Kelly Azuma

I’m officially off my anti-depressants Woohoo! :) That isn’t to say my head isn’t woo-woo, it still is! Every show on TV makes me cry. I’ve been watching some documentary on nhk tonight about disabled kids doing paralympics and I started bawling my eyes out, and then I watched The Secret Millionaire on tv and started crying. The withdrawal symptoms have changed. No more headaches, just woo-woo head (basically dizzy and tired), and lots of crying. Though it’s all good. I’m there, I just got to wait for my body to catch up and realise we don’t need that silly old medicine anymore :)

I met up with an old friend, Jo,  today. She called me the day before because she had a dream about me and Yasu at baseball. Funny. So she got the guilts and gave me a call because we hadn’t caught up since I came back from Japan.

We had lunch at Macca’s with her two boys. I had a double cheeseburger and fries and a choco sundae :) mmm

We had a great catch-up over burgers until the youngest boy decided to strip off his shorts and undies and streak through the restaurant without pants! Then he peed everywhere, tripped and fell over his undies that were around his ankles and laid down on the floor and wailed. Ahh kids. So that was that, and we piled them back in the car and I was dropped off on the way home.

I got home to find my inbox full of paypal money, 3 people had paid for readings! During the time I was out I had two other women call me for reiki healings as well! So I set about doing the readings…then we had dinner. I heated up some roast chicken and rice for Yasu and I had roast chicken on a roll, and we watched the Japanese ice-skating on tv. Was pretty good but some of those guys costumes look so feminine! I don’t think an Aussie would be caught dead wearing one.

Anyways, after dinner I did another reading for a friend, and then another couple of friends asked me if they could come through for a reading next week, so I’m kind of booked. :)

Yasu also decided to jump on the bandwagon tonight and asked me for a reading. He found out what synchronicity means tonight when the same thing kept coming up even with two sets of cards… he’s got a panther and a wolf as totem animals.

Tomorrow I’ve got a workshop with my teacher, and then after that we are going to Jo’s house for a sausage sizzle. Looking forward to doing some spooky stuff tomorrow and learning some new things. Jo also wants a reading in exchange for a manicure (she’s recently become a qualified nail technician), so looking forward to getting pampered too! :)

• I won another competition – free movie passes to see whatever movies I want.
• Yasu got a pay rise, making him the highest paid contractor at his company (yay).
• I caught a cold, but with reiki, managed to get over it by the end of the day.
• I’ve been a life-long nail biter, but since seeing Sarah and doing a lot of self loving, my nails just decided they would grow by themselves and I haven’t bitten them since. Yay for small miracles!
• I’m down to 25mg (one quarter) of an antidepressant pill. That is fast. Oh and little to no side effects means I can hope to be off them by the end of next week. ;)
• I’ve got PMS 17 days after starting my period, so I’m hoping that means I’m going to get a normal period for the first time in my life? That would be sweet. I usually have a cycle that ranges between 50-70 days.
• I’m going shopping for my sunnies today…I’ve been looking online but for some reason I only like the ones that cost about $400/500? Yasu reckons I have expensive taste. It might be true. I can’t imagine spending that much on one pair of sunnies though…
• Our xmas plans have changed and we are now staying in Perth. How quickly things change! We worked out the logistics of driving to Adelaide, 2 days driving there and back, and only 3 days staying there total, which means more time in the car than in Adelaide. (Yasu has 7 days off over xmas). Then my sister emailed me to say they’re having xmas dinner at her house and we’re invited, so we’ll go there instead (if #@$%%# brother isn’t going that is!).
• Pumpkin salad has become a favourite in this house and last night Yasu requested I make it. I’ve got more pumpkin, going to make something pumpkin-y tonight as a tribute to Halloween. Though won’t be answering any doorbells tonight, I hope nobody rings. (aka I don’t have candy to give out/aka we’re too kechi to buy some for possible trick or treaters/aka it’s not our culture so why should we).
• Did I mention I’m going to be teaching Japanese at the community centre? I will have my own classes from next year! Woohoo!

I think that’s it for now. If you’re celebrating Halloween I hope you have a happy one!

