breathing deeply

Summer classes are wreaking havoc with my life. I thought it wouldn't be too bad. Two days of class and one day of clinicals? The arrogant me of late April thought, "I've got this with free time." Riiiiight. My social life. My sleeping life. My introvert life. My time management life. My self-care life. My I-want-to-lay-in-the-sun-by-the-lake life. All those facets that make up what I consider my "life" are no longer aligned. I seriously don't know how people do family/serious relationships/marriage during this. Props to you, friends!

Today is the first day this week that haven't been on campus since 7am or earlier. Tuesday I was up at FOUR AM.

Ew.

At that hour the only thing I should be seeing is the back of my eyelids, instead I was traversing my way through parts of a big-ass Medical-Surgical Nursing textbook. Needless to say, I'm now in the horrible habit of getting 6 or fewer hours of sleep [this is from a person who always needed 7 hours 45 minutes to be pleasant...and most of the time I'm tolerable now]. Life is changing, folks.

In the midst of all the time commitments, work, studying, clinicals, and trying to maintain and nurture relationships, I've been decluttering. 

If you've been around, you know that earlier this year I shut-down that other blog that I had once upon a time dedicated to recipes and such. Scratch that off the list. 

• Cooking Closet - move the decent stuff over to MN365
• Pinterest - stop following boards you don't care about even if they're your friend's boards. I'm looking at you teachers.
• Bloglovin' - mark all as read, there's nothing that's going to be that life transforming
• Facebook - just stop following the people who make you eye-roll constantly, you don't have to unfriend to unfollow and they'll be none the wiser
• Food - shop once a week, PLAN PLAN PLAN
• Clothes - 1. do you need it? 2. do you love it? 3. does it fit? 
• Say no

It's been challenging and quite the process, but I'm really working hard to just simplify and love the things I have in my life. If a trip or outing is going to be stressful on the back end I'm trying to consider that in my "yes" or "no." And, I'm going for the guilt free "no." The guilt or lack of guilt is the difficult part. Ugh. Some weeks I'm  better than others. 

Lots of breathing.

These peonies were in the neighbors yard when I was up north at the lake recently. When I turned around the rest of the scenery looked like this:

Not bad, eh? Who wouldn't want to spend every weekend there?

June 30th I start the second summer session where we change classes. I read the syllabus. I'm going to start praying for my personal sanity now.