Summer

We did a million fun things this summer, and I was super happy and mostly healthy. I ate a lot of junk food and donuts. I cut my dairy consumption by at least 80%. I painted and photographed and got strong and cried probably only once.

 

So I made a list:

How Rachel will avoid depression v. 2018:

• Find a good vegetarian pho restaurant.
• Continue Fun date and friend nights.
• At least one vacation to a warm place.
• Soup of the Week.
• Find a cute/professional/dressy pea coat to round off my coat collection.
• Keep the office stocked with a good tea selection.
• Weekly movie night with my boo.
• Continue with boot camp or sign up for Planet Granite.
• Make a habit of setting daily, weekly, and monthly goals.

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Birth Control Diaries

TLDR: They all suck.

Long version: I’ve tried them all (almost). Here’s what I think:

Pill – I can’t stand taking something every single day at the same time every single day. I can’t do it. I’ve only ever lasted like three weeks. Can’t talk about side effects, because I can’t do the daily thing. But I’m pretty sure they didn’t bother me a ton, positively or negatively.

Depo shot – You get a shot every three months, and you’re infertile. Bam. Makes for painful sex and zero emotions. I turned into an asexual robot. Great news was no periods at all. No cycles either. None of the up and down, bloating, acne that comes with ovulation or pms. None of that! It was glorious. I would 10/10 recommend this to anyone with bad periods, endometriosis, or is not sexually active.

Copper IUD – I have bad periods, but this made it 10x worse. Cramps from the depths of hell. Seriously. Don’t do this.

Mirena (hormonal IUD) – No periods! Yayyy! Love it. Emotions are toned down a bit, but I still feel, which is better than the depo shot. It’s given me terrible acne. I’m on spironolactone and Retina-A to try to clear it up. I’m cutting out dairy also to see if that helps. I’m two seconds away from removing the Mirena though.

 

I might try the pill for a while to get the acne under control, then switch to copper IUD or just nothing. idk.

 

Happy Things

I’ve probably written this post 800 times. (Do I even have that many posts?)

I don’t do winter. I don’t do cloudy. And I read blogs all the time about how to beat winter blues, SAD, whatever. But it’s different for everyone. Here’s my personal list for this winter:

• Go outside even when it’s cloudy/cold/rainy. By staying inside when it’s cold, we train our brains to fear the cold. Instead, bundle up and go outside. Reverse the fear.
• Fill my time with meaningful things. I love learning new things, but when my motivation is null, I’m not likely to teach myself something. So suggestion: sign up for a class, like at Joann’s. You paid for it. You have someone relying on you to be there and to succeed. So I asked a friend to give me art lessons. Coursera is also a good option.
• Exercise in the mornings. The sun in up for about 10 hours a day, starting at 6:45am and ending around 5pm. Doesn’t it make sense to be awake for the entire time the sun is? Wake up with the sun, get your blood pumping, and start your day. Then by the time the sun goes to sleep, you’ll feel okay staying in and relaxing.
• Socialize. It’s honestly as easy as “I’m going to Target, want to come?” or “Got you some ice cream, let’s eat it and chat for a minute.” Socializing is good for so many reason. Serving others boosts their mood and yours. You get to rejoice with others in their accomplishments. Mourning with those that mourn puts your own woes into perspective. Just having that sense of community does amazing things. Then there’s the more selfish reason- socializing expands your support network. If you need help, there will be someone there to cry with you.

Always more happy things to think about, but this is a solid list. I can’t really focus on more than a few goals at once, so I’ll stick with four.

Humble

I have got to straighten out my priorities. And here’s how…

Things I think I need to work on:

• Exercising more
• Having better hobbies
• Making more money
• Eating better
• Using my time more productively

Things I actually need to work on:

• Judging less
• Treating people better
• Trusting God
• Generally being a better person

I always seem to forget that my elevator speech (Hi I’m Rachel. I like blah blah and I do blah blah) matters way way way less than who I actually am. So…like…treating people the very best is way more important than the kinds of things I can brag about.

That’s sort of what I learned yesterday from Amanda.

 

Determined

Determined is not a word that I ever use to describe myself. Right along with motivated or passionate. I get easily discouraged and frankly, I’m just lazy. I can stick with something for like a month, 6 weeks tops.

But what I am is creative, easily excited, and always willing to learn. I love to take on the 30-day challenge type things. so I’m going to try a new one each month. So far this year, I’ve done yoga challenges and a drawing of the day challenge. I’m currently in this healthy eating/exercise thing. (4 days into a 6-month stretch. woo.) But coming up…

November is National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo. 30 days of writing. 1667 words per day. 50,000 words total. A novel… well, a mini novel. This is my fourth year. It’ll possibly be the worst year since I don’t even have the slightest clue what I’ll write. Options in my head at the moment: non-fiction biography type thing. short story collection. sci-fi. Harry Potter fanfic.

I’ll attempt to post on here a few times a week some quotes or snippets. Don’t count on it since nanowrimo is (in my head) about writing super crappy novels in way too short a time. But I’ll try. As motivation.

K. Thanks.

Read This If You’re 23 And Lost

Word.

Murder

Research for the murder moves along nicely as I read about mentally insane children who kill their families. I may start dreaming more violent dreams. Please warn my husband.

As far as writing every day goes, vacation makes it slightly difficult. Perhaps, on occasion, reading is more productive than writing. Perhaps.

Ready for WriMo

Writing before two isn’t working out so well. On a happy note, though, I’m getting rather excited for my murder mystery novel. Starting some character profiles and research. Nanowrimo prep…bring it.

A certain number of days later…

My writing goal has been swimming along just fine. I’ve been diligent (minus one day when I was camping, and shame on me, I forgot my notebook), but my daily writing has turned into nothing but a handful of late-night journal entries about cookies or Brad or whatever.

On Being

It’s been a struggle-filled sort of month where I want to be so many things, but I just can’t get out of bed or off the couch or out of the fridge. I’m a lazy bum more days than not, and I can’t figure out how to motivate myself.

And then I finally bothered my husband about it, and we talked while I cried for hours in the middle of the night. In the end, my darling helped me realize that I need to spend time with myself and a piece of paper to figure out what the heck I want to be.