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I’ve been away for a couple of challenges. The holidays and new year left me evaluating my online haunts—I’ve let some go, but here I return. NF is a place for good. Who am I? I'm Ann of Vries, aged 39; a diarist, a fiber artist, a gamer, a traveler, a hiker, and a new mother. I’m madly in love with my partner, Mr of Vries, and my 11(!) month old son, Rowan of Vries. Warning: There will be baby pics and talk on this thread. I live in London, after having emigrated from Seattle three years ago. I love it here, although I’m still trying to find my tribe (outside of the House of Vries, of course). Where are we now? The days are as long as sleepless nights, and the months move as fast a thought. Mr of Vries has a new job after a four month break (bringing dinosaurs and robots to life!), and although I cannot yet see the sunset of this new chaos, Rowan and I are getting back into the routine of it just being the two of us during the day. Here's a photo montage of the last few months: The Challenge: Carry On My theme of my challenge will be to carry on not let the frantic pace and demands of daily life tear me away from key rituals and routines I know are good for my mental/emotional/physical health. After a long plateau, the rest of my pregnancy weight has began to (slowly, but progressively) slide off. I’d like to keep that in forward motion. I suspect that moving to 3 small meals and a “tea" a day (coinciding with RoV’s eating routine), helped in this. I also want to expand my cooking repertoire as I’m getting bored. Keep moving my weight down through good eating choices. As a guideline, but not absolute rule, I follow the philosophy-if you wouldn’t feed it to your son, why are you eating it? With the dark season came a return of the shadows in my mind. Getting out has helped. I’m now trying to go out daily, even if it’s only for a few minutes of walking around the block, pushing Rowan on the swings at a nearby park, picking up food at the grocery. Sometimes it’s such a bother—ask anyone trying to go anywhere with a small child! But sometimes I just need to put him in a carrier and go out for a little while, close to home. Mr and I are trying to use our weekends more wisely to get out, walk, spend time together and as a family. We’re still hoping to get back to hiking regularly. We’ve also hired a babysitter a couple of times a week so I can go out on my own for a couple of hours. I can do most things with Rowan along, but sometimes the company I need is my own. Keep my mood up and my weight down with daily adventures big or small. (I will not penalize myself in situations of poor physical health or inclement weather.) Over and over again, I learn that my personal journal is something I cannot neglect for long without my psychic landscape turning into a black, fell wasteland. I’ve spent a lot of time writing in fictional worlds, but the truth is that while I love making up worlds, I really want to have that “life worth writing about” in my own. (Even if I’m the only who is reading it.) Make time to explore my psychic landscape in my journal when I need it. I need to create things. Over the years, I’ve often vacillated between writing fiction and fiber arts (knitting, sewing, etc.) . Lately, I’ve increased my attentions to my fiber arts. At the moment I’m knitting and learning embroidery. I can’t do it with the single-minded focus I did before I was a mother, but if that was a reason to not do something… well, I wouldn’t be doing much of anything right now. And that never goes well for long. Make time to explore my fiber arts creations, simple or complicated. I’m an introvert, hands down. But I still need people in my life. The problem is that sometimes I feel like between Rowan and Mr I’m always “on.” Yet, I still need to be part of the wider world. One of the things I always think about when I’m about to do another challenge for NF is that I can’t keep up with threads half as much as I want to and it makes me feel guilty. Locally, I’m still trying to find “my people” on this side of the Atlantic. Honour my introvert nature, but push myself a little more to reach out to people and make connections (both online and offline). I’m an introvert, not an island. I tend to forego the metrics, as when I try to devise them I get more focused on the numbers than I do on living my best life (which is really the goal). So… I’ll update a couple of times a week and let you know how I’m doing. I can watch the scale—and I will be—but ultimately, whether I’m doing well or not is based on my overall mood and emotional state. Carry on!