The antics of my brain, lists and books, oh my!

Every time I post I say I'll post more often.  And then I don't.  But now I am.

I want to share the end of our summer with you all, but for that to happen I need to upload pictures, and I'm tired right now.  So we'll do a brief book/mental illness post for tonight.  You like how those two go together? 

We'll start with the mental illness...and I'm leery of typing this, but things are going well.  I had a really great session with my therapist in May and I haven't had a panic attack since.  I've even scaled back my meds a little - just by one increment, (and please remember - if you are on antidepressants, do not decide you are cured and go off on your own.  Most of the time you are feeling better because of the meds, and if not...cold turkey is painful.)  A little extra anxiety at the beginning of my adventures with the niecelets and nephews, but I'm pretty sure that was to be expected.  I mean, people were depending on me not to break their kids.  And I didn't.  Anyway, the past few sessions haven't felt very productive, and I realized at my last one that I was talking to her like she was one of my girlfriends.  One of my girlfriends I had to pay.  And that wasn't cool, so we've decided to take it down to once a month for a little while, and see where we go.  I, in my ignorance, didn't realize you could tailor your therapy that way - first time in therapy here.  I was all, "but I don't really think I'm "cured" you know, what if I start having problems again?" and she responds, "then you call me and make an appointment and we start seeing each other more often" and I say, "I can do that?"  Yeah, sometimes my own common sense blows me away.  So once a month.  And in talking to a girlfriend (that I don't pay) I realized maybe I could work through some of my weight and food issues with her.  Yay, more crazies!  But I have a new motto, and I shared this with a friend today, and I think I'll have it put on a t-shirt because it's so brilliant:

It's our crazies that make us interesting.

Ok, onto books, which are more fun.  My cousin got me the coolest book for my birthday this summer, and I've been playing with it.  Because I love lists.  They make me so happy - unreasonably happy, really.  The idea of taking the contents of my chaotic brain and putting it into some logical order - what fun!  So, here's what she got me:

Yay!  Lots of cool prompts, like "List the cities you plan to visit" and "List your dream jobs."  There are prompts about what you would do with a lot of money, sports you'd like to try, and healthy habits to start, which is timely, of course.  I try to write in it everyday, it's so much fun. 

As for books I've finished lately, I read Drop Dead Healthy by A.J. Jacobs and I loved it.  He has such a great style, and he's such a geek, I know I'd love him.  In this book, he decides to become the healthiest person in the world, so in addition to starting to exercise and eat better, he tries all kinds of trends and fads - paleo, the caveman workout, cayenne pepper in his breakfast, walking on a treadmill while he writes (which he ends up liking enough to continue.)  It's a great book - I love how his entire life is an experiment, and his wife has such a great sense of humor about it.

I also just finished reading The Great Gatsby again.  I read it in high school, but we are discussing it in my next classics book club, and I wanted to reread it.  Definitely glad I did, I didn't remember any of it, other than the character names.

There have been other books, including a great Jen Lancaster book, but I write about all my books in my Goodreads account, so if you want to check that out, go nuts.  I need to get to bed, I'm sleepy, and I have a lovely day planned for tomorrow.  I will get on here in the next few days and upload pics so I can write all about the last days of summer break, including the super-awesome boots my daughter chose, because you should all be aware of her incredible fashion sense. 

Pleasant dreams, friends.