Victory But Not in a Funny Way

This is the day I tend to give social media my gym report. There is nothing to report. I'm still going and seeing steady progress. I guess that's not nothing, it's just not something I can think of funny remark to make about. At least not today. Maybe next week.

Well, that's what I posted on Facebook, the rest of the story is I gave my testimony last night and I'm wiped out. I tried to take a cute picture to go with the post but that wasn't working either, so I gave up and went with the non-update update.

here's a not very good photo, but at least I'm cozy and restful

Top Secret

This is top secret so don't tell anyone, but, I may or may not possibly sort of might be a little bit enjoying going to the gym.

But just in case I might be insane, I also went to visit my favorite creek spot.

I wanted a picture with my feet in the water, but also was digging the fall foliage...I'm a weirdo

Also. In early September I apparently overbooked myself for this week. At the time it was so far away that I knew I'd have plenty of time to be well prepared. But then other things came up and I didn't get as prepared as I wanted to. Over a few days I've given a Sunday school lesson and a CR lesson and went to a class at MCC to tell them about CR. Plus had my last session with my now-ex therapist. So that's...a lot.

Sleep Fast

I don't think I have much to write today. I gave a lesson at Celebrate Recovery tonight. It wasn't my best one ever. But I could have done a LOT worse.

My church is starting the year with a 21 day prayer and fasting activity. I don't tend to do the not-eating at all kind of fasting, usually I'll pick something non-food related. But apparently my body decided that I should have a sleep fast. Or it's just the same old insomnia with slightly more humorous timing.

While I was not-sleeping and also not writing my lesson last night, I was working on my temperature project. Until the point that I ran out of a color of yarn. Then I had no time to run to the store today so it has to wait.

Oliver 2011. I don't know why but it just feels like the right picture for this post.

I really accomplished a lot of stuff today and talked to a lot of people, but I don't have anything to write about it. I skipped my self-imposed FLYLady task of the day. That was another thing I didn't do while I was skipping a night's sleep. I'm not going to kick myself too hard though for not being super productive while I should have been sleeping.

I was on the verge of typing that perhaps I would do two FLYLady tasks tomorrow and then stopped myself. Part of fighting perfectionism is letting today go and just doing a good task tomorrow. If I have time and energy and the desire, I could do another task, but I don't have to. I just have to do the best I can tomorrow and then again the next day.

Crash

So it's been two and a half weeks or so since I gave my testimony. It was an interesting way of celebrating 14 months of intense focus on recovering from my childhood. I was also pleasantly surprised by the people who came to support me. I think at a lot of big important moments in my life I've felt like I was on my own, but for this big moment, I was truly surrounded with community. It just sort of blew me away.

Afterwards, I didn't know how to calm down. I guess, in a way, I really didn't want to. What goes up must come down and I didn't want to come down. I know how low I can crash and I wanted to put that off as long as I could. That turned out to be about a week and a half.

I haven't done a good job of protecting my sleep while I was on this roller coaster. So even though I haven't crashed as hard or as low as I was afraid I would, I still get to deal with resetting my sleep again. It's this constant battle, sleeping at the right times.

I think I'm doing an OK job of moving forward from crashing, which is good because now I've volunteered to write another thing to say in front of people. Less intense personal life story, more lesson kind of thing. Insert nervous face. In a way I'm testing the waters to see whether or not I like doing this stuff. And now I know I have to be more protective of my sleep. So maybe this will go better.

Updates

It turns out I still haven't finished this project that I was working on. Plus I didn't take a picture of one of the squares, but I do think I have 6 of the 9 squares done at this point.

I guess I forgot that I was sharing my Inktober drawings on here. I also didn't mention that I was following instructions from a YouTube channel called Art for Kids Hub. I went back and added links to the videos I used for the first two drawings. I put the mermaid's face on the tree and changed the branches to arms.

The prompts for day 3 were banshee and bait. So I made basically the mermaid again with a scary face like she's screaming and a trap symbol from the TV show Supernatural.

basically mermaid again

Dragon & Freeze

The fifth day prompts were witch and build. So I did Hermione and replaced her book with a jar holding the fire she built.

