It’s one of those ‘calm before the storm’ type times where I know I’m going to be insanely busy over the next few weeks, but not too much is happening right now. I’ve spoken before about how clearing a lot of rubbish out of my life has given me time to focus on achieving important goals that have been rather elusive over the past few years.

At the moment, my focus is mostly split between the following…

1. Organising all the things

Most of this is covered in my last post, Defeating the stress monster, but it’s continuing to occupy a big chunk of my brain. I’ve mapped out ideas for organising both online and offline stuff, and in some areas the two are interlinked. I want to write more about home stuff, organising stuff, and baking, amongst other things, so this is what I’m working towards when my house stops being a disaster zone.

I’ve gone back to my old Feedly account and got super organised with categorising everything, which has made reading and sharing a lot more efficient already. Next step: to stop lurking and actually leave comments on people’s posts. Also, if you have any recommendations or your own blog, just drop me a comment on this post and I’ll add it to my list.

2. New kitchen

Our new kitchen is in progress. To be honest, I really didn’t comprehend just how stressful it would be, and that’s largely because I didn’t anticipate having a house full of kitchen stuff (So. Much. Stuff). It’s epically bad timing because The Great British Bakeoff has started and that always makes me want to bake. So I’ve not actually watched any episodes yet, which in turn means I’m ignoring Twitter…argh.

It’s also killing me not having a kitchen because we’re used to having a house full of people. At the moment I’m planning what I can do after everything’s finished; I’ve just bought a murder mystery game from eBay, plus some bits for the kitchen we didn’t have (all the chopsticks seem to have disappeared, so I bought a couple of matching sets). I’m really trying to hold off buying anything ‘proper’ storage-wise, because we just don’t know where we’re going to put everything yet, but it’s hard. Really, really hard.

We still aren’t at the stage where we have water downstairs, and we’ve literally just cleared enough space and sorted out the cable logistics to the point where we can use the microwave. We’ve mostly been eating out because we don’t even have enough space to get a takeaway. I’ve contemplated the thought of eating cat food on more than one occasion…

People keep telling me, ‘It’ll be great when it’s finished!’ Those people have clearly never spent a week trying to make a simple bowl of cereal on the floor while fending off several cats.

In the process of moving stuff out…

Getting ripped…

Sneak preview of the new cupboard doors…not sure why they look glittery but they’re definitely not!!

3. Getting healthy

Historically I’ve had phases where I weigh less and phases where I weigh a lot more, and generally I allow something to get in the way of actually maintaining a stable weight. However, I’m being a lot more balanced with how I see everything and how I let it affect other areas of my life. I’m focusing on being not extreme in any way, and with two holidays coming up before the end of the year, I want to be able to look back on some reasonably good photos (wishful thinking). Since one of the holidays is to Austria, I also want to be able to walk up hills/mountains there without completely dying.

It’s going to be a long process; after losing a lot of weight a year ago, I ended up putting tons more on, but it’s steadily reducing again. I’m tracking calories consumed and burned, and beyond that I’m eating as well as possible considering the lack of kitchen and totally apathy towards cooking. However, I think this will be more maintainable in the long term, providing nothing in my life goes disastrously wrong or ends up causing me a lot of stress. I definitely won’t be at my goal weight this year, but it’s more about creating a healthy pattern right now. I’m contemplating changing my gym membership when the new tram system starts running, mostly because while my gym was really convenient for my last job, it’s not massively convenient for this one and has the added disadvantage of being an awkward distance from my house (can’t quite justify getting the bus there, but equally it’s a long walk).

The TLDR;

I’m moving forward slowly, but it’s still happening, which is amazing. I regularly catch myself being excited about things and looking forward to things, and a year ago I couldn’t even remember what that felt like. It’s fantastic to feel so positive about everything, rather than creating endless distractions purely as temporary coping mechanisms. Everything feeds into everything else, so being less stressed means I have headspace for things like eating better and going to the gym, which in turn means I have a lot more in the way of good, natural chemicals and chemical reactions happening. There’s a lot to love right now.

Anyway, that’s more than enough about me – what’s new with you?