I received a frantic telephone call from my friend Wanda. She couldn’t find her passport application papers. She and her husband were supposed to go to Japan in December. Now he will be the only one going to see his parents. My friend has never met her Japanese in-laws. She was upset after looking all over her house and in the file cabinet for her paperwork. She believes her husband accidentally threw them away. The paperwork was all filled out. All that needed to be completed was to take the application and passport photos to the post office. I can understand my friend’s frustration. She told me the stress was affecting her health.

I have been doing more self analysis about my life and what I can do to change things about myself, my attitude and life in general. There are days when I try to talk to my youngest daughter and she is still disrespectful to me. Also dealing with my ex and his situation. So I have started a plan of working more on myself and letting the chips fall where they may with my adult children and my ex. I can only pray for them. I can not change them. The only person that I can change is ME.

Like the Serenity Prayer says “God Grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change…. Courage to change the things I can… and Wisdom to know the difference.” That is a tall order for me to obey, however if I focus on taking care of myself more, I will succeed. I am not trying to be selfish. I have always been a very caring person who has worn her heart on her shelve. People tend to take advantage of people like me. I have wised up though as I have gotten older.

I know I need to get my priorities right. My health is at the top of my list. Making up meal planning list is hard for me to stay on track. Seems something comes up and there goes the plan. Having a family member who works in the restaurant industry and has various days off each week makes it difficult to stay on track. I will keep working on eating the right foods. My tendency to “reward” myself with a sugary or high carbohydrate food too often for making small milestones in my life. I know this is wrong to do. Even eating too much sugar free foods which is not low caloric has its consequences. So making the major change in my eating habit I have to start with by eating smaller portions 6 times a day. Checking my blood sugar before breakfast, before lunch, before dinner and before bed, that is per my doctor’s orders. My morning blood sugar was 98 today. YEAH!!

The next step is scheduling my exercise. After talking to my dear friend Betty, she told me that her daughter, Christy, ran 12 miles the other day. Christy has run in marathons and walks for different causes and research for cures. I know I will never be a marathon runner, but I can get out and go walk somewhere. My problem is the only place in the winter months to walk is in the mall which gets crowded. I am not able to afford a membership yet to a fitness club on my disability check. However I saw in an ad an exercise equipment called a recumbent bike that was very reasonable of $149. I have seen past ads for over $500. I used one of these to get more mobility in my knee after I broke my leg at the physical therapy center and remembered how well I felt after using one. So this is what I want for Christmas but early so I don’t delay in getting started.

I will continue to work on my plan and staying focused on myself and what I need to do to be more positive and loving towards myself. My readers and friends are the ones that offer me encouragement. Praying to God to help me with my self esteem.

I continue to struggle with another problem of mine, overeating. I know I definitely need to lose weight. My procrastination is my worst enemy with my health. I know that if I lost my excess weight I would be healthier and could reduce the amount of medications I am on. My diabetes would be more in control. I need something that would help me as an appetite suppressant. When I go to WalMart, I walk in the pharmacy aisles looking for a good product. I read some literature that was on a display about alli. I will definitely have to check with my doctor about taking this product since I am a diabetic. He has told me in the past that changing my eating habits and getting exercise is the right solution. My big problem is I love food. There are not many foods I do not like. It is the portion size that is my biggest problem. Hopefully I will be on the right track soon and start losing before Thanksgiving and Christmas get here. I need to be able to wear my favorite Christmas red dress this year.

I have a problem with trust issues for some time. I am not sure when it really started. Maybe when I was a child and my father kept breaking promises. I find myself having struggles with keeping all the promises I have made to different people. I know I have good intentions. When my children were young, I told them not to make a promises they can not keep. However as I got older, I find myself struggling more with myself and others breaking promises.

This past week, I had an argument with a family member about lying to me. He has a definite problem with telling one lie to cover another lie. Sometimes I think he thinks I was only born yesterday. NOT!! By his lying to me, it hurts our relationship. How can I trust him or anyone who lies to me? I tend to back away from people who lie and go back inside myself and not trust anyone. This makes me go into depression further, though I start praying that Jesus Christ will deliver me from the depression.

By the same terms if I don’t keep my promises, am I lying to someone? This is an issue I am working on with myself. A friend of mine reminded me that to keep a small notepad in my purse to write down when I make a promise to do something for someone and date it. She said that she writes the person’s name down, what she promises to do and the date you promised to do it by. She also stated she has become a better friend to many people by keeping her promises. I sure can learn by her example.

I have wanted to redecorate my spare bedroom since my youngest daughter moved out and got married. Her old bed frames need replacing due to sagging. I want my godchild Chayton to come and spend the weekend with me. I am afraid the bed frame may collapse if he got on it and started to bounce around on it. I have been promising him that I would come and get him soon. Since my cat bite my finger and I got hospitalized, I have had to delay in bringing Chayton here. Hopefully soon I get to see him even if I just drive over to visit him.

It is hard to believe that in one month it will be Thanksgiving. It seems sometimes that it was just last Christmas to me. I don’t to be in debt again over Christmas. It has become too commercialized. I remember as a child making a lot of my presents for the family. My oldest daughter still makes adorable embroidery ornaments. I love looking at them hanging on my tree each year.

I know I need to start making my Christmas list soon and get started buying Christmas gifts. I just don’t want to charge much more on my charge card. With the economy like it is, I am not sure what the credit card companies are going to be charging on their interest rates.

My youngest daughter has been having a continuous problem with acne. She also keeps picking at her face. I have advised her that she will scar her face if she continues to pick at it. She gets annoyed whenever I mention that to her. The last time I spoke to her about her problem I told her she needs to seek medical advice for treatments for acne. She is such a beautiful young lady and I don’t want to see her face scarred.

I woke this morning thinking about an old friend of mine, Jeanie, that I have not talked to in some time. I called her as soon as I came downstairs. I found out she had been in the hospital twice this month already, once for open heart surgery and the other time for obstructed bowels. It is sad to hear she was not feeling well. I offered to help her in any way I could. She quietly said “I can’t get out of bed and would love a cup of coffee”. So I asked if she needed anything from the grocery store also. She wanted old fashioned sugar cookies. So I made a trip to the store to purchase the cookies and go to her home. She definitely was not well from looking at her appearance. I made the coffee for her and me. She however was not able to drink much coffee or even eat the cookies she so desperately wanted. Her stomach was hurting her too much. She did enjoy my company for a few hours before she looked very tired and sleepy. I told her I was leaving so she could take her nap. She apologized for her condition. I told her that I understood she was not well and would come back and visit her another time. She told me when she gets well we would go out to eat lunch some place. I am glad I did go and see her today even in her condition.

Today when I was driving home, I noticed that the local artisans had completed painting the 200 pound vases. Due to the amount of traffic, I could not count the number of vases that were placed on the property for the public to view. I have a small memory card for my digital camera. I know I need to buy a larger gigabyte memory cards to take all the shots of the detail views of the vases. Hopefully the weather will be beautiful and I get a chance to get some pictures.

We were blessed to find a small pickup truck, 1998 Dodge Dakota. It had been owned by a young man that my housemate has known for over 5 years. He felt that the truck was a good deal for the amount of money the young man was asking for the truck. The price was in our budget to not create a vehicle loan or payment. It did take all the money we had saved up though. With the economy like it is, we did not want anymore burdens to our budget. The sad part is if anything arises in the next few months, I have to charge it on my credit card.

I am not looking forward to Christmas with big expenses. I want a pleasant Christmas without being in debt. That would be the best present of all.