May 2017 - Check In #5

This was a shorter month for me. You're probably thinking "Nikki, May has 31 days. That is literally the longest a month can be." True - but since we came back from Europe on the 6th and needed some days to adjust, I really feel like getting back to our habits didn't start until about the 10th. That's also when I published the April post so if it helps, April had an extra 9 days and May was short those. That puts it under February so definitely a short month with lots to do!

It's funny though, even though it was a "short month," this has been the only post I haven't been writing as things were happening. I was so busy trying to do it all, I just crashed when it was done. Low and behold, I finally looked at the date, realized it was the end of the month, and figured I should write my update.

Designated Date Time

I'm still trying to figure out a better name for this section. Williams Adventures? Marriage Work? I don't know. I just know that really it's about the two of us (and Harley!) having a good time exploring San Diego and spending time together and having a certain time each week dedicated to that.

We really didn't do this one too well, and that's going to be a running theme of this month. While I definitely still think this is an important goal, we needed a month off. So much of May was spent doing everything - being there for family, getting back to normal life after the funeral and our trip, studying for my test, and finally catching up with friends we hadn't seen in two months. That's definitely a lot to balance along with a relationship and it was stressful at times but I honestly got home the night of my test and was a whole different person with that big burden gone.

It really made me think about the whole point of this goal - to build up quality time so that it was stored away for when we needed it. These past months have been full of stressful, difficult things that are trying on any relationship. However, I felt like we had this little piggy bank of quality time stored up and even though we couldn't make as much time for hikes and things while juggling everything else, it was ok because we knew how to get that back when we had time again.

At the end of the month, we did have the time for a hike but I was so sore from trying to get back to my gym schedule (more on that later) that I just didn't want to. We did other things instead though - went to an open house, ran errands together, and worked on the house. We also spent the whole weekend together and with friends. The whole thing is just a lesson on the different shapes quality time can take. It can be making your home nicer or going with the other person to do something they love or being together but with others.

Stick to a Regular Fitness Schedule

This was the toughest one of my goals. As I've said before, going to the gym is way easier when you are doing it with a friend. I climb twice a week with a friend and that was the easiest thing to add back to the schedule. I had been taking another class with Dan and some friends but none of them were able to make it this month and I decided to study instead of pushing myself. That basically was the trend - I skipped on my walks and other fitness just to buckle down and prepare for this test.

It felt good climbing for the few weeks of this month, but once my test was over, I was excited to get back to Body Pump. I knew that after two months off, I'd need to take it easy so I greatly decreased my weight. That wasn't enough though - I was so sore for days. My body taught me a lesson about taking too much time off from my fitness and I'll have to make sure to not make that mistake again.

Meal Planning

pictures of avocado toast without any avocado

I'm still not great about planning out our meals for the week and keeping my shopping list strictly there but I wasn't before so there wasn't much of a loss here. It did feel SO GREAT to be cooking in my kitchen again. After all the amazing eating in Europe, I was worried that I wouldn't want to cook again, but that was so wrong. Getting back into the kitchen really felt like coming home.

Ironically, the thing I missed the most was breakfast. While our lunches and dinners varied a lot on and off the cruise ship, breakfast was the same every day and very little of it felt like what I would eat at home (I don't really like pastries or cereal). I decided to really be better about making myself breakfasts when I got home. Really this meant a lot of avocado toast. On one of my shopping trips, I picked up a little sampler of brie and started making brie toast as well. It's probably my new favorite food.

We've also been back on our healthy eating kick. I go shopping and just try to get mostly vegetables. We've been grilling them and eating so many varieties and colors of produce. We started juicing a little bit because we heard ginger juice is really good for you. I'm still thinking about doing another eating cleanse like Whole30 again but for right now I'm enjoying just trying to eat really healthy each day.

Take an Annual Trip with My Husband

I don't think we'll be planing another big adventure for a little while. There's way too much to do in the meantime. I think the next big step will just be planning weekend trips to see friends and family and for weddings. Once those are all taken care of, we can re-organize and see where the money and vacation days stand and then see if we can go on another vacation before the end of the year. In the meantime though, we can look through all of our photos and remember what a great trip we had!

Also I have souvenir from our trip for you - blog posts! I took notes during most of our trip and I'm planning to convert those into posts in the near future. If you look back through the history of this blog, a lot of it was about my traveling adventures. I think it will be really fun to write about them again.

