Have Patience With Me - First, thank you all. Private messages, texts, comments, emails, you all make me feel very loved and supported. Second, I *will* update you on how things are going, but you may have to be a tiny bit patient with me. I haven't asked you to poke me with sticks (yet), and to be honest it took everything I had just to admit this whole situation publically.

And btw, "contractor." I don't work for JPL directly, so I have to wait for the work week, to look through my paperwork from my contractor, to see if I'm in an open enrollment period or not, if I missed the window, if I took care of it already and forgot, or what. I rarely work *for* the place where I work, which is why this is so convoluted. Just yesterday I was cleaning a stack of paperwork, and finally tossed out (recycled) the employment handbook from five jobs ago, since I'm not likely to be returning to that contractor company anytime soon. And "five jobs ago" is still only about "three years ago" which meant the employment paperwork was still near the top of the clutter.

Probably a Nutrition Problem - I think the likely culprit is a problem with nutrition. I've gotten exceptionally lazy with cooking at home, which when I do it, is a wonderful thing for my body. When I cook at home, I eat good foods. I have variety. I have nutritious content. I manage portion control well. I lose weight and save money. Cooking at home is a wonderful thing, it just takes TIME. And many of you know from my schedule, I haven't MADE time for nearly anything lately, just been running around using up time. And laziness. I'm really really lazy, when it comes to shopping for groceries, cooking, and being prepared for food in advance.

So -- laziness plus financial security plus traveling equals eating on the go ... equals eating almost no variety at all. One, I seem to have developed an intolerance for beef and cow dairly about 10 or so years ago. I only use soy in my lattes, I no longer eat ice cream at all, I no longer eat beef at all. Two, about three years ago I decided that I prefered to eat kosher. I stopped eating all pork, shellfish, other non-fish seafood, and meals with dairy and meat together. And within the past year, I started avoiding non-kosher chicken, non-kosher turkey. This means as I got lazier in cooking and more particular in my food choices, I stopped eating a lot of variety.

If I were completely honest, my normal meals consist of only the following, with few changes. Breakfast, either the spicy tuna sushi from Bristol Farms, or if I'm at Starbucks either the spinach wrap or the portabello piadini. Lunch or Dinner when I'm at work, either Panda Express and fried rice, mixed veggies, and eggplant tofu, or McDonald's fish fillet (no tartar sauce), fries, and diet coke. That's it. That's what I've been eating for several months.

Break out of those ruts and you might catch me ordering fish and chips, a veggie burger, or Pick Up Stix house tofu with veggies and brown rice. Or if I go to Jeff and Adrienne's, I'll eat their chicken because I know she keeps a kosher home. I've been choosing only vegetarian sides at everyone's homes for parties.

It's 3:30 in the afternoon, I slept until 1 pm today [didn't realize I was tired], and I still haven't eaten anything. There's this horrible blend in my head between foods I cannot eat because they hurt my stomach (beef, larger quantitles of dairy), won't eat because I've chosen not to eat them, and the old hatred for being overweight. Once upon a time, when I wasn't lazy and I was cooking at home, I had lost up to 27 lbs in the past couple of years. Most of it is back, because I've been lazy, stopped cooking at home, eaten on the run, and stopped exercising even occasionally.

So, um, now add in that nothing tastes good at all, everything tastes wrong, and my dislike for doctors. Poof. You have my perfect storm this year. Of course, the solution is obvious: Stop being lazy.

I suppose the good news is that I did force myself to do some light grocery shopping on New Year's Day. I wanted to eat some black-eyed peas for New Years, so I had to shop. I have to head to the studio in 2.5 hours, plus run two errands, so I really only have time to eat a meal, run errands, and leave. I cannot cook tonight. But I have tomorrow open, so I think tomorrow will be spent in the kitchen, pulling myself together and facing life or death. I'm thinking LIFE sounds more appealing.

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Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Lynn and Theresa, because you're the two mostly likely to check up on me