Positively Weightless

 I know, I know. I just took a break back in March, and here I am coming back after taking 3 more weeks off. That was not intentional by any means, May was just such a busy week for me. First it was Mother's Day and I did not plan ahead and write a post before Sunday that week, then the following weekend I moved and was exhausted, and then last weekend I was on a trip for one of my longest friend's bachelorette weekend. If anything, however, this unplanned break from writing only inspired the topic for today's post, and that is that sometimes things just do not go according to plan, and that sometimes that is for the best.

Moving is a perfect example to start with for this topic. Some of you may know that I had fully planned on moving out of my parents house last Spring, but 2020 was wild so that obviously did not happen. Instead it happened almost exactly a year later. It absolutely has worked out for the best though as I have found a place I love and have settled in nicely already and the situation just overall is really good. Another pro to the original plan not working out is it gave me even more time to prepare. I had pretty much every last thing I needed in order to be living in my own place from dishes to cleaning supplies and everything in between. Certain things I overlooked when preparing a year prior, and I saved a lot more money in the meantime as well. Even actual moving day we had a few things that I did not perceive happening but everything worked out for the best.

I think another great example, which is also an extension of my last example, would be 2020 as a whole. I know I keep bringing this up, but I think it is important to remind ourselves just how strong we have been over the past year. All sorts of plans had to change last year from trips, to weddings, to birthing plans of new mothers. It is important we mourn the loss of those things in our lives and realize it is okay to still be upset. If you had to re-plan a wedding, just think of how much nicer it is going to be now that mask restrictions have been lifted and your guests no longer have to be Covid tested. If you have to re-plan a trip like me, just keep in mind it will only be that much sweeter because of the wait, and you still have that to look forward to. If you had a baby during the peak of Covid, yes nothing is going to change that but hey, silver lining, when your child is older and acting up you can remind them you gave birth in a global pandemic! 😉 

Take some time and think about your life and how your planning has changed it. Trust me I am someone who plans ahead. I go to a new restaurant and I have already looked at the menu 3 times over online before we get there. I ask what clothes I should wear to something even if I know the event is pretty casual. I ask how we are going to split the check before even going to a restaurant if I am going out with a group of friends. I am very much a person who likes to have control over certain situations, but a lesson I even need to learn myself is that things almost always are not going to fully go to plan. Things are going to pop up that you are not anticipating. Planning is a great tool to have but there is always the risk of something going wrong. I am sure you can think of many times in your life that this has happened.

Overall I think the best practice is to realize that you can not fully control life. You can plan and plan and plan but there will always be that risk of something completely throwing a wrench in those plans. Life absolutely is unpredictable and we never really know what is going to happen next. I mean even as someone who does like to have a plan ahead of me, I feel like life would be incredibly boring if it always went 100% as expected every single day of my life. The important thing always is how we handle this. Do not panic or make any rash decisions. Life truly has a way of surprising us, and if a problem arises you just may be surprised at how easy the solution is. 

 Happy Sunday everyone! I hope everyone has been doing well and pushing through the last couple of weeks. I know, right after I returned to my blog I ended up skipping another week. This was completely unintentional I simply had a lot going on an completely ran out of time to write last week. There are a lot of changes going on, one incredibly exciting, and I am doing my best to balance everything until that big change takes place. I know I have talked about change on this page before but I think it is an incredibly important topic to talk about. Our entire lives are about changing and we do a lot of it every single year of our lives. So let's dive into that a little.

I think it is safe to say the last year or so has been about nothing but change. Now, I said I am not going to dive too much into talking about the pandemic anymore on this page, and I stand by that, but I think it is an important point to bring up for this topic. I am not going to go into the politics of the pandemic, vaccine, anything along those lines but think of all the change that came as a result. For most of us our lives changed in a big way. Our routines I was preaching about pre-Covid were pretty much demolished overnight (depending on where you live) we could no longer go to work, to the gym, or even to visit our loved ones. Change was forced upon all of us in some way, shape, or form. Now here we are in 2021 and still pushing through. No things are not quite back to normal but we are still getting through each day. We are maybe used to new routines and adapting to the constant changes in others. The important part is that it did not fully break us.

