But to think about trying to maintain this place without the very therapist that helped me get here scares the shit out of me.  What if I relapse?  What if I falter?  What if I can't find another therapist that I connect with in the right way?  Can I do this on my own?

I guess it's time to find out, whether I want to or not.

Ready or not...

Five Good Things

I have no real form or narrative here, but I need to get that food issues post off the top of my blog because WOW am I sick of looking at it, and so it is time to talk about good things.  Happy things!  Things I'm thankful for.  You know the drill.

 

1.  I was invited to dinner/drinks at my friend Jenn's house last Saturday night where I got to meet her interns, who were all adorable and lovely and I wanted to keep them, but alas, I have my own interns (who are also lovely, for the record).  We were just planning on having dinner (and wine) and watching fireworks (and drinking wine), but somehow we ended up going out until past three in the morning and then I remembered why I don't usually hang out with 21 year olds.  Ow.

 

2.  Sunday I got to see my "little sister" (actually a neighbor to my parents whom I used to babysit), which positively made my day.  I love that kid so much.  She's been living with my inlaws for a few weeks while she does her internship (she is going to school to be a physical therapist), and this is the first I've been able to see her since she's been living in the same state as me, and it was awesome.  If I could convince her to move to Chicago and live with me, I totally would.  I love that these kids that I used to babysit (I'm including her brother in this too) have grown up into these awesome PEOPLE that I still like hanging out with just because they are that awesome, you know?  From tiny little babies to friends.  Awww.  I love them.

 

3.  Tomorrow I leave for my 26th annual Fisher family reunion, which will be loads of fun as always.  My family is completely insane, in a good way, and hanging out in a campground for a few days while chatting and drinking and eating our weight in snacks is going to be super fun.

 

4.  So You Think You Can Dance is back, and I love it as much as ever.  Travis (my choreographer boyfriend) had two dances last night, and they were lovely as always.  It blows my mind that artsy people like that can choreograph multiple dances like that in a week.  I feel like those things should take months or something.  Gorgeous.  Now if only I can see some Nappytabs dances soon!  A girl can hope.

 

5.  I have been watching an inordinate amount of Ghost Hunters reruns on Sy-Fy lately, and it is making me want to buy ghost equipment and go out ghost hunting myself.  I've loved sciencey-ghost stuff since forever (I read my way through the 131.--- in the library by like age 10), but somehow I had never seen this show until a few months ago.  It looks like next season will be season eight, so clearly I have a lot of reruns to make it through.  I don't so much mind watching five episodes in a row right before bed, mostly because then I up my chances of dreaming about my Ghost Hunters boyfriend Steve.  We're totally in love, he just doesn't know it.  Don't worry, my wife is fine with it.

Food Struggles

This must be food issues week on the Internet, as I've read several posts on the blogs of my friends about struggles with weight loss, eating disorders, dietary restrictions, and all manner of other food issues.  And while it is comforting, in a way, to be reminded that I'm not the only one in the world with food/body issues, I still end up feeling kind of alone with my struggles.  My adult friends are scouring cooking blogs and discovering fancy foods and excited to eat meat and vegetables and try new spices.  I sit back and identify more with their picky two-year-old who will only eat brown food, or their anxious four year old who gets scared to even see an unfamiliar food sitting on the table.  I AM those kids.  The problem being I'm not three, I'm 30.

 

You all know that I was diagnosed with diabetes back in September as the WORST 30th birthday present ever, and since then I've made some enormous changes to what and how I eat, in addition to the fun running I wrote about yesterday.  Everyone around me in my day-to-day life and online knows about all the good changes I've made and the significant results I've gotten (down about 25lbs currently, after a bit of a gain back towards the end of tax season).  But almost no one knows how impossibly hard I'm still finding this food crap.  It's non-stop exhausting and painful and flat-out depressing. 

 

I don't like food, which is much bigger problem than it sounds like it should be.  It's counter-intuitive that the fat girl doesn't like food, but it's true.  I get great comfort from eating too many fish sticks or chicken nuggets or french fries (feeling over-full of fried things = love, of course), but I don't have a "foodie" bone in my body and would rather take a food pill than have to taste anything more interesting than ketchup.  I'm not a picky eater, I will try anything at least a few times, but I am an extremely picky "liker".  If a food isn't on my incredibly short list of "safe" foods (chicken nuggets, fish sticks, fries, certain brands of frozen pizza, most fruits, potatoes), I have to force-feed myself and psych myself up to simply chew and swallow.  Even thinking about eating something off the short list of safe foods makes me anxious.  Going out to a restaurant where I can't order a fish sandwich or chicken strips is torture and always involves Xanax.  Having to eat anything other than those two things in public is a guaranteed anxiety attack.  It doesn't have to be exotic or something I've never seen or eaten.  If I am in a restaurant and can't order a fish sandwich (plain, no cheese or tartar sauce) or chicken strips (dipped in BBQ or ketchup, nothing else), I'm undoubtedly sick to my stomach with pointless anxiety.  When we were planning my most recent trip home to visit my parents my Mom suggested going to an Italian family style restaurant as a treat.  While I agreed (via email) because I knew everyone else would enjoy it, I teared up with advance-anxiety simply worrying about it. 

