What's Up, Doc?

 A super-quick recap - in the fall of 2014, a routine mammogram turned up some "iffy" areas. Several more tests and three biopsies later, I spent Christmas of 2014 in the talented hands of skilled surgeons and then in a medically-indicated tube top to hold everything together. (Painkillers and the holidays. It ought to be a country song.) The first part of 2015 was spent having post-surgical radiation and the resulting fatigue kept me pretty much sidelined. 2016 was all about getting back to a "new normal," and now we're here.

I just had my most recent check-up and the report is a good one. My scars are barely noticeable, I don't have pain (although fatigue is still an occasional issue) and they've decided to scale back my check ups to every six months, rather than every three. This is awesome news, indeed! Oh, I'm still dealing with side effects from Tamoxifen, a drug I'm on for another three-plus years and we talked about some methods to handle that. Uptown Yoga Loft will be seeing me, as both yoga and acupuncture have been prescribed to me. (In fact, I just left this post to make my first acupuncture appointment - cross your fingers for me on Wednesday the 18th!)

However, there is one area that simply has to be addressed. While my doctor did not lecture me, nor did she wag her finger in my face, well - sigh. Overall weight and fitness must be tended to, thyroid notwithstanding. I'm surprisingly okay with that. I'm doing well with my dedication to self-care (I really do encourage you to jump into the 31-Day Self Love Writing Challenge), and I promise to not do anything totally stupid like eat only cabbage soup for three straight weeks.

But I won't kid you, either. I want fast results and I know that doesn't work. So it's slow plodding for me. Cut out the junk food (bye, Goobers!), more water every day, and yes - even in the gray of winter, it's time to exercise. I have to remember that losing a couple of pounds a month is perfectly fine. This is going to be hard. Very, very hard. I think this will go better with a goal in mind, so here goes - by the end of 2017, I will complete a 10K. I might walk a big ol' chunk of it, but the Dancing Sloth is on the comeback trail!

Hi, Ho, Here We Go!

New Year's Lights!

As I said on Christmas Eve, I'm bypassing most of the resolution aspect of the New Year. Instead, I've chosen one overarching goal for this trip around the sun - I want to be kind and find delight in my days. Not only do I think it's a worthy aim, I'm pretty sure it's a tall enough order to suffice for the entire year. But hey - I've already started!

I've seen this a number of times in my life - once I commit to a certain course of action, odd things begin to happen. I run into someone at the coffee shop who has some piece of information I need, or a student mentions something that triggers a cascade of thoughts, a chance comment overheard in the lobby of the movie theater ultimately leads to a brainstorm that boosts me over a creative dry spell, or someone here in Cyber-Land posts a link that directs me to exactly what I didn't know I needed. What I'm fumbling here to say is that there's much to be said for committing to an outcome and then being open to what the Universe is trying to give you.

In my case, just after Christmas, a friend sent me a link to a very interesting experiment. The idea is that each day for one month, I'll receive an e-mail writing prompt and that I'm supposed to set aside a few minutes each day to thoughtfully answer the prompt. I can share my responses or keep them private, as I wish. This particular one-month writing is all about self-care and breaking the hold negative thoughts have on my headspace and, five days in, I can report that it's incredibly refreshing! It's a wonderful, supportive community and, if you think you could benefit from it, please use this link to check them out! Start whenever you want and skip prompts that don't "work" for you. This is, I think, one of the most important lessons to take from the activity - it doesn't have to be perfect.

I know her all too well . . .

On that note, I'm also working on a simplified "bullet journal" to keep track of actions that I hope will lead to concrete habits. I've been keeping a brief journal since September, but only this week have I adopted more of a bullet journal style. Some of these bullet journals that I've seen (especially on Pinterest, which is both great and greatly to be feared) are magnificent, but they can also be intimidating. While I want to take a few minutes every night to reflect and play with colored pencils, I know that I can all too easily fall into the "perfectionist trap," so I can't compare mine to anybody else's. I will admit that I really enjoy doodling a little picture to go with each day. I don't draw particularly well, but it's relaxing to just moodle around with things without it having to be perfect.

Last bit for this post - one of my "actions that I hope will become a habit" is really making a conscious effort every single day to treat myself better. In order to do this, and knowing that I have to be accountable to the journal at the end of the day, I'm constantly on the lookout for ways to bring little luxuries into my everyday life. Yesterday, for example, I made a real effort to dress up for work - jaunty scarf, high heels (with super-comfortable slippers under the desk!), a discreet puff of my "good" perfume, red lipstick - very French. You get the idea. And I certainly had a sense of confidence that day due to my experiment in "dressing up." Then today, I definitely dressed down, since I had to take Spooky to the vet, then go to work, a schedule that certainly dictated some of my wardrobe decisions! After work, I needed to run an errand to the Clinique counter (look, FryDaddy doesn't stay that pretty without some effort!) and I took the time to have a consult with the clerk about my foundation. Together, we tried a couple of different ones and I left with a free ten-day sample. Felt like a duchess in sweatpants at that point, which is not a bad thing at all!

So that's what's up with me these days. How about you? Are you making time for yourself? Saying nice things to yourself? Tell me about it!