I still have a half-finished WordCamp blog post that I need to finish and publish at some point, but I thought I’d do a quick round of life updates first. Nothing major, just a general outline of Stuff As It Stands At The Moment.

Work

Work’s been ticking over fine recently. I am slightly stressed out by the mega copy review I’m doing but my mantra is ‘It’ll be amazing when it’s all done’, which is on repeat in my head at the moment (it needs to be!). One of the things I love about my job is that I get to wake up every day and work with some of my best friends. It’s such a good atmosphere :)

More work

I finally got around to testing the code for a project I’ve been working on with Joe recently, and I’m really excited about it. Not only is it going to make our lives easier, but we’re also planning to sell licences for it so other people can use it too. It’s a bit secret squirrel at the moment (it’s nothing revolutionary), but I’m a huge fan of anything that saves time because I HAVE NONE.

Weightloss

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before or not, but my weight was making me a bit unhappy. I was (just) over the very top end of the highest I usually go…and I weighed around 17lb more than I did this time last year (eek!). Yup, I said ‘weighed’…I’ve lost just short of 13lb so far. I still have a long way to go until I reach the lower end of a ‘normal’ weight range, but my clothes already fit much better. I’m at a bit of an awkward stage now where my current pairs of jeans are too big (I can get them on without undoing either button or zip!) but all the pairs of jeans I bought on offer are still a bit too tight. This is mainly due to the fact that women’s jeans are made for apple shapes with bigger stomachs and thinner legs, and I’m the opposite.

It’s just been basic calorie counting, food tracking and a couple of gym visits a week. Fitbit and My Fitness Pal have been essential in getting the numbers right and helping me manage stuff, and my appetite is a lot smaller than it was and I’m enjoying food less emotionally.

Mind stuff

I had my last therapy session last week and Matt said something that really hit home for me. He said, ‘You don’t have a mental health disorder, you’ve had a perfectly natural reaction to very stressful events’. We worked together to write down everything I’ve changed over the past few months (a combination of advice I’ve actioned from all kinds of people, suggestions from books and articles, and things that I didn’t really intend to do but just happened). Everything feels a lot more manageable and I’m not breaking down every few days or struggling to hold myself together at work.

I read something really interesting about eating disorders (randomly, not related to any of my 395920523 issues), and there’s a theory that anyone is capable of having an eating disorder; it’s just whether it’s ever ‘activated’ or not, and it can be active or dormant but not non-existent. I’m not a scientist or a psychologist by any stretch, but that seems to make a hell of a lot of sense for anxiety and depression too. I have a long way to go, but just writing down my achievements and the active steps I’ve taken (and will continue to take) have made me feel a lot more positive that this is less of a random phase and more of a series of actions that have made a difference. And part of my achievement is that I’ve done most of this on my own. Yes, other people have helped, but mostly I’ve helped myself, and that’s no small thing. I’m a fighter, and when I’m happy everything is amazing. The days are literally brighter. People are more attractive. I’m more attractive. I can let things go much more easily and even help other people let go of things.

Next on my list is to read more on mindfulness and meditation. Living in the present is something that definitely reduces my anxiety, and photography has always made me very mindful and focus on the beauty of individual things (not expressing myself too well here, but I know what I mean!).

House stuff

One of our old uni friends has moved in for a bit whilst he finds a place of his own. For the first time in many, many years there’s someone leaving the house before me in the morning and it’s a bit weird :P It makes me feel lazy, though to be fair I didn’t get home till 1am last night and I woke up for work at 7:30 this morning.

I’m seriously considering getting a cleaner. It’s way too hot to clean at the moment and I’m rubbish at it anyway. Four cats, one of whom has long fur and one of whom is ridiculously moulty, having people round quite a lot, and a small kitchen all conspire to make cleaning hard work. I resent that it takes up at least half a day of my weekend when I (we) don’t have enough time as it is, so getting someone in to do at least the kitchen, bathroom and conservatory (cat fur) would make a big difference. I’m a fan of clean, just not cleaning ;)

Other stuff

Sadly I’ve not had a chance to go out and take photos – I’ve been catching up on sleep, house stuff, the gym, and socialising. I wanted to bake yesterday as well but our oven is currently broken so that put a stop to that plan. On the plus side, I’ve spent hours just hanging out with people recently and it’s been great. I’ve also done quite a bit of reading recently. I intended to do a lot more on my web projects over the weekend, but in the end I was just too exhausted and settled for two pub trips, cleaning half the house and napping instead :) Generally, I’m happy with how things have been going over the past few weeks, and the few bad things that have happened haven’t been a big deal. Yay.