Taking Care of Myself

In the past two weeks, I have been feeling more sad and gloomy than usual. I am a pretty positive person and generally bounce back from gloomy moods pretty quickly (like within hours), but that hasn't been the case recently. I am not sure if I was run down or just struggling with all the changes I see ahead. However, it was time to get me back to a healthy mental state. Thus, we started operation Get Mom Back on Track this week. We started the week off with a beautiful Sunday picnic and walk along the river. Rebekah Anne went all out and packed our "picnic" china dishes. My husband stopped and picked up dessert at our favorite bakery. It was lovely.

We walked our city's labyrinth twice this week. I used to take my littles to walk this same labyrinth when they were really out of sorts. It worked well to help balance them. You are forced to walk slower and just follow the pattern which tends to bring one's breathing and blood pressure down. I also prioritized taking my two mile walks everyday. I always feel better when I get a good walk.

Instead of the more serious books I tend to read, I picked a children's chapter book to read this week, because I just needed a bit of fun and whimsy. I also made it a priority to get into bed by 10 pm and actually made it most nights. Lastly, I added back in my supplement, Holy Basil, which has always helped my mood. I had taken a few weeks off from taking it. I am feeling much more myself this Saturday morning. I will have to keep up the good work of taking care of myself. 

I have started formulating a plan to help Elijah break down the growing up process. We told him that for the next short while, he has to work two hours a day on career exploration, working for Grandma at $11 an hour and working on getting his learner's permit or exploring the bus system. He is also welcome to apply for jobs that we/he finds that might be a good fit. My hope is that adding in a bit of money to his life will help him get used to using his debit card, knowing how much money he has, managing and maybe even saving his money a bit more. I also want him to go back to having a daily routine and doing work that he may not love, but brings him some value (money, self worth). I am not sure how long we are going to do this plan, but we will do it at least until he gets vaccinated. If it goes on for more than a handful of weeks, we will have to increase the hours per day and get him used to more sustained work. 

He did apply for a job at Starbucks this week and has not heard from them. I am biding my time waiting for his standards to come down. I have been told by others that our local chain grocery store is always hiring and really does hire young people with no experience all the time and treats them well. Employees are also able to set their own hours within reason. We rarely shop in the chain store because it is more expensive and has less organics than the other three stores I shop at. He has resisted this store because his estranged sister (Katie) works in the one we frequent most often, plus it is downtown and has an urban gangster vibe. Next week we will be visiting some of the ones out in the suburbs so he can see that many of the stores are newer and nicer. I also saw that two other grocery stores in our area were hiring, and I had heard really nice things about one of them. We visited both of those this week. Elijah liked both of them and was surprised how clean and nice the one was despite it also being downtown. He also appreciated that everyone was wearing their masks properly. He is a real mask stickler and gets very upset when he sees people not following the rules. We have two major industries here, medical and tourism. I pointed out that both stores were on the "rich" side of town and that I had really noticed that the more educated and richer folks in our city who tend to be in the medical world were generally much more compliant with mask wearing. Actually, most of the residents in our city are doing very well with mask compliance. It is mostly the tourists who come in and just don't want to follow the rules.

We treated ourselves to this tart at one of the grocery stores. I realized that we rarely grocery shop as a family, and I wanted Elijah to get a more personal experience with some of the departments. Grocery stores have so many different jobs in them. 

April is almost here. I am ready to say good-bye to March. I always find it one of the dreariest months of the year. 

Lastly, Tim got his first Covid vaccine this week, and I can sign Elijah and Rebekah up on the waitlist on the 31st of March. The waitlist is getting faster now and only seems to take two to three weeks. We are making progress!

Blessings, Dawn