Need to stay in the present moment

I confess that I have been feeling a wee bit obsessive about the gastric bypass surgery [stop laughing Z!].  Although I am able to concentrate on my work and take care of things that need to be taken care of, always in the back of my mind are thoughts about the procedure and my life afterwards.  I do have to give it props because it is a major decision and takes a whole lot of courage on my part, but I also need to be in the present day as well.  I have a lot going on that I have been procrastinating about and that's just not okay.  I received an e-mail from the graduate admissions counselor at Azusa Pacific today, gently reminding me that my deadline to submit my application for the Spring semester is about two months away.  Crap.  To my credit, I have started writing my personal essay and formulating what I will put in my vitae.  However, I do need to sign up for the certificate of clearance and taking the CBEST, let alone doing some refresher studying for it.  I also need to work on scholarships to help pay my tuition.  *Sigh.*

Something I am incredibly grateful for today, though, is that I have the next week off of work for the Thanksgiving break.  I can credit that to working in education ;-)  My mom and I are taking off to Vegas on Tuesday.  She'll be visiting part of her family and I will be visiting with family on my dad's side.  I'm looking forward to that time away and not doing any work during the week.  I have committed that to myself.  I always tend to do work during vacations and that sort of defeats the whole purpose.  On my way out of town, I will be meeting with a surgeon on Tuesday morning for a consultation.  I am quite certain everyone doesn't want me to go into the details here (trust me on that one), but I'm likely going to be having minor surgery based on the results of my recent colonoscopy.  So the surgeon needs to meet with me first, check out the area on my body that needs to be worked on and then probably schedule a surgery date.  How efficient of me for scheduling it on my way out of town.  In case you couldn't see it in my words on the screen, I was being sarcastic!  It's not exactly my idea of fun to meet with a surgeon right before heading out on a road trip, but being able to get an office visit so soon is sometimes incredibly difficult so you gotta do what you gotta do.

I'm glad to be able to relax a little bit and not think a lot about work or the things coming up in the next few months.  I will be taking my laptop with me so that I can work on my application for graduate school so I will be able to blog from the road.  Posting what is going on with me, especially the feelings that come along with activities and future surgery, is really important so that I can be honest about what I'm going through and process everything as I move along.  That's not even just about the surgery, but just my life in general.  The truth is that I don't want to go to food any more in life to have it help me deal with things that come up or used as some sort of crutch to keep me in a larger body. I definitely deserve better.