#oneaday Day 45: Stepping Back and Forward

Good evening. How are you, dear reader? I've… been better.

I've been struggling a bit with anxiety and depression recently. I'm not entirely sure what, specifically, has triggered it recently — I suspect it is lingering emotional side effects from ever since Ruby passed away — but it's been quite bad over the course of the last couple of weeks in particular.

Thankfully I find throwing myself into the stuff I do for my videos and MoeGamer at home helps to stave these feelings off somewhat, and it's hard to stay sad when the main games you're playing are Atelier games. But you can't be playing Atelier games (or writing about Atelier games) at all hours of the day, so occasionally some of those bleak feelings sneak in.

It doesn't help that my day job has been a bit quiet and boring lately. Things will likely pick up quite soon, but as I'm sure most people will be able to relate to, if you get out of a "rhythm" of doing something and perhaps fall into bad habits, it's hard to get that mojo and enthusiasm back. I'm sure I'll get there eventually, though. Hopefully.

One positive thing to counterbalance all this — and something that's made me feel a bit better this evening — is that the Slimming World programme is working for both me and Andie once again. I lost 2.5 lb this week, which means I've now lost a stone in total since starting, which is a satisfying feeling. It's even more satisfying knowing that we're saving money on food by doing "proper shops" each week rather than piecemeal (and takeaways), and that we're getting into good habits with "proper cooking". Although since getting a slow cooker for Christmas, the vast majority of our meals for the last few weeks have been slow cooked. Not that this is a bad thing at all; slow cooked food is goooooood.

I'm already feeling positive effects, too; I'm having less difficulty getting to sleep because I'm less uncomfortable, just generally "getting around" feels like less of an effort and, err, my trousers keep falling down. Okay, that last one may not be a "positive" per se (particularly when I keep having to hold them up at work when walking from my desk to the coffee machine and vice versa!) but it's certainly a helpful reminder that something positive I am doing for myself is actually having an effect.

Andie and I both have tomorrow off work; Andie is going to try and finish our "catio" for our cat Meg, and I am on hand in case she needs me to be taller than her at any point — she's fitting the roof tomorrow, so it's entirely possible some height will be required!

When I am not required, I intend to be writing about Atelier Totori and placing Ace Combat 7. Because oh man am I in the mood for some Ace Combat right now. But I think that's probably a topic for another day! So I'll save it.

Hope you've had a pleasant day and that your mind is in a nicer place than mine has been recently.