So, What's New?

I've been busy. 12-hour daylight shifts and 3 new trainees will do that. I'm going to try to update more often; it's just that my life has been somewhat repetetive and monotonous of late. Who wants to read monotony? So. A quick recap of the past couple of weeks:

• Christmas shopping is nearly finished. All the big-ticket items are already purchased/paid for. In cash! I love cash Christmas. The New Year is stressful and hectic enough without credit card bills looming. 
• I've been sort of status quo with my therapy and food issues. I have sessions every 2 weeks, and it's keeping me on a maintaining kind of plane, rather than the binge/rapid gain cycle I did last year. I still haven't gotten it through my head that exercise every day is what's going to pull me from maintaining to getting to my healthy weight. However, not gaining is a big victory, if I am comparing this time last year to this year. 
• Speaking of getting things through my head, I'm reading a great book: Liberating Greatness, which was recommended by my therapist.  The simplest description is: This book describes how neural pathways in the brain affect how you do things, even the simplest "habits" on a daily basis. It gives you tools to form new neural pathways which will have a positive effect in changing habits you desire to change. This is accomplished by affirmations which create cognitive dissonance, which is necessary for real change; the book tells you step by step how to properly create affirmations which will help to form new neural pathways in the brain to change behavior subconsciously. I can't recommend it enough. Here is an article describing how the science behind it works. 
• Old Girlie turned 14!!!!! on election day. We had a little party, complete with cake. Pictures to follow at a later date. She had no idea why she was getting cake and extra kisses and hugs, but she soaked it all up like a sponge. It was a great day for celebration all around. 
• Water rescue class is 2/3 completed. We can't do moving water day yet because the water tables are still too low, and we want to finish the day with our collective coccyges intact. 
• My best friend is engaged! I'm deleriously happy for her. It's so odd that the two of us, both pretty non-traditional and seemingly anti-marriage, would both get engaged within the same year. I've known her fiance for years and she picked a great one. They will take wonderful care of each other. SO happy!
• I've joined the BlackBerry cult. I'm not totally submerged in the Kool-Aid yet; there are times I miss my old LG, especially since I can't quite text on the fly like I used to. But there is the Storm to look forward to... 
• Work's been weird. In the past week I've taken care of 1) a kid who had a several hundred pound gravestone fall on him (broken pelvis, he's pretty lucky actually), 2) a brokenhearted 15 year old who would rather live in a shelter than with her mother, who apparently feels the same way 3) the coolest 92 year old ever, who had a lively political discussion with me while we transported him to the hospital, blood running out of his nose like a faucet when pressure was not being applied - He told me, ominously, that the Great Depression started much like the economic situation the country finds itself in currently. I find that I am a lot more sentimental than I used to be, and I let things, like the 15 year old girl's situation, affect me so much more than they used to. I'm trying to decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I know it makes me better at my job in some ways, but the personal toll it takes? What are all these, how you say? Feelings... all of a sudden. Where did those come from? 
• PastaQueen recommended the reality show "Ruby" in a recent post. Ruby is a woman living in Savannah, Ga, embarking on an epic weight-loss journey. What I liked about the show is that Ruby is human and fallible. Though she is working with a trainer, a therapist and an obesity specialist, she is a regular person just like any of us. She has to figure out, just like any regular person trying to get to a healthy weight, and how to do so in the midst of everyday life, stressors, and celebrations. There's no big monetary prize awaiting Ruby when she achieves her goal, and to listen to her, that's not what she wants. She wants to sit on a guy's lap. She wants to be able to walk the beach and ride on the back of a Harley without being pointed out and ridiculed. To wear jeans. To ride a bike. To be able to get up and just go when she wants to. Little things that I know I take for granted daily. Ruby is so kind and engaging that you will find yourself crying for her, laughing with her, and cheering her on. Thanks to PastaQueen for recommending this show. I'm rooting for Ruby already. 

That's about it for the past couple of weeks. Mundane, no?