Since moving to Houston and finally getting my panic disorder under control, I am proud to say that I drove to downtown Houston, solo, which is much bigger than Minneapolis.
According to my pal Siri, the size of Minneapolis is about 54 square miles. The area of Houston, Texas is about 600 square miles. There's a great article showing an overlay of the Houston map on top of other large cities for comparison. http://www.texasmonthly.com/daily-post/if-you-needed-it-further-proof-houston-so-much-bigger-most-cities
Can I get a holla for GPS? Thank goodness for modern technology. Love the fact that GPS gives turn-by-turn directions!
So, that is my small victory #1 - being able to drive downtown Houston for a job interview sans panic attack. Yahoo! Go me!
Small victory #2 is starting a vegetable garden from seeds. A friend of mine posted on Facebook that she wanted to try starting a pallet garden and she shared this photo:
I thought to myself, well, I could try that! It is small and not overwhelming. So, picked up some pallets (free), some seeds, and some dirt. I germinated the seeds first using wet coffee filters in plastic sandwich baggies. Once the seeds had shoots, I transplanted them to the dirt. I am happy to say that the garden is sprouting! This may not seem to be a big deal for some, but for me, I am so happy to be trying this out. I am 42 years old and have never grown anything in my life!!! It's been raining cats and dogs the last few days so hopefully mother nature won't drown the poor sproutlings, but I already view the project as a success. The fact that I brought a little plant to life from a dry seed is awesome!
Small victory #3 is Corbin and his school. Since returning to school with an IEP, his improvement has been remarkable. He leaves for school and comes home without incident. I haven't heard any heartbreaking stories about him feeling like a ghost in the hallways. I haven't heard any incidents of bullying or teasing. He knows he has a safe place to retreat to if he gets sensory overload, and he has more than one teacher/ally that knows he is autistic and can give him accommodations. He will be having an ESY (extended school year) - it's a summer program that will help with his social interactions. The bus will be picking him up and dropping him off right at our front door. Score!
Small victory #4 is that I've lost so much weight, that I need new clothes to go job interviewing. My Minnesota business attire now hangs on me and I can't wear them! That is what we call a non-scale victory! (Loose clothing.) A scale victory would be a certain numeric amount lost - hitting some sort of milestone. (I did have a 50# loss scale victory a couple weeks ago.) The other non-scale victory is that I have crossed over from plus sized clothing to regular sized clothing. This opens up a whole new world for me. More options! This was one of my goals that I set for myself back when I first started - I have a list of goals that I want to achieve with the weight loss and being able to shop in the regular Misses department was one of them. Now, granted, I am still at the higher end of the clothing sizes at this point (it has only been two months) but I expect it will only get better from here.
So, there you have it - a few of my small victories recently. Life is good!
