96 Left in 1001 Days

Yay! I completed the Training Decision Workbook, met with my vocational rehab counselor and the state is going to send me to college. I'll be going for an online Associates in Accounting at Lake Superior College.

I need to wait until we do our taxes after the first of the year, so I can apply for financial aid using 2009 income rather than 2008 income. But then anything I don't get grants for, the state will pick up.


Also, I donated over 10,000 grains of rice to Free Rice by answering one thousand vocabulary, grammar, art and geography questions.

Growth & Fear

My basic issue of growth is how to deal with fear in a functional manner. Most of my life has been spent in the avoidance of fear and anxiety. I've been hiding from it as long as I can remember. It's the fears of abandonment, loneliness and rejection. The irony is that the activities I've used to cope, especially eating, have increased my isolation. I've worked at cross-purposes with myself.

My lesson is that I need to stop avoiding life and achieving my goals due to fear. To "feel the fear and do it anyway" as Susan Jeffers says. Because avoiding the fear has exacerbated my situation and made it more likely for people to reject and abandon me.

I also need to understand and accept that I'm of person of value just as I am at this moment. That rejection isn't automatic emotional torment and that when people reject me, it's more about them than about me.

When I was growing up, avoidance was the only way I could cope with the dysfunction in my family. I hadn't been taught any other way and it sometimes it simply wasn't safe to "be there." But it's gone on too long. I'm in mid-life. I've been running from negative emotions for almost 25 adult years and it's not working. It's time to try something else.

It's time to be courageous and not give into the fear. Acknowledge it. Then put it on the back-burner. Fear doesn't need to be the main course anymore.

98 Left in 1001 Days

So now you get to see how anal I am about recording the books I read. I completed adding my read books to my LibraryThing catalog. Not only do I have a database to list the books, I have all sorts of queries - by month, by year, by category, favorite authors. Then I had to add them to my catalog in LT which (then) listed only what I owned. I now have 1,920 books - owned and read - in my catalog. Go me.


Next is the picture of the paperwhite narcissus forced bulbs we purchased. They have a lovely fragrance. Unfortunately, I seem to be allergic and have been fighting a stuffy nose and headache. We may end up donating them to the church. However, the scent seems to be calming down and not affecting me so much. We'll see how it goes. It would be a shame, I do like them.

As far as weight loss goes, it isn't. I did some "last suppering" and was afraid to weigh in. Too much pasta, Cheetos and take out. However, I'm back on the wagon and have been journaling my food for the last two days. I need to get - and STAY - under 600 by January so I can weigh in at Weight Watchers. I'd like to be 5 or 10 pounds under, just in case their scale weighs heavier. Wish me luck.