Room for improvement - Update

Well, we're not quite half way through the year, but I stumbled upon one of my "Room for Improvement" posts from back in January and thought it would be good to go back through what's been happening in those specific areas.


RELATIONSHIPS

Friendships -

Yes, you've all read about it, I finally met the divine Magda and we spent a lovely couple of hours chatting as if we'd known each other all our lives. To me, that's gold. I am quite shy by nature (but a very good actress too) and there is nothing worse than awkward silence...well there was none of that with Magda. I think this friendship is well and truly cemented, who'd have thought?

The Neuroma in my foot meant I had to give away the running back in February...and that's the last I heard of my 12wbt running friend. That's fine. Sometimes people have to put their blinkers on and look after themselves first.

My old friend that I arranged lunch with for March is also the mum of the young girl who is pregnant, and I blogged about a couple of weeks ago. Back in March we caught up for a lovely lunch and booked the two families for a pizza night which happened to take place last week. I hadn't heard from her other than by text to tee up time and place etc so we hadn't actually spoken about her daughter. Well, we all just had a lovely time together with LOTS of laughs and reminiscing about when our three girls were tiny and the things they'd get up to whenever we went out for dinner (we used to do it quite often)...we also found out some "details"such as the fact that the baby is a girl, and that my friend's daughter is taking the rest of the year off but will go back to school part-time from 2013 and complete her HSC over three years...


Unfortunately I haven't done as much "socialising" as I planned to at the beginning of the year, but I am fairly content. We are deciding whether or not to sell this place at all. The market is very quiet and it would be a shame to sell it for less than it's worth. So if anything, I am enjoying unpacking old boxes and deciding what to keep and what to give away/throw out. I guess you could say I needed to do some "nesting"to make this place feel like our home for whatever period of time we spend here...could be a long long time.



Marriage -

Well this continues to be the year of communication for Hubby and I. Let's just say we've had more heart to hearts than we have in a very long time. The good thing is, we (I) no longer need to get into an argument to make this happen. We do it by choice and out of necessity and it's doing us both the world of good...somehow I also think it is helping me with my attitude to the whole weight loss thing...

Hubby is now spending some time away from home with his new line of work, so it means when he gets to spend a whole day here it is really special and every minute counts. Nice.


Parents -

I feel that I am making a HUGE effort to get along with both Michael's parents and my mum but it is a hard task...

I have made a concerted effort to stay in touch with my mother in law and try to visit them regularly but her hypochondriac nature still irks me no end...I just don't understand her 75% of the time, but I keep reminding myself that I don't need to keep thinking "what would I do in this situation?"...
All I can say is that it is a big thing to keep positive with her time after time and takes a huge toll on me. The reward is that Michael thanks me after every visit or conversation and now that I'm handling things more "gracefully" he actually admits that he shares my frustrations and really appreciates my efforts. At the end of the day I guess that's what it's all about.

My mum is also a work in progress...things aren't very much improved. She suffers from depression and although she is medicated, she has regular mood swings and it is very hard to read her.

So in this respect it's one foot in front of the other.



HEALTH

We all know that I've not lost any weight recently. I am about 3kg lighter than I was at the beginning of January. That's it. 12WBT just didn't do it for me.

I tried a couple of other "programs" that had worked in the past for me  <hello Magda ;-) shhh>  but I couldn't stick with either of them.

I have recently started training with a PT. Had two sessions then a break due to her competition commitments but from the 18th June we kick off weekly sessions which I'm very excited about. I have decided the way for me to shed some kilos is to keep my food as "clean" as possible and move *every day*. I've started reading some stuff by Craig Harper which is different to anything I've read before but makes so.much.sense.



*********************************


Overall my life is GOOD. I have taken the approach of one day at a time in most areas of my life and it seems to have given me some much needed serenity. We have what we need, my kids are as happy as teenage girls can be (oh the drama!) and we are lying pretty low when it comes to holidays etc because Maddie is about to start the HSC in October so we want to have a pretty steady rhythm happening to be able to support her.