Tag Archive | stress

Thankful Thursday Week 14/52

Happy Thursday friends! We are in our fourth week of self isolation over here! The new life “normal” is a lot to take in! Definitely a whole host of emotions daily! I’m thankful my little family is holding up well and healthy so far. I’m thankful for all the folks doing their best to follow the rules and care for each other!

Lets remember there is no one size fits all for handling this current pandemic situation! Some people will thrive through this and others will fall, hurt, or even take their own lives. If you want to work out at home, awesome! If you want to sit on the couch and binge watch Netflix, fantastic! Do whatever feels right with your time at home. Don’t worry about what other people are doing! Resist the urge to compare yourself to others! Resist the urge to judge how others are reacting/function/coping or not! We’re all in this together but we are all allowed to work through it how we need to! Stay home and do you ❤️

PS I’m really thankful for iced coffee! ☕️☕️

Thankful Thursday Week 13/52

It’s been a long week for all of us! I don’t have much to say today but I will share one of the things im thankful for today. I’m thankful for all the logistics staff, farmers, truck drivers, grocery store staff etc working through this terrifying time to maintain our food supply.

Without these integral workers things would be much harder than they already are! So thank you to you and everyone on the front lines. ❤️

Thankful Thursday Week 12/52

What a week! Are you guys okay out there? This week has been one of the longest weeks of any of our lives. The emotional roller coaster, the information overload, the fear, the unknown.

I don’t have a lot of advice to offer except love each other hard and do your best to help keep other safe.

Take time to breathe. Step away from social media. Find safe ways to distract from the situation at hand. Bake a cake, try a new recipe, read a book, dance! Anything that will make you smile!

This week I’m thankful for lots! I’m thankful for everyone who is taking this seriously. I’m thankful my family is currently healthy. I’m thankful I can bury my face in my husbands beard and in Jacob’s little neck and breathe in their smells and feel love.

I’m thankful for cheerful flowers and that Mother Nature has blessed us with a week of sunshine so we can at least play in the backyard to break up the day! I’m thankful for cupcakes and coffee. I’m thankful for phone calls with friends and daily text check in’s.

I’m thankful I can find something to be thankful for!

We are all in this together.

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Thankful Thursday Week 8/52

We’re neck deep in renovations with no end in sight but my energy and heart has been with Muffin all week.

Muffin had some pretty major dental surgery this week. As a small havanese dog she’s prone to dental disease and unfortunately her teeth didn’t fare so well. She eats a raw diet and the lack of crunch and scraping while chewing definitely sped the process along. Sadly Muffin had to have 25 teeth removed this week. She came through surgery well and is recovering well at home.

For that I’m extremely thankful.

You Do What You Have To Do

It’s been 179 days since I stood up and walked away from an abusive employer. It’s taken me most of those to stop feeling guilty for leaving the patients and taking care of my own wellbeing.

It’s been 1872 days since the accident that took away the way of life my husband and I knew .

It’s been 1837 days since I’ve become a Mom.

It’s been 37 days since we “settled” with ICBC.

In all those days I haven’t found myself but honestly I haven’t really looked. I haven’t really known where to look or how to look. What I do know is I sort of feel like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel instead of another dark tunnel.

My only thought is “Baby run!” Don’t run away from it run towards it! Run, embrace it. There is no shortcut.

This is the first time in over 5 years that for some reason it feels like I just got a breathe of spring.

Embrace it Erica, better days are here.

Quitting… 

We all have a thousand things to do this time of year! Lets face it, we have a thousand things to do at all times during the year.  Life can be overwhelming at times and for me yesterday was one of those times. 

Yesterday I made the decision to quit Weight Watchers. I am both saddened and relieved by this. I am saddened for a few reasons, mainly because I will miss the weekly visits with my meeting friends. I’ve made some strong friendship connections since joining in June. I know I will still see those friends, just not as frequently. I am also saddened because by quiting im losing my built in accountability of a weekly weigh in.  Back in 2011 (before my Lupus got bad) I had amazing success with Weight watchers. I lost over 50 pounds in a year with the program! Of course my life was very different then and I had amazing support from a friend, freedom/ability to workout when I wanted, much less responsibility, etc. This time around my success has been much slower. I’ve lost 15 pounds since June 1st. I realize my illness and my new Mom life are both factors in my slow loosing and I accept that. I make a point of eating healthy and doing what I can when I can, that to me in itself is a success! Not all victories are revealed by the number on the scale or the size of my pants!!

