Dear Reader:

I went for a very satisfying 1 1/2 hour walk this evening while a friend fed and played with the kids.   Two loops around campus and a trip up the cemetery hill at sunset.  It is so quiet up there - a great place for meditation:

I think I successfully shook at least half of the world-weariness and life-weariness off of my shoulders today.   Here are my stats:

Total calories consumed:  1752 (including a lemon tart made by a friend for our Downton Abbey get-together that I have yet to eat.  I'm assuming it's around 300 calories...)

Total calories burned:  435 

Breakfast:

Lunch (plus around 15 tortilla chips and salsa):

I just grazed for dinner because I was walking while the kids were eating, so I had a string cheese, an apple, a handful of goldfish crackers, and some pretzels with edamame hummus.

Thanks, dear reader, for all of the cloud book suggestions.   I am now drowning in cloud literature!   Love it.   

Also, I've identified some things that I want to work on to keep me focused on self-care in healthy ways - namely:

1) sleep (this is always hard for me because I am a night owl and not a morning person, so I tend to stay up too late and my kids wake me up way too early).

2) making my bedroom a sanctuary by decluttering, simplifying, decorating only with things that I find beautiful, rearranging, etc.   

Tomorrow is back to the full-on academic work experience.  My blog posts will likely be a little less reflective as I re-enter the insanity of my work life.   But, I'll keep it up because I find it crucial for me right now.   It is amazing how much better I feel sometimes - just to express myself here.   And, I am constantly surprised and grateful and actually quite touched to find out how many of you, dear reader, are "in this" with me.   

I'll leave you with a quote from article that spoke to me today:

"What I do know is that being a woman is to live in that precarious place where both scale and self-image must remain perfectly calibrated. Slip too far in one direction and you’re a lazy slob with no self-control. Slip too far in the other, and you’re a shallow, self-hating woman, and a slave to harmful standards of beauty. I am raising a daughter, for God’s sake. Teaching her to value herself beyond her appearance is as important to me as teaching her to read." - Samantha Schoech

The only thing that I might alter for myself about this statement is that I am teaching (hopefully) both myself and my daughter about how to value ourselves as integrated bodies/minds/hearts.   It's all us.  Too many times, it seems to me, the harm is done when we isolate one aspect of ourselves to attack and criticize without putting it all into context.   

There's my "deep thought" for the night.   I hope all of you lovely people have a good Sunday evening.

Thanks for reading!