Meet One of Our Newest U.S. Citizens

L to R: My dad, Husband, Little Gary, my mom, me (with a weird shadow on my teeth), and Sophia

It's official: yesterday morning, Husband was sworn in as a citizen of the United States. It was a nice ceremony, even if it started an hour late. My parents came, as well as Sophia and Little Gary.

Husband's mother and father would have been there, too, but my FIL was actually taking over Husband's fifth grade class for the day. Yes, FIL is now a substitute teacher for the school district. MIL also had to work. She works for Visiting Angels, people who go and assist senior citizens to get to appointments or to do light housework or just to be safe. Though she spent her professional career as a nurse, she doesn't have to do medical stuff. Funny that she's a senior citizen herself.

But it's my parents who were the most anxious about Husband becoming a citizen. In fact, my father, when he was taking on piano students, saved the money he made and donated it to Husband's citizenship fund. Applying for citizenship costs a little over $800 at this time. Husband's brother also donated to that fund. My parents had heard so many horror stories of legal residents still getting deported on stupid technicalities--even without a criminal history--that this became their mission. Husband applied for citizenship over a year ago, and he had the interview a couple weeks ago, but yesterday was the official swearing-in ceremony for about 130 people from all over the world in our session (when we left, we passed a long line of future citizens and their friends and loved ones waiting to be checked in for the next session).

Other news: 
I started eating a ketogenic/high fat, low carb diet and experienced an immediate and profound relief from depression. My mood changed practically overnight, from despondency-and-despair to my normal state of slightly-stressed-but-generally-hopeful. I lost five pounds in one week, as well. The fact that my mood changed so quickly and profoundly is a strong testament to the damage that sugar causes in my body.

Sadly, while my energy levels did rise considerably in the first couple days, they dropped again--but not nearly as far as they had been before. The energy rise and drop has happened in the past when I've switched to a lower carb diet, but energy levels never rose again even when I lost fifty pounds, so I know there's an underlying issue with my energy that has nothing to do with my weight. I've been studying new research on the link that has been found between fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, and how both conditions are actually misnomers and are probably both part of the same, more general, auto-immune problem, but I won't go into that here.

Remember this scene from The Emperor's New Groove (my favorite Disney movie), when Cuzco is frantically downing Isma's potions in order to turn back into a human, but in the process turns into all kinds of different animals?



At least I'm back to being a llama, even if I was hoping to be completely human. I'll still try to figure out the energy thing, but I'm just really happy that things are moving in a positive direction again. I did have a doctor's appointment, but when I showed up, I was informed that the doctor I was seeing no longer accepts my insurance. I'll reschedule with someone else maybe.

So things are looking positive in the Aurora household. I'll share more about Little Gary and Joseph later, because things are happening there, as well. For now, I'm just very grateful that I can handle life a lot better.