Struggling on

Last August I set some intentions and a couple of months later I wrote a little about my progress in some general musings. I’m still struggling with one aspect of those intentions and that’s getting back to writing.

I finished knitting another shawl for the end of the old year, a nice snuggly one that I can wrap around me and the at the back. My first knitting project of the new year was a new hat with some very colourful yarn.

I’m now working on a pair of socks and I have a shawl to knit for a friend. I’m also planning a simple blanket to use the acrylic yarn I’ve inherited from my mum. So the knitting is progressing quite well.

I’ve found a community style choir to join that meets during a weekday afternoon. I started going to that at the end of October. It’s called Sing aLoud and I really enjoy it. I got my dad along to it as well as he enjoys singing although he’d never been in a choir before. 

I also had another tattoo done towards the end of October that links my singing to my devotions. I wanted a devotional tattoo of some kind but symbols become complicated and then I came up with this which links to all my gods.

I’ve done a few bits of writing but still not really got back into it. I’ve also been struggling a lot with low moods and tearful days during December, especially the so called holiday season. It’s now two weeks into the school term and I’m being to get back into routines which does help. I’ve now downloaded the WordPress app on my Kindle and I’m hoping that will encourage me to begin to write here more often. I’m hoping that if I get back into blogging more often I will then feel more able to return to writing the book I began at Samhain 2017. I keep thinking of ways to begin writing some of the chapters I still need to write but never actually sitting down with my laptop and starting to write.

I’ve put on some weight in the last couple of months. I comfort eat. I know I do this and why but stopping it is easier said than done especially when I’m struggling with my moods. So I’ve decided to try and do a bit more exercise in the hope that doing that will help me feel better and reduce the amount I turn to comfort eating. Hopefully the longer hours of daylight will also have a positive effect on me. I don’t get seasonal affective disorder as such but light levels may be a contributing factor. I’m aiming to start swimming again as I used to swim  regularly a few years ago and enjoyed it. I’m in the process of investigating local swimming pools to find one that’s both reasonably close and that I feel reasonably comfortable going to. Longer term I will then start watching what I eat more carefully again but I want to start exercising more and improving my overall mood first.
On the RDA front I continue to love my time there, so much so that I’ve signed up to start learning how to be a coach for the RDA. That means I’m continuing to learn new skills and gaining a real sense of achievement. Speaking of which I was stunned and delighted to be awarded the RDA Glasgow Group volunteer of the year award for 2018. I have a lovely big trophy to look after this year and a smaller one I get to keep.

Writing this has been good for me. I’ve been struggling with my moods so much recently but in writing about these things I can see there are several positive things happening too. Sometimes when we are struggling it’s really hard to remember the good things.