March Wrap-Up

March was about recovering, school assignments, and taking risks. Since my word for 2011 is risk, I’m actually very pleased with how this month has panned out for me. There were still many other opportunities to put myself out there that I didn’t seize, but it’s a work in progress.

March was welcomed in while I was on the tail-end of my shingles virus, finally starting to feel like myself again (and starting to put on clothes and not cringing every time they rubbed against my blisters). It was an odd way to welcome in the month, but not as odd as the last day of March, in which my area got hit with torrential downpour and tornadoes. Luckily, the tornadoes happened west of me but I heard stories of roofs being ripped off houses, trees uprooted, and fences falling down in neighborhoods and streets I am very familiar with. Tornadoes are not common where I live, so it was definitely a wild day!

But let’s recap March, shall we?

• A photo shoot. I met up with someone who is quickly becoming a great friend to me to take professional, graduation pictures. I’ve never before done a photo shoot and Emily was the best at making me feeling comfortable and taking some pretty fantastic pictures. Anyone who is my friend on Facebook can see the whole slew of them. It was really hard choosing my favorites and the ones to put in my graduation announcements!
  
• Reading my short story aloud. Although I’ve always wanted to be a fiction writer, I’ve never thought about the process of writing, editing, and having people critique your story. At first, I thought it would be hard for me to take criticism. I tend to take any kind of criticism, even helpful criticism, to heart and for people to critique my writing? I was just hoping it didn’t turn me into a ball of tears. I wanted to be strong enough to take it as it is: a way to make my story better and stronger. And I did that. I took criticism from blog readers (and lots of compliments!) and from my classmates. I read my story aloud, even as my heart beat a million miles a minute and my face burned through it all. I didn’t fall apart. The world didn’t end. I have one more reading to complete, but since I’ve already shown myself I can get through this, I know I can do it again.
  
• A struggle for weight loss. This month was not my month for weight loss. I went up and down on the losing/gaining spectrum, settling in at 2 pounds lost this month, 8 pounds total. But since I was dealing with shingles and an influx of school assignments, I’m taking the positives I’ve developed this month and running with them: I’ve begun to limit my soda intake, I’ve stuck with the program even when it feels incredibly hard and I’m not motivated, and I’m still at a loss. Two pounds is two pounds.
  
• Prioritizing my life, once again. I can easily get so caught up in things that don’t matter. Right now, my most important focus lays in school and weight loss, as well as making sure I don’t burn myself out. Usually, the first thing to fall when I get busy and need to prioritize my life is blogging but this time around, I’ve begun to see how much blogging means to me and I need to have a place to write daily. What I realized, during a long walk one day, is how I’m letting Twitter take over my life most days. I’m constantly connected to it, always scrolling through my feed, making sure I catch every important tweet and conversation happening. There’s a lot more I could say about this, but I’ll leave it at this: I needed to break away from being constantly connected to Twitter and I will say I’ve done a pretty good job at leaving my TweetDeck application and Ubersocial app closed lately. And the world hasn’t ended.
  
• A new gadget. My Kindle arrived last week and it was love at first sight. I’m already wondering why it took me so long to jump on the e-reader bandwagon, because it’s such an amazing little gadget. AMAZING!