Today felt special to me. Over the weekend, I felt God guiding me to a place of understanding that I have lost balance, focuses too much on work and allowed my stress levels to get too high. I’ve been trying to reorient myself to better balance, and today seemed to be evidence that I am headed in the right direction, because I found a lot of happiness today despite my lingering stress, fatigue and anxiety.
I had a wonderful workout this morning with my little fluffball, Basil. I call it the Dogout workout. I have an irrational amount of joy thinking of all the various meanings found in the name of the work out.
- Dugout (baseball reference) = Our workout involves running around baseball diamonds (which have dugouts)
- Dog – Out = Getting the dog out
Okay, I guess its just too meanings, haha, but it still feels clever. The workout is a roughly one mile jog to a pullup bar, and then as many pullups as I can muster five times in a row, with a quarter mile run around the baseball diamonds between each set (4 total) either sprinting or striding (ideally) and then jogging home (but of course Basil runs and pulls me the last 3/4 miles because he’s excited to get home.) I had a lot of thoughts on my run, many of which I hope to write more about in my scripture journal tomorrow like trusting God, means trusting that everything will be OK if I live my values without compromise, and how feeling the Holy Ghost comes by living my values without compromise, and how in so many ways what I feel God is, is what I feel my inner most values to be.
At home I chatted with Lily a bit before my workday, which was nice. I then met with my dad, who is also my real estate agent for selling the home, and we made a ton of progress. We lined up a stager, a photographer, and made other plans. Work was very busy. I was very sharp in the morning, but got tired towards the end of the day. Around lunch time, I swam with the family which was so fun, and also very productive. Lily told me yesterday that her number one goal for the summer is to get all the kids swimming. Lily and I took turns working with the different kids and I think they mad progress (Lydia was at school). Lily and I also agree that Clarissa is unbelievably cute in goggles.
I caught up on blogging later in my work day because I was too tired to do Qualtrics work, but I eventually got a second wind and got more work done.
After work, Ammon and Clarissa got in a lot of trouble for something naughty they did, and Lily and I were super stern with them, but then we spent a lot of time hugging, and affirming them. I also snapped this picture of Ammon in his room. I’ve been wanting to capture how captivated he has been lately by coloring and sticker book art. It is really quite magnificent.
I also listened to Mary play the piano and I was blown away by her progress. I also got to listen to these beautiful duets from Lydia and Lily.
After putting the kids down, I folded laundry while Lily played the piano for me. She offered to fold clothes also, but I told her I’d way rather listen to her play piano while I folded, and it was so beautiful to hear her play Beethoven. Then we walked together in the perfect spring air.
It was a truly beautiful day. Thank you God for helping me smell the roses and find my balance again and thank you family for being patient with me when I allow work to swallow me.