Another Transition

Since I can't remember who I have told and what I have posted I'll just write from the assumption I've left you all in the dark :)

A little over a year ago my best friend made the statement 'you should be a marriage couselor.' This was after about  6 weeks of relationship advice but it also resonated deeply in me from over a decade ago. About 15 years of God giving me a burden to help marriages. Sean at this time was winding down his first year of school to become a counselor and I had become very interested in what he was learning. 

I had an ah-ha moment.

I went to God with this passion burning a hole in my pocket but felt I was supposed to wait a year. In the mean time things started changing in our recovery ministry and 7 months ago several possibities became an option for me there, facilitating groups to help finances,  marriages and infertile women.  I realized as a marriage counselor I could touch on all these! I felt very confirmed.

Then about 2 months ago, in the midst of feelings of purposelessness and depression I felt whispers about school again.

Well I wanted to sign up that minute but courses for next term were not posted until mid - June. Then they changed the requirements to enter even the part-time courses,  I need to have volunteered in a social services type setting for minimum 100 hrs. Well my recovery service was applicable but I had to quickly fit that verification in before our vacation. Then when we came back I found I had to go in person to do a name change since I hadn't been a student there since before marriage.  It took awhile to finally get down there,  then I had to wait for my application to be approved, then another day to get my verification in the mail. 

Yesterday it came! It is now official!

Wellness Wednesday

It's been awhile since I posted on how the wellness is going. A lot has happened in a month.

Vacation (and preparation for a vacation) monopolized two weeks. Getting home and starting to plan a fundraiser for our friend to help pay for cancer treatments and related expenses has monopolized the other two weeks.

Not excuses, just priorities.

I actually have a big chunk of my fundraiser to-do list done, and the remaining pieces either are waiting for other people's contribution or I can fit in here and there because they are smaller tasks. So I think I can actually schedule a run in tonight! That's how I'm going to approach running until the end of summer, one day at a time.

As for food, I had some big successes and some big indulgences.

I am the kind of person who gets really hungry during traveling, I'm not sure what it is. So I prepared and I packed granola bars, pretzels, cashews, all mostly healthy snacks. But because it's vacation, I also packed candy :) That was probably my biggest indulgence was the candy, even though it's not technically a cheat, it's not a 'baked dessert', I gave myself the mandate that I wouldn't replaced baked goods with candy, I could only eat candy the same amount as I would have last year. If I had been on a vacation trip last year I would have eaten just as much candy ;)

Starbucks, that was another pre-planned indulgence just for vacation. And that one I only allowed on the US side of the border, just to help my head get around returning to eliminating it again.





The rest of my cheats I didn't plan, I made decisions in the moment. Like a vanilla milkshake, which is technically just vanilla ice cream, so still not sure if that is even a cheat. And while not a cheat, only two burger joints the whole trip, both healthier than most, and so filling we could barely eat the fries.

Then there was the wine....Sean started me off and our hosts kept it coming :) They were on vacation too!

Then there was the Cheesecake Factory, and you can't go there without having cheesecake! I actually could only eat half of mine though!

And my only other cheat was a few (giant!) cookies from Panera through the week.

 It was actually my meals I was most impressed with though, I think I did very good considering my vacation track record. I choose pretty healthy and had good portion control at restaurants, other than previously mentioned burgers, and one moving day pizza.

We actually had mostly homemade meals thanks to our generous hosts.

 

Coming home it actually wasn't too hard to transition back to homemade meals, especially considering I planned them out to be pretty easy to make before we left. The challenge has been denying myself the cheats again. A few times at work already I've been confronted with the choice, and I've come really close to saying, 'you were cheating just 4, or 8 days ago, why not?!' But I did it, I said NO! :) It actually feels pretty good to exercise that no and be ok with it. Here's to 6 more months of doing so!