• I went to Yoga on Wednesday night and the teacher, Sui, told me I should give it a go anyway because when she was in a car accident and broke her wrist and had whiplash she still did yoga, and it actually made her better and strengthened her wrist and neck. So I did give it a go, and it actually wasn’t too bad. I didn’t push myself, only did as much as I could.
• Halfway through the yoga I was called into the AGM that was happening in the next room and stood for election onto the community centre committee, and won! I was sworn in that night and am now officially a member of the committee. Our next meeting is on 18^th November to decide on a few projects coming up and to set who will be doing what. I’ve already learned a whole heap of stuff, it’s really interesting.
• One of the women in my life skills course, I found out today,  is a clairvoyant and a healer. It also turned out she is going away and needed someone to stay at her beautiful house up in the hills for 4 days (weekend) while her and her husband go away. She has a mini-farm with sheep, dogs, a horse, goats, chooks, and cats and it overlooks the whole of Perth. Anyway, Yasu and I will be staying at her house over the weekend she is away, so it will be like a mini holiday of our own! Add to the fact I just love animals, so it really will be a pleasure.
• I have also been talking with a friend in Melbourne and we have made plans for me to go there in February to go to the Soundwave Music Festival together. Our favourite band, Faith No More, is playing after reuniting again, so it will be a blast. I will be staying for a few days so I can hang out with him and his wife and their two young sons who I am yet to meet! It’s been about 7 years since my last visit.
• As well as that, we are heading to Adelaide for Christmas, driving over, to stay with a high school friend of mine who just moved there with her partner, because of his work. So it’s all very exciting!
• Melbourne Cup Day is coming up on Tuesday and I’ve been invited to my Reiki Master’s house for a Cup Day party, all our ‘spooky’ friends will be there, so it will be a fun day!! Plus which one of us will be the better psychic and pick the winning horse??
• I’ve put in an early order for a good pair of sunglasses for xmas from Yasu… anyone have any ideas about good brands? I’m totally new to this… I’ve never owned a really good pair, but with the sun so bright now, and summer on the horizon, squinting is making the skin around my eyes go wrinkly so I really need to get some good ones, the darker the better.
• On the weight front, I’ve dropped another 3kg and 5cm from my waist. I’ve had some small-er clothes in my wardrobe for a while, and I can now fit into them, so yay. I haven’t really changed what I have been eating consciously, but I noticed once I started drinking 2.5 litres of water per day, and walking 3.2km per day, the craving for sweets has gone out the window. I also eat far less than I used to, it’s as if my body needs less, and I definitely can feel now when I’ve had enough.
• I bought a papa-san chair online, you know those round chairs on a frame you can sink right into? I bought one from someone else, but it was practically brand new, hardly ever used, beautiful black suede and so big and comfy. I have been meditating in it every day, and it’s sooo good. I mean I can get really comfy and the meditation is just so enhanced by that. And it was only $30 so a very good buy!
• Somehow I keep winning competitions. I won some energy saving lightbulbs last week, and this week I won a potato chips competition I entered online and received a big box of mixed potato chips from the company! I also entered another competition, and was one of 400 people worldwide to win a bunch of cool prizes which I was just notified about last night, so I’m waiting to receive them by courier!
• I felt it was time to come off the anti-depressants (Luvox) I have been on for the past 9 years. In the beginning I was taking 11 different pills in the morning and 11 pills at night. 8 of those were anti-depressants because at 22 I was suicidal after a personal incident. From there it all just snowballed and I ended up with all these pills after seeing a psychiatrist. Over the last few years I’ve taken myself off most of them, and have, for the last 2 years been on only 1 anti-depressant per day. That’s a big step down from 22 pills per day. Anyway, I felt that now is the time to come off totally, but with anti-depressants you can’t stop just like that because the withdrawal symptoms are hell. If even I missed one pill by forgetting to take it, the next day I would suffer hellish withdrawal symptoms until I took the pill and even then it would take half a day to work. The symptoms are feeling like you’re going to vomit, or actually vomiting, dizzyness, headaches, anger, extreme sleepiness, nausea etc. It’s just like with any other drug. So bit by bit I’ve been coming off. It means for me, cutting the pill by myself unless I want the rigmarole of buying a lesser dose pill, but instead I just cut off a bit, one pill for me is 100 miligrams, so cut the end off it becomes 80 mg, then abit more 70, etc, until now I’ve got it down to 50. I’m hoping within the next week or so I can get it down somewhere to 30. Hopefully by mid-november I can be off them altogether. It’s somewhat fast the way I’m doing it, usually it would be slower than this, but I’ve been giving myself reiki every day and it really helps with the symptoms, so I’m not feeling it as much. Also, when I get determined about something, nothing is going to make me stop, so the willpower that I need to get me through is strong, thankfully.

Phew!!