A step in the right direction; then another step

I just went to a concert Friday evening with my sister, Dixie Chicks’ MMXVI tour with opener Elle King. It was a great night out, and I’m really glad I went. She only asked me along that morning, so I wasn’t much prepared — hadn’t brought along dinner to chow down during some of the commute, hadn’t worn something a little less “I’m in an office all day,” and so on. But that said, it meant I didn’t have days to be freaking out. Sometimes, the best way to deal with anxiety is to just compress it in as small of a time window as possible.

Another big thing in my life recently is that I’m on a diet. It feels weird to say; I’m not really a diet person. But I gained a lot of weight from a medication I went on around a year and a half ago, and I got tired of feeling fat all the time, so I finally decided to take matters into my own hands and do something. So I’m doing something! I’ve already lost more than ten pounds, and I’m really incredibly proud of this. It’s been some hard weeks, but I’m already feeling healthier and more like myself.

There’s been some other bits to my life too, like Duolingo just releasing a TinyCards app; it’s just a flashcards app, but there are all kinds of interesting decks already on there, and users can create and share their own, so it’s only going to get better I think. I’ve been doing quite a bit of playing with those during my commutes (I ride a train, I’m not driving, silly). I’m also trying to think of speeches and short articles to write; I’m listening to Great Courses’ “The Art of Public Speaking” when I drive, and I’m taking a Magazine Writing class through Stanford’s Continuing Studies program in early November, so I’m trying to see what I can come up with for those genres.

I also bought a ton of kitchen stuff yesterday! I used to do all kinds of cooking — I was a Kitchen Manager for my house one year in college, and the years leading up to and following that I was pretty passionate about cooking and baking; I’m trying to get back into that. It’s also pretty inspiring that my sister does all kinds of baking. Between baking and knitting, I’m hoping to start putting together notes of what I make and maybe really work on my skills that way.

Overall, it’s about investing in myself, something I’ve been thinking about since watching this TED talk a while ago. It’s about having something to say when you sit down next to that stranger in the train car.

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Don’t just hide under the covers

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