Week No. 9: Highs, Lows, and Good Reads

Happy Friday! It was a bit of a mixed bag this week. I did some enjoyable relaxing, but it seemed to be at the cost of being productive with work. I had a checklist of the big things I wanted to get done this week, but they ended up all taking longer than I'd have guessed--so they're still not done. Maybe today?

This Week's Highs:

• Career: The way my company handles work loads is you are assigned a group of files. And I've been there for a long time now, and I was up to about 120 files. But this week (and this year), I had wrapped up a lot of stuff and now my net file count is lower than 100. This is exciting for me.
• Health: I think the sunshine has had an extremely big effect on my mood this week. It is still fully daylight out when 5 p.m. rolls around. And that makes the whole evening feel better! Also, I felt a little more momentum in the weight loss journey this week. I felt a bit more on track. Also, my snacking felt a bit more under control this week.
• Personal: I watched quite a lot of stuff this week. I actually only began binging Wandavision after my Highs/Lows last week. But since then, I watched all of Wandavision, and I watched four(?) Avengers movies. I'm almost embarrassed. But I do so enjoy superhero movies. And I hadn't seen most of them before!

This Week's Lows:

• Career: I had a horrible time focusing this week. I feel like I say that every week, but it is just so frustrating. When I look up at 5 p.m. and feel like I have barely made a dent in any of my tasks... It's just so frustrating. By the grace of God, hopefully I'll get something done today, at least.
• Health: I'm giving myself a demerit for going to Walgreens on Wednesday night, purchasing a package of Tate's chocolate chip cookies, and eating the whole package (minus two, which my husband ate). I am not beating myself up (progress!) about it, but sheesh--it wasn't nearly as satisfying as I thought it would be! Hah!
• Personal: I mentioned a while back that we had put a deposit down for a puppy with a breeder. Unfortunately, the breeder called me yesterday to tell me that the mama dog had gone into labor and only had one puppy. We're really disappointed, because we weren't the absolute first person on the list. And we feel sad that maybe the dog had a health issue, since she only had one: very unusual for dogs. And we feel sad for the breeder, because this makes his business stressed. We can get our deposit back or wait for the next litter which would be taken home in July. We aren't sure if that timing will work very well for us because we will have to move in late July, so we might not get a dog this year or for a while :(

This Week's Good Reads:

• I got such a kick out of watching Dolly Parton get her Covid vaccine! She is such a treasure! Twitter.
• 12 Tiny Changes to.... Yes, it has a click-baity title. But these are some very helpful tips. Especially if you--like me--are feeling a bit unmoored lately, or a bit off kilter. My two favorites are to write things down and to eat the frog. How about you? Via Medium.
• I love a new productivity hack. Have you heard of the Bright Method? Funnily enough, this reminds me of how I handled being a pledge in my sorority. I was drowning in things to do, so I just ran my day by my 15-min increment daily planner. I would calendar in walking from point A to point B. I only had the planner, and if it wasn't there... it did not get done. Via Bloomberg Businessweek.
• I feel like I've talked about Joyful quite a bit this week. But one of the principles she discusses is the positive effect that natural elements have on mood and well-being. This article talks about an organization that is trying to plant trees in struggling neighborhoods. Via Good News Network.

Do you have any reading recommendations? Please share in the comments!

Find something to delight in! -A