Yowza

The nights are drawing out Col, I feel like I can breathe again.  It's funny how Winter creeps up on you and you think that you're sailing through, and I'm taking my Vitamin D and embracing Winter, but then, like today, it's Saturday so I'm already home, it's 4.30pm, it's light and I feel... like I can breathe for the first time in months.

I've been back at work for a week. It's safe to say that the quiet lull is definitely over.  I'm working on three separate projects, all of which are urgent... high priority... in a time crunch kind of way.  Most of me loves it, (but don't tell anyone at work.)  I love having multiple balls in the air, someone told me this before but I think they were pretty astute, I look like a Swan gliding effortlessly through a glistening millpond while beneath the water, my legs are going like the clappers. 

It's not so much the three projects, it's the hopping between them as minor emergencies emerge and you have to immediately drop one project, fire fight, wait momentarily for any aftermath then drop that project and pick up the one you were working on before the emergency because until the fire, this one was actually the most pressing.

Image and health wise, I've been pretty good for a while... not so hard on myself as before.  I'm on Instagram, did I tell you?  I'm not public, I don't post anything, and I don't follow many people but those that I do, they are all very positive, life affirming people.. mostly women.  You know me and I acknowledge I have my dark side and very occasionally, the eternal emanating positivity gets on my nerves but for the most part, the daily reinforcement travels through my eyes into my brain and seeps into my veins.  It's all good. Still, I did happen to catch a glimpse of my behind in the mirror this morning, decided it was the consistency of blancmange and the size of a small continent.

While I've been moving my body for a good while now, (I invested in one of the cheapest Fitbits and I'm obsessed with getting in 10,000 steps minimum each day... usually aim for 13,000,) and last April, I invested in a Bellicon rebounder which helps me get my steps in and is more fun than a singleton should have while watching TV. But, some serious exercise has been missing for a while and I've been meaning to make a new habit for ages.

You know my trouble Col, I rise at 4.30am, I really can't get up any earlier to fit in my workout but so far, working out after work is eluding me, I just can't seem to find the energy or motivation.

Last Saturday, I had a lovely day.  I actually did what I wanted to do for a change. I had two coffees at Starbucks (my refill was free,) read, food shopped strategically as it's ten days before pay day, called in at Sister's for a hot water (I was all coffee'd out,) my cousin was there so two birds, one stone then I came home and did an Ashley Borden workout.  This woman is an inspiration.  Her workouts are not fussy or complicated.  She's realistic and encouraging and I want her body when I get around to it.

So I did one of Ashley's HIIT workouts for the lower body.  I was short of breath and sweaty by the end of the nine minute workout but I made it.  Form probably wasn't great, but I did it.  Warned Jan in our telephone call that I may not be able to move to phone the next day as I could already feel my legs starting to complain.  Cut to next day and I'm sore but slightly smug that I'm nowhere near as sore as I expected.

You know what's coming next don't you?  Yes, I had forgotten that day two is the actual killer.  I was stiff and sore, proving to me that I had actually moved my body and that it hadn't moved with any momentum or intent for some time.

Ahhhh Feb x

It's February at last.  I do love Feb, it's just so... hopeful don't you think?  It's like January but wearing a different coat, it's January without the depression. 

So I made it through January.  My tactic was to keep head down and to power through.  Seemed to work a treat, must remember that for next year.

I'd booked the second week of Feb off work, mostly to use up leave before it's lost, and I thought I'd waited too long for my worn out brain and body, but it turns out it was a perfect week to have.  Work was on a brief lull, I thought I was coming down with a cold, I was tired, permanently frozen to the core and just ready to spend more time on my new and amazingly warm and comfortable mattress.

My plan was to rise everyday at 6 to workout and to make a new habit.  Well, you know that didn't happen.  My mattress is too good.  I need to make a new workout routine but, just not yet, not while it's so warm and comfy and it's so very cold outside.

So this week I have had coffee in the a.m. and read, then did something; walk in cupboard - organised, wardrobe in the back room, box room... all organised.  I'm on such a roll Col, you'd be so impressed.

I'm going to tell you something which sounds a bit morbid but it's not really, I'm just being realistic, logical.  So Jan had mentioned a few times that she's sorting because one day, when she and hubby are gone, it will be down to CJ to sort everything and she didn't want him sorting through, well... crap.

You know what's coming next don't you?  Well, when I came to think about it.  CJ is going to be sorting through my crap too, and I want to make it as easy as possible for him.  It may be forty years from now but why wait?  What if it's next year and I wasn't organised?

I was sixteen when CJ was born and while I always felt like a protective Aunt, he also felt like my little Brother.  Even now that he has a family of his own, he'll still tell me that he loves me.  Words cannot express.

My family didn't do that before CJ.  It's totally down to my sister and brother-in-law, that CJ is able to profess his unashamed love and that we are now able to accept love gracefully and to say it back.  They changed our family because now I wouldn't think twice about saying it out loud... in front of others... to CJ's beautiful daughter.

Col, I slowly walk behind this one year old with my left arm outstretched.  She's holding onto the index finger of my left hand as she totters across the room, while her tiny right hand has a firm grip on my heart. I look at her and all that I see are CJ's eyes.  Safe to say... I'm in love.