Read a Book a Week

I actually crushed this one. It was a good reminder that there are a lot of ways to read a book. I had my study guides that I finished. I listened to an audio book while on a drive to/from LA. I had kindle books and I got back into the library. I got 6 books down this month and that doesn't include the book I counted toward April. I'm halfway to my goal for the year and we're not halfway through the year. Yes, I'm a month ahead and it feels great.

As you'll read later on, May really was a great time for me to prepare and organize a lot of projects and dreams I have. Sometimes, you just read the perfect book for where you are in life. The last book I read in May, was that book for me. I read The Magnolia Story - the autobiography by the couple on Fixer Upper. I thought it would just be a cute little history of their lives but it was so much more. Obviously they are adorable and successful but they started so modestly, just tackling little projects and flips and opening side businesses with whatever they had. Sometimes I think everything I want to do is impossible but seeing someone else do it is so motivating. It came at the perfect time. Here's a link to my more official review on Goodreads if you want to hear more about it. 

Me Time

Almost done with another page!

Obviously studying doesn't allow for a lot of me time. It was great to finish my test and get back to that though. I grabbed a beer on my own at a brewery. I read some extra books. I've caught up on so much Netflix. I did more cross stitching. It felt so nice to take a week to catch up on myself in the aftermath of my test. Now that I've had a good week of relaxation, I'm excited to get to next steps of my master plan... and maybe make sure I still carve out some nice pockets of time for myself.

My Best Me May

This was purposely a really vague goal. I knew some things I wanted to check off, but mostly I just wanted to open the door to be a better version of myself. Maybe we all need to do that sometimes. I took my test last week and I passed! Being my best me also meant not just stopping with passing a test. Even though I needed a little time off, and took it, I also made sure I was taking the next steps. I'm hoping that by the next update, I'll be able to share big plans. If you've been paying attention, you probably have a good idea what I've been working on.

The rest of it was just about being a better person. To be clear, I don't think I'm a bad person, but sometimes we're all a little selfish or have some room for self improvement. So this was about doing the nice things you don't always want to do. It was about listening when you want to talk. It was about being polite instead of frustrated. It was about trying to do all of that and knowing you could still do better and giving yourself something to keep working on. I was still bad about making my bed though. 

my biggest cheerleader

On another note, I spent a good chunk of this year so far feeling really self conscious. This month was the first time I felt better about all of that. I'm realizing that doubting myself makes me into a person that doesn't feel like me. I also realized that all the stress I've been putting myself under has compounded and made the insecurities feel worse. It's been nice to let a lot of that go. This past weekend - with the test done, and my head in a better place, I felt the most like me that I have in months. I spent time with friends and didn't question everything I was doing and saying. I talked with strangers and didn't think about how to sell myself to them. I realized that maybe I've come through some difficult times and I'm in a better place. 

A lot of this had a lot to do with my mom. She was always so confident and made friends wherever she went. A lot of our "family" in LA are actually various friends she's made over the years. If there was something I admired most about her, it would have to be that. It was a trait I felt that I had as well until lately. I wanted that feeling back and I decided to just take it. I also realized that being a friendly or welcoming person doesn't mean being perfect or being walked all over. I've learned that some people don't appreciate that kind a friend and that was contributing too much to my self confidence. I know that if my mom were here, she wouldn't want me to be a doormat and that's really helped me come back into my own - that thought that there are always going to be people that make you feel terrible and that shouldn't for a second stop you from being who you are for everyone else.

Just Do It June

My planner is also a reminder of all the work to do.
Luckily, it helps me organize my crazy brain and keep on track!

When I think of "Just Do It" I obviously think of Nike and fitness and that was originally the idea here. I have two races in June - one more serious and one more fun - and I wanted to really push myself. Even though I've done a ton of races, I always feel like I could have pushed a little harder. While I'd still like to do that, that's not the main goal here anymore. For starters, I've had a whole lot of trouble getting back on my fitness routine after the time off. I also just have so many more goals that I want to make sure I just do.

As I'd said before, May was really a short month for me but I feel like I did so much. I'm at a place where it feels like so many things are beginning and have a lot of potential. May got me at that place and June is where we tackle it.

It's weird to be here at this time in my life and it goes back to a point I made last month about dealing with loss-it can break you or it can make you stronger. My mom always expected the best from me because she knew I could do it. She knew about all these plans that I have now and she always said "why are you wasting time, just do it." Maybe not in those exact words - but that idea. A lot of what I'm working on now has been in progress for over a year and it kept getting delayed because of life and stress and maybe a little laziness. She always pushed me to keep on track and not get distracted, to follow through. I think I'm doing my best me by channeling all of my energy or grief into my projects. Some are fun things too like getting a Housewarming party on the calendar - another great way to honor my mom is by following her example as the best hostess ever. All of this, everything I'm doing, is for her.

