Power

Where does the time go? I hate how it seems I blink my eyes and a week passes, then I think, how can it already be May? Maybe that's the result of constantly feeling like I have too many plates to spin and not enough hours in the day to pick up the pieces. I have taken on two new responsibilities for my church, secretary and social media manager, and the reverend has asked me to apprentice under her and take over the church in 2 years as all of our other board members are older. It would be a massive time commitment and responsibility and I have been so torn about the decision that it has cost me precious sleep. I also learned that the trust fund money we have been using to stay afloat will run out in 4 years and we will have to find a way to raise that extra money every year or the church will close. We have been operating since 1886 so it would be a huge loss for the community and for our members. So that has been a stressful area for me, not to mention trying to update our website, which is built in WordPress, and me not being extraordinarily tech savvy, has been frustrating. I think I have the site looking better than it did, but there's a lot more I want to do. Work has been eerily slow due to us having been closed for COVID in. April 2020. Most people schedule their eye exams 1 year apart so April had me twidling my thumbs a bit, but I don't mind the quiet because usually June is a total circus! It gives me lots of time to think,though. I started watching the Hulu show Shrill and I have mixed feelings about it. The premise is an overweight woman dealing with all the negative feelings about being overweight. Maybe it's all too real, the way people are. In one scene she has a troll commenting on an article she wrote and calling her a fat pig, and in another scene she's having a blast at a pool party for big girls only. I am only 4 episodes in so the verdict is still out but I like that there's a shoe that addresses what we overweight women deal with. I do also notice this overarching note that her close tribe thinks way more highly of her than she thinks of herself. Good message. It's hard in a series to see what will come, it's not like a movie where you know the basic pattern of get to know and like a character, watch them struggle, then ultimate resolution and everything is good. So as I said, this show is more like real life, good and bad days in no particular order. I didn't pass my test in April so I am putting more effort into studying for my next try in mid-June. I hate studying and just want this part to be over. We almost had a house that we loved, it was down to us and one other couple, then the seller asked us to waive all contingencies including inspection and financing, basically asking us to agree to take the house (at $20,000 over asking price, mind you) no matter if it fails inspection or we don't get financing. We took a hard pass on that. So we are still house hunting and that's OK. We have enough on our plates right now. I am very excited to have a place of our own but I know it will happen when the time is right. My plant-forward eating is feeling pretty natural but that doesn't mean I don't eat junk too. Especially with the stress of the extra church stuff and PMS, this was a more difficult cycle for me and the week leading up to Aunt Flo's visit I didn't put pressure on myself about food. I gave myself a pass and that looked a little less healthy. I was eating healthy breakfasts of veggie and eggless scramble, some unsalted cashews for a snack then some gummy worms or maybe a Zebra Cake, veggie wrap of quinoa cup for lunch and a bean burrito with real cheese for dinner. Not off the rails but definitely not all healthy. I have been thinking about my half-heartedness lately and how I should really make more of an effort but sometimes life requires us to be kind and forgiving of ourselves, and sometimes I intuitively know that eating a Zebra Cake just is my way of taking a little bit of artificial sweetness from life when I am having a difficult time finding the real stuff. Is it a healthy habit? Nope, but that little thing gets me through a tough PMS week then I know that the following week will be so much easier to bear, and it always is. Hormones are real and I haven't found a way to navigate around them just yet, but I do know that beating myself up for wanting or eating those things ends in me throwing in the hat because it's too hard and then I just go off the rails and it takes months to get motivated to try again. So I am going to be gentle while I work out how to get around the hormones. Some months are easier than others. I had a major breakthrough in my left ankle pain, which had been plaguing me for 1½ years. It was diagnosed as sinus tarsi syndrome last fall, a swelling in the outer ankle, usually the result of a sprain. I have rolled my ankles so many times that this didn't surprise me but it would swell the size of a golf ball sometimes and made every single step painful. That was the opposite foot than I had my achilles surgery on, so let's just say walking is a big pain. But on Friday night I was practicing walking heel-toe because I am supposed to for achilles tendon therapy, and my achilles has been so so painful lately, and all of the sudden there was a huge snap and release in the left ankle, as if a trapped nerve/tendon finally went back where it belongs and immediate pain relief after a year and a half of dreading every step! I discovered that, when my achilles foot feels good and I do my prescribed single-leg heel raises (where I go on my tiptoes to help strengthen my calf muscle) something really bad happens and things pull all the way up to the back of my knee, making it feel like I am forcing a nerve to become pinched and there are times when I almost can't bear weight on it it is so painful. I finally got some of that stuff to release again over the weekend so I can walk pretty normal right now though the achilles still needs some work. For now, even though my podiatrist wants me to do the heel raises, I am going to skip them (or at least only do them with both legs) because it feels like a huge setback when I can barely walk for a week after doing them. If it were muscle soreness thats one thing but it's not. I am in control of my body. My calf muscles are now pretty even sized again just from all the steps I take daily so I am not worried about my calf muscle disintegrating. So that's where I am right now, calling the shots whether it's eating something sweet when I feel I need it, or not doing things that cause pinched nerve sensation in my post-surgical foot. I have done things for others my whole damn life, I am finally starting to take back my power.