Hello, there.

Well, those of you watching for that mare to have her baby, it's happened. All I can see now is a big fat mare and four little baby legs peeking out from under her belly. They apparently aren't refreshing the camera anymore. I don't know. If I find another site like it, I'll post it. I've said it before, I'll say it again--looooooooooove those babies!

I haven't posted anything of substance in a while, but it's really for good reason. I honestly haven't had anything worthwhile to say. I've been trying desperately to keep myself busy, and it seems to be improving my mood slightly. I've been exercising daily for at least two weeks (maybe longer, but I've lost count), and trying to eat well for at least that long. I'm not doing fabulous in the eating department, but I'm taking one day at a time. My biggest accomplishments? I've not eaten a hamburger or french fry in over two weeks. In fact, I think my fast-food count is something like three meals in this 2-3 week period, and those have been relatively healthy (i.e. one of those non-breaded chicken sandwiches from Wendy's, a Veggie burger from BK). This is not to say I'm a changed person, but I'm trying. I'm also drinking a minimum of 64 ounces of water a day (read: FLOATING), and have not had a regular pop with the exception of this weekend when we didn't have anything else and I was sick of water.

The first week I was mixing it up with working out on my Total Gym (which I LOVE) and my elliptical machine. For the past eight days I have been T-tapping, which is how I lost over 15 inches from my body a couple years ago. If anyone's interested, the website is here. It seems a bit like lunacy, but it does work. It's just not a whole lot of fun. You may not be jumping around and hurting your joints, but *MAN* does it make you sweat.

My self image is improving, but I'm still not happy with myself.... and I'll explain why. I am a very negative, angry person anymore. I used to give people the benefit of the doubt, which really doesn't happen much anymore. So, while I'm working hard on the outside, I'm still piecing things together slowly on the inside. It'll be a slow journey, and I'm not convinced that I don't need to talk to a counselor, but for now I will do what I can on my own.

I guess I didn't realize the strong feelings I had on postpartum depression until my sister was talking about it at lunch yesterday. She was talking about a lady she had gone to see, and ended up helping somewhat. Her thought was trying to somehow organize a group to meet at our church for ladies who may be in the same condition. I had all these thoughts running through my head, like how, even on my good days, leaving the house is an obstacle I can't comprehend facing.... Heck, sometimes leaving bed seems like a reeeeeeeeeeeally bad idea! When I do leave the house, I'm on a mission, and it usually isn't to talk to people about why I'm depressed. I also don't feel it would've helped to have a church involved. My feelings were that God wanted me to be sad, and I either had to deal with it or not live. Even being a Christian, my perspective on this was pretty skewed... But maybe I'm just special that way.

I suppose it hurt because I didn't know my sister had been researching PPD all this time, and I was living right next door to her, struggling.

That's neither here nor there. Water under the bridge. More tired cliches that are escaping me now.

And I don't like the fact that something in my subconscious is pushing this off on my sister. It's not as if she could read my mind and know what was happening within my house while she was in hers, or while she was out arm-deep in placenta. [I just made myself giggle with that one. Sorry.] This is why I've got to fix myself. It's not helping to not take responsibility.

There's so much more that I think about when I'm having a bad day--all the injustices I feel I've suffered through my life float back to the surface, and I cry or I get angry and throw things around. This is why I may eventually try to find some counselling if I continue in this same way. I don't need to think about these things that are so far in the past. I don't need to blame God for things that have brought me to a--besides the emotional difficulty--better place in my life than what I would have expected. Maybe I don't need counselling for this, but I do need to stop thinking about all this.... junk....

I could write about all these bad things forever, but that would be immortalizing bad times that I'm trying so hard to just let go of. Sigh.

Anyway, this wasn't supposed to be so deep, but I guess it was supposed to turn out that way. Enjoy. Hehe.