(no subject)

Man, all I ever write about these days is being depressed, having anxiety, being exhausted, and having kids. What else is there in my life, you may well ask? Not really a whole lot.

Other things:

• Sewing. I'm making progress on getting through the pile of UFOs on my sewing table. My black/red dress just needs the facing put in and the final seams done. I impulse purchased fabric for a new set of dance pants, and they're just waiting on casings at the ankle and waist to be elasticed. 
• Also in Sewing, I joined the Collette Sew-Along for the Mabel skirt pattern. I have the pattern printed, though I need to tape it together and trace it. I have fabric and thread, I just need time and motivation.
• Fitness. I made it to a 1 MINUTE PLANK last night! Woot! I joined a FB group that has daily challenges. It's all leg stuff and teacher M does worse things to us than this trainer, so I feel both smug and sad.
• Crochet. The belated baby gift is 2/3 done. I have the yarn for my next 3 projects lined up. This is good.
• Werk. Busy and stressful. Lots of getting yelled at and told to deal with things that shouldn't be my responsibility, but somehow are. Sigh.
• Books. "Thirteenth Child" was way better than I'd expected. "Skin Game" is on my desk, waiting for me to have time to devour it. I tore through the Mercy Thompson series and am currently listening to the first Sookie Stackhouse book on Audible. The narrator is charming. Emi's currently obsessed with a set of Star Wars books I got her. Ox just likes books with rhymes or wheels.
• Henna. I continue to do at least one design every day and post it to my FB page. I need to buy a new marker, though, as this one's starting to give out on me.
• Style. I love my 50's style shirtdresses. They make me feel pretty! I also caved to ModCloth's sale and bought a new swimsuit. It's also 50's style, fits well, and flatters my chubby tummy. I don't feel like a million bucks in it, but I feel at least an order of magnitude more confident in it than in my old swimsuit. Also, as Downwood pointed out, I've had my old suit since before he met me, so it's not like I won't get my money's worth out of this one, even though it's way more expensive than any suit I've ever bought before.

So, yeah. There are things other than the jerkbrain and the kids. But those take up so much of my processing that I don't ever think to talk about the other things that happen. Dunno.

I'm going to go take a half xanax now and try to be productive. I can't be productive and be crying. Those two things don't go together.

Also, no matter what the jerkbrain says, I'm not a failure. I have a good job and a nice house. So I don't spend as much time keeping it clean as I should. So I don't spend as much time making the yard look nice as I should. So I eat junk food and don't cook good food for my family like I should. So I don't save as much money as I should. So I'm not as generous with my time as I should. The operative word in all those things is "should". That's a word that never helps.

What should I be doing? The best I can, being gentle with myself, letting go of "perfect", embracing "good enough", and continue to resist the self-harm impulses. That's both manageable and healthy, so that's what I "should" be doing. It's hard, but good.