The Zen Leaf

Wellness Wednesday #20: Surgery

Posted on January 13, 2016 by Thistle

Once upon a time, I had rockin’ abs. That’s what swimming competitively with cross-training for five years will do for you, heh. Then I got married, got pregnant, got stretchmarks, got loose skin, and got really, really messed up abs. And all the body-image issues that came with them.

True Confessions
I detest those articles that talk about “embracing” your stretchmarks from pregnancy, accepting them as the cost or “tiger stripes” from having a kid. I hate them because the pictures shown always include women with beautiful stomachs etched with a few cute little stretchmarks from place to place. They don’t show the ugly kinds of scaring. My kind of scaring. During my first pregnancy, I didn’t have a mark on me until around eight months, when suddenly every single centimeter of my abdomen was covered with little wiggles. Post-birth, I was left with jello for skin over a section of my body the size of a serving platter. With my second child, I developed eight sun-stripe scars upwards out of the mass of wiggle, some of them thicker than a centimeter. With my third, my lower pelvis scarred so badly that there was no unscarred skin, and it looked like I had been burned all the way across my lower belly. Additionally, my 10-lb-baby caused my abdominal muscles to separate and my skin to flop over and sag onto my legs.

I’m not going to show pictures here. This is too public a location. What I will say is that two years ago today, I underwent extensive abdominal surgery. This involved putting my stomach muscles back together – they’d been separated five whole inches – and the removal of 2.5-lbs of skin. I didn’t lose a lot of weight from the surgery, but it completely changed the shape of my body:

before & after

before & after

before and after

In It Was Me All Along, Andie Mitchell says:

Somehow, though, despite the visible scars, I felt more comfortable, more accepting of my body. There, in the mirror, was all that I’d worked for. I did it, I thought. Blemishes and all, it was earned, and it was mine. Removing the skin brought me closure. And I respected what remained.

This is how I felt when I was through all the pain and recovery from surgery. I weighed roughly the same, but I was wearing pants two sizes smaller. I could zip my wedding dress up for the first time in well over a decade. My skin was too scarred to see any abdominal definition, but I no longer cared. I loved those scars, and even the bit of loose, wiggly skin that remained. I went out and bought a bikini. I felt empowered and wonderful!

And I admit, one of the biggest reasons I’ve not felt nearly as bad about my body after regain is because of that surgery. I’m bigger than I have been in five years, but I still have my body shape, and there isn’t one huge part of me that I’m self-conscious about. I’m not confident every day or anything, but I have days when I am, and that’s a huge difference from before, when even at a healthy weight, I hid as much as I could because of my stomach.

So today, I celebrate. I may not be nearly as thin or healthy as I was right before or after that surgery, but I still love my stomach, and love what this surgery did for my body and my self-esteem. I wouldn’t change it for the world.

PS – I highly recommend Birthmarkings, a documentary about the post-birth body. This started my body-positivity journey several years ago. The last woman interviewed (around 16:48) was so close to how I looked post birth, and there are so very many different kinds of bodies and scarring represented throughout. It’s not a cute-tiger-stripes kind of deal. It’s amazing!

Posted in Wellness | Tagged body image, Wellness Wednesday | 7 Comments

Callback: The Way of Kings (audio)

Posted on January 11, 2016 by Thistle

Note: Because this is a re-review, there will be book spoilers. My original review of The Way of Kings is spoiler-free.

I admit it: I didn’t want to reread this book. It’s long. Over 1000 pages. And back in 2012, when I read it the first time, I struggled with a good chunk of it. (The first 400 pages, my original review tells me.) I love Sanderson, and I enjoyed this book, but it wasn’t nearly the adored-reading-experience I had with some of his other novels. Unfortunately, I put off reading Words of Radiance (book 2) long enough – too intimidated – that when I tried to read it, I had no idea what was going on, and didn’t recognize the characters. A reread was in order.

