The Mental Toll of Life

This last month has gone by in a blur. The most memorable about this last month is just how much I have been struggling mentally and what I have done to try to improve my mental health. Nevertheless, there have been lots of good moments and events as well.

My Mental Health Plan

Step 1. Read scriptures every morning.
Knowing that my spiritual health is also key to my mental health, I  decided to put more of an effort into making sure I read every morning. If I can't read, I listen to a chapter of The Book of Mormon.

Step 2. Exercise
I joined a gym for the first time in years. They were doing a "free" 6 week challenge. The company is called Positive Excellence Physical Training. Their system seemed to suit me as it is geared towards not just physical health but mental health as well. Each day they have multiple workout sessions and the goal is to attend at least three per week. They have free childminding for certain times as well and I didn't have to commit to a specific time. Sessions involve high intensity interval type training and can be boxing, kettle ball exercises, etc. The second part of their system involves following a nutritional plan. To be perfectly honest this has been the hardest for me. My paleo lifestyle allows me much more and omitting egg yolks and carrots from my diet is challenging. The third part that makes their gym really useful is the accountability. Your trainer will check in with you once a week to see how things are going. You also get a body scan once a week that will analyse your body fat, lean muscle mass, skeletal muscle mass, weight, etc. It's pretty extensive.

So far I have just completed week 2 and it is going well. I am getting more motivated to exercise and workout. I have gained nearly 1kg of muscle mass. Unfortunately, my last week of indulgences not on the diet created a kg of weight gain. The goal is to get 2kg of muscles mass. If I succeed I get my whopping $600 deposit back. In the end I decided that even if I don't meet the goal, the cost of getting help in the three areas would be worth it (or so I hope).

Step 3. Psychologist

I went to see my doctor and got a mental health care plan. This allows you to get a refund for up to 10 psychologist visits per year. I went to see the same psychologist Matt and I have been seeing for marriage counselling. After just one session it became clear I have a lot of work to do. One of my main cognitive distortions is my need to get validation or recognition from others to feel worthwhile. This is why I get so anxious about what others think, and even if I know I did a great job on something, I feel frustrated or annoyed if it's not acknowledged. I also need to teach myself how to be more mindful in those moments where I am struggling.

We shall see how all of my efforts towards the above steps goes!

Updates

Dental Surgery

I visited a dental specialist and today had dental surgery for my gum overgrowth. Basically they cut out a chunk of my gum and sewed it back up. The goal of this is that I won't have gum growing over my back molar so bacteria won't build up as bad there. Let's hope I can avoid ever getting gingivitis again! In case anyone else is like me and hates flossing.... just do it! I brushed and flossed my teeth twice a day for weeks and discovered it doesn't have to hurt! If you actually get blood or sensitive gums it's a sign that you have bacteria build up and likely need to floss more.

AirBnB Guests
We had a lovely french couple stay with us for over a month. It turns out that a month is a little too long for me. By the last week I was just ready to have my house back. I really liked them, but I think because they were often home all the time it started to wear on me. We had more guests that weekend and I also decided I needed to make sure every time we have guests I have a few days blocked out before and after. It's too much for me if they are back to back.

The next guests were three Indian people that stayed for one night before heading to film camp in the bush. They were fun. We learned that they each came from three different areas and not only spoke different languages but eat different foods. I had no idea India was like that and now it makes more sense that they speak such good English as it is the common language that allows them to speak to others of different areas. My favourite was how the one girl freaked out when I tried to clean her cereal bowl. She was a bit overly respectful if that's even possible. Every time she would leave to her room she apologised. The next young couple was from the UK. We learned all about Yorkshire and how supposedly people from England are great at complaining about things. They were here for about 5 days and working on getting set up with bank accounts and whatnot before going to Perth where they would start their jobs working with racehorses to get permanent residency.

I'm still loving having guests over! A byproduct of this is that I keep the house clean on a regular basis. We just had our inspection and I barely had to do much more than vacuum.

End of Financial Year
A lot of June was spent organising what I needed to do to finalise the financial year for the business. It was complicated to say the least. Basically we wanted to minimise profits as much as possible to reduce taxes. We had to look at ways we could do that, but we didn't have enough cash in the business either. I won't bore you with details, but suffice it to say it was difficult.

Dash Family Move
Our friends, the Dash family, have five kids and were moving their large house full of kid stuff, engineering equipment, machinery, and who knows what else that they had collected from living in one place for seven years. I helped out as much as I could. Luckily Matt was in between jobs and could spend a day helping move big stuff and another day or so doing all his paint touch ups. It was such a blessing. I wish I could have done more, but Sakura made it a little difficult at times.

Sewing with Brianna
My friend Brianna and I started another sewing project. We are doing a tote bag and then a shift dress. We spend so much time chatting we don't complete much, but we still have a lot of fun. I'm so glad she and her husband moved to our area! She's quickly become one of my best friends here and we definitely have a lot in common (we are both from Utah). I did manage to complete a bowl cozy one day in the meantime so at least one project was completed. The purpose of it is to hold your bowl when it is super hot from the microwave. I tested it out yesterday and it is a success!

VIPKIDS Teaching
Not much to report here, but I have had only 2-3 classes in all of June. Apparently it is just a really slow time for everyone. I am SO lucky this is not a main source of income and is mostly just a side job. Many teachers rely on what they make from VIPKIDS and it is a big hit when not many can fill up their schedules with classes. Apparently it is just a busy time for kids in China with final exams and other events going on. They had their Dragonboat Festival, which has some pretty interesting history if you've never heard about it.