You might be wondering why I quit given I just told you all about my success!  I quit because I can’t get behind the new program released this week.  The changes are substantial and I can’t wrap my head around a program that says I can have a beer for less points than a glass of milk!  I can eat heavily processed/ chemical laden brand name potato crisps for less points than a 1/4 avocado.  In my opinion the points values of many foods no longer represents their nutrition!  I can’t force myself to follow a program that doesn’t give me enough daily points to have oatmeal with milk, 1 tablespoon of peanut butter for breakfast. A green salad with 4 oz of grilled chicken, 1/4 of an avocado, & 1 tablespoon dressing for lunch, and a high fibre wrap with 4 oz lean protein, 1 oz of cheese, veggies and salsa for dinner. Plus one serving of Greek yogurt and berries for a snack!  That’s three healthy meals and one snack and according to the new program I wouldn’t have enough points for that. 

When a program starts to cause more stress than health benifits it’s time to throw in the towel.  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not throwing in the towel on healthy eating! I’m just throwing in the towel on paying $60 a month to be stressed out when making healthy choices!! 

  

A Week In A Blink

Please pardon my MIA status for the last week. I’ve been feeling very stressed with my up coming appointment at the Lupus clinic. I’ve been doing my best to keep myself occupied and busy. I succeeded at both for the better part of the last week!

Wednesday night after work my best friend, Katie and I hit Starbucks for some tea and small talk. I’ve found myself becoming more closed off these days even around those I love deeply. I think it is a combination of being unwell, the unknown, and the inability to even get out what I want to say. With that being said it was nice to have some one on one BFF time.

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Thursday I ventured out to get my nails done, toes painted, and eye brows waxed! A girls gotta do what a girls gotta do! Unfortunately that meant venturing outside in flip flops. Let me tell you it was not a warm experience!!!

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I came home from my nail appointment to get love attacked by Maple and Muffin!

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After I managed to pull myself away from the pups, Kevin and I ventured out to run some errands. We went to the wild bird store and then to edible arrangements before heading to Starbucks and to visit a friend. Our friends recently finished a kitchen renovation and oh my gosh it is seriously gorgeous!!!! So jealous! Once we got home Kevin had to force me to eat dinner before I was allowed to bust open the box of chocolate covered fruit we picked up at Edible arrangements!!!

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If you have never tried anything g from E.A. I suggest you go… Go now… I will wait!! But seriously, so amazing…so not cheap! You’ve been warned!

Friday I got up early and headed to the gym. I got my workout in despite the pain!

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I promise I burned more then five calories!!! I only have this photo because I’m still getting use to the iPhone! After the gym I had coffee with a friend and walked around the mall before coming home to a little family work party of wood chopping and stacking!

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I was out on stacking duty because let’s face it I’m not chainsaw or axe handling material these days!!! After the work was done I was thoroughly exhausted but rallied to go out for the night with some friends. One of our friends is a musician and was playing at one of my favourite pubs! We spent most of the evening there, had dinner, some drinks then hit the hot tub!

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I’m such a fan of tasting plates and this one was amazing!!! The pub makes their own marinated veggies and beer infused Dijon mustard! As well as the pretzel buns! I would order this again in a second!!!

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The waitress and I become quick friends so she made sure my wine arrived as full as possible!!

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The hot tub felt amazing in the freezing winter night. Thanks to my autoimmune issues I can only handle about ten minutes at a time so I got out and wrapped my self in blankets on the patio. I’m no fun!!

Saturday morning saw me power clean the house before heading into Vancouver for the day with a group of eight friends. We had a very entertaining day and a wonderful meal at a quaint little Italian restaurant.

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The butter was rose buds!! I was a fan !!!

The rest of the weekend was rather low key because I was exhausted. When I think about last year at this time I get insanely frustrated because of how much my life has changed. Being sick has caused me to have to slow down. I haven’t been running and I miss it. I am going to the gym three days a week as opposed to five days a week as I was before. I guess I should be happy I’m able to go at all. I have to be honest I’m not feeling overly optimistic today. I really can’t wait until this specialist appointment is done with.

Anyways this week so far has been good. The gym yesterday was helpful temporarily in helping me forget how much I’m not enjoying my to do list this week!!

Tonight I made home made black bean burgers and they turned out awesome and of course I neglected to take a photo!!! Blogger fail!!

A few more pictures from the past week!!

Enjoy and goodnight friends 🙂

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