Change is inevitable. It simply is a part of life. I feel like a broken record but I must say once again that I fully believe that everything in life happens for a reason. Yes, a lot of the time it is unclear what this reason is. Some things you deal with are incredibly painful and I am sure none of us can even fathom to think about a reason that happened, but I truly believe down the line we realize the reason for many things that have happened and grow to accept them to some level. Friends that leave our lives, usually are making room for someone that belongs there even more. Loved ones pass on, but that just means they are no longer in pain or suffering physically or mentally. You never have to be happy with negative changes in your life, but I personally am able to find a little peace with the situation once I realize why that change may have occurred.

This weekend (and the last few, which is why I have been so busy) I have been packing up my things to finally move out of my parents house. I am so incredibly excited to be able to take this next big step in my life, but in some ways it is sad packing up the bedroom I have spent almost 20 years of my life in. There are a lot of things I will miss about being here, but that does not mean I am not incredibly excited to have my very own space to call home. It is time and I am more than ready! Plus I am not moving far away or anything of the sorts. The way I look at it, I am very blessed to have parents that have been okay with me staying with them this long, and love me so much that it makes this such a bittersweet moment. I know some people are not as lucky and could not wait to fly the nest.... or were forced to fly it earlier than they were ready for. See what I mean about change though? It has the power to evoke such drastically different emotions, sometimes at the same time like in my case right now. 

Overall I wanted to remind you all that change is inevitable and trying so hard to fight it does not typically do much. Once we learn to embrace it, it makes dealing with these changes much more manageable. Sure big emotions can come along with them, and it very important to deal with them, but aren't emotions what make us human? As I have said, everything happens for a reason. My big change was prolonged for a long time for many reasons, but I genuinely think that was all part of the unseen plan. I am thrilled with the way things worked out and I would not change a thing if I could. I hope you all learn to embrace these events as well!

I think it is safe to say that a lot of us are spending some of our precious time thinking about all of the "what ifs" right now. What if Covid never hit last year and we did not need to cancel an incredibly important event of my life that I had scheduled last year What if I had used the extra time at home to focus on my health. What if I could go back and do it all again? I think every single one of us thinks this way at some point or another. I myself and incredibly guilty of this. I talked last week about mental health and shared my experience with how some things had been taking a toll on me last week, and today I wanted to continue forward with a similar theme. What if we had done so many things differently last year?

Personally there are a lot of things I would have changed about the last year. In so many ways it felt like a wasted year. It was filled with the same mundane tasks day after day with very little to change it up since we were, and still are in some ways, very limited with how we could change things up. Now the entire time I tried my best to keep this page positive and share ways to stay positive throughout, but I only recently realized I was not actually taking my own advice through all of that time. For one I really struggled with my weight, making good food choices, and working out completely fell on the backburner. I am to this day struggling to find the motivation I had pre-Covid, but working on it. I can very easily say if I could go back I would have done everything in my power to make sure that motivation was never lost. Genuinely what was accomplished last year? On the surface, the answer to that question seems to be pretty much nothing. That is my very first gut reaction, but when I really sit to think about things, that is so far from the truth.

First and foremost, I did my part to not spread the virus to the ones I love, managed to not get sick myself, have the first vaccine in me, and overall managed to stay healthy. Now I am not here to get into the Covid debates, push a vaccine, or anything political of the sorts that came out of this pandemic, but overall my point is that I want you to remember that if you are feeling a similar way, lacking any pride in accomplishments from the past 12-14 months, I want you to first and foremost remember you are still here! You are still pushing through day to day life, even if just barely, and a year into this madness you are getting by. If you are like me and are disappointed in their weight and lack of progress over the past year, remember that your body has literally carried you through a year of a GLOBAL PANDEMIC and everything that came along with that for you personally.