My memories of The Way of Kings were vague. I remembered Kaladin and a tiny bit about how he was made a slave, and I remember a few little things about his bridge crew. I remembered a storyline about a scholar and her ward, and the assassination attempt on the scholar’s life by a fake priest, though I remembered no names or details. I remembered Szeth’s name and generally how he was used in the book. I remembered Hoid telling a long story at night. I didn’t remember the Parshendi, or why there was war, or that spren existed at all, or most character names. My impressions were vague: some twists and betrayals, a few memorable scene snapshots, and my annoyance that a huge chunk at the end left out the scholar-plotline (my favorite).

I chose the audio format for my revisit, despite the 46-hour length. In a way, I think I was ready for a big long intricate chunky reread. The book was much easier to get into this time around – probably because I recognized a lot of the world and story as the reread went on – and I enjoyed the cinematic quality of the book-read-aloud. I often find that books stick better in the long run if I listen to them, and I think that may be the case here, too. While I still didn’t love it as much as Mistborn, I certainly loved it far more this time around. And I was eager to dive right into the 49-hour audio sequel.

A few thoughts:

Spren are fascinating and I can’t wait to understand them better.
I was still annoyed at the long absence of Shallan and Jasnah in the latter quarter of the book.
The symbol-headed creatures scared the crap out of me. Creepy. I can’t believe I didn’t remember them at all!
The revisiting gave me a wider perspective on the events here, so that I understood much more of the motives and timelines and historical stuff.
I get really tired of battle/fighting scenes. Yes, this is a book about a culture at war. Yes, the fighting is an important part of many of the main characters’ lives. Yes, Sanderson writes these sections well. BUT. I just get bored when the fighting goes on and on and on. This was particularly noteworthy during the long absence of Shallan and Jasnah.
I’m still totally in love with Sanderson’s attention to group friendship dynamics. He is the very best at writing those!

As for the audio performance, read by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading: I enjoyed it more than expected. Reading is one of my audio favorites, but Kramer isn’t. I liked the way he read this one, though, and I think I’ll continue to listen to this series when I can. Though I’ll still buy the books, because illustrations.

Posted in 2016, 2017, 2020, Adult, Prose | Tagged audio, callback, Cosmere, divinity, reread | 4 Comments

Sunday Coffee – Callbacks

Posted on January 10, 2016 by Thistle

It’s no secret that I adore rereads. Sometimes, though, my long years of blogging have led me to skipping rereads, especially of books I’ve previously reviewed. In my early blog-days, I used to put up second reviews – Crossed Wires and We being good examples – but I quit doing this over the last few years. I plan to correct that mistake and do more of these re-reviews in the near-future.

I’ve gotten an itch to read many of the books from my early years of blogging. Love Walked In. Airman. Warbreaker. Lady Audley’s Secret. Etc. I’ve let the already-reviewed status keep me from these rereads. No more.

Callback reviews will reexamine, with different eyes, books I’ve already featured here on the blog. I can’t say how often they’ll appear, and perhaps they’ll appear in waves as the mood strikes. The first of them will show up tomorrow, as I just finished re-listening to a book first read/reviewed in 2012.

I admit: this whole project excites me. As I said above, I adore rereads, and I’m happy to finally give myself permission to re-review as well!

Posted in Book Talk | Tagged Sunday Coffee | 11 Comments

My True Love Gave to Me, by Multiple Authors

Posted on January 8, 2016 by Thistle

My True Love Gave to Me is a collection of twelve holiday short stories by different YA authors, including several of my favorites. Five of the authors were ones I’d read before, the rest new-to-me. This was my experience:

