Turning Point in Life

No not the ‘politically’ geared whatever-it-is (Sorry, I’m Canadian) but rather a turning point in my general mood lately.

Too often I use this journal as a place to output my negative emotions so that I’m not carrying them with me through my day to day and letting it effect those around me. It helps, but I don’t think it ever really solves the problems. Although it does help me… self introspect? Rather than just spinning around in my head. Or something. It’s early. I’m not used to writing this early, or I haven’t for a long time. I’m used to sitting there brooding for weeks then finally vomitting out this masterpiece of emotional disregard for my surrounding.

So what’s changed?

It’s all mostly accidental to be honest. But also worth mentioning that I’m coming down off a 2 week high of having the my wife home (not Working) and Ellie around so the concept of a “Family Unit” is much more real to me right now rather than some foreign concept that I get 2 days a week y’know?

So what’s ch- Oh I already did that.

Anyway. The first thing that changed is so microscopic that it’s no wonder I missed it. And I’m going to pre-face this with the fact that I’m one of those people who listens to people they trust without really questioning them too much. Especially my father. Not generally a negative thing but people who hold deep friendships with me know that it’s a complicated relationship. So anyway, my old man is one of those people who’s all “White sugar is death!” and while he’s not entirely wrong, chances are that a spoonful of it in my coffee in the morning isn’t gonna be what takes me out. Especially with how I treated my body when I was younger right? So I was using this “Raw Sugar” (Y’know, comes in a little brown cylinder at the Grocery story, big chunky brown bits of sugar) and then one day we ran out and I switched to White sugar and suddenly my gastro health improved drastically. Like, enough that I immediately figured out what it was. So no more was I Drinking, Eating, running to the can. Small thing but I think it’s helped my energy levels and controlling my Highs and Lows.

Second thing, piggy backing off the other one, and kinda a bit of a spider web of changes here but I’ve accidentally started intermittent fasting? I hate to call it that because it’s not something I consciously do like “Okay 10am I can eat now yay!” But I found that what I was doing was sitting down with the Fam, eating breakfast, then sitting on the couch and doom scrolling. What I do now is Wake up, deal with parental duties (and Doodies! Ha, See what I did there?!) and have my Coffee while everyone else eats, then I go and let ADD and Caffeine take over and hyper focus on some small project until I FEEL hungry, and I mean really feel it. Then I eat, generally while Cassidy (17 Months old) eats his morning snack, so usually around 9-10ish and I get on with my day. Holy hell what a change that’s been. I feel like I have energy again, I feel like I’m functional, I feel like I’m Getting It Done around the house. It’s amazing.

3rd up, I’m on Invisialign, and this ties in to the part of the Morning Routine web of effects. Now that I have these damn retainers in, I’m hard bound to a teeth brushing routine and while it is a wholly pain in the ass to deal with, it’s locked me in to this sort of Habit Stack (Atomic Habits any one? Great book, lots of different ways to handle building habits in a way that works for you, Strongly suggest it for any ADD People) of my morning routine. Not to mention that after cleaning everything, it feels great to have nice cool (Temperature) retainers on my teeth. BUT. It does cost a small fortune.

4th up, and probably the last thing but certainly not the least! (Gross, how unoriginal of a phrase, really?) Is that I’ve finally pulled the trigger on getting Cassidy into his own damn room. Jeepers I never thought that’d happen. Anytime I brought it up I was always met with problems and skepticism by my better half. A skill that she has firmly mastered and I regularly have to work around. But regardless, I finally got everything to fall into place and he’s in his own room and (not surprisingly) thriving. He’s sleeping SO much better. We went the Montessori route with a mattress on the floor and a few stuffies for him to play with if he wakes up and we’re not ready yet. It’s really been a game changer in our day-to-day and our Night-to-night honestly.

Anywho, this train of thought is running out of steam so I’m off to do the Dad-thing and carry on with my life.

Until Another Day
-D

PS I apologize for the Spam, I Kept getting the damn panda, didn’t think it was posting. Oops!

Last updated January 08, 2024