Stepping away from the weight aspect of things, there are still plenty of other bright sides I can find. Anyone that knows me personally, and I believe I even mentioned here before, that I was fully set to move into my own place last spring. Covid obviously prevented that from happening due to restrictions with viewing apartments and a lack of availability, and just some personal reasons as well. This was a blessing in disguise. Firstly had I been at an apartment by myself at the start of lockdown in my state, and I would have literally no social interaction at all, I fear what my mental health would have looked liked at this point in the pandemic. Being quarantined with family, although sure we ticked each other off at times, was so much better than being stuck in an apartment by myself not being able to visit anyone. Had I moved out then I wouldn't be moving into the adorable place I am going to be moving into next month either. Truly that is something that worked out for the best.

Overall I want you all to remember to count your blessings. I think every last one of us is mourning something from the last year. Do your best to find the positive in that. As any of you that have read this page before knows, I am a firm believer in the everything happens for a reason philosophy. Perhaps this entire pandemic happened to teach us all as a human race some humility. If that is the case I think it is pretty clear to see which ones of us are lacking in that department. Maybe the past year was the universe setting all the dominos into place and once this is all behind us, the first will fall causing a chain reaction of blessings in every single one of our lives. Try your best to look on the bright side. Choose to have faith. Choose to forgive yourself for where you may have messed up last year, and remember to thank yourself for getting you to this very moment. Look back, but only for long enough to improve your path towards the future.

 Happy Sunday everyone! Wow it really has been a while and it is almost to the point that sitting down to write on a Sunday afternoon feels a little odd to me. I have been gone from this page since late February. I announced that little hiatus on all of the social media pages I share more blog on, but I never actually explained I would be gone on here so I wanted to talk a little bit about my absence on today's post because I think it could really benefit someone who was struggling in the same way I was. I think a lot of us are experiencing what I am seeing referred to as "Covid burnout" and there have been a lot of struggles that people are experiencing with it all. Some far more extreme than others of course, so I just wanted to take some time to talk about what it was like for me. Before I dive in, however, I want to encourage anyone that may be suffering with sever anxiety or depression in general, but also because of the events of the world over the last year, to seek help the best way they know how. Trust yourself and listen to your gut instincts. If you think you need some professional help please seek it. You are not weak by doing so! 

Towards the end of February I was finding myself in one of the biggest ruts I ever have been. Part of me felt guilty for that. Yes Covid is still very much around but it has not had the same impact on me as it had one someone who lost a loved one or was even sick themselves. I felt my mental health seriously suffering and I felt I had no room to feel that way. I have my job still, I have my health, I still have all of my loved ones, so what right did I have to feel anxious or depressed? The truth behind that is we all have our own struggles. Yes sometimes they are not as big as others but that does not mean they do not matter. If you are feeling a certain way, that feeling is valid. Never let someone downplay your struggles because they have their own. You are allowed to have a bad day. You are allowed to have a bad month, year, etc. 

I was doing so well keeping it together because I was not allowing myself to truly grieve about the things I was sad about. Looking back over the span of a year I had lost a very good friend from work to cancer who I did not get to visit in the last months of her life. I still have not been able to meet my best friend's son or see her because of the pandemic, which was a mutual decision for everyone's safety and there are of course no hard feelings there but it still is sad too. My boss's wife, who I am very close with, has not been able to visit me and I have not seen her in person for over a year now. My sister was unable to walk the stage for her graduation ceremony and I was not able to be there cheering her on they way she cheered me on at mine 7 years ago. I had to cancel a really special trip with my long time best friends, one of which also had to postpone her wedding. I could probably keep going on and on about all the things big and small like this that I was grieving over, but not truly allowing myself to grieve. The past year has brought so much loss to so many people and I think a lot of us, like me, have been suppressing it.

So what did I do? Just like the last post on this page, I put me first. This page was started to feel like more of a chore since my heart wasn't in it, so I decided to take a much needed break. I would rather take the time off than just keep posting posts that my heart wasn't in at all. I took a few days off of work last month as well just for mental health days. Luckily, as I have many times before said, my bosses are really cool about my days off so they were more than happy to approve those days off because they both know how overwhelmed with work I was becoming as well. I found myself a new hobby as well which I highly recommend. On one of those days off I went to the craft store for a few supplies and a set of watercolor paints caught my eye. It was on sale for $7 so I grabbed it and I have been watercolor painting every single day since then. I am no Van Gogh yet, but I think my skills are already improving with practice. But regardless if I am improving or not the most important thing is that I am doing it for me. No deadlines or special requests. Just painting. I have very much been putting me first and I already feel so much better.