Living in a House Fun
I decided to do some weeding before my inspection last week. I asked my neighbour if I could borrow some clippers to trim some tree branches as he got home while I was weeding. This resulted in him bringing over his electric hedge trimmer, a saw, and clippers and him helping hack up most of my overgrown bushes and trees. It looked a lot better, but there is plenty still to be done another day. I wish I had a before picture. It turns out three of the large trees in front are actually overgrown weeds. It's nice that they provide a lot of privacy, but I realised if I let the hedge bushes grow properly there would be plenty of privacy without the giant weed trees. Perhaps I'll do something about them. I discovered landscaping is extremely satisfying. I'm also grateful for awesome neighbours.

The white ant damage issue continues. We have not had a fully functioning garage since we moved in. People finally came to repair the damaged wall. We had to wait nearly a month for them to come back to plaster and finish it off. This week they finally came back and instead of feeling like the job from hell would be over soon, we got worse news. It turns out the damage is more extensive and actually goes all around the garage door and perhaps into two other walls. Instead of fixing anything they put a bunch of holes in the wall and now have to ask the owner about getting a more thorough pest analysis. So it looks like our garage will still be a wreck for another couple of months.

Life with a Toddler

Sakura has had lots of "fun" this last month. She had some issue where she would scream for ages when we would put her to bed. One day she seemed out of sorts and as I was about to take her to childcare she vomitted. She was fine by the afternoon so I'm not sure what sparked that. Then we had fun because she had a bad fever for a few days. The first time it happened we gave her nurofen and she seemed normal soon after. The second day was a childcare day. She seemed lethargic but good enough to go. Unfortunately, they called me mid-day because she had a fever of 39.4 degrees Celsius and panadol didn't help it go down. After a while she seemed fine but we went through the same thing the following day. The last day she showed signs of teething so we thought that might be a contributor to her fever. After that she has been extremely sensitive about everything. Then yesterday she got a rash all over her tummy, back and up her neck. We suspect she actually has/had hand, foot, mouth disease as it has been going around. It's better today, but geez it's so hard to keep them happy and well!

Some of the best moments with Sakura have been with her new playmate Cristiano. It's hard watching two kids the same age at times, but then there are such precious moments. Cristiano sometimes says Cara? when searching for Sakura. One time Cristiano arrived and was asleep, but Sakura was anxious for him to get up and play. She stood in her room watching him sleep while eating an apple and was SOOO excited when he later came out to play. My absolute favourite though was when I tried to video us playing ring around the rosy. When I let go to set up my phone to video it, they started doing it on their own together! So precious! Cristiano's mom also took Sakura to her first live concert and she LOVED it!

 

Here are some other fun moments with Sakura...

Helping clean the chapel

Watching Daddy play Zelda

Events

Kitefest

I went to Kitefest with Sakura one Saturday. It was lots of fun! We had fun at the petting zoo area for a bit. Then she got to play with some chalk before we went to see the kites. I wish I had video evidence of her first reaction. She just kept pointing and going "Wow"! We had a great time sitting and watching them fly the kites and even got to see an airplane do loops!

Eat Street with our French Friends

For the last weekend before our French couple left we went to Eat Street. We discovered this was more difficult with Sakura than we thought. She just wanted to eat everything she saw and none of the snacks I brought or packed. We spent more money than planned just trying to find gluten and dairy free food for her. 

Games Nights

We played Red Dragon Inn with our french friends and the Arderns. That game is so unpredictable! Jared was the winner, and it was a lot of fun. The next week we planned to go to dinner, but we cancelled and played Settlers of Catan with the Biddles. We haven't had anyone come for games since, but I'm still glad we dedicate that night to having fun.

Free Burritos
We found out from the Biddles there was a free burrito day going on at a nearby Guzman y Gomez. All day you could get free burritos or in our case free burrito bowls for the grand opening. We went and enjoyed the live music and got our food. Sakura ate nearly half of her bowl! There wasn't much place to sit at the restaurant so we ate on the ground near where we had parked. It was a fun experience with good food. Thanks Biddles!

Animal Expo
There was an animal expo going on near us. It was a free event on a Sunday so we went right after church. Sakura had so much fun! We had to stay clear of the petting zoo since they charged for that, but she got to pet kittens, donkeys, a horse, and lots of dogs! Her favourites were the donkeys and malamutes. She screamed when I pulled her away from them. I'm thinking of fostering a dog now...

Fourth of July

Matt has had a lot of days off work so we were able to go to the Australia Zoo. I had Cristiano that day so he came along too. It turns out two kids at the zoo was a bit trickier than I expected. I had thoughts of letting them roam free at the kangaroo section and seeing them happily petting the kangaroos. Well it turns out Cristiano is a bit rough. He was more into smacking the animals than petting. When I pulled him away he tried to kick them. Naturally, this led to a quicker exit from the kangaroos than we had expected. While walking them to the tigers Sakura fell asleep. Cristiano got to see a tiger come up close (that's his hand in the photo). After we left Cristiano fell asleep in the car, but Sakura was determined to scream the whole way home.

 

We ended our night with a new fourth of July tradition - watching the film 1776. It was so long we had to split it up over two nights. My dad loves that movie so we used to watch it often. Surprisingly even Matt enjoyed it although he was not keen when I started it. 

Overall it has been an interesting month!