For the last year I have been dealing with a leg injury I got by getting up from my desk at the church. That may sound ridiculous, but I got up from my desk chair and turned too fast pulling my hip out of joint and straining the muscles and ligaments all the way down to my ankle.

Throughout the year I have gone between feeling pretty good and barely being able to walk. There have been many days where I have needed my cane to get around. Just before Thanksgiving I reinjured myself while walking down the stairs at The Vicarage. after Thanksgiving my knee swelled up and stayed swelled pretty much through the New Year.

I have known since the first injury that my ballooning weight is part of the problem. It just took me a year to really admit it consciously and to begin doing something about it. 

The first step to addressing the problem was getting batteries for my scale. It may seem a silly thing to you, but by not buying batteries I was able to keep the weight issue from becoming real. As long as I didn’t see my weight in numbers it wasn’t a thing….you get the picture.

As my coach, Paul, says, “WHEN THE PAIN OF CHANGE IS LESS THAN THE PAIN OF STAYING THE SAME, YOU’LL CHANGE.”

The pain in my legs finally got to the point where I bought batteries for the scale.

290 pounds it read.

I started trying to “diet” just after Thanksgiving. I lost and regained the same five pounds twice before Christmas and then decided to join NOOM. It’s an ap on my phone. It has: daily motivational reading, daily weight tracking, a step counter, and a place to log calories and water intake. It also has a coaching feature and on line accountability.

I have now lost my first twenty pounds.The swelling in my knee is almost gone and the joint pain has been almost non existent during the fast, even after I slipped on ice and repulled the muscles in my weak leg.

It has ups and downs, but I am learning to manage expectations of perfection. Somehow that expectation management is bringing me greater success than just expecting perfection from myself. Last night I ate a whole bag of gumdrops, but you know that’s Ok. I just got back on the oatmeal wagon this morning.

DO YOU STRUGGLE WITH PERFECTIONISM?

Last night was a tough night. The dogs did not sleep well at all. Mercedes the 13 year old has had a very sensitive stomach the last two nights. We were up at three A.M. and then again at four thirty A.M. I collapsed back into sleep and then ended up oversleeping.

I got up an hour before my phone appointment with the Department of Health and Human Services out of Concord NH. I have been gathering documents for Grace’s Medicaid application for the last several weeks. The meeting went pretty well. Most of the documents have been obtained.

One of the documents I have been having trouble with is Grace’s life insurance policy. I have a hard copy of the policy but what I really needed was something called a value letter. The problem is that the Insurance company had not approved my Guardianship papers, so no one at the company was allowed to talk to me.

But today was the day! My paperwork was finally approved and downloaded!

In the two hour call I had with the life insurance company what I discovered is that Grace actually has two life insurance policies. I have only been paying for one. The other has been in a state of self payment since 2021. The company is using the cash value of the policy to pay off the recurring bills lowering the cash value a little every month.In order to begin paying on this bill again I have to get the policy reinstated. All that said, I got a lot done today. The value letters are on their way. New beneficiary forms are on their way, and the reinstatement form is on its way.

I still have other forms to fill out but the work for this day is done. The three hours I invested in paperwork today knocked me out of prayer for the morning. So tonight I went off to the prayer room for an hour of centering prayer before I have to lead our church prayer meeting at 7 tonight.

I am feeling much refreshed now and ready for the next steps of my day.

WHAT DO YOU DO TO REFRESH YOURSELF WHEN YOU ARE WORN OUT?

The power came back in at the church yesterday around 3 P.M. So today the staff was back in doing staff things. Carrie was meeting with a couple of her Doing Life Together Leaders, Pastor Amanda was preparing for Kids Church and youth group and then this afternoon she headed out for a meeting with another youth leader and one of the youth. Natalia was finishing up formatting the announcement slides and sermon slides, David was vacuuming the sanctuary and I…..well I was climbing the ladder putting back the international flag display.

Our missions secretary Wendy was in to help and then she was going to make contact with a new US missionary who works with the foster/adoption field. Our staff generally tries to have lunch with a missionary once a month. We haven’t had anyone in since October because of the holidays and…fasting.

After finishing with the flags I put up a few new pictures in my office and then went home to work on the paperwork for the Medicaid meeting I have next Wednesday for a lady from our church. I am a bit nervous about it because she has already been rejected once and the application is quite complicated. I parked on the street as I got home. I am trying to avoid my driveway as much as possible. The sidewalk plow and the lack of truly frozen ground has made it….well….craggy.

All the torn up tar is encased in blocks of ice in the bankings along the street; So I have been going around chopping up ice chunks and throwing the gravel bits in the center of them back into my driveway.

In the midst of battling with the mundane, the stressful and the aggravating, four of these little fellas showed up at my birdfeeder the other day. I’ve never had bluebirds at my feeder and it seems a bit early for them, but there they were. I have to say when I am feeling a little overwhelmed a bluebird or two is a great stress reliever.

WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN THE MUNDANE, THE STRESSFUL AND THE OVERWHELMING COMPOUND IN YOUR LIFE?