Oy vey. So my goal of writing every day in October has not turned out quite the way I planned. While I could count email writing as a daily event, it’s not getting my book finished. Part of the problem is time. I’m constantly running for job to home, to gym, to home, etc. But the other part is, quite honestly, that I tend to overcommit — or maybe I just overestimate the amount of time I have available. I end up working on other’s projects and not my own. There’s a problem here…but I daresay it’s a common one.

So my challenge for November will be to write 5 days out of 7, in an effort to be honest with what I am capable of. Reality is — I like helping others, doing my side projects, and relaxing, None of which are a bad thing, and in large part, much of which helps me be more of who I am. But I do need to focus on my own work. So I’ll do my darndest to do so.

In the meantime…this is technically writing.

I spent the evening with a group of writers. Each of us talented, each struggling to get back into the groove. Most of us write fiction, several screenwriters, one poet — but our reasons for our less-than-verbose behaviors came down to life taking precedence over our writing.

And I realize that even as I write that, it’s not entirely true. Life can take over at points, but at certain moments, we could make a different choice. We could choose to take a few minutes most days and write a few words. It’s simply easier not to start at all.

Note: I said easier. I didn’t say anything about healthier or good for you.

Just like organic foods, writing nourishes the writer in a way I don’t think we can even define for ourselves. Yet we allow it to pass us by, in large part because we don’t take it seriously, and perhaps because we don’t realize the true value it offers in our lives, the ways it changes us during our non-writing hours. We don’t see that the very practice we’re afraid to start, is the very thing that can make us whole.

Hence why I committed to write every day this month. I’ve missed a few days due to my neck injury. But I’m still writing, every day. It’s not easy, and I didn’t even feel like doing it tonight in the simple form of a blog post. But I’m doing it.

What are you putting off today that you should do? Not the laundry, or some other menial task that we perform without appreciation. Rather, something good for your soul, something that you love to do, but don’t, because it takes up time, or it scares you to start, or there are other things that demand your time? What could you do in even a half hour a day, set aside for just that activity? Fifteen minutes? Chances are, it will be worth it. Chances are that this will change you in subtle ways you don’t even realize, but others will. So get to it. The first few times are the toughest. Soon it becomes routine, a habit, and that’s when the magic happens.

For those who don’t know, I’ve been sick since December, 2011. Bloating, weight gain, severe fatigue, irritability. First, they tested my thyroid, then my cortisol levels. While my thyroid numbers were off, they fluctuated widely. I finally went to a D.O. who lives on the fringes of medicine, and he discovered: I have candida overgrowth. Okay, fine. So he prescribed the diet, a mild antifungal prescription, and off I went. Being the perfectionist I am, I took the diet seriously. I’m already gluten-free and Paleo/Primal, so what’s a little more restriction? It’s now almost four months later. I’ve followed the diet, seen moderate improvements. The fatigue has mostly receded, as well as the odd white coating on my tongue (yes, it is gross). But the bloating and weight gain remain. I don’t feel right, and I’m continuing to pack on pounds, despite a very clean diet and working out. Every naturopathically inclined doctor I’ve seen, and my personal trainer, has recommended I get off birth control. However, since children are not in my future, I have chosen to stay on it. Until this week.

I was doing some calculating about when I started to feel awful. It turns out, I switched from Bayer’s Yaz to Beyaz. My gyno told me it was no big deal: same pill, just Beyaz has added folate. Um, okay, whatever that is. So I switched from Yaz to Beyaz around the end of last year. Coincidence? Sure. Until I started trying to figure out any other change that happened in my life around that time. I was happy, life was moving in the right direction, it was a great holiday. The only change was my birth control.

So I did some digging. Turns out Bayer added folate to Yaz because the drug tends to the level of folate in women taking it. Of course, you only need this increased level of folate if you get pregnant. You see the logic in this is sound, eh? But that aside, Bayer did not have to do new clinical trials before getting the FDA stamp of approval for Beyaz. They used the same clinical trials from Yaz, even though it now has an added ingredient. A harmless ingredient, you say? But is it? (Not to mention, this man can’t get through the FDA — in fact, they’ve tried to arrest him — even though he’s found the cure to cancer, but Bayer can add ingredients to their drugs, and it’s no big deal).

Plenty of women say no, Beyaz is different from Yaz. An anonymous reviewer said this:

This pill is awful! i had been taking this pill for 3 1/2 months. I never felt so awful, I am very healthy 31 year old and Im not one to get side effects with medication. I had abdominal pain, heart burn, arm numbness and tingling, problems with my inner ear from fluid retention, dizzyness, lightheadness, headaches, but the worse of it all was the shortness of breath, and thoracic pain. I cant believe that I ever took this pill, I am a RN and should’ve done my research! I would not recommended it to anyone, in fact I believe to be dangerous.

And there’s plenty more where that came from.

