Where did this rut come from?!

It's a sad truth in my life that I pretty much always lack balance. 

Right now, my life is actually so badly out of whack that my family's starting to worry. Or... they're starting to worry out loud. It's a good thing that they do, though, because that brings it to my attention. 

Because the thing with my balance issues is that it's rarely ever a big thing that tips me to one side or the other. It starts small, but grows until I look around me, struggling to understand why I've let things go so far. 

That's where I am. I mean, my life's good. It's comfortable... I'm in a routine and things are going, even if they don't go as smoothly as expected. 

But it took a long conversation last night to realize that I've somehow managed to let all aspects to my life except for the farm and my writing dwindle to next to nothing. 

And that just isn't healthy. 

In fact, as much as I love the farm and writing, it's not even living. 

So I need to get back into the living habit once more. 

1) Moving around more (yay exercise to help budge weight)

2) Connecting more with God, family, friends and even new acquaintances.

3) Getting out more, even if it's just to write in a new location. 

4) Changing up my activities. I have so many things I love to do, but just don't make time for. Now's when I start making time. 

It might sound strange, but life's just not all it could be when we're stuck in ruts. Luckily, changing things up is only as easy as changing up a bit. That's exactly what I'm going to do. 

Because I don't just want to write and work on a farm. I want to live. 

Anyone else feeling stuck in a rut? What do you need to do to escape yours? 

Easter Post

Heads-up: this post will deal with Christian beliefs, so if you're not interested in reading about it, feel free to visit here.

Yesterday, I had a nice little bout of negativity hitting me. Like in really. I guess it's just all the bad thoughts and feelings I kept at bay for the past month, finally washing over me when I finally let my guard down.

So I moped and felt sorry for myself. And... well... missed the point of what Easter's about.

See... we Christians celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ this weekend. And it's really a major event for us. Because it's through His death and resurrection that we were saved, and that we could become God's children.

You see... Jesus went and basically took all of our sins and said: "I've got this." And paid the price for all of it in our place.

And because Jesus paid the price for our sins, we could enter into a much more personal relationship with God. The lovely thing about this is that (although He's been doing so from the beginning of time), God's telling us that He has everything in control. And that we need only trust Him as our Father.

We don't need to understand. We don't need to worry. We don't need to do anything special in order to gain His special favor.

All we need to do is seek His will and follow it. As long as that's happening, nothing can really stand in our way or bring us down.

Have a blessed Easter, all!

Weight-loss update

Now that I'm really getting back to my more regular posting schedule, I feel I should do a bit of an update on my weight so far. After all, it's one of the last big things I mentioned. 

So the goal had been that I be at a healthy goal weight by the end of March. And... well... that didn't happen. See in the time I wasn't posting, I put some thought into what I want from my life and my body. 

And the point is this: I want to be healthy. 

I'm not going to be healthy by starving myself of something and exercising myself to death. 

So instead, I decided to try another, more intuitive approach. 

I'm listening to my body. When I'm hungry, I eat something. When I'm not, I don't. So yes, it means I skip meals, or that I eat later or whatever. But it also means that I'm eating less in general. I've also cut back on refined carbs by a lot, the exception being when I eat "mieliepap" (almost like polenta but drier and more crumb-like) for breakfast. But the lovely thing is that it's gluten free and it keeps me full until lunch. 

Bread, sugar etc I'm eating a lot less of, and I'm eating more and more veggies (which is something I never really did). 

Exercise wise, I'm moving around a bit more, but I want to get fit rather than skinny, so I'm going to start doing more intense cardio like rope skipping once I've shifted a bit more weight. For now, I'm playing tennis with my mom. I look stupid doing it, but hey, the court's in our back yard, so it's not like there's anyone to watch. And the nice thing is that I can be a bit more social (as supposed to being locked up in my mind all day). 

So... what has this achieved? Well. 

I lost almost 14 lb from the beginning of the year. Which really is huge for me. It's slower than I wanted, but healthier, and I think more sustainable than stuff I'd done before. 

Anyone else working on shifting some weight? How's it going for you?

Hello!

Hey all!

So sorry for my absence lately. I've been going through a difficult time at the moment, involving my two fantasy books.

To be honest, it's dragged me down so badly that I couldn't really sit down and write anything.

I'm slowly getting back to it though, even if my problems are continuing. So I'll definitely going to get back into more regular posts.

In the meantime, I'm still crocheting like a fiend, so I'm hoping that I'll soon have a beautiful blanket to show you.

In the lieu of that, I thought I should let you know that I joined Pinterest lately. It's fun at the moment, so I might gradually add more of my personal content. At the moment, though, I'm mainly pinning stuff like templates, recipes and crochet patterns.

Still, if you're interested in seeing what's interesting me at the moment, feel free to follow me.

And now, time for me to get back to crocheting. After all, the guest house is getting closer and closer to completion, and the blanket's supposed to decorate it.

How are you doing?