This book came out in 2014, but I only heard of it this year through Laini Taylor on Twitter. Discovering Rainbow Rowell was also on the docket just cemented my decision to dive into these stories!
I began reading the stories on Christmas, one story per day for each of the twelve days of Christmas. This helped each story to feel fresh, and for me to not get burned out as I often do reading story collections.
As expected for me and story collections, I found the book to be a bit uneven. I’d say that over all, I enjoyed about half the book (pretty high for me and collections).
While I was indifferent to several stories, there was only one I downright hated. No, I won’t say which one. I will say it came from an unknown-to-me author.
The title calls these “holiday stories,” and indeed they are, however they could more accurately be called “holiday love stories.” Every single one had a love story of sorts, and I felt like some stories would have been better and more powerful without the love parts.
Some stories felt like short stories. Some felt like condensed novels. Some felt like stories that could be developed into novels.
Two stories felt derivative of two very popular holiday movies.
One story felt like a rehash of that author’s previous works, complete with exact-same-scenes and character-names, though not the same characters/stories from those previous works.
Two stories started out kinda meh for me, but eventually grew on me until I loved them. Awesome!
The first story (by Rainbow Rowell) was the perfect opener, a sweet little story.
The last story (by Laini Taylor) was the perfect ender, a fantastic fairy tale.
My favorite, however, came from an unknown-to-me author, who also happened to be the editor of the book – Stephanie Perkins. Her story, “It’s a Yuletide Miracle, Charlie Brown,” turned me into a grinning, book-hugging fool, and I think perhaps it’s time I check out some of her other works. Hopefully her novels turn out to be as good as her short story here!

And there you have it: twelve observations, twelve stories, and a big long twelve-days-of-Christmas finish.

Posted in 2016, Prose, Young Adult | Tagged collection, comfort | Leave a comment

Wellness Wednesday #19: Yoga

Posted on January 6, 2016 by Thistle

Let me start my first Wellness Wednesday of 2016 with a little bit of facetiousness. I GAINED a lot in 2015, including a lovely 50 lbs and 30 inches. Boo. But I’m tired of focusing on negative gains, and I’m tired of whining about how awful 2015 was. Let it go, let it go. *cue Elsa*

You shall all sing!

It’s time to acknowledge the positive gains, and let those bring me into a good foundation for 2016. Those would be:

a mental health diagnosis that put 25 years of illness and struggle into perspective, and started me on a path toward healing
an understanding and appreciation for particular psychological and psycho-social needs, such as attachment theory, touch therapy, roots of addiction, and the affects of breath and meditation on the body and anxiety issues
the ability to draw my friends in close without putting up self-protective barriers
an amazing social support network that literally saved my life
a promise and commitment previously withheld and denied and broken
a lovely new home in the heart of where I belong
an inkling of where I want to move my future career path
an emerging and evolving ability to love my body regardless of weight and size
understanding
hope

Lastly, I made the great discovery of yoga this past year, and it’s on this discovery, this gain, that I’m beginning the new year.

True Confessions
I didn’t hate Eat Pray Love the way so many others did. I didn’t love it to pieces, but I enjoyed the book, and the section that takes place in India has particularly stuck with me. I don’t have any particular faith or religion, nor am I an atheist. I could best be described as an agnostic human secularist. However, I am very interested in the foundations of various religions, particularly those outside my upbringing (ie NOT christian). I grew up without any exposure to yoga, especially as a religious practice. Let me state for the record that I still know very little about it in this context, and don’t believe Eat Pray Love taught me anything about it. What it did do was pique my interest in using yoga as a way to connect with my body and internal emotional state. Bessel van der Kolk increased that interest in an article about yoga and PTSD, prompting me to read The Body Keeps the Score last year.

My approach to yoga in 2015 was cautious, hesitant, and unsure. I was afraid to take a class because I knew nothing about the practice, and so I ordered videos from the library and tried them out. I asked for suggestions from friends, and checked out online video-classes. Some were awful, some were wonderful, and some were obviously not for me. In using the wonderful ones, I discovered just how much yoga helped me physically, mentally, and emotionally. It became especially important to me as a grounding exercise for when my anxiety and PTSD symptoms grew so bad that I began dissociating (ie being suddenly unable to feel random body parts, or feeling like I was separate from my body altogether).

I had to give up yoga this past August when I sprained my ankle. It’s been more than four months now, and while my foot is nowhere near fully healed – it was a full foot-sprain, I’ve since been told, and will take a year to heal, sigh – I can finally do things like sit cross-legged and stand on the foot if I hold onto a wall for balance. So I have to modify my yoga, and skip anything that involves moving my foot into particular positions, but that’s okay. I’m okay. There’s been a hole ripped into me for much of the last few years, and I’m learning to fill it up with something other than food, alcohol, and tears. Learning to breath, to balance, to center myself, to meditate. To heal from the inside out.

