We’ve reached that part of the year where I feel like it should be spring, but it’s not and won’t be for several weeks. I’m in a perpetual cloud of annoyance because mother nature is, once again, failing to meet my unrealistic expectations, and for all my work on mindfulness and accepting what is, I remain deeply offended by the murky gray that is March.
There, got that out of my system. I wouldn’t be a good blogger if I didn’t complain about the weather, would I?
Beyond the wretched weather, I’m drawing a blank as to how to sum up the last few weeks, because they’ve been equally gray. I’ve spent many precious spoons keeping up with a daily exercise regimen; my Apple Watch doesn’t even know who I am, I’m killing these move goals so hard. I’m on this weird new kick where I go to bed at a reasonable hour and wake up early, it’s pretty bizarre. 😜 I’ve listened to a lot of books. I paint in neon hues to fill the gray spaces with riotous color. My kids are flying through adolescence; there are a lot of BIG FEELINGS in this house, several of them mine. I’ve devoted a lot of time to working on a new Animal Crossing island because virtual worlds are peaceful, and this world is not. Escapism is the name of the game.
I’ve also had a heck of a time with food lately. The “downside” to making meals at home is my taste for most quick-prep food has waned, but I don’t have the ambition to cook a whole meal three times a day.
So I recently started one of those pre-packaged health food memberships with smoothies and veggie bowls. I’d seen this particular one around a lot on the Instagrams and the Facebooks and I was skeptical; their ads — featuring trim, perky young women in skin-tight workout gear, bouncing out the door after hot yoga with a freshly made smoothie in hand — didn’t exactly speak to me. Show me a middle-aged fat lady who’s likely to use her over-priced smoothie to wash down a Hot Pocket and then we’ll talk.
…but OK, the smoothies aren’t half bad.
Ironically, I got into this because Tim wanted to try smoothies as a healthy alternative for breakfast, but he took one sip of some blueberry-chocolate concoction and gagged, and I didn’t want the stuff to go to waste. So now I drink kale and almonds and bananas mixed with almond milk and I start to wonder if I’m on a slippery slope to Soylent.
A bright spot from the last month is Tim getting a much-deserved promotion at work. This has me doing the math to see what 60% time at my job would look like, because I’ve really enjoyed the regular three-day weekend thing, and a regular four-day weekend sounds at least…33% better. The math says so. 😂