The Me Monthly - Volume 25

ME THIS MONTH
July, July, Julyyyyyyy!! Listening to that while I write this because I'm having a hard time finding the motivation to write stuff. But I'm just going to type whatever comes to mind, so this might be pretty scatterbrained and have too less or too much information. But here goes!

4th of July! We went down to St George for the weekend and it was such a chill trip! We went swimming and to a park with the Carl Neves, played some games with my mom, saw Toy Story 4, ate some really good food, lit off some fireworks, and got to hang out with my brother's cat :D It was good to see my parents and every time we go down I'm reminded that it's not that bad of a drive, we can handle being away from home for a few days, and we should definitely do it more. Right when we got back from St. George we had a lovely visit from our friends Sara and Garrett! We played a board game, and then spent the next day hanging out and watching movies because poor Garrett was not feeling well :( Honestly it was really nice to have an extra day with them, but we were glad when Garrett was doing better.

The next week I was super busy working to try to catch up from being out of town, and then trying to get ahead in work because the week after that was...Girl's Camp! So much happened and most of it I will be writing about in other posts because going passed off two list items! While I had some challenging moments with my gut, overall it was a very enjoyable experience and I'm so glad I got to go :) After getting back, I found my two cuties in good health! (And Jonathan had bought a giant board game bookshelf! What a surprise!) I had a little Daisy shadow for the rest of the weekend because she missed me so much. For the first 30 minutes after I got home, she just stared at me and smiled, then gave me big hugs. It was super cute, but then the whines started up again and I wished I could go to the mountains again haha ;)

For the last few weeks, I worked and stressed and worked some more, most of the time in my head. I just couldn't stop thinking about what I had to do next, or worrying about how a client was going to respond, or going back and forth about how I could improve a job...it's been rough. Luckily in the middle of that, I got a few more days with Sara!! We played a lot of Stardew and had some good chats. She even helped me through a particularly difficult client/work moment. She's the freaking best. Towards the end of the month, Jonathan and I went on a date to see Olan Rogers! He's a YouTuber that we think is hilarious, inspiring, and just a fantastic human being. He tells stories on YouTube and did that for his comedy show. We got a picture with him too, but it was basically waiting in line for 40 minutes and then 20 seconds of "Hi, you're great!" -smile/pose for picture- "thanks for being you, bye!" which was a bit of a bummer, although I'm sure it was for him too. But it was still a fun night and I'm glad we could go support him in person.

It almost goes without saying, but with all of the trips and things, I was eating literally anything I wanted. AIP was out the window, and my health went along with it. I haven't felt great. But my head/taste buds have been very happy. I've eaten a lot of good food. I wish that there weren't so many things that caused terrible reactions in me. I keep remembering times before my diagnosis where I would say "what if I'm lactose intolerant?? I would die if I couldn't have milk!!" and now if I have milk I feel like I'm dying for a bit. Not pleasant. I wish I didn't have that, but I'm learning to deal with it and find what works for me, and for my mind. I can indulge here and there, but I really shouldn't go back to how I was. I'm trying to get back on track, so wish me luck. Just deciding to eat eggs in there now too, so hopefully I can get back to where I was even with those.

Anywhooooo, this got really long and lots of thoughts just sort of spilled out. Don't know how coherent it all was and I'm not going back to change it. And I think I'm done now. I feel like if I can make it through July I should be able to make it through the rest of the year. Only 4 more months. I can do that right?

Reading: Keturah and Lord Death. A book I first read in middle school. Been rereading to see if I want to remove the copy from my personal library.
Feeling: rushed, stressed, tired, worried
Thinking: about which non-AIP food I missed out on this past month and what I'm going to eat the next time I indulge...I have no shame. (Also I think I've decided on sushi.)


THE FOCUS GROUP
This month I'm just going to focus on catching up on the posts I need to write, and on re-prioritizing my tasks and time.

12 PROJECTS - 30 DAYS

Project 11 - Cross Stitch (July/August - Continuing)
Went well for the first 10 days - I made some really cute stuff!! - but then it fell apart right before girl's camp. Then with all the work I had after that, I didn't make time for it. For August, I'm only focusing on doing 20 stitches per day, and I'm doing a bigger project for the majority of the time. I think I'll be more likely to keep it up with that as my goal, especially knowing that the end of August might get busy too. 

NUMBERED NEWS
49. Play 51 new games (at least 15 award-winning)
40. Trogdor!! The Board Game (7/12/19)

85. Watch 101 new movies (at least 20 award-winning)
51. Toy Story 4 (7/5/19)
52. My Little Pony: The Movie (7/7/19)

86. Go to 15 new eateries
11. Bahama Bucks (7/13/19) Fanciest snow cone place ever! I got half blue coconut, half peach, with their cream on top. Pretty good! Definitely the best shaved ice I've had - it was like real snow! However, I was hoping the cream was like whipping cream, so I was a little disappointed there. 
12. Wiseguys (7/27/19) Comedy club where we watched Olan Rogers. We caved and got their nachos. Unfortunately it was not-cho a good idea. I did not like them and I felt like I had AIP-cheated in a very disappointing way. The chicken was in huge chunks (who does that on nachos??) and "pico de gallo" was just diced tomatoes and that's it. Not a fan. Luckily we went to Swig after to console my taste buds.


DAISY'S BOOK OF THE MONTH
Using another book from Nana this month: Where's My Mommy?

It's a cute little book about a girl helping a sheep find its mom. Each animal mom they find helps them describe the sheep's actual mom. Daisy will act out parts of it after we read it, and tells me to say some of the mom lines too. It's pretty cute :)