The last couple days I was frustratingly sick. Too much going on for that, though I suspect "too much going on" contributed to it. Anyway, I've caved and done some research and concluded that I have IBS. That on the top of a couple years' worth of weight gain and just overall feeling crummy brings me to an interesting place. I want to be ascetic and control myself but it never quite happens. I've been playing the "just gotta make sure I'm not being legalistic" card for a couple years now and I keep justifying lack of exercise with a variety of reasons...telling myself I should be able to eat whatever I want because my job is lousy and it's something to look forward to. Maybe looking forward to being able to climb stairs without feeling as if my life might end soon should be a new argument. A major issue for me has always been that I can come up with arguments for and against everything. I was never a bad kid, really, but when I misbehaved or did something my parents deemed punish-worthy, I didn't go the route of lying about it (as so many children do) or flat-out saying, "I did it, yes, and I'll do it again, I'll do what I want whether you punish me or not" (as my sister would). No, I was always the kid lawyer, establishing arguments for why such-and-such rule was illegitimate and, in fact, contrary to another rule (the precedence of which, of course, was established until IT ran afoul of another rule's intent). I worked hard to find the loopholes. Anyway, I've always had this affinity for those sorts of things and unfortunately it leads to my being able to talk myself out of and around things I know very well I should do a certain way. I need to stop making excuses and arguing with myself and do what I really know is best for my own health. What's even worse about all this is that my spirituality insists that I make healthy choices, and I've been negligent in regards to that as well. Part of being healthy spiritually is making healthy choices physically.

Having talked now about healthy eating, I start wondering when Panera Bread Company will start carrying their holiday bread again. We absolutely fell in love with that stuff last year. I remember driving around in the nasty sleet Christmas Eve in Mishawaka, Indiana, last year trying to find Panera Bread so we could have holiday bread for our family get-together the next day. I'd not driven in Mishawaka for quite a long time and the roads had been redone, I'd never been to the new Panera, and I couldn't see anything because of the sleet. Very few breads or desserts are worth almost dying on the eve of Christmas, but if any bread is worth it, Panera's holiday bread is.

Tonight I think we're finally going to pick up a new vacuum cleaner. We have Target gift certificates people gave us for our wedding that we keep intending to use for one, but the Target store near us NEVER has in the vacuums we want. They have two different ones on floor model display that are within our budget and would work nicely and even show up on sale occasionally in their advertisements but that store never has more than the floor models. We've committed to visiting one of our other area Targets tonight in hopes that we can get it and our floor can be clean for the Sunday School activity at our house Friday night. Cleaning up trouble spots with a hand-sweeper is fine but we're ready for the big leagues.
Once again, my journal winds and weaves past reflection and intelligence, landing on self-indulgent boring domestic ramblings.

If you don't hear from me in the next couple days, wish me luck (or pray to the deity of your choice) on the Miller Analogies Test, which I take Thursday night as a step on my way into the English Graduate program. Shouldn't be a big deal, but all I need is a rotten day that leaves me unable to come up with reasonable deduction skills for another 50 minutes.