Frankenstein's bride

I am sitting here at 9pm looking like Frankenstein’s bride with all these electrode’s connected to my head. The sleep technician asked me about ½ hr ago when I would be ready for bed and was hugely surprised when I said in about 4 hrs - he then told me I would probably need to go to bed earlier than that tonight - well that would be good - I can spend even longer tossing and turning in bed !!!!! He said he would come and connect me up and then I could stay up in bed a little longer if I wanted (feel like a little kid who has been told I’ve been naughty and have to go to bed !!!) The techi just came in and connected another 10 electrodes to my arms, legs, waist, chest and neck - how the hell am I supposed to go to sleep like this ??????? Thank goodness Al isn’t here - what a turnoff it would be for him to see my like this. I phoned him just now to tell him that I am expected to go to sleep soon and he just laughed. It was funny when we arrived, the techi let us in and said “I used to work with you” to Al and I. I couldn’t really place him then he said “At Coles” and I realised why I couldn’t place him - he now has hair - he used to shave his head when he worked with us there.

I have been doing some thinking lately about my blog and whether or not I should continue with it. I started off because I found it really motivating for me to have - I felt that it was a forum I could use to keep me honest and I got a lot of inspiration from reading what other people where getting up to. I realised that I wasn’t the only one who ate in secret, that I wasn’t the only one who felt “woe is me” at times, that I wasn’t the only one who, when things got tough, turned to food - not because it made the tough times go away but because, for the moment, it made me feel better. I have realised that, getting to goal isn’t the end of the journey, it is the beginning of a life of learning how to maintain (well I haven’t mastered that yet but I am working on it).

Currently I don’t have the time to blog or to read other blogs - my choices are different to what they were last year. Last year was very much about me and what I wanted and I have learnt that I need to find a better balance between what I want and what my family needs. While I realise that I need “me” time in order to be a better wife, mother, friend - there has to be the correct balance and sitting in the computer room for hours at a time just isn’t the right balance. In my previous job, I could always make time to hop on and read a blog or two in the morning if I got to work early or during my lunch hour etc. As I now start work earlier, only get ½ hour for lunch (what’s that - we never take it anyway) and most blogs have been blocked by our IT dept - it isn’t as easy to stay in touch with what is going on in people’s lives as what it used to be. This doesn’t mean that I don’t think of many of you often or wonder what you have been getting up - sometimes I even get as far as an e-mail or a phone call when I can. But it has certainly meant that I am not as in touch as I used to be and that makes me sad because I have met the most amazing people through here. I am sure that some of the friendships will last for many years to come and while they aren’t ‘live in your pocket’ friends - they are certainly true friends in every sense of the word.

I guess what I am saying is that, while my journey is not finished yet, I don’t know if I will be as active in this forum as what I was in the past. I don’t know what it is that I need to do to keep me motivated and on track so that I can get to goal and if I find that not blogging is to my detriment, I will be back more frequently. In the meantime, I will not be posting as often as I would have liked because it doesn’t seem to be doing for me what it did last year. ( I don’t know if I am making sense with this - and if not, please just ignore the last bit). I guess it is the same as with everything else in life - you need to find what works for you and stick with it as long as it does. Once it stops working for you, you need to explore other avenues. What I do know is that I have come to far to toss it all in. We went and booked our tickets for overseas today - tentative at the moment, but booked none the less. I had thought that the Rugby World Cup was in July / August and couldn’t work out why we were having such difficulty getting flights in September / October - I had the wrong dates. RWC is in September / October and because we have booked to go to a European country - every man and his dog is wanting to get there as well. The travel agent is going to keep trying for a particular airline but at least our tickets are booked. With a bit of luck we will be able to arrange some timeshare accommodation which won’t cost an arm and a leg (although I am quite happy to give a teenage daughter away in exchange for 3 weeks accommodation).

Actually right now I am probably happy to give a teenage daughter away full stop - while she can be such an angel at times - she can also be a complete pain in the jack (much like most teenagers, I’m sure). I wish I could remember when I stopped thinking that the whole world revolved around me and took other people’s needs into consideration. I am just hanging out for Cairns this weekend although once there I will probably want the cooler weather of the Coast. The good thing is that I am 8kg’s lighter than I was a the beginning of the year and while I can’t say that I am happy with myself, I am certainly a lot happier than I was on 2 Jan when I jumped on the scales and though enough is enough. When I went to dinner with some girl friends the other week, the one said she was so glad I had put on weight as she had felt that I was far too thin the last time she had seen me. While I didn’t agree with her, it made me realise just how differently people see us to how we see ourselves. When I got married and weighed 45 kgs, I may have thought I was too thin - at 63kgs, I never ever thought I was too thin. And even now, I still don’t think I was too thin at that weight.

I have just got the nod to say I have to start thinking about going to sleep - jeez you pay $220 for the night and they think they can tell you when to get up, when to go to bed, when to go to sleep LOL - maybe they want more time to try to monitor me - well, fat lot of good it is going to do them - you can’t monitor someone’s sleep patterns if they are not sleeping !!!!!!

Will read for a while before switching the light off - actually just thought - I’ll update how tonight went before I post this as I won’t be doing the e-mail thing so will have to wait until I can actually get onto the computer at home - hope this isn’t too far out of date by the time that happens.

Take care everyone, be good and go safely !!

Update 21st March 07
Well I could just as well be in hospital - they woke me up at 5.30 after not having had too much sleep. After I finished the mail to you I didn’t get much done as I had to put my light out at 10pm - when I was typing this up I had 12 electrodes in my hair and on my face. Then he came in and put some on my legs, arm and neck - then I had a big strap around my waist, then another around my chest. I looked at him and asked him if I was supposed to sleep like this and he said yes !!!! Then he came back and put a breathing thing in my nose and a pulse monitor on my finger - and then told me to go to sleep !!!!!! Well, as you can imagine there was a lot of tossing and turning and not much sleeping happening - am not sure how they could work out anything from that. He came through twice during the night - once because the breathing thing had come out my nose and the second time because I was squashing the pulse thing on my finger and they were getting a wrong reading. Had to get up and get dressed by 6am and have just finished having breakfast - now waiting to see the dr and then will have to wait for Al and K to come and collect me and take me to work. I have to say that I REALLY don’t feel like going into work today - I could just go home and curl up on my bed.