Well, effort to shift my longstanding reset day from Sunday to Saturday utterly failed last week. I forgot to do it! And then it was Sunday and I had to do the same old scramble to reset on a work day that I’ve been struggling with.
Today is Saturday and I’m ready to try again.
First, here’s how the last couple of weeks went.
My doctor started me on Wellbutrin in December. It takes a long time (months) for it to build up to a therapeutic dose. I feel like that’s really happened in the last two weeks.
I’ve never considered myself depressed. I’m not ever sad or weepy. But winters are hard for me. I’ve had a lot of things going on in the last year that were really rough. And last summer, I told my doctor I wanted to stop taking Effexor.
I was on Effexor because the first winter we were here in Pennsylvania was brutal for me. It was supposed to be temporary, but then COVID happened and I just stayed on it. The problem was that if I was even an hour late for the dose, I got really sick. And, honestly, it was June. I didn’t think I needed it.
My doctor agreed and she said that we’d try something else if I needed it in the winter.
Anyway, I did need it in the winter and I went on Wellbutrin. It would have been better if I’d started it in the fall, but whatever. What I’ve noticed, though, is that my overall mood has improved dramatically.
I’m less snappy and cranky. I feel like I have better control of my emotions. And I’ve had this kind of inertia, especially surrounding creative work and self-care, that I didn’t even fully realize was there until it started to lift.
All of that is to say that I feel physically really good.
My husband and I are continuing our healthier eating challenge. We added in eggs and fish in February and that’s been good.
My weekly DIY project actually took two weeks—but last week I finished turning our spare bedroom into my Dopamine Room and I’m so excited by how well it turned out.
You can see a video of that transformation here. (On Tiktok.)
I also finished decluttering our upstairs hallway. We live in a Victorian house with a big central hallway at the top of the stairs that all the bedrooms, the bathroom, and the attic open into. It’s—big. It often seems to me like a giant waste of space. We have hardly any closets, but this big empty space?
Anyway, I’m pleased with how it turned out as well. Not perfect, but it doesn’t look like a storage unit anymore. Here’s a video of that declutter.
This week, I’m working on decluttering my living room. That’ll be my DIY project. I’ll post videos on Tiktok. If you want to follow along, follow me over there.
I decided on February 8 to blog everyday until I’m debt free. Again. Because I’ve paid off my debt before—and it didn’t stick. That sucks so bad and I’m over it. I wrote about that here. I have blogged everyday and I’m really pleased with the results.
I’ve had three blog posts boosted. Those are the first since last September, so I’m happy to see that I haven’t entirely lost my touch. I’m going to write a sort of postmortem of my experiment at the end of the month that I’ll only publish here. I don’t think talking so transparently about my Medium earnings on Medium makes Medium very happy.
February’s theme for me is Joy this year. I’ve been listening to The Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu. It’s wonderful. I just put it on in the mornings for an hour and I’m enjoying it so much.
That book came for me at a really good time, actually. My sister was diagnosed with breast cancer a week or so ago. Our mother died in her late 40s of breast cancer and this has felt like something that has loomed over the two of us for decades. She caught it early and the prognosis is good—but it’s still very scary.
Desmond Tutu had cancer when he had the conversation with the Dalai Lama the book is based on. There was is a lot of discussion of faith in the book. My sister is a theology student and I’m an agnostic—this book gave me a way to talk to her about her faith, which she really needed to be able to do, without the conversation disinigrating. For the first time ever, I think.
I’m also reading The Unmaking of June Farrow, which is maybe the best book I’ve read in the last five years. It’s fantastic. 10/10 recommend. I’m doing a pretty deep reading of it, with annotation and everything.
In February, I started a program I hope to run all year—a monthly virtual subscription box, focused on the theme. My February box had amazing house shoes in it. They were handmade in Lithuania and they finally arrived this week. I’m in love.
Look how stinking cute they are. They fit like a glove, they’re super warm and cozy, and they’re way better than wearing socks or slippers all the time. I have an odd sized foot for a woman—I really need an 11.5, but that’s not a thing for most shoes. So I end up going with a 12, but it’s a little too big. These came in an 11.5!
Okay, that’s it for the past two weeks.
Here’s the Reset Day plan for this today.
Set up my planner and notebook for next week and for March.
Make some preliminary plans for Ninja Writers for March.
The things I ordered for my March Subscription Box (theme: Home) came yesterday—a little early. I might try to set up my kanban board today.
Meal plan and make a grocery list.
My husband and I have a date with our bills today—we’re going to make a budget.
I want to reset the rooms I’ve decluttered recently (dining room, dopamine room, and the upstairs hall) so that they don’t go right back to where they were. This won’t take too much.
I need to water my plants today.
Write a blog post.
I’m going to indie publish a novella this week—I need to send it to Adrienne for layout. I have seven (!!) of these written. I just need to get brave and publish them.
I want to spend some time working on my novel Thunderstruck today, too. My goal is to publish that one in March.
Head over to the liquor store to get vodka for turning the vanilla beans from my February subscription box into extract. And get that started.
Check on the homemade pine cleaner I’ve had brewing all month. I made it from clippings from our Christmas tree.
This is the last Saturday of the month, which means that I’m resetting for next week, but also for next month. My theme for March is ‘home.’ My goal is to make progress toward making my house somewhere I’m really comfortable being and also, set up some systems for keeping it that way.
That’s it. This was a long one! Thanks for sticking with me.