 

But now, with the diabetes diagnosis, it is more important than ever to balance what I eat between the proper mix of protein, carbs, and fat.  I can't just eat one thing and call it a day.  I have no choice, and MAN that sucks.

 

It is always easier at first for me to stop eating "bad" food than it is to start eating "good" food.  My first choice in life is to eat my weight in tator tots, my second choice is to eat nothing and go hungry, and my absolute last choice is to eat a variety of perfectly reasonable foods that aren't chicken nuggets and french fries.  I currently eat six times a day (mini-meal/snacks), and I have to force feed myself every single meal or snack.  Every bite involves an internal-cheerleader bouncing around telling me I Can Do It!   I can eat that soup!  It will be fine!  It's okay!  Every single bite.  A cup of soup takes at least an hour to eat.  A turkey burger can take upwards of two hours or more.  I work damn hard to get to 1,100 or 1,200 calories a day without resorting to deep-fried potatoes, unable to force-feed myself any more than that without risking inducing dry-heaves.  Eventually after enough days in a row of such limited calories I crack and eat a huge meal of chicken nuggets and fish sticks and fries (always while alone, when no one is looking, because HELLO SHAME AND GUILT), simultaneously messing up my weight and blood sugar control.

 

I don't think there are any easy answers.  It's just damn hard, and I'm frustrated that it doesn't seem to be getting easier.  I spend at least one night a week cooking with my friend (and dietitian) Jennifer, trying new foods and working to increase my "safe" list, or at least find more things I can choke down that fit the balance of what I'm supposed to eat.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  I just wish it would get a little easier. 

I wish food wasn't so damn scary.

See Anne, See Anne Run

Okay, six weeks of napping really ought to be enough, it's time to come back on-line.  I've been running around like a crazy person for the last few months and I just haven't been on-line as much as I like to be.  And when I say I've been running around like a crazy person, I do mean running, and I do mean crazy person.  I've been running races (mostly 5Ks, plus one 8K and one 4-mile race), and several of them have been in the rain and/or forty degrees and windy.  See?  CRAZY PERSON.  But I have been having fun, despite the mostly crappy weather.

 Coby, Jenn and I at the Shamrock Shuffle in unexpectedly sunny, 85 degree weather.  The forecast a week before the race predicted 50 and rain.  Surprise nice weather!  Only for one day though.

The Race to Wrigley, which is way more indicative of the average weather I've been running in.  Cold!  Rain!  Wind!  Awesome.  We'll just call it "free air-conditioning" and run with it. (PUN!)

For posterity sake, so I can look back at these times after a few more years of running and LAUGH at how slowly I started out, my times thus far are below.  Please remember that prior to last October I had never in my life ran a mile without stopping, so the fact that I'm running at all is plenty to be proud of.:

 

Shamrock Shuffle, April 10th, 2011, 85 degrees and sunny, 8K race: 1:11:43

Race to Wrigley, April 16th, 2011, 50 degrees and raining, 5K race:  38:02

Run for the Trees Arbor Day Race, April 28th, 2011, 50 degrees and cloudy, 5K race:  37:45

Y-Me Race at Your Pace, May 8th, 2011, 70 degrees and sunny, 5K race:  36:25

Path to Progress Race, May 14th, 2011, 45 degrees and CRAZY WINDY, 5K race:  35:45

C-4 Miles Making Strides for Mental Health, May 22nd, 2011, 75 degrees and sunny, 4-mile race: 49:56

 

Not bad for a beginner!  Right now I'm not yet signed up for any more races, but that is mostly due to final exams, travel for family stuff, and general weekend busyness.  There will be more races, oh yes there will.  And no one is more surprised by that statement than I am.

**Anneberger is what my wife calls me, just "berger" for short.  Yes, really.  No, it is not nor has it ever been my actual last name.

Sign by Teryn, made for the Shamrock Shuffle when she hauled herself downtown to watch me run.  Now it is taped to our bedroom wall for daily inspiration.  Also because I'm too lazy to take it down.

Happy Tax Day WHOO HOO...zzzzzz...

Happy tax day, everyone!  I know the rest of the (non-accounting) world doesn't look forward to tax day like I do, but MY WORD am I glad to have this day here.  I'll be back to posting sooner or later, but first I'm going to take a week-long nap with Ricky, a preview of which Teryn caught on camera this weekend.  And yes, we sleep like that every night.  It is a wonder I don't suffocate (FROM THE CUTENESS, obviously.)