Witch

Art for Kids Hub didn't have a centaur and I tried to engineer one by combining different things and it wasn't working. So I found a different channel. The other prompt was husky so I tried to make the horse part meatier than the original.

Centaur

I took some tips from another channel for this Valkyrie. I guess the biggest difference between a Viking girl and a Valkyrie is what they wear and I didn't want to take the time to figure out how to make a more Valkyrie body, so I basically did that mermaid face again. The second prompt was enchanted so I tried to capture that in her expression....maybe...?

Valkyrie

The prompts for day 8 were gumiho and frail.l I guess a gumiho is a 9 tailed fox, so I modified Art for Kids Hub's fox. I tried to make 9 big healthy tails but it wasn't working. I really thought the fox looked frail enough as it was, but now she has 9 frail tails too.

Fox

The prompts for day 9 were madraemonte and swing. I don't know if the word is misspelled or what, but I had a hard time finding what a madraemonte was supposed to be. I did find some information about La Madre Monte from Columbia. She's described as a large woman who wears moss and leaves and conceals her face under a green hat. So I went with that.

Leaves

I did the thing!

Here's photographic proof that I did the thing! I stood in front of people and said things. It was pretty cool even though my story is very intense. I might even do it again if I have the opportunity....and technically I do.

The downside is that in all my pre-speaking over thinking, I didn't consider the post-speaking self care I would need to do. 24 plus hours later and I'm still fairly wound up. I didn't sleep last night until 6am this morning and I've just been squirrelly all day.

Maybe I'll sleep well tonight and be ready for "normal life" tomorrow.

Tissues

It's this kind of funny thing that when you go to a women's church related conference, they always give you a pen and something to write on. But never have I ever been give the one thing that every one is going to need at some point in the conference. Tissues.

Happy tears. Sad tears. Angry tears. Relieved tears. Runny noses from hotel stays. I don't know why hotels always seem to come with a side of congestion. Anyway.

Everyone needs a tissue.

One time I was at a conference where one of the guest speakers was the wife of one of those Duck Dynasty guys. Clearly I'm super familiar with that whole family. At some point she teared up on stage and no one brought her a tissue!

It was my moment. I had been joking for years about the need for tissues at these events. And I had some in my bag. At the very back of the auditorium. But I hesitated. And I missed my moment.

Not long after that I started making piles of reusable tissue holders. And when I go to the conferences, I take them and hand them out to everyone.

I've been meaning to make some for Celebrate Recovery. Just to have on hand for anyone who needs one. Because sometimes we need to cry and I think handing somebody a tissue should be a moment of permission. Permission to be human. Permission to feel.

So today I finally got around to following through on that plan because tomorrow I'm going to make everyone cry. And it just seems like the responsible thing to do, to prepare them in advance.

I'll give them a tissue.

Backpack

Ah, this day has arrived. The one year anniversary of the loss of my backpack.

On This Day:

To whomever stole my backpack: have fun with my two partially completed crochet projects, couple of Bible study books and dirty jar that had my dinner in it. Also the sweet little first aid kit in the side pocket.

This backpack didn't have it's own theme song, but it was mine and it was ready for adventures. I don't even think I'd had it for a full year actually. I mean, I have carried different backpacks for a long time but this one was more intentional. I had looked for the features I wanted and found it in this one bag. Except the colors were a bit more obnoxious than strictly necessary.

I don't really have a good picture of it. But I also don't have access to all my photos because my computer is down.

Anyway. At the end of the day it was only a backpack. But it was also a big moment where I had emotions and actually felt them in real time. I have a habit of not doing that. That's part of what I've been working on in CR.

The real story is how everything went in the aftermath. An intern at church knew I was feeling sad about this and she got me a new backpack and gave it to me with a sweet little note that used my word twice.

The New Backpack. On Adventure.

I have a word. It's the word that I had decided some years ago that if I were ever going to tattoo one word, one thought, one idea onto my body, it should be the thing that would help me when I'm in a dark place. The one word that would always remind me of what it is I need to know to get me out of that dark place.

So many people in my life went out of their way to be so kind to me when I lost my backpack. It was kind of bizarre to me. Because it really is just a backpack. But I guess it's also possible that they were trying to reinforce my word.

A couple weeks later I tried to help the message sink in a little deeper.