Here is one of the paintings I have done as I am learning.

With improvements comes additional things to improve on. I will be honest, my gym schedule (or lack thereof) has been an absolute mess. I am struggling to find the motivation to keep going with my workouts and not making the best food choices, but I am doing my best to set myself up to get back on track. I would love to do more reading again and write more poetry, because that too was suffering while I was feeling down. My biggest piece of advice to you is to also recognize these things and seek help when you need it. If you need a few mental health days take them. I know not all bosses are as chill as mine but you are entitled to your paid time off so you are allowed to use them. I would highly suggest a no pressure hobby like I found in watercolor painting too. Something you just do for you. You don't even have to be any good at it as long as you enjoy it. Most importantly, however, is that if you need help seek it. I cannot stress that enough.

Thank you so very much for sticking around for this post all about me, but I felt it was necessary in my return. I am looking forward to getting right back to my same routine starting now.

 Happy Sunday Everyone! I want to start off by asking anyone reading this... how are you doing? You can answer this in your head, leave a comment telling me, or anything you want as long as you take a moment to think about how you are actually doing. I am not sure how other countries and cultures, or even other parts of the US respond to "how are you?" but I know where I am it is pretty common to just say "good, how are you?" right back. It is essentially just a standard way of greeting someone. If you are having a great day, horrible day, overall just feeling any way at all you most likely still respond with "good, how are you?" as if it is just a casual greeting. I want you to actually think about it for a moment and think about where you are both mentally and physically at the moment before we move on to the topic for today.

I have been struggling lately. I might sound like a broken record here, and I know I talked about a similar topic very recently but this is what is on my mind this week, and I always try to stick to writing about just that. We all make New Year goals and challenges for ourselves, well here we are almost 2 full months into 2021 and where are you with those goals? I saw a video online a few days ago that asked the viewer just that, and it hit me pretty hard. Out of everyone I know, everyone seems to be struggling in some way right now. I want you to know, again, that that is okay. It is a perfectly valid human emotion and response to stress and trauma. The past 12 months have been something none of us have seen in our lifetime. A pandemic that has killed almost 2.5 million people worldwide, an absolutely ridiculous seemingly never-ending election in the US, an attack on one of our nations historic buildings, I could go on and on but I don't need to. Some people are able to deal with the news in a positive way while others not as much. It is completely understandable to be struggling right now!

Now of course I am all about positivity, it is right in the name of my page, but as anyone that has read my past entries also knows that I encourage everyone to also deal with their negative emotions and experiences as well. Toxic positivity is a real thing, and I am not about that at all. We are humans capable of feeling a vast array of emotions and ignoring any of them is not healthy. So let me get to my point here. Yesterday I had my first training session at the gym in a few weeks. In between sets we always chat a little bit. Sometimes about things in our lives, and others relating to the gym or working out of course. I got to mentioning how my motivation is at an all time low right now and he asked me to think about why that was. The truth is I am emotionally just burnt out. Work has been busy and somewhat stressful, the things on the news lately has been getting to me, I have been worrying so much about other people I, once again, am not making myself a priority. I like to think I have a good heart, but sometimes in some ways that comes at my own expense. It is okay to take some time for you. It is okay to struggle. The best piece of advice I can give is one I am also giving to myself: Keep trying to make yourself a priority.