This reviewer experienced significant issues when she switched from Yaz to the supposed mirror drug, Beyaz:

I was on Yaz for about a year and really didn’t have any problems. I switched to BeYaz in November of 2010 and it has wrecked havoc on my body. I was so extremely fatigued I had to rest all the time, irritable, couldn’t sleep well, hair loss and worst of all gained almost 25 lbs with no change in diet. I went to the Dr. and he ran over $1,000 of test and only thing he found was my cortisol was pretty high. Endocrinologist found nothing wrong. I decided on my own to stop taking the BeYaz and WOW! I feel much better. I felt like I was crazy, but only after 5 day’s off of the pill, I almost feel normal again. I will have the Cortisol checked again in a month or two to see if it’s normal again. Has anyone else experienced this? I just really wonder if there was that much difference in the two versions YAZ vs. BEYAZ. Thanks for any help on this.

And finally, you have the lawsuit over Yaz, Yazmin, their generics, and Beyaz. The risks to women have been downplayed in favor of the exaggerated benefits of the pill.

What does all of it mean? Honestly, I don’t know. For me personally, I’ve had extreme moodiness this past year, severe bloating and weight gain (10+ lbs, with no change in diet, and I’m an uber clean eater), and brutal cramping and menses. And the start date for all this joy coincides with the time when I switched from Yaz to Beyaz. Could it be the birth control? Considering that weight loss and gain are directly connected to our hormones, and what is a birth control pill but a synthetic hormone…it’s not a wild leap. Only time will tell. But the lack of information available to women, the fact that we are not getting the straight dope from our doctors, and that drug companies are conveniently passed through the FDA without appropriate testing…all of this makes me extraordinarily uneasy. Downright angry, if this ends up being the cause of my misery these last 10 months. As someone who strongly supports a woman’s right to control her body and make choices about reproduction, that we are receiving wrong information about drugs that are potentially dangerous but are handed out like candy…it’s left me both exhausted and terrified for women.

Have you switched birth control? What has been your experience? Leave a comment below.

I had the privilege to attend a beautiful wedding this past weekend, witnessing the nuptials of two people I truly like and admire. However, being a second (or third?) marriage for each, a gift was a tough thing to ponder. What do you buy a couple who is past the first time married jitters? At the bride’s request: food. So I made these.

From: Against All Grain

Ingredients (yields 1 dozen)

2½ cups blanched almond flour, sifted
2 tablespoons coconut flour
1½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon ginger
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon cardamom
dash of sea salt
1/3 cup maple syrup (honey for SCD)
½ cup pumpkin puree
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla (I used 1 TBSP as I love vanilla)

Icing

1 tablespoon raw honey
2 tablespoons coconut butter (also called coconut manna or creamed coconut) Note: you can make your own with coconut flakes and a good food processor
2 tablespoons coconut milk
1 teaspoon palm shortening (I used butter)
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon vanilla beans (or 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract) I used the extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix together the dry ingredients in a small bowl.

In the bowl of a stand mixer (or for a smoother texture, food processor), combine the maple, pumpkin, egg, and vanilla.

Slowly incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet while the mixer is running.

Scoop golf-ball size balls of dough onto a lined cookie sheet. Press down lightly with your palm to flatten them a bit.

Bake for 18 minutes at 350 degrees. Let cool completely.

While the cookies are cooling, make the icing by pureeing all of the ingredients in a blender or small food processor. Leave at room temperature until you are ready to frost the cookies.

For me it made 16, and they were wonderful. Just okay coming out of the oven, but once they were cooled, the cookies melt in your mouth, and the glaze is killer good.

Because I’m tired of the bullshit. I’m sick to death of health insurance benefits that don’t cover what is needed, but charge me out the ass for coverage I may never need.

I’m tired of worrying over what doctor to see because too many of them are too overwhelmed in paperwork, too steeped in conventional wisdom, too jaded to give a crap about modern discoveries, to even bother asking what we are eating and how we are pooping before prescribing a g-ddamn pill. Who focus more on symptoms than causes, and treat our bodies as though they are moronic, self-defeating enemies, rather than brilliant, self-sufficient entities that often only need the right fuel and a little TLC to fix its own problems.

I’m weary of dealing with an illness I didn’t know existed, and never knew I could get — and now can’t get rid of.

I’m worn out listening to the news and politics, knowing that no matter what candidate we get, as woman I’ll continue to worry about my right to make choices for my body, and my gay friends right to feel like a g-ddamn human being with equal rights.

I could keep going, but there is no point. I can be tired, irritated, pissed, angry, and frustrated. Tomorrow will still be another day, the sun will still rise. And I’ll get over my angst and prepare for a new week. Because despite ourselves, we are optimistic, even at our lowest points. We keep going, believing that something better will eventually come our way.

So I go forth.

Each day I wake to NPR, rehashing the latest political gyrations from either party. No longer is it even interesting, or mildly entertaining. I find it depressing, at best. At worst, it is insulting and demoralizing to us as a nation.

What do we gain in our arguments? Who wins when we find ourselves embattled against each other, pitting hateful emails, conversations, and rhetoric, determined to punch a whole in the already war-torn armor of our opposition? Yet we encourage it, courtesy of our news media.

