Deferred Maintenance

It's been a long week.  A really long week.  A really really really really long week.  It turns out that when you continue to live with a high level of stress day in and day out and don't really do anything to either address the source of the stress or work on doing things to reduce your stress level you might (just might) find yourself in the middle of an extended anxiety attack.  That's where I found myself on Tuesday morning. Based on Joel's insistance, I called my doctor to make an appointment - but not before going to work first and checking in to make sure the project I'm working on was going to be alright.  Seriously, I don't prioritize well.  Based on the symptoms I described on the phone the doctor's office asked me to come in immediately.  The second time they took my blood pressure it was 160/90.  I don't know what the first reading was but the nurse said that at 160/90 she was glad to see it dropping.  I had an EKG and some other tests and I've been given a couple of prescriptions . . . one for blood pressure and another for the crazy.  Joel has been absolutely wonderful throughout all of this and told me (in what I know he means as a compliment) that he can't believe I've held it together as long as I have.  I don't think any of this is going to get better overnight but I'm hoping that a weekend away with friends - friends who are like sisters and have known me since I was eighteen - is the first step I need to start doing things differently.  Below is the post I wrote last summer before heading off to see my girls and what was true then is even more true today - friends really are the chocolate chips in the great cookie of life. 

Same time - Last Year

Vanessa, Julie, Kelli and Lahoma

Centre College

Longer ago than I would like to believe

     It's a "Girls' Weekend" weekend - and just in time too.  Earlier this week I didn't think I was going to be able to make the trip to Lexington, but my sweet husband sensed that I was about to wade into the deep end of the crazy pool and kindly suggested that I pack my bag and get in the car tomorrow morning and drive north so that he could enjoy a day or two of peace and quiet I could get away from life for awhile and have a relaxing afternoon and evening with my girls.  Friends are definitely the chocolate chips in the great cookie of life.