Posted in Wellness | Tagged health, psychology, Wellness Wednesday | 4 Comments

Top Ten 2016 Bookish Resolutions

Posted on January 5, 2016 by Thistle

As I said in my last Wellness Wednesday post, I don’t feel great about making solid goals or plans for this year. It’s really time for me to take the pressure off. Having said that, I do have some resolutions in the book and blog realms of my life. I’m not sure if these will happen, and if they don’t, that’s okay. But this is how I’d like my 2016 to go.

1. I have 28 books on my priorities list in 2016. These include books on my physical or virtual TBR, highly anticipated 2016 releases, and the books currently on my “to investigate” list (GoodReads). By the end of 2016, I’d like these books to be either read or culled from my list. (Or, in the case of delayed publishing dates, moved to a 2017 list.)

2. Beyond these book priorities, I’d like my reading year to be veeeeery laid back. As in, I’d be totally happy reading only those priority books next year. I imagine I’ll read twice that, at least, but if I don’t, hey, that’s okay.

3. I also want to be picky about books added to my to-investigate pile. Test books right away and cull often.

4. I’d like to spend some of that laid back time revisiting books. There are some old favorites I haven’t touched in years, and some books from early in my blog years that I’d love to re-experience, books I’d like to try on audio, etc. If half my 2016 books come from rereads, I’d be totally happy.

5. I want to reinforce good habits that I’ve started to get away from: if a book isn’t catching me, don’t read it. If a book is “just okay,” don’t bother finishing it. It’s better to read a lot fewer books and have the abandoned ones pile up, than to have dozens of books at the end of the year that I can’t even remember.

6. I doubt this’ll happen, but it would be awesome if 50% of my reading came from audiobooks in 2016. Of course, there’s a limitation – the library system only has so many audiobooks, and I’m super picky about narrators – so it probably won’t happen. Still, I’d like to have a significant listening portion to the year. With lots of walking to go along with it.

7. I’d like to be much more laid back on the blog. With all the chaos this year, I let myself stress-blog too often. Stress-blogging basically means drafting and drafting and drafting, sometimes months in advance, and having very detailed structures of what, when, and how to post. And while stress-blogging makes me feel better in the moment, it eventually burns me out, and I don’t want that to happen again!

8. Along similar lines, I’d like to seriously reduce my blogging frequency in general. I tend to go overboard in one area of my life or another, and blogging is an easy one to get carried away with. I really need to address the sources of my stress/anxiety and my need to post-post-post-write-write-write, and not just indulge them.

9. I’d like to give myself the freedom to sway. If a bookish event comes around and I want to read a whole bunch all at once, or post every day for two weeks, or whatever, that’s okay. If I get involved in a writing project, or go on vacation, or have family things to deal with, it’s okay if I don’t post on the blog for a few weeks. It’s also okay if I’ve planned for these things and I schedule posts during this time. Basically, I give myself the freedom to read and blog however I want, while not giving myself the freedom to use blogging as an excuse to avoid other parts of my life (an all too frequent habit).

10. Lastly, as a fun goal/resolution, I plan to go to Half Price Books once per quarter and attempt to restock my home library, since I seriously over-drained it this past fall. Woohoo!

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Posted in Book Talk, Personal | Tagged goals, lists | 11 Comments

Sunday Coffee – Out with the Old, In with the New

Posted on January 3, 2016 by Thistle

December is always a very quiet time for me. Usually, I have a pretty crazy November, and by December, I just want to sit back with rereads and relax. Sometimes I reread books I haven’t read in a long time. Sometimes I reread books that I read earlier in the same year. December was a lovely combination of rereading Carry On and re-listening to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, followed by starting a re-listen of The Way of Kings.

