Smoothies/Maybe a Little too Honest

This summer has turned out to be rather dark for me so far.  The anxiety that was only in the mornings in May got worse and worse until Winston Churchill's "black dog" was once more upon me.  I am not in the really dark place I was 6 years ago, but I have struggled daily with anxiety and moments of despair.  I am taking some medication for the anxiety but it doesn't help a whole lot.  It does take the edge off, for which I'm grateful.  I guess I'd say, it takes away my irritability.  I am able to function and force myself to do things with the kids and I'm not constantly on edge.  However, I am mostly sick inside and have to force myself to eat.  I am now on a new antidepressant.  I took the 9th dose tonight.  I know it can take several weeks to kick in.  So far no noticeable changes.  I don't know exactly how the Black Dog found me again.  I think a lot of things.  But mostly I think that probably starting with some difficult emotional things starting in March, then moving and the sheer amount of work and stress involved, coupled with all of the change brought it on. The change was good and is right.  But its still a lot to take in.  Everything my eyes see is different, smells are different, sounds are VERY different.  It sounds like we live in a rain forest around here for some reason.  Cool but really really loud at night outside.  New ward. New friends to make. New church callings. New school to learn about. New changes and stressed out kids.  And then the fact that...what a blessing we bought a house and can now plant some roots!!!...but...wait...planting roots?  That means I'm not going home.  That means this is my home.  Oh no...my parents...my sisters...my mountains...not going back...maybe it just tipped the scales in my brain.

But anyway...one good thing that has come of it is that since I'm unable to even force myself to chew on anything and have no appetite at all (at least until evening.  Usually I can eat some dinner), I have begun SMOOTHING.  Yes, smoothing.  My mom suggested I start it and I knew just who to go to for advice.  My brother Tony is the Smoothy-king.  I avoided the smoothing for quite some time because I thought it might be too expensive, time consuming, or just plain gross.  Well...wrong wrong and wrong.  The first one I made, Jason said, "I bet that tastes like death."  I gave him some and...what do you know...he smiled and asked me to make enough for him the following morning.   Frozen fruit, come to find out (if you buy it at Sam's Club) is actually much less expensive than fresh fruit.  Fresh spinach, kale, cabbage, and carrots are not expensive at all.  I just chop up everything and put it in the freezer, then pull it out, throw it in the blender and...what do you know...even when I don't want to eat at all, I can swallow this stuff, keep it down, and I actually think it tastes good.

If I have fresh stuff around, I'll add that, too.  Today's smoothie included lots of spinach, kale, purple cabbage, carrots, berry mix (blue, black and raspberry), other fruit mix (peaches, strawberries, honeydew) and a banana.  All that mixed with water and just a tiny amount of Agave sweetener.  Breakfast and lunch.  Easy peasy.  Brain get better pleasy.