Mood(s)
Luteal phase can be so rough. This past week… Reactionary, triggered by… everything, and quite restless. Also… Bloat! I don’t think I can have wine anymore because wine makes the bloat worse. And I like wine therefore this makes me sad.
This perimenopausal stuff is not fun. I know, aging gracefully and all that, but I have always taken my healthy body for granted: I ate and drank without restriction, rarely exercised, and skipped on sleep. And now I can’t. At 43, I have to be mindful of what I eat, drink, and do! No fair. 😉 I grew up eating raw garlic, on bread, with borscht. Now garlic gives me heartburn, a little wine gives me a ballooning stomach, and luteal phase turns me into an ogre.👹 I can’t sit for a long time and feel like I have to get up and move/stretch otherwise my sitz bones start hurting. My knees need a blanket under them during yoga class. Unheard of.
Weekend Recap
This past weekend was nice but I felt down for the majority of it. I did notice that if I just sat there and kind of let my foul mood be there, it no longer felt powerful. Hmm. I was with family or with sister friends so I didn’t really have to put on a happy face. On Friday the kids were at camp and I went to yoga after drop off. After pick up, I stopped by the store to get some happy hour stuff (chips, salsa, salami, etc) and drove with the kids my visit my sister-friend H. She has a pool so L frolicked while we caught up. R played with jenga that my friend happened to have out. We were home quite late on Friday and the kids went to bed with no problems since they were worn out.
On Saturday, I was determined to go to the beach. After our terrible experience of sitting in traffic for three hours on Sunday, we left at 7:30AM. It took us 56 minutes this time to get to Sandy Hook!! And that is with a Wawa stop for some coffee for me. The beach was cool and empty. It was amazing. And what is even better, the kids played by themselves the majority of our time there while I read my book or gazed at the water. Once in a while, they came up and asked for a snack once in a while, and I would just silently point at the snack bag lol They asked to come up to the water with them a few times, which I did (freezing!) Toward the end they started fighting over who gets the green towel so it was time to leave, but let’s give credit where credit is due: they did great overall.
After the beach, T went to a bbq with the kids at his friends’ house and I stayed behind to rest.
On Sunday L had a birthday party to go to at the trampoline park. She had a blast at the dodgeball, while I sipped on an ice coffee and organized the upcoming week.
Mornings with the kids continue to be special. R is up before anyone else, he is an early riser. He goes downstairs and plays with Legos usually. I’m up shortly after. He and I go outside, to greet the sun, and the clouds, and the grass, etc.
On Sunday afternoon, I drove down to my other sister-friend’s house for brunch, just the four of us. It was very low-key: tea, sandwiches, and conversation. ❤️💐 The three of us have international trips coming up in August (Italy, Spain and Denmark) so we wanted to get together before traveling.
Reading. I finished Catherine Newman’s book. It broke my heart but, in a weird way, also made me feel lighter. I have had a close friend in hospice, and the process of saying goodbye was so hard.
My “Setting Boundaries” book is slow going because it contains a ton of exercises that take some time to complete. Below is an example. I also enjoyed “write a goodbye letter to unhelpful patterns” and “write a story of your future self.”
Pebbles in My Shoe / Trip prep
I am slowly addressing some pebbles in my shoes. R finally got a haircut. I also got one for good measure lol, took off about two inches. I returned the library books. I made a dent in my podcast queue. I went through kids’ books and separated the books that are for very young readers (think babies).
We started eating up the food we have in the refrigerator, did not go grocery shopping, and T is not allowed to get takeout this week 😉 We will have to get creative with dinners but that’s the beauty and the challenge of it. I thought we needed swim shoes for L but turns out we already have a pair. That means we don’t need to buy anything for this trip. I have summer clothes, the kids have summer clothes, and T will pack himself I’m sure 😉 I do like to clean the house before every trip (even camping HA) so I will do it this week.
Mom of Children 