Betty Reese said it best when she uttered the following words:
If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito.
Amen to that, Betty!
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I've been feeling quite like that fucker of a mosquito lately. I'm taking better care of myself. For all my words of saying that I'm "going to put myself first, take better care of myself, blah blah blah" I don't do a very damn good job of it.
I last for a couple of days and then get easily distracted by schedules, work, my kid, husband, and god, taking care of a house, drowning in bills. You get the picture.
Rather than take a breather, focus, make sure I'm eating and sleeping well, and THEN go back to the grind, I just...GRIND.
Like any pedicure-loving woman knows, you grind away at those callouses, and they miraculously disappear. I'm tougher than any callous who's made an appearance on my Barney Rubble feet, yet I tend to find that I've disappeared when I've allowed my well-being to take a back seat to everything else in my life.
So. How am I like a mosquito?
I'm working on being as tenacious with my health as I am with my work.
- two 45-minute walks a day with the dog. (I try to reserve the evening one for just me and Ranger. I need some ALONE time.)
- reading like maniac
- firming up Butter's bedtime routine
- scheduling meal times and actually having everyone eat them at the table
- limiting eating out to one meal a week - you people have NO CLUE how many times a week I was eating out during the last month of school. I had no time to breathe. Rather, I didn't take the time to breathe. If people are "disappointed" with the changes they see in me this year, so be it. If people can't see that I'm taking care of myself and understand how THAT will only have a positive effect on my work performance, fuck 'em. Boss Lady and her Partner will not have a problem with this. The people who I've allowed to taketaketake from me in the past? Yeah. They'll be piss-eyed, and I don't particularly care.
- cooking moremoremore at home. My recipes will be documented at Eating In 356-ish. I linked that sucker in my sidebar the other day and have several recipes fermenting in my files as we speak. I'll throw them up as soon as they're tweaked.
- teaching myself how to bake bread. I'll use my breadmaker at times, but I'm really interested in the whole dough-between-my-fingers baking thing. Frankly, I'm afraid of yeast. I think it's much more fickle than any bad relationship and will betray my ass quickly when I most need it to RISERISERISE. However, I'm gonna throw my hat in the ring and bake some damn bread/rolls/etc.
So. Keep the faith, people.
As Jac says, "Chin up. Tits out."
(This might be a good time to say that Jac's the only person I know who can say "tits" and not have me frown and grind my teeth. "Tits" coming from any other person's mouth ticks me off. From Jac? Not so much.)
Be the mosquito. Be the fucking mosquito!