Reconnecting With My Love of Sports

I love watching and playing sports and I really have not done enough of either since moving from Chicago. Seeing St. Louis Blues winning the Stanley Cup, something I was never sure I would see, reminded me how much I have missed sports.

Baseball is my favorite sport to watch, but hockey has definitely made a come back. I have been trying to catch all the Cardinals games I possibly can since writing about my goals a few weeks ago. I am also still obsessively putting on my Binnington jersey, that I purchased to celebrate the Blues first Stanley Cup, everyday and I am eyeing the schedule for 2019-2020.

Additionally, I am going to make it to a Yankees and Mets game before the end of the season because I need to check out all the MLB stadiums. Currently, I am only 9 for 30… ouch. If I can get into the double digits by the end of the year that would be brilliant!

Playing sports though, has been more challenging to pick back up. Soccer holds my heart there and always will. The thrill I would get running down the field to dislodge that ball out from under my competitor, there is nothing like it. Defense was my primary position, since I am usually bigger than the offensive players. I think I should buy a new ball and find a field to get my toes wet again.

How are y’all keeping to your goals?

Too Much Cake

The title of this post is misleading, but also relevant. I have been going through a lot recently and its gotten to a boiling point. It is personal and this is not the place to get into it, but I want to stress the point of taking care of yourself.

As much as I love cake, there is such thing as too much of it. Figuratively speaking, I have indulged in a dream world to escape what I have been going through, yes I am aware that it not the healthiest thing. Additionally, for my birthday I had indulged in cake, cupcakes, ice cream, etc.. Now I am done with the indulgence emotionally and physically. I need to take care of myself and I started this week.

I weight trained twice this week (30 min of upper body on Tuesday and 30 min of lower body on Thursday), which has made me feel incredible sore and relieved of some internal tension. I also finally opened up more about all the thoughts consuming me to 2 close friends, which helped me get out of my own head. I also cut back on the sweets this week, which is why I had a headache most of the week.

It is all a good thing. Sometimes in life you go through shit. It can remind you that you need to take care of yourself and take it all one step at the time.

Today, I am meeting up with my best friend from Michigan, his wife and kid. They just moved a few hours away and I am incredibly excited to see him. He really helped keep me grounded in graduate school. I hope I get to see him more and more now, instead of the few times we play catch up over Skype throughout the year. 🙂

I plan to fill my life with as much love as possible and continue to care for myself.

A Trip To A Midwife May Be Life Changing

Last month, I had an appointment with a midwife. I had never seen a midwife before, but wanted to after hearing great things from my friends back in Chicago. Additionally, I had been researching the difference in experience, cost, etc. and had wanted to make the switch for my next gynecological visit.

First of all, it was the best gynecological appointment I have ever had. She was easy to talk to from the get go, quick with my pap smear and actually solved a mystery for me. She let me know what I was told by my previous doctor was egzema was in fact not. It was tinea versicolor and could be cleared up with a $4 cream. I almost have completely clear skin after having developed this back in graduate school. Unbelievable.

She also was able to ease a lot of my concerns about my short luteal phases. She looked at my cycle tracking and said it seemed as though my body just needed extra time to get back on track. She also said it is not worth worrying about until I am ready to get my IUD out and start trying to have children. Then, if pregnancy is not happening, I should make an appointment to chat about it.

One of my friends just said to me that I should just let go of all the worrying about my cycle and such since I clearly am not at the point of having kids. She is right. I am enjoying where I am in my life right and until I am ready to remove that IUD why stress about it.

I can not believe I am actually looking forward to my next gynecological visit. 🙂

#Goals

My graduate advisor is an amazing person. He taught me quite a lot even if I still failed the qualifying exam and never got my PhD. I made the right choice to go to Michigan to work with him.

One of the things he was so focused on were goals. I had them, but never really wrote them down and thought through them they way he wanted me to. He asked me about what I wanted from life, what all my interests, how important things were to me and to dive into what my priorities were. He also said I should reevaluate regularly.

In response, I came up with the following areas to consider:

• Short term (within weeks and months)
• Long term (within years)
• Life long (self explanatory)

Then, I have some subcategories:

• Family
• Career
• Happiness
• Adventures
• Plus whatever else I might come up with because your passions can change

Now this he always said it is meant to remind and guide you into the right path. Well, when it was determined that I was not going to get a PhD my goals had to change and that is when I looked toward my other interests and passions, which I included in my goal document I kept.

So lets get down to it!

Passions

• Astronomy and space physics
  • Aurora activity
  • Solar impact on planetary magnetosphere
  • Stellar evolution
  • Galaxy evolution
  • Black hole formation
• Sports
  • Personal activity: Soccer, running, softball
  • Professional: Soccer, baseball, hockey
• Yoga – I am strongly considering becoming a yoga teacher, I have wanted to since I lived in Chicago and started this blog.
• Geology
• Atmospheric science
• The relationship between mental and physical health
• Family learning – how families learn together and deal with misconceptions

Short term goals

• Research yoga teaching courses in my area
• Help with museum improvements through experience, repairs, customer service, etc.
• Start back up on Spanish and Japanese lessons
• Lift weights twice a week and walk the rail trail 3 times a week
• Clear out the pantry
• Search again for a science related side-hustle
• Finish reading the 2 books on my nightstand
• Watch more baseball, even if it seems like we traded in the Cardinals season for the Blues Stanley Cup win
• Call my grandmother

Long term goals (most challenging for me right now)

• Develop something at work that stemmed from my ideas
• Gain more experience in different areas of the museum (advancement and exhibits especially)
• Figure out if I really want kids, then sort out goals around that
• Take better care of my friendships to maintain them
• Travel more (around my state, get the last 17 states I have not been to, Canada, Mexico, Ireland, Spain, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, etc.)

Life long goals

• Always improve as a person
• Think about it, then do the right thing
• Be kind and positive
• Try to do what makes you happy
• Apologize when due
• Explore every chance you get
• Give every child in my life a better experience than I had