Tuesday

In high school, Thursdays were known as industrious days. Or maybe it was every other Thursday when they had switched us to block scheduling. Somehow we just had lots to do on Thursdays. Well my Thursdays still tend to be industrious days, but Tuesdays are even more so. It doesn't seem like it should be allowed. One industrious day a week is enough.

Well anyway. We have a homeschooled girls Girl Scout troop that meets on Tuesdays. Today we were celebrating that 75% of our troop bridged from Juniors to Cadettes. One of their requests was to have a chocolate party. I don't really know what that means, but I took my elephant wax warmer to make the room smell like Brownie Pecan Pie and we had hot chocolate and chocolate trail mix and piles of things to dip in chocolate sauce.

I also may or may not have sent each girl home with a handful of chocolate candy and a chocolate cake pop. I found the exact right number of them marked down.

Sometimes I overcompensate.

Also on Tuesdays is Celebrate Recovery. It's been a weird journey this last year and a half or so. Next week I'm going to tell my story. That's the writing project I've been working on. That's going to be weird too. It's like public speaking but slightly more private and way more vulnerable.

Plus, it turns out, now that I've put the invitation out there all over the place, I'm realizing that I know a lot of people who are currently or have been in the past employed in the realm of Saying Things in Front of People.

Current and retired public school teachers. Current and retired Christian school teachers. Current and retired college professors. Current and retired Christian college professors. Current and retired preachers.

I'm like, "hey if you are now or have ever been a professional speaker, come listen to me as I too Say Things in Front of People. Casually. For the first time ever."

Most of the people I know are super nice, and wouldn't come unless they were intending to be supportive. But feeling nervous in advance is a sign of progress and healing. So even though it's weird, I kind of like it.

Yarny

I like to express myself in yarn. But it's kind of slow going sometimes, so I like to know things in advance. The good news is I'm freakishly good at noticing things and putting puzzle pieces together. While I was still working on my writing project, it was super hard to settle down and crochet, but now that it's done the yarn is flying more freely. I still don't know if I can get finished in time, but I've done more in the last two days than in the 2.5 weeks prior. Here's a sneak peek at some of the pieces of this project.

DONE

So I finished my writing project. It's like my whole life story that I'm going to share at Celebrate Recovery soon. I thought about posting it here, but I want to give it in person first.

A few days ago we went to Call Hall Dairy Bar. It's been on K-State campus for a long time. The building is very old. So old that certain things need to be explained to current generation of college students.

I stayed up very late last night to finish writing and then slept through my alarm this morning.

But now that it's done, I don't even know what to do with my life.

Unicorns

Today I saw a unicorn. I couldn't get a picture because it was a bit dark outside. Now I will admit that I got less than 5 hours of sleep last night. I also spent two hours standing at a food packing activity. It looked kind of like this:

And then I spent the rest of the day outside telling tons of people about Celebrate Recovery.

Well, ok, full disclosure, I told a few people about CR and spent a lot of time hanging out and crocheting.

This was an event called Flint Hills Praisefest. It's a day of concerts and all kinds of fun. It was at the very end when Tenth Avenue North was performing that I saw her. A beautiful purple unicorn. The best color of unicorn. Very much like this:

walmart and target both sell it

....except...you know....more purple.

And now you know the other reason I didn't take a picture, I didn't want to be a creepy weirdo.

Memories.

I remember the first writing project I was assigned in fifth grade. I don't remember what I was supposed to be writing, exactly, but I remember that we were supposed to finish our introduction before recess. And I remember staying in at recess to write my introduction.

At that point in my life I always wrote the introduction last. I had most of my paper written but I also really liked rules and preferred writing to recess. 

I'm a total weirdo.

As I recall, our second writing assignment went something more like "you have to have half a page written before recess".

I've been changing the world for a long time.

My current writing assignment isn't going as well or as quickly. And I've developed some new techniques since fifth grade. I've written the introductory parts. Then today I wrote some more but I'm pretty sure with two to three more sentences, it's my conclusion. The middle parts are what elude me now.

Maybe I should throw the whole thing out and grab a piece of wide ruled paper, skip the top half and start with the middle like I used to.

Or maybe I should start skipping all my recesses until I get it done.