 

How To Freak Out Your Boss In Three Easy Steps

STEP ONE:  Get a college degree in something business-y, and then a related job in business-land where you are required to dress at least "business casual".

STEP TWO:  Be very good at your job and get promoted to a level where you are client-facing and doing sales and bringing in business and other important business-y things.

STEP THREE:  Show up to work on St. Patrick's Day looking like this:

Come on, you know they are fake clip-ins.

I love St. Patrick's Day.  I don't do much to celebrate other than wear green (since I don't like Irish foods like corned beef), but I do enjoy showing my Irish Pride via my clothing and hair.  With a name like Anne Fisher I might not sound like I have a lot of Irish in me, but you only have to go up one generation to my mom and her siblings (Michael, Kathleen, Colleen, and Maureen) to find the Irish names.  And I have green eyes!  That has to count for something.

But even with green hair (for the day), I hardly stand out in a city that does this to their river every March.

The normal shade of green isn't quite this bright.

Super Bowl Face

The Packers won the Superbowl and my city is covered in more snow than is at all reasonable, and yet the only thing I feel like posting is a set of pictures my Dad emailed to me.  Below is me, ages 15 and 2, doing what I do best - entertaining my parents.  I can only assume the giant face-hicky I got from doing this is blocked from my memory for a good reason.

Super Bowl Face(s)!!

 

It's The End Of The World As We Know It (and I feel...lazy)

If you were to listen in on the weather forecasts and news reports and office on-goings around here you would think we have never gotten snow before.  I realize that a foot and a half of snow and crazy wind is going to be highly uncomfortable and inconvenient and gross, but it is likely not the end of the world.  I've gotten email alerts about closed schools, train and bus changes, closed doctor offices, canceled flights - it seems like people are all but evacuating the city.  SAVE YOURSELVES!!!!

Me?  I'm debating working from home tomorrow mostly because I'm kinda lazy.  I mean, if I can stay warm in my house and work in my pajamas, why not?  Then again, if I were motivated and organized enough to work in my house in my pajamas, I'd do it more often.  There is a reason I don't (see: lazy).  So I think it is more likely that I'll be one of four people braving the elements tomorrow morning to commute downtown.  But I think I'll bring a change of clothes in case I get stranded and crash at my friend Jenn's house.  Because at least there I know we'll be stocked with wine.  I've got priorities, people.

Shamrock-Shuffling My Way To A Better Me

Happy New Year!

The unusual crowd at my gym and the crazy-busy schedule of my nutritionist tells me that many people are continuing to make the ever-popular weight loss/get-in-shape resolutions.  I've been working hard at eating right and exercising since my birthday at the end of September, but January seems like a nice time to re-focus and strengthen my plans and effort toward a healthier, fitter me.

First, a review of how far I've come so far:

- I've lost 21 pounds

- I moved from only being able to jog for 60 second intervals at 5mph to being able to jog a 5K (on a treadmill)  in 37 minutes, and I ran my personal-best mile on Tuesday night at 10 minutes 32 seconds.

Both of those accomplishments are HUGE.  My current weight is two pounds over my lowest weight junior year of college, which is the lowest weight I know myself to have hit as an adult.  I rarely weighed myself over the years and could have been slightly lower for a while, but not much.  The pants I bought over Christmas are a size 8, which I know I haven't worn since mid-high school at least.  Vanity-sizing probably accounts for a size or two there, but still.  Wow.

Now I just have to figure out how to keep it up.  We're coming in to busy season for me at work, and until April 15th I'll be eating at my desk and spending more than the usual time parked on my rear doing work.  Of course I see my good friend Nutritionist Jenn at least once a week (either for actual nutritional advice or just to hang out), but I know I'll need more than one person cheering me on to make it through the hardest part of my year, even if she is a really good cheerleader. 

So to help myself stay focused, I signed up for Jennie's Biggest Blogging Loser contest.  12 weeks of competition, a twitter hashtag or two, and a possible cash prize at the end.  She hasn't sent out the final number yet, but the pot was over $1,000 last I heard, maybe over $1,500.  Now that is some motivation!  If I win, I could get an iPad!  Which my wife would then steal!  But whatever!

I also signed up for an 8K on April 10th.  Shamrock Shuffle!  8K!  5 miles!  OMG!  If anything will keep me motivated to find time to go to the gym and run, it is the fear of public humiliation on race day.  This will be my first race ever, and I am all kinds of nervous and excited about it.  Several coworkers are going to be running the race as well, and Nutritionist Jenn agreed to run with me for extra support and cheering, despite the fact that she has run multiple marathons and could easily run circles around me.  If anyone else out there in/near Chicago (or who wants to fly to Chicago!) wants to run with us or meet up after at the post-race party, let me know!  I will be sweaty and gross and smelly and would love to meet you and hug you!   Hey, where are you going?  Come back!