Mostly, though, December was all about putting 2015 behind me. For a long time, I’ve felt like I was hiking up a steep hill with rocks in sacks hung over my shoulders to weigh me down. When the hill was very steep, it was a struggle for every step – but the funny thing about hills is that eventually there’s a peak, and usually the slope evens out and becomes far less steep as the peak approaches. For a time, it looks like there’s no grade at all, while you still feel the upward struggle. This is where I’ve been over the last few months, feeling like I should be having an easier time of things, and yet still stumbling and falling every few days.

I don’t know if I’m over the peak now, but I felt a kind of click when I woke up on Friday morning. I’d dreaded January 1st. I didn’t feel ready. The road didn’t feel like it was flattening out. It felt like there was more distance upward to cover. Maybe there is, but on Friday morning, there was a distinct change in landscape. It felt like a new year, like something had changed. It’s too early to know for sure if something has, but even the idea of change is a much-welcomed relief. I’m so ready to be done with the old.

And so I spent the day welcoming in the new year. Six friends came over for brunch and we ended up talking for four hours over coffee, juice, fruit, breakfast tacos, egg muffins, baked oatmeal, fried potatoes, and lemon blueberry muffins. I was so caught up in everything that I didn’t even remember to get a photo of us this time!

This is how I want to spent 2016. I want to cherish my time with friends and family. I want to relax and socialize and heal. Regardless of whether or not I’m past the peak and ready to make my journey down the other side of this ridiculous mountain, it’s time to start pulling rocks out of these damn sacks and slowly releasing the extra weight off my shoulders.

Posted in Book Talk, Personal | Tagged Sunday Coffee | 7 Comments

Top Moments of 2015

Posted on December 31, 2015 by Thistle

It’s no secret that 90% of this year has been completely awful and wretched for me. There were, however, a few wonderful moments that really sustained me and kept me moving forward. In today’s post, I’d like to celebrate the best of those happy moments. In the order that they happened:

1. Meeting Ceri: Early in the year, I got to meet one of my oldest blogging friends!

2. Superhero: In March, I traveled to San Antonio to visit friends and family. The entire trip was wonderful, but my favorite part was walking the Run 4 Hope 5K with friends, and running “like superheroes” toward the finish line.

3. Travel: Over spring break, my family visited Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. My friend Stephanie came up to visit (twice) and we also went to New Hampshire. Then in May, my family went to Niagara and I got to walk across the border into Canada. Yes!

4. CAMELS!: While on spring break, I got to ride a camel. Enough said.

5. Love wins: I got the news of the Supreme Court decision on the day we left Massachusetts. It was a really, really good day.

6. Home: This involves a whole host of things. A four-day road-trip down to Texas that didn’t cause me severe anxiety (unlike the trip up in 2014). Falling in love with a house that we’d bought on faith, having never seen it in person. Just being home in general, around everyone and everywhere I loved and knew well.

7. Gavroche: The newest addition to our family came to us only a few days after we arrived. He may be a devil cat, but I love him to bits. This is our little guy at seven months old (late November).

8. Housewarming: Shortly after I arrived back in Texas, I held a small housewarming party with a few good friends. It was sooooo good to see everyone again, and I need to have another gathering like this soon!

9. Tarot: The Raven’s Prophecy Tarot Deck has pretty much revolutionized the way I view tarot, and I’m completely in love.

10. Book Blogger Bash: Was there any doubt that meeting Andi, Amanda, and Trish would end up on this list? Hell no! I had more fun in that three-day vacation than I’d had for months!

11. Christmas: Well, there’s not much more I need to say here that I didn’t already say in my Christmas post, right? I’m home.

Honestly? Writing this post has really made me happy, because I realized that even though most of the year has been so negative, I’ve had some really wonderful moments, too. That sounds silly, given the introduction above, but I mean it. There’s a difference between knowing something logically, and really understanding it, seeing it all laid out as you type. Then there are all the other happy moments that have no pictures, no posts, no specific recordings. There’s a therapist’s kindness, and a sudden brightening of the future, and the cutest dog in the world, and a mother’s pride, and life-changing books, and discovering a new sense of fashion, and so much more. These are the things I want to see when I look back at 2015, rather than the depression, anxiety, worry, and pain that were ever-present.

And also: here’s to more great happy moments in 2016!

