The leaky tap

When I was a binge eater, I never used to cry. Now I'm the complete opposite, I'm a leaky tap and anything sets me off. I don't know.. it seems like I'm just more reactionary in general than I used to be, or perhaps I am just beginning to notice when things affect me. I had a really bad day at work on Thursday. Things went pear-shaped as sometimes happens when you share a business with your sister and her ex-husband and everyone has their different view on how things should be done (that's not Sana, but the other business). So on Thursday there was a **fair amount** of friction. I expressed my feelings, even though it was a little uncomfortable and part of me felt like I'd prefer to just shut up, act dumb, and go eat a brownie. On Friday I decided to work from home and spent most of the day in tears, feeling completely miserable about the communication breakdowns. It only occurred to me late in the day that I was actually focusing on various ways of approaching the problem and was not having any urges to eat. This cheered me up considerably. Just by allowing that feeling of this seriously sucks and I feel terrible and sort of not fighting it but instead acknowledging that I was genuinely upset, I had completely de-fused the urge to binge, it wasn't there at all, not even a little bit. Previously of course I never got too upset about stuff. If something disturbed me, I would be compelled to eat. This would distract my attention from the original problem and direct it to the new problem - the overeating and the feelings of self-disgust that had been unleashed by the overeating. I hardly had a split second to notice I was feeling upset before self-medicating. So.... this is the new way... I get to feel stuff. I'm sure that will turn out to be a good thing, eventually. By the way, this is a very new development, this letting myself bawl if it's the right thing to do. It's taken me nearly 2 years of non-bingeing to get to here and it's not something I'd really thought too hard about. The healing process just seems to continue and now and then I notice that I've changed. I'll just go with it and see where I end up.

***
Tonight I discovered something that, if I hadn't just written such a 'serious' post, I would probably have to introduce as:

It completes me

Using the milk fluffing attachment on my coffee machine, I can make a perfect Chai latte. I'm so excited about this, I might just have to cry (again). When Starbucks first arrived in NZ, they used to do a really nice Chai latte, but after a month they changed and started using some awful, sugary syrup which is nothing like a real Chai. The real Chai of course brews for days, but I've short-circuited the process somewhat. I put some (trim) milk in my milk fluffling jug along with some ground cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. It's supposed to have cardamon as well, but I didn't have any. I sat the mix in the fridge overnight and then fluffed it to a good thickness. *apology* I know the milk-fluffer and the operation of milk-fluffing probably have a more technical name and I apologise to any Baristas reading for my rank amateurism and trivialisation of the fine craft of milk-fluffing *apology ends*. Once it's fluffed I stirred in some vanilla essence and a few tsps of erythritol, which is currently my sweetner of choice. Actually I've just run out of xylitol, which would be my usual choice, but the erythritol worked fine. I also made it without the soaking overnight and it was also good but not so rounded in flavour.

*Call out*

Can anyone instruct me on how to put a new banner on my blog or send me a link on how to go about it? I've gone searching on blogger and haven't really gained any clues. Any help appreciated.