This year has been a challenging one.
In July, I dealt with intestinal issues, which took most of the month to solve. August saw me at the emergency room because I couldn't take deep breaths and it felt like something was sitting on my diaphragm. Eight hours, a lot of tests, x-rays and monitors later and I was released having been told I wasn't having a heart attack. The most likely explanation is stress.
There has been a lot of stress over the years - mostly from work - but this year has seen the stress increase a great deal. My five person team has been down to three since July. (My manager has been pulling in people from the whole department to help but....) The workload just seems to increase and I have problems releasing stress. (I'm a stress eater and it really shows. Chips need to be banished from my house. And chocolate? Oh, chocolate, how I do love thee.)
After the stress attack, I told my manager I could not work a lot of overtime and needed to find ways to lower my stress. There has been some OT but not nearly as much. I'm trying to create the attitude of "Once I'm out the door/off-line work doesn't exist". It's hard for me to do that but I'm trying.
Somewhere along the line, I also stopped meditating. Perhaps that should be one of my December 'to dos'.
One of the things I used to do was knit. I thought it would be a good thing for stress-reduction. Except it took me days to find the needles. Turns out I was smart when I packed and put them in the craft boxes ... over a year before. Yes, there had been no knitting for over a year.
Now, I want to be more aware of what I eat. I want to get back to baking. Today, I went through the bags of flour, etc. to see what I need and determine what may no longer be safe to use. Well. Yes. Um. Almost everything has been pitched. It hurts because I hate wasting food & money but at least this way, I know everything will be fresh.
I think things may be looking up though. I'm wanting to knit & bake & cook. I've been writing again. Just finished NaNoWriMo and I'm hoping to use the momentum to work on the fantasy novel.
No comments:
Post a Comment