Posted in Personal | Tagged end of year, lists | 5 Comments

Wellness Wednesday #18: One Word

Posted on December 30, 2015 by Thistle

It’s been a long, hard year for my health, both physical and mental. Over the last year, I’ve moved across the country, been diagnosed with PTSD, dealt with family problems and others’ diagnoses, struggled to find the right medicines and doctors, developed an eating disorder, sprained an ankle, and regained 50 lbs. Yay for health nightmares! I’m slamming the door closed on this godawful year, and looking forward to (hopefully) better overall health in 2016.

I’m not really making goals for the upcoming year, because my emotional well-being is still so very fragile, and I don’t need the extra stress. Having said that, I’ve thought a lot about the “one word” focus that Sheila talks about, and it struck me immediately that I do have a word for 2016: Healing. Rather than trying to accomplish a list of goals or tasks, I’d like to take the next year off from to-dos and instead focus on healing in mind, body, heart, and spirit/soul.

I’ve felt very stuck over the last few months, despite my best intentions to move forward in these areas. I’m unable to write, or to take steps to improve my physical health, or to properly put to bed the deferred grief that still seems to hit me in waves every few weeks. It helps that I think I’ve finally found the right doctor here, and that I’ve started sleeping without the medicinal aid again. But still, I find ways to self-sabotage, to guarantee failure, to make myself sick in mind, body, heart, soul. And I don’t want to do this. I want to heal.

Recently, I started turning to tarot to help sort out my thoughts, and that has been very helpful. Multiple readings have illuminated a few things for me: I cannot move forward (become unstuck) until I am ready to let go of the things I’ve lost and the things that are holding me back (Five of Cups). I can stay and mourn in this place as long as I need, but I need to stop pressuring myself to move forward until I’m ready to let go, and stop pressuring myself to let go until it’s time. Once it’s time, rather than trying to Heal All The Things, I need to focus first on healing the damage done to my body this last year. This does not mean “weight loss.” It means treating my body properly again – gentle movement, improved nutrition, avoiding the foods/drinks that are actively hurting me, touch-therapy and physical intimacy, speaking kindly to and about my body, and physical self-care. These are the most important, because without them, my mind is too fuzzy/consumed to heal, my emotions are too volatile for my heart/relationships to heal, and my creative energy and soul are too overwhelmed with everything else to focus on the things that heal my spirit.

This isn’t to say that all those other aspects – mind, heart, soul – are unimportant, or that I should ignore them. The last time I focused on my body, I did it with the single-mindedness of the Knight of Coins. The Knights in tarot are like teenagers, seeing the aspect of their suit (bodily and material needs, in the case of coins) as top priority, to the exclusion of all else. This is not what I need right now. What I need to be is the Queen of Coins, who focuses care and concentration on body, material needs, building a home, making the world around her safe. I need to be safe, especially from myself. So that is how I will begin 2016 – taking time to fully be ready to move forward, and then working to heal my body first, with the other parts of me to follow on a path toward whole-self recovery.

True Confessions
I’ll probably make goals, even though I say I won’t. Because that’s just who I am. I’ll probably make quiet goals that I don’t tell anyone about, and then not follow through with them because I promised myself not to make goals. Heh.

*****
Dear modern-day Manda,

Bad years are never fun and you’ve had a few rotten ones in a row. Hang on, okay? I don’t know if the next will be better, or the one after that, but one day, things will be better. Leave this one behind. When you’re ready.

Love, me

Posted in Personal, Wellness | Tagged goals, tarot, Wellness Wednesday | 14 Comments

2015 in Books

Posted on December 28, 2015 by Thistle

Once again, it’s time to look back over the year’s reading, and see how things went. For me, I had a pretty good reading year, if a little hurried in places. I read a bit more than I wanted, but I also found some real gems, so it all evened out. As usual, I’m participating in the end-of-year book survey from Jamie at The Perpetual Page-Turner, with an additional section at the end for my 2015 book stats! Also as usual, I apologize in advance for the super-long post! Continue reading →

Posted in Book Talk | Tagged end of year | 11 Comments