31 days of blogging: Well that was a bust

I made it 14 days which is admittedly the longest I've ever made on these kinds of challenges. I'd love to say there were lame excuses like the ones Nony blogged about all month for why I fell off the face of the planet and didn't post my menu plan or any of my dinners for two to three weeks. Really I was struggling with a major bout of depression, the weather changes plays havoc on my joints, and I had doctor's appointments two to three times a week for the whole month. Whew! For once I'm not beating myself up about having made a goal and failing at it. There were days I COULD have taken a picture of my dinner and posted it, but I decided that I needed to be gentle on myself, give myself some time and space to just be in the moment, to accept the situation. It was oddly clarifying.

Mr. Moon and I took a trip to Seattle for Halloween to see some friends. We'd been squirreling away our date-night money for a few months in anticipation of this trip, and we managed to stay under budget. During the three hour car ride each way, we had a lot of good discussions. Checking in on how this whole situation is wearing on us; how we feel about our relationship and life goals and how those mesh; ideas for scheduling and to-do-listing that might work better for us right now. It made me realize how much I missed the weekly drives we made for two months in the moving process, where we would just talk about whatever was bothering us. Somehow the open road and the quiet car just made for a safe space where we felt comfortable even just thinking out loud and saying things that weren't fully formed into how to say things while minimizing hurt feelings. And the hurt feelings were few and far between, because we knew we were on the same team.

We came up with some ideas for scheduling chores and to-do lists and menu planning, so I'll be posting about those as we implement them over the next couple weeks. Gardening ideas are in the works, some projects are getting finished while others are put on hold (I'm starting to think we may never get a lounge set up in the garage), and lots of new cookbooks are getting sorted through for menu ideas.
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It was a nice break, and I'm excited to be back. What have you all been up to the last couple weeks?

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