Happy Thanksgiving to those of us in the U.S.!

Sorry for being MIA, but in general, I am hardly on the computer/internet at all now. Don't even care to check email. Avoiding Amazon & shopping though my daughter needs birthday and Christmas gifts as she is turning 12 Dec. 14. It's a difficult age to buy for, especially when she seems to just want to game on the computer or her iPad and has told us nothing she wants at all, and I know she wants physical presents to open. Not to mention I have 5 nieces & nephews to get gifts for, but if H doesn't shop for them, they are just getting money from me. I am working hard to avoid impulse shopping as it has put me on the verge of divorce more times than I can count. Lithium has really taken away all my urges to shop for anything.

Been doing OK lately. Had a few sad days but had some bad life events happen to me around this time of year as well.

H is now glad we delayed moving to Beaumont as there was a plant explosion close to the university there the early hours of yesterday morning and some evacuations in areas we'd considered moving to. He has a few formalities to pass through but then will become an associate professor (was a visiting one the last year) on the tenure track in industrial engineering.

We are spending Thanksgiving with my parents and aunts and uncles, a day trip, around a 1. 5 hr drive each way. I am disappointed my sisters won't be there though one lives in Dallas (5, 6 hr. drive depending) and just had ACL reconstruction on her knee while the other is going to her husband's family's Thanksgiving. But my grandmother will be at my parents' today. At 86, she is slowing down though she still insisted on making her dressing (best dressing ever) and gravy for today. She pretty much raised me before I started kindergarten, pretty much a 2nd mom to me, and I feel I need to spend time with her because it is precious. Want to try to remember to take a 4 generation photograph with her.

Surprisingly, I am not dreading Thanksgiving as much as I have in the past, even though the aunt I much dislike will be present. Hopefully, the day goes well. My daughter will miss her cousins, so I hope she is not too bored, but I do have an aunt and uncle who love playing board games, so if they start on that, I know my daughter will join in.

Gaining weight on lithium...not happy about that, but I also can't exercise much (not even walk around the block). I am having issues in my leg/hip/thigh stemming from an SI injury back when I was pregnant. I did get insurance approval for physical therapy, had the first session yesterday, 2 more weekly after that for 4 weeks, then a re-assessment. Have to go do my at-home PT exercises now. I have an appt. with my rheumatologist around Dec. 3, going to ask her to check things like thyroid, etc., since my psychiatrist seems unconcerned about it, and I mentioned it last session this past week but forgot to push it. He is happy about the weight gain as now I am low-normal, but I am not as I have weighed a certain weight my entire life as an adult (other than pregnancy), so it doesn't make me happy especially with the ED. Pdoc thinks it is lack of exercise from my leg pain, and I know he could be right.