Christmas and other days in December

We spent today getting ready for the holidays. Rommel and I spent a little time this morning decorating the front of the house with lights before moving on to addressing holiday cards. The list of people kept getting longer and longer and I ended up having to order another fifty cards. I just can't help it, I want to share pictures of our adorable pups with the world.


Then we moved on to the Christmas tree. We put it up on Thanksgiving, but had not gotten around to putting on the ornaments. We are slowly collecting ornaments with stories behind them, just like I grew up with, and it is fun to pause and think about where each one came from.


And I finally got around to the presents. The pile has been building on the floor of my bedroom over the last couple weeks and I honestly wanted to get them all wrapped just to get rid of all the clutter.


But to be completely honest, the day I cannot get out of my head is my birthday. In three weeks I will be turning thirty and am completely depressed about it. I am not one of the people who dread the big three oh or anything like that because I have never thought of birthdays as me getting older. Birthdays should not be a death of another year, but the celebration of everything you have lived through and everything ahead of you. And I do have a lot to celebrate this year, most importantly a wonderfully supportive husband and happy marriage.

So I am sure you are wondering what I am so depressed about and that is the fact that I am turning thirty but I physically feel a hell of a lot older than that. I have all the usual problems someone who does not exercise or watch their diet does but I also have the added difficulties of my anxiety.

My list of health problems:

• overweight
• debilitating back pain*
• dizziness/vertigo*
• stomach pains diagnosed as Irritable Bowel Syndrome*
• migraines*
• constant fatigue to the point where I am not able to do much more than go to work*
  

Everything with a * next to it can be attributed to anxiety/stress. Between my increasing anxiety and my heath, there was honestly a point in time that I did not think I would even be able to keep working.

Obviously my priorities have been out of whack and I need to reevaluate how I choose to live my life. At first I was all about changing everything at once, but I know that is just setting myself up to fail. So I am going to try and take it one step at a time.

The first step will be to eliminate the parts of my diet that are the "enemies" of anxiety. The four things that can make anxiety worse are caffeine, alcohol, tobacco, and sugar or as my therapist calls them, the cats. I do not drink and I do not smoke, so those are no problem. I do consume a small amount of caffeine, which may not effect most people, but can still give me the jitters. My big sin is sugar and oh how I love sugar. Sugar causes stress and stress makes me want sugar; it is an awful cycle.

So I will continue to drink my Starbucks green iced tea every morning while I try extremely hard to give up sugar. I will try to avoid all sweets and most processed foods, while filling up on more natural foods. Green smoothies will become part of my everyday diet again.