7 Quick Takes -- Vol. 20

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In an attempt to try to get healthy & keep a handle on my well-being even on days when I can barely get a moment to think, I’m keeping a food diary again. I did this a couple of years ago and found it really useful. I’ve gone a little more hi-tech this time around, and at my brother’s recommendation am using myfitnesspal.com (+app on my new iphone!).

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It’s interesting to look back at each day and see the relation between the day, the weather, my food choices, and my overall mood. For example, this Wednesday was really awesome. I managed to eat well and get some great cardio exercise (pushing 70+lbs of baby up & down hilly gravel paths). I felt really energized and thus made better food choices. Whereas Thursday, where the children were non-stop-attention-seeking-monsters, was a bad day. Bad food choices, partially motivated by not enough time to do anything but heat up freezer food and partially motivated by stress cravings, meant a really unbalanced day. And it poured with rain all day, so I couldn’t escape for a sanity walk with the monsters!

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David’s been away since Tuesday and to say that the kids have been a handful would be putting it mildly. It didn’t help that we had the flu on the weekend and they were still getting over it. It was so, so nice tonight to see them actually playing together instead of fighting with each other/me. Walter was hiding in a curtain and Emily was trying to find him in it and they were both laughing hysterically, as was I. Sometimes laughter is the best medicine.

Playing together one evening last week: even managing to sit side by side without fighting/crying. Miracle of miracles!

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Fortune’s Wheel still seems to have us in her lower half. But I’m trying to be brave and not give in...so when my dad, who’s messed up his knee, asked me to walk to the mailbox today I took the kids for a cardio-heavy walk around the block, instead of just walking to get the post & returning to my melancholy musing on the couch, and tried to just enjoy the moment. And it mostly worked :)

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My Gramma has dementia, and lately she’s been pretty out of it. But today when I saw her for dinner she seemed in fine form. Instead of her usual four topics of conversation, she actually seemed involved in what the rest of us were doing. And she thought to ask if there should be some other ladies (my cousins) with us, which is great because a lot of the time she can’t remember us when we’re not there. It was so special to have a relatively normal evening with her, especially this close to Mother’s Day.

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When David flew out on Tuesday, he left from a small, relatively local (Nanaimo) airport. We had such blast dropping him off. The airport is so small that departures/security were right beside his check-in desk, and the staff were super friendly (so much so that when the check-in attendant saw the long line at security, she told us to go and enjoy some coffees for awhile before he bothered going through, even tho’ his bags were already tagged and technically you’re supposed to proceed straight through security at that point...or at least them’s the facts in Vancouver). We got to spend a lovely hour with him before he took off, and it’s one of the most relaxing times we’ve had at an airport in recent memory.

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I recently had to cancel a trip that I’d really been looking forward to, because my health couldn’t handle the additional stress of it. To cheer me up, David got me Jennifer Fulwiler’s new book, Something Other than God. I probably won’t get to start reading it until June, but it seems like everyone else is loving it so I’m sure that I will too. Ordering a new book, especially one that isn’t fiction, is a big thing for me as I usually only ask to own books that I’ve read before (or where I’m so familiar with the author that I know I’ll love the book). Needless to say, I’m really excited to get my hands on it!

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