jillsalahub

lightball

1. Eric. Since my foot has been wrecked, he has taken over all the dog walking. This is no small thing, kind and gentle reader — our dogs get walked 5-6 miles every morning and another 2-3 every afternoon. I can’t wait to be well enough to start sharing the load again, but until I am, I’m so grateful Eric can, and more importantly that he doesn’t ever complain about it.

2. Our bathroom remodel is moving along. It’s a small crew, but they work really hard, are nice and funny and good at what they do, and are friendly to my dogs. When we had our kitchen remodeled all those years ago, the contractor and his lead guy were really good, but they had kind of crappy subcontractors, so I especially appreciate this crew. Yesterday they put in the new fan. Since we haven’t had one the whole time we’ve lived here (apparently that wasn’t a thing in the 60’s), it seems like some kind of magic.

3. Going to the gym every day. I was really struggling with what to do about my gym membership, struggling to get there at all. There are some things about it I don’t like (unstaffed weekend hours specifically) and making the transition from working out as a way of punishing myself to working out because it feels good and doing so without my trainer was proving to be really sticky and difficult. But without a functioning shower or tub during the remodel, my best option for a shower is to go to the gym every day. I’m glad for that because I’ve been realizing what a great little community I have there. I am getting hugs from various people every time I go in, people who genuinely missed me, and today one woman even stopped her workout and followed me into the locker room squealing my name she was so happy to see me. I also think that even though I still have to be so careful because of my foot, it’s actually helping my foot to do a bit more, to cultivate some of the strength I’ve lost over the last few months.

4. Our first snow. It wasn’t much and now the back yard is a muddy mess, but it was pretty the morning it happened, and later that day Eric took the dogs hiking up at Lory State Park.

snowhiking

5. Getting good work done, even with the chaos of my schedule and location. Part two of this item is being able to let go, forgive myself when I can’t get work done because of the chaos of my schedule and location.

6. Sam and Ringo. Being able to go on a walk alone with them. How good they are being even with all the noise and strange people in and out of the house. How much of a cuddle bug Ringo is turning into. How well Sam’s eyes are doing, (he has Pannus, but with special eye drops we are so far able to keep it pretty clear).

cuddlebug

Couching

No turning back now

1. Truth: This bathroom remodel is both easier and harder than I thought it would be. I expected it to be a pain to not have anywhere to shower in my own house for an entire month, but I didn’t expect having people here every day smashing and banging and stomping around in their boots and slamming the front door and talking to themselves to be so stressful. Part of it is that our house is so small, there’s not really anywhere you can go to get away from it. I moved the dogs’ crates to the garage because that’s about as far away as you can get, but people have still been needing to get into the crawl space and the attic so they aren’t completely away from it. I’m working from home some of the time to be here for the dogs, to be sure they are okay, to answer questions about where to put outlets and such, and my office is right on the other side of the bathroom so it’s hard to get as much done. My CSU office seems more and more like an oasis, peaceful and calm and quiet.

2. Truth: I am hungry. There’s a health fair at CSU today where I can get a free flu shot and some bloodwork. When I signed up, I thought to myself “oh, I don’t drink coffee anymore so the fasting part won’t be a big deal and I won’t need to go in so early.” So I scheduled for 11 am. It was only later that I remembered fasting also meant no food. Here’s the kicker — because I get up at 5 am, typically by 11 am I’ve already eaten TWO meals. This is harder than I thought it would be.

3. Truth: I’m trying to be gentle with myself. As soon as I get my blood drawn, I’ll go get something to eat. Knowing that I won’t get as much done while this is going on, I can give myself a break, let myself off the hook. It’s okay that I don’t do so much right now, especially considering how much I normally do. Sure I have to go to the gym to shower every day, but while I’m there I can do some exercise knowing I don’t have to do so much because I’m going e v e r y day. I can take it easy, do what feels good, and then enjoy a hot shower. Who knows, maybe I could get used to this doing less and find a gentler pace at which to live my whole life, not just this month.

One wish: That whatever upset and disruption is occurring in our lives, we can relax with it and be gentle, giving ourselves the space and care we need.