The Renaissance Woman

Younger me. I love this picture because I just look so blissfully happy.

It’s that time of year again. Time for reflection and resolutions. While I generally don’t make standard “New Year’s Resolutions”, I do generally take some time to reflect on how things are going and make note to begin implementing changes I need to make, but haven’t started yet.
Looking back on the past couple of years, 2008 was a year of learning. I found out I had Hashimoto’s Disease at the end of 2007 and 2008 consisted of my absorbing as much information (very indiscriminately) as I possibly could.
2009 was a time of continued learning, but mostly seemed to focus on integration. What adjustments do I need to make with this diagnosis? What medications or treatments might I need? Am I satisfied with this doctor? Am I feeling better? How do I get back to normal? During 2009, I very much retreated into myself. I had a lot of introspection to do. I left an unsatisfying job, stepped back from volunteering, and was fortunate to have time to do some much needed self-exploration.
2010 was the real journey back to myself. I found a doctor who listens to me and am building a relationship with him. We’re not 100% there yet, but I feel confident about my future with him. The biggest boon is I have time to talk with him and really vet my concerns, as he is part of a concierge practice. At the very least, I feel heard, which was something I was sorely lacking with previous practitioners. I’m finally on a level of medication where I am starting to feel like my old self. I have energy to get most things done – certainly the things that NEED to be done. I have lost 30 pounds. My blood pressure and cholesterol have been on the decline. I am breaking out of some bad thinking cycles and learning to distinguish helpful and harmful information. I rejoined my volunteer theater group and directed a musical I loved. I am learning to distinguish between things and people that help my life and those that hurt it.
Which leads me to the title of this post. Looking back, I can see where I’ve been and the path I’ve been forging. I am really happy with the progress I’ve made this year, and can even look back on some recent difficult times with appreciation for the things I have learned through those experiences.
What I want to focus on in 2011 is Joy.
I want to practice cutting things from my life that are negative to make more room for the positive.
Negative things I’m focusing on cutting down include listening to people or reading publications that only serve to get me worked up about things I have no control over, or cause me to focus too heavily on issues I simply cannot devote that much energy to. I need to listen to less talk radio and more music. I need to decide when reading materials if this is something worth putting time into, and, if so, how to put synchronize productive effort with my emotions. Political information can be good if it motivates me to take some sort of action, and certainly can be helpful to store in my mind for making decisions for things such as voting. However, dwelling on issues I have little to no control over do me little good, so I am aiming to not hold onto them and their associated emotions for as long.
Positive things I want to encourage include re-focusing on my creative talents. This includes singing, sewing, crafting, etc. I want to feel good about these abilities again. I have gotten well away from weight issues that strongly impact my health in a negative way. All my labs are looking good and my sleep apnea is gone. While losing some more weight would be lovely, I don’t believe it is necessary, and my current figure is a nice one. I want to focus on enjoying my body and getting to a point where I can appreciate it for aesthetic and practical reasons and stop the cycle of finding “fixes”. I have decided to stop the daily weigh-ins. I may try to do it once a week, but won’t feel guilty if it’s as low as once a month. Trying to get to an arbitrary number is threatening to create seriously unhealthy thinking in my brain and I want to nip that in the bud. I guess that falls under negative things I’m cutting from my life, but they go hand in hand.
All in all, I am looking forward to the new year. I will be earning some extra cash. We’re getting to a really nice place financially. I’m enjoying where we are instead of feeling like so many things need to change for me to be happy.
It’s time to focus on making joy a way of life.

I really enjoy baking. I’ve enjoyed reading blogs like Bakerella’s and there’s just so much you can do with decorations and style. Unfortunately, my husband was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes this year, which limits what I can bake.

 

I really don’t want to just make the usual with sugar substitutes, because those types of dishes always taste like a pale imitation of what they are supposed to be. I want to make dishes that are good in their own right.

 

This had led me to cheesecake. My husband enjoys cheesecake and it’s very simple to make cheesecakes that don’t have a high impact on blood sugar. So I am now wanting to experiment with this dessert genre. I want to learn to make a killer basic cheesecake that I can put fruits on or decorate with some syrups. And then I’d love to learn some good basic variations. I have a pumpkin cheesecake recipe, but I’d love to find a good mint cheesecake, and a solid chocolate cheesecake. Someday, I’d love to create a carrot cheesecake as well.

