Balance

I can't be the only one who writes entire posts just to delete them because they sound like drivel can I? It seems like I just posted a few days ago but, oh yeah, I deleted all those posts. Last week I did so good all week but by the weekend I suddenly found myself booked up and nothing overwhelms me faster than having my whole weekend spoken for. So by the time my husband and I sneaked out for a dinner alone on Friday I was already eating for the perceived forthcoming stress. I had a bacon cheeseburger with fries and a cocktail. I really sort of resigned myself to the fact that this weekend was going to be too hard to keep "on track" so I gave myself the weekend off from worrying about eating any certain way. My dad and his wife came for a visit and to see our house. They live a little less than 3 hours drive from us now so they haven't visited since we bought the house in August. My dad is the warm, sensible parent. He was an alcoholic for the entire time he lived with us. I grew up detecting that and really distanced myself from him. My parents divorced when I was in high school and my dad sobered up and slowly we were able to put a lot of the past behind us. I realized that my mom's way of making my dad out to be a bad guy really worked on me when I was a teen, but it was really more of a show of her mental health issues and insecurities. Yeah, he was a drunk and that sucked, but he has a good heart. He's the kind of guy who offers to help strangers just because he knows how to and everyone who meets him feels good to be around him. A lot of people have complimented me and told me I am like him. I disagree on the part about offering help. lol. That's the next part of the story. My dad's visit was nice. He works on houses for a living and he gave us some pointers about our leaky basement. Having him over itself is nice, it's just the prep, hosting, food and such. The most stressful part though is my dog. He literally barked for nearly 3 hours straight before he wore himself out. Everyone's nerves were shot after that. My dad gifted us two of his homemade wines and they are way stronger and dryer than I typically like but besides eating all kinds of stuff that day, I drank some of the wine. Sunday I had a church board meeting. That soynds like no big deal on paper but have you met this type of person who can turn a simple hello into a six hour conversation? That is our reverend. I wish I were exaggerating. We typically have less than 5 things on the agenda and our board meetings end up lasting 8 hours. I have to leave so I can get sleep before work the next day. I love our reverend but MAN! She has a hard time stopping once she starts talking! So I dread giving up an entire day to these meetings. This year we have a new boars member who wants to overrun things we decided in fall and it will equate to a lot more work for me. Last spring our secretary resigned and reverend begged me to be "acting secretary" until we could find someone else to take over. I am already handling social media so I told her as long as it was temporary I would do it. Reverend is in no hurry to find someone, she had a hard time trusting anyone because a couple groups tried to take over the church in the past. Since we are a Spiritualist church, we don't have a larger governing body to look out for us. Anyway, I was already burnt out from hosting my dad the day before then I gave up my Sunday for the meeting. We had a potluck dinner including lasagne and chocolate cherry cake. I ate it all in spite (or apathy, maybe more accurate). I was given a massive secretarial project of getting our spring mailing done before church opens on April 24. That means creating/updating our membership form, creating a schedule, updating the 200+ member addresses which somehow had botched zip codes from the last secretary, getting the final to reverend to review, get quotes from printing company, hire printer to do the work, get address labels printed. As soon as I opened the membership form the last secretary made and noticed it wax done on a paid program that wouldn't let me edit it, I knew it was going to be an uphill battle. Tech stiff I'd not my specialty. Luckily my son is a whiz at this stuff and helped me through some sticky spots. I gave up most of my free time this week to work on church stuff. Fortunately, reverend knew it was a big load of work to dump on me and they are going to pay me for doing this work. Normally I would shy away from that but this is a big job and if I am giving up so much time and using my ink I am going to take it. Monday I struggled to get my eating on track but after an indulgent breakfast and a few leftover chips with lunch, I eventually "backed up the fun bus" and got back on track. It was a stressful week with the church duties, end-of-month rush at work and heavy rains making our basement cry, but I held on and made it through. Next week will be better. At the end of the stressful week I was craving yoga, my body was screaming for me to show it love but time was maxed out. If anything, I take it as a blessing that my body is telling me when things are out of balance.