What a weird freaking month. Looking back I had a lot of great experiences. Overall, way more fun and great stuff. Some big realizations and moves. But mostly the month slipped away in an anxiety fog. The month seemed to disappear and I have a hard time remembering things I did. Which is a shame because I did a lot of awesome things this month!

I’m feeling pretty good. Despite the jagged edges of anxiety. Essentially what I want to remember is that I saw God’s hand in my March and I am definitely making progress and seeing some hope and excitement for the future.

Good

• I helped a lot of people this month. I did a lot of babysitting, delivered meals, and just tried to serve where I could. It felt good. I like helping people.
• I read 6 books! Reading is my straight up therapy these days. I’ve fallen into a really good rhythm and refuse to feel any guilt or stress about making reading a daily priority because it has helped me and my family so much. We now read all together after breakfast (even if it means 90 seconds of Reese reading a library book to me before getting bored and running off to play supeyheros) and it’s such a great new routine.
• We threw a really fun Easter Egg Hunt with our playgroup and the weather was perfect.
• We also got outside every single week, even if it was just for a quick scooter ride halfway up the block and back. Cannot wait for actual spring.
• I meal planned and stuck to our “no eating out” challenge pretty well. A few cheats, but honestly they were worth the salvation of sanity.
• I tried something new with my workouts where instead of saying “I’m gonna go 4x a week!!! I have to!!!” I said ” ok when can I fit in a workout?” and each week I ended up with just two. But instead of beating myself up I was proud to get in two workouts! Didn’t hurt myself or push too hard either. I’m on a new healthy maintenance kick.
• I successfully pulled off the delicious bread my best friend makes me (recipe here).
• I taught a lesson in my Book of Mormon study group about how our different learning styles can improve our gospel study and it was so much fun. Maybe I need to write a blog post about it.
• I had so many great girls nights! Bachelor finale, Moms of Twitter meetup, a failed early morning temple session-turned IHOP breakfast, playdates, and hanging with new ward friends.
• I lost weight! Just a little! But it counts!
• I figured out a sleep formula that’s working well for me as of this last week – no late caffeine (…I cheat at this but try to hit it most nights) and set an alarm for 7 hours of sleep. I’m almost always awake before it, and without the alarm I’d just try to fall back asleep and be groggy and headachy when I’d wake up 90 minutes later. Instead getting up at 6.5-7 hours of sleep makes me feel much more refreshed.
• Ryan started his new job with Lambda School and he has been a ball of excitement. It’s been surprisingly nice to have him home, although it’s had its share of complications.
• I ~actually made progress in the house this month! I hung a bunch of stuff and organized a few areas. I attribute this to my laptop being locked in the office with Ryan during the entire day. Instead of wasting time in the office, I got to work on some nagging tasks and it felt great.
• This goes in both categories but I felt an enormous amount of peace that my indoor soccer league didn’t work out. I didn’t realize how much stress I had about it until it fell through, and now I’m looking forward to the extra time to ease back into healthy fitness rather than the stress of pushing myself to get back in soccer shape.

Bad

• Soccer fell through. Even though it was kind of a relief I was still really looking forward to it.
• Physically I struggled this month with sickness and extended lady problems. Doctors appointment is on the sched for next week though so fingers crossed we can fix some ish.
• I feel like I had to cancel or bail on plans a lot this month. I’m doing better at not criticizing or second guessing myself so much when I need to, but it’s still a bummer to miss a great book club or ward activity because of sickness.
• Reese took it upon herself to destroy my whole house this month. Makeup. Nail polish on my brand new carpet and walls. Juice after juice after juice. Bins of clothing storage. Stickers. Every single board game in the closet. It was like everything she’s never really noticed or gotten into before was actively discovered and destroyed all within like a 10 day period. I felt like a terrible mom because I clearly wasn’t giving her enough attention and it’s clearly my fault that she can get into all of this. But at the same time COME ON. So many of those issues hadn’t been issues before! And cleaning up mess after mess, her crying, me crying, trying to stay patient and give her the attention she needed AND do everything else AND not neglect Loney… it super wore me down you guys. It was rough. It. was. rough. Thankfully that week my mom offered to take the girls for a night so we could get a date night and some kid-free time to child-proof the house lol.
• Adjusting to Ryan working from home has been trickier than I anticipated. I used to be able to work in the office whenever I felt like it, but now I have to work around his schedule. Sometimes it’s nice having him home, sometimes it makes my day harder. Like when he texts me that Reese is pounding at the door saying “Daddy Ryan!!! Come play with me!!!! Help me put my Belle dress on!!!” while he’s on an important video call and I am supposed to drop my dinner prep to go drag her away screaming. Not that that’s happened. Multiple times.

On My Brain

• The gun control argument, always. I’m always confused when people seem so absolutely confident of their side. How are people untouched by the opposite arguments? If the answer was as easy as “give teachers guns” or “pass bans on assault rifles” we obviously would have done it already, or there wouldn’t be so many people opposed. The answer is complex and somewhere in the middle. It just sucks that we can’t seem to have much compassion and trust in the meantime. Just name calling and superiority.
• Loney. She’s getting trickier and I’m just feeling so much guilt about her. That I’m not spending enough time with her. I’m not teaching her enough. She’s behind. She’s harder than Reese and it’s my fault. I hate the feeling that I don’t know what she wants sometimes, because I almost never felt that way with Reese. How do I better balance two kids? How do I determine and give Loney all that she needs? On my brain.
• Medication for mental illness! I’m ready, fam. I’m excited to give it a shot, and excited to share more about my ~journey. I really hate using that word but honestly nothing else works. My apologies to Bach Nation; I get it now.

Summer plans. Yes, already. I’m thinking about creating a short webinar expanding on this post I wrote last year about designing your summer. Let me know if that sounds like something that would interest you.

I have decided that my word for April is Fresh. I didn’t plan on creating words for each individual month, but I started last month and I’m rolling with it. Fresh just kept coming to mind. Fresh outlook. Fresh health plan. Fresh air. Fresh clean home. Fresh parenting approach. Just… fresh. April means getting my first nephew and I couldn’t be more excited about that. It also means another Disney trip, a Red Sox game, great books, and better weather. What a literal and figurative breath of fresh air.

*inhales deeply*