I’ve made and followed up on several decisions today and I’m feeling rather powerful about it.

I decided to let go of Wake Up the Muse.  I started it ages ago thinking it would be a fun project to help me in my writing, while also encouraging others.  And it was fun for a while and I had a few other people join me in it.  But for the last while, probably almost a year, I haven’t tended to it like I feel like I ought to.  And not tending to it made me feel guilty.  Now, what’s the point of keeping something that I don’t feel like working on and feel guilty about whenever I think of it?  It’s not as useful as I thought it might be and it doesn’t have a significant following.  So I pulled the plug.  I put up a note saying that I’m stepping away from the project and I’m not going to worry about it any more.

Justin and I decided to hold off on chiropractic care for a while.  I emailed the office this morning and let them know that I wouldn’t be scheduling an appointment until we’d saved up the money that we would need to cover the care that they’re recommending.  We do plan to eventually go back and get things worked on, but not until we know we can afford to pay for it all and still take care of other expenses.

We also decided to go off this stupid wheat and dairy elimination diet.  While chatting last night I remembered the futility of the whole project (no matter the results, nothing is going to change) and the frustrations involved. After curling up in bed and talking about the foods that we really miss, I decided that I’d rather just not know and stop worrying about it and go back to life as normal.  It was interesting.  It was frustrating.  And I’m beyond ready to be done with the whole mess.  And eat chocolate.  Ice cream.  Cheese.  Bread.  Pasta.  Breaded chicken breast.  Birthday cake.  Pizza.

Of these three, the chiropractor is the only thing that I plan on going back to.  I’ve got other writing goals and projects and I think they’ll go further than the website.  Abandoning the elimination diet means I can get back to my normal diet and try to get back to logging my food and losing weight again, as soon as I kick this cold that leaves me too exhausted to exercise.

The chiropractor, though, seems like a really good idea.  My insurance will cover quite a lot of it, just not as much as we’d really need it to cover.  We’re looking at needing a good $1000 of our own money to cover the rest, at the very low end of the estimate.  And while the FSA will reimburse us for that amount, we didn’t stash away money with that expense in mind, so there’s not quite enough for that and all the other expected expenditures.  So, along with all our other savings and debt-reduction projects, I’m also going to start saving money away for us to take care of this.

Justin’s going to bring home pizza, milk, and Oreo cookies tonight, to celebrate the end of a stupid idea.  I’ve got several pages of writing sitting, waiting for review and edit.  And I’ll add a column on the budget spreadsheet to track chiropractic savings.

I’m wearing black, wide-legged pants that float a little when I walk, topped with a black turtleneck.  Over that, I’m wearing a lavender scarf/pashmina following one of the styles in Amy’s video reference.  I feel slender.  I feel stylish.  And I feel beautiful.

Also, my navel is looking really fantastic.  It was a little irritated this morning, but looks better now.  It’s already much better than it was just a couple days ago.  The piercing holes are not nearly as purple and it hasn’t been oozing at all.  And I’m pretty sure there’s no smell!  Now, if that’s not an improvement, I’m not sure what is.