 

Anyone out there have some good go-to cheesecake recipes? Feel free to share!

Thankful:  feeling or expressing gratitude; appreciative

 

During this time of year, I do enjoy taking stock of the people and things I am thankful to have in my life. Some if it is thanking the people directly – for continuing to choose be part of my life as well as for being such exemplary people in the first place. For the things, some of it is thanking the people who invented them, and some of it is more expressing the joy of having such things in my life. And some if it is remembering to take time to thank myself for things I have accomplished. I have an issue I am working on of not being able to recognize or downplaying my own accomplishments, so it is good for my soul to take time to remember them.

 

So this year, a few things I am thankful for:

·         That I don’t have to travel this holiday season: I’m very grateful (for MANY reasons) that my family came to see me this November, and that I can avoid traveling this Thanksgiving and Christmas.

·         The internet: Seriously, the internet makes life so easy and opens up so many new possibilities.

·         The Microsoft Theater Troupe: A great group of people putting on fun shows. It’s always an incredible experience working with them and so many good things have come into my life that came directly from people I meet there.

·         Our home: It may only be a rental, but it has been so nice to move up from the apartment world into a home. The privacy is especially lovely.

·         Our cats: I love our two cats, Jayne and Vera. Very few things are nicer than relaxing on the couch with a good movie or tv show, some food and drink, and a warm kitty curled up on your lap.

·         My family: I have always been close to my mother and I am happy that hasn’t changed. She is a wonderful confidant and advisor when needed. I love how my brother always lights up a room and the joy he exudes. My dad and I have had our rocky moments, but our relationship has gotten so much better over the years and I’m so happy how transparent he can be with his pride in me.

·         My husband: I have to save the best for last. My husband is my absolute favorite person in the world. There are mundane things about him I am thankful for (he has a stable, good job that allows me to use my time to explore career and other life options, he is tech-saavy which means we have tons of fun toys at home, etc.), but I mostly am thankful he continues to choose to be with me and share his time and life with me. He’s made great efforts to be supportive and comforting when I had a challenging couple  of years. He continually compliments me and reminds me I am loved. He has high standards for himself and continually lives up to them. He knows how to relax and have fun and also how to live with integrity. I can go on and on, but to put it simply; I am happy to have such a great love in my life.

 

I know there is much more, but these are the stand-out items as of this moment in time. We’ll see what next year brings.

A picture of the first snowfall of the season at our house today.

So things got shaken up here in the last month or so. Just as my show (The Wild Party) was winding down, I was getting ready to have more free time again just in time for the holidays when a job opportunity presented itself. I decided to pursue the opportunity and was hired.

 

The job is back on Microsoft campus, this time as an a- employee. This basically means I work for an agency that Microsoft contracts with. So not quite a MS FTE, but this is a common first step to becoming one if that was an interest I had.

 

Is that an interest of mine? Perhaps. It really depends on the job. I enjoy the Microsoft Community and am enjoying being in that world again. And, of course, extra cash is always nice. However, I did enjoy the free time I’ve had the past year – who wouldn’t?!  While I didn’t use all that free time as productively as I had hoped, I did a fair amount of self-exploration, managed to design and build one set for a local movie that was filming, and direct a full length musical for MSTT.

 

The good thing about the contract gig is that it had a one year expiration date. If the job turns out to not be a good fit for me, it’s only for a year. At (or before) that point, I could try to get a similar FTE position, or I can just leave and go back to having scads of free time again.

 

I have decided to take a break from the Daring Kitchen for now, due to the lack of free time. But other than that, I have several new projects in the pipeline including quilted Christmas Stockings, a privacy screen makeover, Thanksgiving for Two, and a new bedroom quilt. Also, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm comes out on Dec 7th and I will be purchasing that at a midnight release as well as taking the 7th-12th off from work as my holiday time to play the new expansion, make some headway on the projects mentioned above, and decorate the house for the holidays.

 

All in all, it should be an interesting year!

Ari Armstrong writes a great guest column at the Colorado Springs Gazette about why Harry Potter is so wonderful – and the reasons are deeper than you’d think.

Oh, and he also has a fabulous book on this topic available on Amazon (also on the Kindle).