Dear Reader:

I thought I would do a quick blog entry tonight since I will be spiriting away my children and myself for a little adventure in North Carolina tomorrow through Saturday night.    I am actually quite pleased with myself for thinking of this little adventure which will have a little something for each one of us to enjoy!   As a side note, it seems to me that you can approach almost anything as an adventure, if you try hard enough.   Doesn't have to be expensive or complicated or exotic.

I have returned to WW point tracking.   And, I'll admit, I've felt a little hungry.  But, I think it might just be my obsessive thinking about how much I cannot eat.   It is surprisingly difficult for me to plan for the right amounts of food at the right times of day.  This is something I am really committing to working on.  

I also got in some excellent and different exercise this week.   I have been pushing myself a bit more at yoga and feeling some good results.   And, I ran twice this week.   Taking that slowly.  Still thinking of a 5K at Thanksgiving.  

In general, today, I just felt better about life than I have in a while.   Although, today I did feel like people "needed" me to be there for them in a host of different, and sometimes annoying, ways.  One of the things that I have trouble getting used to as an academic and an administrator (and, let's face it, as a person) is not always being able to expend great effort to make other people happy or satisfied in a timely or effective manner.    My instinct is always to do everything I can to try and smooth a situation over, without thought to the cost to myself.   So, I've been very consciously trying to be protective of my own space, my own time, and my own priorities lately.   Naturally, this makes me feel quite guilty a lot of the time.   Like I am somehow not doing enough to make everyone happy.  But, I think the bigger problem is that I am having to sacrifice my own happiness for the sake of "taking care" of others, both professionally and personally.   This is a continuous education for me: this carving out of a protective bubble that allows me to engage with the world and others in life-sustaining ways, but not in self-destructive ways.    Tricky, I tell you.    You want a bubble that allows the good stuff in, but keeps the bad stuff out.  

Anyway, the smiles are coming more easily to my face and heart lately, although I am still processing my "big life things."  Importantly, I am starting to feel some lightness of spirit again.   Let's see if I can translate that into some lightness of body  (Ha.  Did you see what I did just there? Huh?  Huh?).

So, on to new adventures.    Oh, and I did lose 2 lbs. this week!  So, that's gratifying.  One day at a time, people.  One day at a time.  

And, here is my dream house.   I can imagine, with vivid detail, what the inside of that house looks like with all of my stuff and my people in it.   Oh, excuse me, I just had a daydream about cooking dinner in the fabulous, warm kitchen while the kids play in the back yard.   That's my house, folks:

So, if anyone knows exactly where this house is, let me know.   I need to work on getting employment in that area and, maybe, trying to creep out the current occupants of this house by driving slowly by and staring frequently.  That seems like a good plan, right?

Have a lovely weekend, you dear reader.  

Thanks for reading.