Yay!

I'm up.  It's too early for me to be up, but here I am.  I am having anxiety about not completing my food log.  Yes, really.  I also had a dream where I cut the van horizontally and couldn't find the bottom half.  That was seriously distressing.

I think what's happening is that some worries seem to have been moved off the table but I still have the behavior pattern.  Mindfulness certainly helped and I'm still in the process of absorbing some of those lessons.  The lightbulb for me was tapping into the physical feelings.  I'm sure that when things actually go terribly wrong I'll feel a lot of the same sensations, but most of the time the sensations indicate that my brain is just telling me stories.  I haven't had any sleepless nights over money in some time, and it's not like the money problems have disappeared- I just don't seem to be panicking over them anymore.  My second largest constant fear was my body deteriorating.  That one's not stressing me out anymore either.  I'm not sure if doing something about it resolved the anxiety or if deciding not to agonize over them allowed me to do something.  Either way, I'll take it.

The money is still not where I'd like it to be, but I have enough to pay the bills and this time I did a pretty good job making it last through the end of the semester.  And I know exactly where the leak is- which ties in wonderfully to the health problems- food.  I've got this belief that everything I ever eat should taste wonderful and be exactly what I want.  I can justify the hell out of going out to eat and then I don't have anything left for the fun things I want to do like the monster truck rally or the camel races.  I have to remind myself that I'm not going to remember what I ate.

So this time I budgeted better and (Well, I also got financial aid and didn't have to live on next to nothing.) I feel okay about most of my choices.  Except the food, but we already talked about that.  As for my health, I'm in the third of several classes meant to improve my well-being.  I'm thinking about looking for a yoga class once financial aid rolls in.  As for the things I can't take care of yet, whenever I have a horrible feeling I remind myself that I'm almost done with school and will soon have a job with benefits, dammit.  Well, I'll even amend that.  Benefits will take a while to kick in, but the main thing anyway is that I'll have a job, dammit.  Steady, regular income.

And oh by the way, Chris and I have been watching the funds, not treating ourselves to sushi, and very aware that there would be no income through most of May.  Then Friday we was suddenly called to do a gig.  These kind of surprises happen enough that I'm starting to believe Chris when he promises that everything will be fine.  I'm looking at numbers and dates and I just don't see it, but Chris has faith in what can't be seen.  It mirrors what Dad is always telling me too- just visualize the result you want and stop trying to decide that it can't be done.

Yesterday Chris came home for a few hours just to return the Dodge and change his clothes.  He talked to his boss on the phone and told me the boss would be dropping by to pick up some speaker or something.  We both charged into action, first policing the living room and then getting into some deep cleaning.  Chris thinks Ant has been sweeping dirt under the rug; I think it's possible that we just haven't picked it up in that long.  Poor Bubba was dismayed to learn our Saturday plans but helped out a lot.  Within two hours, maybe less, we finished the living room, the kitchen, the Pickle Parlor, the front and back porches and the storage shed.  Okay, those last two still need help but Chris was on a rampage and tore through most of it.  I'm not the one who thinks the back is not done- that's Chris.  We were washing baseboards and vacuuming the front porch, it was a sudden crazy clean.  That's exactly what I've been asking for and I'm so excited to hang out in the living room now.  Chris even cleaned up his studio detritus off the shelves, dusted, and carefully replaced cables and caca with the elephants and picture frames that lived there first.  :D  I didn't expect anything to happen with the Pickle Parlor (which was a disaster) but he tore through it with the vacuum.  It got clean enough that last night I went in and worked on my last four books.  Now I only have one page to fix before I can start putting them all together.

Oh, and Chris's boss never showed up.  But the house is clean!

I just heard from Chris, he is packing up and heading home.  It's nice that he's up and moving early- he is trying to be home in time for us to go to the Turkish Festival in town.  I'm off!