Think of it as how they ask you to put your oxygen mask on in a plane, before you go helping others with theirs. I know this analogy is so overused but it fits. If you are neglecting yourself a resource needed to calm down and survive, you won't be able to help as many people. If you pass out, you are not helping anyone. If you put the oxygen on first you then are taking care of you so that you can then extend that and help others. If you are a mother this probably rings so true. I do not have any children yet, but I see how they can sometimes make themselves the lowest priority on their list. Feed the kids, get the laundry done, get the kids bathed and ready for bed, and by the time that happens they are exhausted and move along to do it all again in the morning. Of course some things can't be put off, but if you take some time to mentally and physically care for yourself, you'll be even more successful the next day. This goes for every last one of us.

I need to make the gym a priority again. I need to get better at meal planning again. I need to take more time to relax, and not let the stress of the work day pile up so by the time 5:30pm hits I have no interest in going to the gym. I need to turn off the news sometimes and watch something mindless and fun. A Harry Potter movie marathon, start a new fiction book, write some poetry or journal, dance around in my bedroom in my pjs, bake a loaf of bread because I want to and not for a specific meal, do some yoga or even a nice reflection meditation, go to the gym and get back to a place where I enjoy it and it doesn't feel like a chore again. I know all of these things are things that I enjoy that I need to make more time for rather than just working and eating and sleeping. I need to push them to the top of the list and make time for them and not feel guilty or that I should be doing something more productive. If any of this is sounding familiar, it sounds like you also need to make yourself a priority. Take some time for you. Take some time to recover from the crazy year we have all been living in together. Take some time to put you first.

 Happy Sunday everyone and a very Happy Valentine's Day to you all as well. I hope you are all celebrating if you are lucky enough to have a valentine, but if you don't that is perfectly okay too. Some have someone special with them today, some of us have a special someone that can't be with them today, and some don't have one at all but you know what? That is perfectly okay too because you can be your very own valentine in that case! Today is all about love and showing those around us that we care. Traditionally that means a lover, but it doesn't need to only mean that! I want to talk today about love, because what better day to revisit that topic than Valentine's Day?

I am going to start off, as I am sure you are all expecting me to, by saying if you are in fact celebrating in person with your valentine this year make sure you are smart and safe. We are still in a global pandemic here so you do not want to end up sick in a couple of weeks just because you decided the holiday was worth ignoring restrictions and safety guidelines, make sure you make safe plans! Now, love is not a new topic for my page here. I have always said love is something that the world always is in need of more of. Love comes in all shapes and forms. Today is traditionally about love between lovers, but it there is no rule at all to say it has to be. My family has always exchanged little gifts and cards on holidays, I love buying small gifts for my niece and nephew and for my bosses' kids at work, and my one boss's wife always send in a little gift for me as well. Of course Valentine's Day is not about gifts necessarily, but it is about showing someone in your life that means something to you that you care.

Valentine's Day, however, is not the only day you can do this either. Every single day we have the option to show the ones we love that we care. Cook dinner for your spouse on a night they may not want to, surprise them with their favorite movie and snack for a random at home date night one night. There are so many things you can do to show someone you care about them on the other 364 days of the week. Love between two soulmates is a very beautiful thing and that should be celebrated every day of the week not just on a commercial holiday. Sure candy hearts, heart shaped boxes of chocolates, cute cards, and fuzzy teddy bears are all fun and exciting to exchange, but there are so many ways to show you care without those things.

Now as I mentioned earlier, a lover is not the only type of love that needs to be celebrated. Family members, close friends, and even yourself are all other really good sources of love that should be celebrated. There is no rule that you shouldn't wish your friend a Happy Valentine's Day or get your mom a box of chocolates. Heck there is also no rule that says you shouldn't buy yourself some candy or flowers for Valentine's day. Love really is all around us even if so many do their best to try and tear it down. The world will never be a bad place because there is more love in it. The world will never suffer because there is more love in it. Love will always set us free, especially with the love we find within ourselves. As soon as we let love in, misery has no place anymore. If we love ourselves and each other everything gets a little brighter and the smog filled skies will start to dissipate. Choose love every single day.

