Things have been a little stressful recently on the homefront as I found myself needing to play the role of Nurse Mom. Honestly I hadn't been paying attention to eating habits and I was doing more emotional eating, though otherwise I don't think I've been overeating (i.e, more instances of eating when not hungry to self medicate/ self soothe, but not really an increase of eating to the point of being stuffed/ painfully full. Also food consumed has been reasonably varied. Weight increase possibly still within normal daily weight fluctuation ranges.)
Even though the increase isn't terribly dramatic, could be simply a result of my maintenance fluctuations, and hopefully isn't too difficult to recoup, the fact that it's a change in the "wrong" direction is a little frustrating/ discouraging. I'm not really that adept at fighting a multi-front campaign. I feel like I'm trying to keep plates spinning and I keep dropping one here or there. I've also been working on productivity at home with the help of an interesting/ fun site/app called
HabitRPG. It's a customizable tool to encourage/ establish better (user assigned) habits through RPG style game play with (user assigned) rewards redeemable with game currency employed as the incentive to meet the goals the player is striving for. So far I haven't killed my avatar, but I feel like I am floundering and the sense of aimlessness or lack of effectiveness is personally very upsetting. Baby steps. I just need to take more baby steps.
On a positive note, driving is much more natural/ comfortable to me now. I've been driving around more to various appointments and I feel fairly competent and not anxious. I am trying to refine my technique so I don't know if I am noticing more errors in my own practice or can overthink what I am doing sometimes. However, I think I know what I can do to reduce sloppiness and I've developed more peace regarding driving. (I.e, I've accepted that other people being impatient with me is not necessarily cause for me to be anxious/ alter my driving. It's kind of dumbfounding to see the prevalence of aggressive driving- tailgating, hard acceleration and riding brakes, sudden lane changes, etc.- though I've realized that for myself I just need to do what I can to be a safe driver- maintain even speed, following distance,acceleration and braking, signal appropriately for lane changes, merge decisively, and generally be as alert as possible to road/ traffic conditions- and not let foolish behavior around me compel me to act rashly.)
Also, DD1's birthday party went well. I feel really happy with how it turned out. I wish I had been a little more organized and been able to encorporate some other ideas I had planned, but that didn't happen. I did much better though than I ever have historically with gauging the need to change plans and adapt to unexpected hiccups. One of the things that makes me really thrilled is as hostess I had a semi teaching role in leading events and both of my inlaws were able to attend the party and praised me afterward for the way I conducted the activities. (DD1 likes princesses, so I had designed a princess quiz to teach the kids about modern royalty. I had about 2 dozen kids in attendance who were about ages 3-6 and most of them were engaged and really enjoyed the interactive quiz and crown decorating activity I led.) Education theory/ teaching has been a passion of mine as far back as I can remember. (My childhood heroes were people like Mary Mcleod Bethune and Jane Addams. More recently I initially liked Montessori style teaching but then learned about Charlotte Mason and I find her philosophies to be more in line with what I like.) I never finished college. I have about half of a 2 year degree completed without really any education training at the college level (ED classes were always at really bad times when I was in college. I didn't want to register for classes I didn't feel confident I'd attend reliably, so I spent most of my college time getting core classes completed.) To have people recognize natural talent and praise me for what skill I have now in an area that I've been passionate about my whole life is incredibly encouraging/ exciting for me. Later this week I have another chance to exercise my teaching chops as I was asked to fill in for another teacher in the Vacation Bible School program I enrolled my daughter in. I am both excited and a little anxious because this is an exhilarating opportunity and responsibility, I just want to do well and not disappoint the people who solicited my help. I think I can do well, but it doesn't stop me from having these pre-performance jitters. :)
Likewise, I had the chance to run into a family friend/ mentor from out of town. (It was the pastor who baptized me after I became a Christian.) It was a very pleasant and unexpected surprise because he and his wife moved far away (as in they used to live ~20 minutes away by car and now they live ~20 hours away by plane). I knew they were local for a few weeks, but I didn't expect to run into them so unconsciously, I knew they were going to be busy and wasn't sure if I'd get to see them at all. It was really good, though bittersweet because DH didn't get to see them- he was the one who introduced me to this pastor, and it was a short visit. That couple is an amazing couple who I love dearly and if it were possible I could enjoy spending hours just talking and listening to them. Though, it was a real blessing to have that visit and it bolsters my faith to know that G-d met and exceeded a desire that was on my heart by creating that divine appointment, knowing I had wanted to see them and thought I'd lack the opportunity due to prior commitments I had on the date they were visiting a former congregation I attended. (It is really special to me when I have the chance to spend time with people who were very instrumental in my early faith to have the chance to see them now and see how G-d has done great things in my life and grown me up.) So all in all, things are normal, with happy memories intertwined in the ordinary. Today is a good reminder that growth doesn't often occur in a linear fashion, but I am confident that overall [good] progress is being made. :)