la la how the life goes on

Tuesday, 04/19/16, 3:07pm

I've been wanting to blog yesterday and today but just haven't gotten much time to do it. Yesterday was our 8 year wedding anniversary, which was nice and mostly relaxing. We took dinner really fun though by cooking stirfry, TOGETHER! We don't usually get to cook together. Although I should recognize that Nasser did most of the actual cooking. I did some of the veggie prep work, cleaning up, etc. So I guess I was the sous chef. Anyway, we managed to do all this without a babysitter. With the help of some tv though. But it was so worth it. I had forgotten how much I enjoy cooking with my husband. I do so much cooking for the family on my own that it's not really fun anymore. Cooking together made it fun again.

I've been getting runs in regularly lately, with the help of my sister, Audra. We've actually been helping eachother get runs in. She's been training for a half marathon, and is supposed to get 5 runs in a week, by her training plan. So I get together with her most of those days and we either run together or switch off running while the other watches our younger boys (this is typically during the school day while our older boys are at school). She's been helping me get longer distances in on the weekends, and I'm up to just over 8.5mi now. We'll be doing a 9mi run on Friday, which is going to be my last long run before the 10miler I'm signed up for on Mother's Day. I'm so excited that it feels like I'm going to reach this goal, and it's going to be my longest distance ever. Although really, every long run lately has been my longest distance ever which has made the training really fun.

I've recently determined, through the help of being so much more introspective in writing my blog, that my mood changes with my menstrual cycle. I talked most recently, rather passionately, about it here. Last month, I'm not sure I mentioned it in the blog at all, but if I look at the dates, I had depressive episodes at both the beginning and end of my period. Yeah, to me, that's not good. And I realized that maybe there was something I could do about it.

I started with a new OB/GYN today, and was thoroughly impressed with her. I explained all my woes about periods and the monthly mood swings and what we're already doing for my depression, and she's going to start me on a low dosage hormone birth control pill (assuming it's all fine with my psychiatrist first) that's meant to regulate the hormones throughout the month. I really hope that it works and my dear readers, you will be along for the ride since I find the blog important for my data collection. :)

I started a new puzzle yesterday, because I was already itching for it later the same day I finished the last one. I like the process of starting a new puzzle, just like with any project. I'm sure I may fall out of interest with it for awhile again, but hopefully it doesn't take me another 5 months to finish this one.

oh the weather outside is frightful

Saturday, 04/16/16, 11:37am, 1:00pm

Do you remember my puzzle? It's taken me a really long time, but I finally finished. Here's the progression:

11/07/15                                              12/01/15

04/12/16                                     04/13/16

04/14/16

04/16/16

I obviously took a big hiatus from the puzzle for a few months. Once I got back into it, I remembered all my metaphors between puzzles and life, and I felt accomplishment with each final piece. And since it took me over FIVE months to complete, it's a nice longer term accomplishment. Yeah, I gotta find the little things sometimes when I don't have a paying job.

Today is mostly a chill in the house kind of day. It was supposed to be my Brené Brown workshop day, but it got cancelled due to the impending weather. Rain, into snow, although the rain lasted a lot longer than expected, at least by us. The forecast was so bad that several airlines cancelled all flights in and out of Denver for today. My mother-in-law came into town on Thursday and was supposed to fly home tonight but now she's not really sure when she can get out of here. The boys are ecstatic, but Grandma needs to be back to leave for a road trip with Grandpoo Larry for some marathons he's got next week. (It's pretty cool, my mother-in-law and step father-in-law run marathons. They are rather active grandparents). 

Hah, I just sang the song "You need to find your lo-ooong pants" (to the tune of Auld Lang Syne) to my children and it worked beautifully. They ran upstairs to find long pants. 

Nevermind. It worked on RG, but not on TK. 

We have to leave the house for a friend's birthday party, who also lives in our neighborhood. Considering the weather, this is amazingly convenient. I am hoping we walk over, although the snow is blowing pretty hard right now. I usually take every excuse not to drive. If I can walk, or bike, I try to do it. I've definitely done several grocery trips on the weekend with just a bike and a backpack. 

Things have been ok lately. Just normal ups and downs. I've been working my way through Brené Brown's Rising Strong still, and that causes some additional ups and downs.