Overall I want you all to remember just how special love is in your life. Maybe you are single and bitter because it is Valentine's Day. Trust me I have had my fair share of bitter Valentine's Days that I rolled my eyes at any couple I saw and overall just wanted the reminder of being single to be over with. You should never envy others that have found love for there is plenty of it still needed in the world. Your person might be closer than you know it. Someone else's happiness doe not mean that you will never find your own. Smile because they found love, smile because you also have love in your life, and smile knowing that one day that also will be you. The world is always better with more love in it, and not just on Valentine's Day!

 Happy Sunday all! Wow I honestly cannot believe yet another week has passed us by. I am sitting here and my meal prep is done, laundry is going to be going in the washer soon, and a loaf of bread is in the oven. As I have said so many times before in the past, preparing for the week ahead, especially with food, is so very important. It is a lot easier to stick to your meal plan when everything is ready to go. I planned on doing this post a few weeks ago, but when all the craziness ensued in the US I just did not have it in me to write a post that seemed so unimportant in comparison, but it is about time for something lighter today! Today I want to do a review on a meal kit delivery service, Green Chef.

I have to start this review with a shoutout to Danielle who gave me the code in order to get these kits for completely free which was great. It gave me the ability to try out a kit I might not otherwise and doubled as an idea for a new review for my blog, so thanks Danielle! If you are not sure what Green Chef is, it is a meal kit delivery service. You pick the number of meals, servings, and select what meals you want out of a good number of new ones each week. Basically they ship everything to you and it is all pre-portioned and put together for you with an easy recipe. The biggest thing these kits do is eliminate your trip to the grocery store, or at least it cuts it in half. Most of the kits have a little prep work to do before cooking, but nothing excessive, and everything is portioned out exactly. I am sure you have seen a million of these kits before, it is similar to all of those. Pictured in this paragraph is the ingredients for the taco bowl I ordered. everything is portioned out, and most of it was already chopped and ready to go. Every kit comes just like this.

So what are some perks with Green Fresh? As I mentioned before everything comes portioned and a lot of the prep is done for you already when you get in. Pictured here was a salmon with kale, beets, and a nice lemon caper sauce on top. In that whole kit the only real prep work I had to do was to chop the kale and capers, everything else was chopped and ready to go. On a long day after work and especially if I go to the gym the last thing I want to do is make a dinner that is a million steps. I am usually tired and hungry at that point so the quicker the better. A lot of the time that means I grab something already made, or I make something really simple like a pan fried piece of fish and microwavable steamed vegetables. Those are fine choices sure, but being able to have a meal like this with just as much effort is awesome on a busy week night! I honestly loved having some variety during the week because I have been incredibly bored with food lately eating the same old things.

A weekly kit sent right to your door every week with pre portioned meals prepped for you to cook, so what are the cons? Well I would say overall it was a great experience. One place people may have an issue with is the price in my opinion. Depending on your financial situation spending that much money may just be out of your budget. The kit I ordered was 4 meals, each for 2 servings and that would cost around $105 per week. Honestly that is around how much I spend on groceries for the entire week and that includes food for all 3 meals and snacks of the week. So overall it is a bit more expensive than I am used to. I can see that being a problem for some people, me included when my expenses go up in a couple of months. Honestly though that is really the only negative thing I have to say. Out of all the recipes I tried I liked every single one of them and I tried brand new thing I have never tried before. For example in this picture is Barramundi fish with a mango salsa, lime slaw, and carrot fries. I had never heard of this kind of fish before and I ended up loving it! Especially paired with that bright citrussy slaw and salsa. 

Overall I loved this meal kit! It was great to just be able to pull the kit from the fridge, do a bit of prep, and have dinner ready after 30 minutes. The selection was great as well. From burgers to pasta to vegetarian dishes. I am sure out of all the options they give you every week you will be able to find something that caters to you and your family as well. The meals have a great variety, usually healthy options as well. Sure one week I got a pork burger recipe (which I pictured here) but it only called for a little oil on the potato wedges and in the pan the burger was fried in, and a little cheese was on the burger. Still a much better option than a greasy fast food combo meal I am sure! Overall my experience with Green Chef has been a very positive one and I have been loving the recipes I have tried. Great food, fast, easy, and it eliminates time at the grocery store, I say that is a great experience!