On the Loss of My Mom

This is a blog about my life, and it feels like it would be remiss to not share one of the biggest things that's happened in it - last week my mom passed away. She had been suffering on and off again from cancer for many years and after a gruesome battle, she just couldn't fight any more.

I could fill this post easily with memories of my mom. One of my earliest though would take me back to elementary school. I don't know what grade I was in but we had an assignment that everyone gets at least once - Who is your hero? I was young enough that almost everyone put their parents but I really thought my mom was my hero. I knew she was an immigrant and struggled with English. She worked full time and cooked dinner and raised three kids and probably never slept. She hosted parties and exercised and danced and loved us so hard. It just seemed like she did it all and loved it. I can still picture her now making dinner in her short shorts and thinking "no one else's mom wears this or looks like this."

As I revisited the topic through out my life, my mom would continue to be my hero. From the first time she got breast cancer (before I could even wrap my head around what that was), to traveling the world by herself, to being a little woman with the biggest attitude, to fighting a life that didn't always meet her expectations, and to fighting and fighting and fighting a cancer that just would not quit.

My mom just had SO MUCH about her. She made such an impression on people. My friends always told me how feisty she was and how when they met her, they understood everything about me. I am demure in comparison to my mom. And my friends LOVED her. During a cancer remission, she came to visit me in San Francisco. A friend was having a party and I told her I couldn't go because my mom was visiting. "Bring her!" my friend said and ended up inviting a couple other moms as well so she'd have parents to talk to. My mom socialized with the other parents for a little while but was very excited to get to know all of my friends. Age didn't matter to her and she quickly won over all their affections by sharing embarrassing memories of me.

Memories are such a special thing. I wish there really was a pensieve for memories so I could keep them for later. I have loved all the memories of my mom that people have shared with me these past weeks. My mom was such a character, the memories just always make me smile. From some incidents while she was learning English to wine-filled girls nights, my mom left people with so many happy memories and I can't possibly be sad when I hear such things.

My mom left all of us with the best of her. She was highly critical of us - she always strived for perfection and wanted it from us as well. She taught all of us kids to cook and to keep our homes in presentable shape and to dress well. I don't think any of us come close to the standard she set but we are always trying. She taught me that it's ok to have 100 hobbies and some of my favorite crafts like stitching came from stumbling across the projects she gave up when she had kids. Above all, the trait she past down the most was her love of hosting. All three of us enjoy entertaining and we hope to really keep that legacy going more than anything else. My brothers and I already have plans to entertain at the family house so that we really honor that memory of her.

I've also learned through this process that I have surrounded myself with amazing people. I've had so many friends reach out, call, send flowers, or visit. No matter how much time or distance has come between us, people have come out in all different ways to show their support and that is so touching. My mom also had just the best friends. So many people offered to help our family and assist with the service. And losing the key link in a chain - it's confusing. Our family has definitely considered that we may not see some of these people again without our mom, but talking to them this past week, they seemed just as concerned that we wouldn't want to keep in touch with them. Even in her passing, my mom has been connecting people, and I know we hope to stay close with all of her family and friends.

So how am I doing?

Well, that's a really hard question to answer. A lot of the time, I feel ok- just a little emptier and little sadder. It doesn't feel like my mom is gone because it doesn't feel like it's been enough time. It feels like she's on vacation, a trip to Brazil, where she's just hard to reach but will be back soon. It's going to take some time for this to sink in. The times it hurts the most are when I think about the future. I will have kids that won't know my mother. I will never get another birthday card or call from my mom. I can't even imagine the holidays. That's when I realize the permanence of what has happened. But on a day to day basis - I'm ok. Sometimes my parents' house feels a little too quiet, but even then, there is an echo of someone calling me to set the table or use just the right dish. I grabbed some seasonings the other day and could imagine her saying "omg not those!"

Grief is such a weird thing. You never know how it will hit you. My mom was so sick and in so much pain for so long. I would often leave my visits from her house and cry the whole drive home so I came to peace with the inevitable a while ago. I would have loved for my mom to live forever and especially to meet her daughter's children and maybe even to move in with us some day. That was my dream life, but I knew it wasn't likely so I've been grieving for my mom for a long time. She is finally at peace and no longer in pain and there is some relief for everyone in that. But the house is quiet and the memories are fresh and it stings when something interesting happens and I want to share it with her.

I don't know what my future holds but I know what it doesn't and that's the hardest thing about all of this.