Optimism

The last few weeks have completely sucked. I don't think it's going to end for a while, but I made a promise to myself when I left McDonald's that I would embrace the positives in life, even when inside it fucking hurts. And at the moment, though it doesn't feel like it, there are a lot of positives. Like:

-When I last weighed myself, I was 11 stone, 7 pounds. This is the halfway mark of my target. Yes, it was slower than I anticipated, but I'm feeling healthier than ever. My physical body matches the way I picture myself more. It's giving me a lot more confidence. I take that as a win.

-When re-reading Departed, and seeing it was as bad as it felt at the time, I surprised myself by really liking the ending. It's a letter from Carter to Lambrini, and he's talking about a lot of the issues that come up through the book and kind of pushes towards the third one and apart from typos, there's nothing I would change about it. At least, for now.

-I have the UCLH bike ride tomorrow, my second year doing it. 7 miles across hills, seeing deer, raising money to help others who get shat on by this condition … and this time I have a bike that can go up an incline.

-I actually had a Saturday off (thank you, Lydia!) and not just a Saturday off where I got called in, but an actual, bonafide, Saturday off. I took the boy shopping because he's had a growth spurt, and after £106 in Primark, he has new trousers, new shirts, some PJs, pants and socks, two new pairs of shoes, a hat and sunglasses. And a lot of marvel themed crap. And now I have to go through the explosion of clothes in his room and throw out anything aged under 5. And yeah, he's still in 5-6 clothes when he's seven in two months.

-I'll be doing GISHWES this year, which I'm excited about. No idea what to expect! I'm in a team of about 8 other people, so there's still room in our group. It starts on my mum's birthday, so that may get a teeny bit messy :/ I'm so behind GISHWES, and RandomActs, and any crazy idea Misha has. Follow those links, you'll see why he's a hero of mine.

-Speaking of which, I have met several of my heroes, including Misha, and had no bad experiences. That's pretty awesome, especially when people recommend you don't meet your heroes because they may disappoint you. I've been very lucky, in that regard.

-I'm getting back into the flow of writing, slowly. I think there's a few reasons why I haven't been doing it so much lately - I haven't balanced it with other things the way I normally do, I've overloaded myself with work and other commitments, I haven't taken the time to step back, step away and process like I normally do. I burnt myself out a little, trying to completely thrash my yearly writing goal. I'm trying not to feel bad if I don't hit 1k a day. I won't be doing July's Camp NaNo. Even if I could set my goal at 5k for the month … it's just too much on top of all my commitments. I'm still learning where I need to balance everything, I guess. It's a long lesson.

-I went to a parents evening this week about Noah, and heard he's on target for writing but would be much further if he just got his ideas down on paper because he has amazing ideas and just doesn't get them down. His teacher said she gets frustrated because she wants to know what's going to happen and Noah won't commit to the ending. But he's started writing stories at home, so maybe he'll develop it more (yes, I'm ridiculously proud that he's so creative). He's also a level above where he should be for maths and three above where he should be for reading. My obsessive reading to him has had an impact ;) we're nearly out of Roald Dahl books now, going to try for David Walliams books next, they're meant to be really good.

That's not all of my positives, but that's all I can think of for now.