have you noticed?

I haven't had a single mood swing in about a month. An entire month gone by without a swing feels more like an eternity - that's how bad the swings normally are. It has been spectacular feeling level headed, coming to work every day, feeling like life is actually worth living. It's a great feeling not wondering how many muscle relaxers it might take to kill you. A truly wonderful feeling!

Of course, most of this can be attributed to my medication cocktail. Abilify, Topamax, and Wellbutrin are my good, close friends now. I'd no sooner part with them than part with one of my limbs. Seriously, the cocktail is working that well. It's great to feel like myself again! I've even been able to mostly control my spending habits. [gasp!] That's the most difficult thing to control - on meds or otherwise. I have very poor impulse control but lately I've been able to say no to myself. These are all great things! I can't wait to talk to my therapist. And my pdoc. How happy it must make a doctor to finally find the right combination of medications to stabilize a patient. Anyway, enough rambling about that.

In other news, I have been exercising for two weeks running! Okay, okay, so I didn't exercise last week while I was sick. Sue me. But I exercised this week and before I was sick last week. Go me! I've lost five pounds so far - only 15 to go by surgery day! I'm ready to get this weight off. I can already feel a difference in my "well being" since I started walking. I am very proud of myself for finally getting off my fat, lazy ass! I just hope the pounds start coming off so I stay motivated. I get disheartened when the scale doesn't move. :-/ I've also cut back significantly on what I've been eating. I had a small bowl of oatmeal for breakfast (the high protein, high fiber, no sugar kind) and I started taking Glucomannan as well. Right now I'm having my morning cup of coffee with a little bit of Marshmallow Mocha creamer added to it but not as much as I usually put in it. Just enough to take the bite out of the coffee. For lunch I'm going to go to the grocery store and pick up a Lean Cuisine. I'm not sure what to do about supper. I'll probably skip it and have something small since my Monkey has to work late tonight.

Speaking of The Monkey, he was recently promoted to Manager of his store. This would be exciting except he really didn't want the job. It only pays $0.50 more than what he was getting paid but now he's salaried which means MORE hours but no overtime. Fuckers. He does get bigger bonuses (5% of profit as opposed to 2.5%) and cell phone reimbursement, though. So those little things should help us out a little. I just hate that he's working more hours at a job he can't stand. His brother is looking out for him and hopefully will have him a job in the next couple of months pulling CAT5 cable! Monkey's excited about that. It will be a little bit of a pay cut but Monkey gets a company vehicle (yay!) and, more importantly, HEALTH INSURANCE. Monkey's been uninsured since he started working for TitleMax. Not good but we can't afford to add him to my plan. :-/

So things are things. I wish time would hurry up and pass between now and March 14th! I'm so ready to get my surgery over with. Not to mention I'm ready to see my bestest friend of all my friends!! 31 days left to go. [sigh]