I’m not say that we should never discuss politics. But I fail to understand the bitterness and lust that guides otherwise honest folks to be outright liars, to resist researching their facts before spewing them, and creating rifts in relationships all over an election that symbolizes little more than power fighting against another power. Don’t get me wrong — I think it matters. But not nearly as much as our relationships do, our families and our friends and our support of each other. We can disagree on politics, have some discussion about differing viewpoints, but when we choose to trade-in our friends for our ideological viewpoints, we’ve lost something greater than argument.

We’ve lost our spirit. And I’ve got news for you, if your guy (or perhaps one day, gal) wins, they aren’t going to comfort you when you lose your job, get turned down for healthcare due to a pre-existing condition, or come up against any number of other government exclusions that affect all of us at some point. No, your friends will be — if you haven’t gone so far during the election season to lose all of them.

At work today, I was asked to speak at our new student orientation. Never one to back down from a chance at a mic, I agreed quickly, then wondered what I would say. What can you offer people who are at the start of a journey, that is going to mean anything before they understand what it encompasses?

This is what I came up with.

1. Talk to your friends and family, your children and the closest people to you. Remind them that what you do today is going to affect your lives in a positive way — it’s the steps towards the long-term goal. But there may be times when you are stressed, cranky, and irritable. You won’t have time to do it all, all the time. Some things will suffer as you work hard on this journey. But those are small sacrifices in view of the big picture.

2. Get rid of the trash in your life. The negative people who clutter up your Twitter or Facebook, or even your kitchen table. Unsubscribe from them. If they are close family members, choose not to listen to them. If they are friends, find new ones. Do not allow those that would deter you from your path, to succeed in doing so.

3. Look closely at those failures you clutch so tightly. Are they really failures? Or are they your truest successes, because they are what brought you to the place you are now, at this exact time, in these circumstances? You are destined for this path, and it will look much different in the coming years, as you move from the place you are to the place you want to be. Change never leaves us the same. You are choosing this path, this different action to achieve a better future. Keep going.

I doubt Anthony Robbins is going to be worried about his job anytime soon, but hopefully it offered them something to make the journey easier.

And damn, I love my job.

How do we accept our emotions? This question came up tonight in a conversation, and I felt compelled to offer an answer. How do we accept ourselves and our reactions to things, and let them be? It seems we are always pulling or pushing ourselves to match up to some image in our head that is better than we think we are. So rather than appreciating our unique responses to life, we insist we be like someone else. None of which is effective for our mental health and self image.

So how do we let go of this image of perfection? Obviously, as someone dealing with body issues, it’s a topic that’s been a focus of attention for me for several months. It comes down to habit. Telling yourself a different thought, consistently, over time. Eventually, you stop beating up on yourself long enough to actually hear your words. And after more time passes, you listen to them. Slowly, it becomes a new habit, and you can let the old habit — perfection — go.

Is it easy? No. But it is necessary, if we are to ever be truly happy.

I wrote this article several months ago, pointing out that in order to write, one must, well, write. So I did, and quite spectacularly for some time…until I took on more hours at my second job. Then with understanding, I had to put writing on the shelf and focus on the credit card bill payoff.

What I didn’t anticipate was how hard it would be to return. For example, I’m writing this blog post rather than working on my WIP. In fairness, I did promise to blog something every day, which is what I’m doing now, but still…excuses crop up.

For some reason when I take some time off from putting my thoughts into words, I get nervous upon my return. As though it’s been some imagined skill, and in reality, I can’t write very well, just as my junior English teacher told me. Or perhaps I’ll never good enough to get anything published anyway, beyond the odd essay or  short story. Or worse yet, I’ve wasted tens of thousands of dollars on degrees, that in reality mean little in the writing world.

But I also have a tiny voice in my gut that reminds me that these excuses are bullshit. That in reality, I need to get back to what I know I need to do. That moaning about my illegitimacy as a writer, my fear of my own deception is a stall tactic.

Like say, writing this post.

So I suppose I’d best take my own guilt trip.

Go write.

So I fell off the writing horse this last month, what with teaching three nights a week, and grading on weekends. It was a known flaw in my plan, one that had no answer. But now that the term is over, and I’m no longer working two jobs, I can return to my first love: writing.

But there’s a slight problem.

I’m scared.

Yeah, it’s surprised me to. I mean, come on, I’ve been writing since I was 11. How hard is it? But I recognize the excuse I’ve used the last few days when I might have had a few moments to write: I’m tired. I’m not sure what to write. Should I rewrite the old, or invent the new? It’s not enough time. I should do [fill in the blank]. Etc. If you write or are creative in any way, you know what I mean. It’s as though the very thing you love has become the one thing you fear. And it’s not fear, like from a horror movie. It’s fear of failure. Fear that perhaps you cannot do it anymore. That what you once thought was good, will now be atrocious and embarrassing.

So in an effort to overcome this irrational reaction, I’m committing to write every day in October. For 31 days, I will post on this blog — either my progress with my WIP of choice. Or I will write something on this blog. But daily, it will be updated. Because I am not one to be beaten, dammit, and I’m not going to start with some nameless, faceless, petty fear. No indeed.

Here I go.