Exercise

 Happy acai bowl day to me! 😂 I told myself a long time ago, that when I made it to my 2000 lap mark of swimming, I would buy myself a dragon bowl with my own spending money to celebrate.  I took the whole summer off from swimming to spend more time with my kids (plus I was biking everywhere with them with Garrett in a trailer, so that was plenty of working out), but I got back into swimming at the start of the school year and have been going strong since.  

I used to swim 34 laps (33 laps is 1/2 mile, but who wants to stop at the other end of the pool?! 🤣) breaststroke 3 times a week.  Now I swim 3 times a week still but it's anywhere between 40 and 66 laps alternating between breaststroke and freestyle.  I've beat my half mile personal record by 35 seconds and my full mile personal record by 3 minutes.  

My body feels good, but even more than that, my mind feels good.  Toward the end of summer, some of the things we had been biking to were done, so my exercise decreased dramatically.  Not exercising as much + some medication issues + difficult topics in counseling led to a plunge into deep depression.  Now that I am swimming again, there have still been some bumps and triggers and uncontrollable life circumstances that have caused bouts of depression and anxiety, but I find that I am able to bounce back quicker and have much less drastic swings, when I am exercising regularly and pushing my body to work hard.  Hence, my reason for celebrating!