I’ve been maintaining radio silence for a while because life has been a wee bit stressful. After years of daily gut-clenching, heart attack-esq moments, I’ve decided that the best way to deal with the stress of working is… to stop working for a while. Genius!

I had tried yoga, deep breathing, bio-feedback, pretending that I didn’t care, chocolate… Well I’m done with “dealing” with stress and am taking a break for at least 6 weeks. Today is my first day as a free woman and naturally being the spastic geek that I am, I’m making spreadsheets with goals, plans and tasks for my time-off. Which hopefully isn’t as counter-productive as it sounds.

My big goal is to learn to take care of myself and figure out if I can feel good every day. Here are the steps I’m going to take to perform this miracle:

• Focus on Health: I may have been avoiding doctors for the past few months. My blood sugar has been creeping up, I’m in pain almost every day again and am back to having random unbearable days. If I lose weight while getting my shit together, that’s a plus but isn’t the main driver.
• Spend Time With Family: Right now I feel like I have so little time to myself that I occasionally resent driving out to see family or ignore my husband when I come home from work because I’m burnt out. Since I actually ENJOY hanging out with my family, now that I have tons of time I’m going see a lot more of them and hopefully be a happy “June Cleaver” when my man brings home the bacon each night.
• Meal Planning: I will hit the grocery store 1x a week with a good idea for the meals I’ll be enjoying for the next week. This should reduce unplanned eating out (which is bad for my blood sugar, waistline and wallet).
• Sourcing Better Food: Find a farm or farmer’s market where I can obtain pastured eggs, meats and fresh veggies. While I love US Wellness Meats, I’d rather support a local farm and save myself some $$$.
• Kill the Clutter: Like the ebb and flow of the tides, during the week the house backslides into filth and chaos then each weekend I make an half-assed attempt at not sucking at being a human being. It will make me feel better to get the house fully cleaned and throw/give away junk that takes up physical and mental space.
• Beef Up Nerd Skills: I love dorking around with new tech and I plan on using my time to try out all the new stuff that has come up in the years that I’ve been heads down at work. This will also give me a sense of purpose each day, preventing “pants are for suckers” syndrome.

Wish me luck!