Looks like it's time for an update

Last Wednesday, you found me doing my best impression of Eleven from Stranger Things, blowing stuff up by just setting my eyes on them. I sat in my living room, furiously typing out a rant about how I felt everything was going wrong in my life, and all my concentration was causing my windowpanes to crack. I want to swear that some of the unfortunate birds that got caught in my radar dropped dead from the sky, right outside my cracked windowpanes.

I had a pretty dramatic breakdown and while it wasn't fun at all when it happened, I look back at the incident with a smile on my face. Because I'm sure you'll agree with me (if you've experienced one of these yourself) that's it's pretty fucking hilarious when you look back at your former freak-out sessions. No? Just me? Oh, well.

Anyway, that was a very obvious wake-up call for me to do some introspection. To try and figure out what my triggers were and how I could possibly avoid something this painful in the future. And trust me, over this weekend, I left no stone unturned. So on this start to a new week, while I'm back feeling happy, refreshed and calm, and most importantly, not wishing for the next weekend to come flying to me, I've decided to kick things off by sharing a few of my findings and updates, both personal and blog related. I can't promise to organise the following list in any sensible way, so be prepared for an organised mess kinda situation below.

  • I PMS hard - I've mentioned a couple of times on this blog, as well as on my most recent podcast episode that I never suffered from abdominal pain or break-outs around the time of my period. Physiologically speaking, it's a smooth sailing but emotionally, I go fucking crazy. I go through serious mood swings and emotional crap around a week before my period sets in and ever since I started eating healthy and exercising regularly, my period has hardly ever been even a day late. So I can safely say that my cycle is pretty healthy but my hormone fluctuation is driving me insane. In fact, in my period tracking app called Clue where I enter all kinds of data regularly, I found some very interesting patterns. For the past two months, I've been going through an extreme emotional low exactly 9 days before my period. It's exact and that's fucking awesome and creepy at the same time. And you guessed it, going by my cycle history and calendar, last Tuesday was exactly 9 days before my next period is supposed to start. When I told Meenal (who is going to become a doctor soon) about my exciting findings, she said, "You track your emotions on an app? Ankita, why would you want to do that to yourself? Don't you think that could make you even more crazy?"
    And she said that from a place of love and genuine concern, guys. And she's not the only one to call me crazy in a genuine and non-cool sense in the past week. When I was in Birmingham, Lady Campsalot told me that it baffles her how I look so small and cute on the outside but deep down I'm totally bat-shit crazy. Not in a fun or cool sense but in a 'has the memory of an elephant and holds on to grudges for ten fucking years' sense. She truly believes that I would set entire villages on fire if they dared to cross me and The Husband completely agrees with her.
    In fact, when I told her how I was hoping for a snowy Christmas this year, she sent me this:

    But my point is, I should probably see someone to figure out why I get extreme mood-swings 9 days before my period. As weird as that sounds.

  • Speaking of periods and pimples (or the lack of them), I got another pimple over the weekend. I've had a very weird history with pimples and zits, in that, I never get them on surfaces of my body that most people do. Even as a hormonal teenager, I had none on my cheeks or even on that spacious football field of a forehead. But if you remember, I did get one on my left ass cheek this year and now, I have one inside my nose. Not on it, but inside my right nostril. I've been making The Husband look at it with the aid of the torch on his phone all weekend and he reported that this pimple had some weird black thing on its surface. Like, an ingrown hair? God knows. Anyway, I can't touch the right side of my face now so FML. Also, I know you're probably grossed out by all these facts but you chose to come here. You let me do this to you. You gave me permission to scar you for life and God bless you for that!

  • Speaking of weird things related to my body, The Twitch likes to visit sometimes. For 9 whole months this year, I suffered a left eyelid twitch that was the cause of genuine concern among my friends. They weren't concerned about the twitch, obviously. They were just worried that I might need a psych consult because I was obsessively looking at my left eyelid twitching in the mirror and even asking people I just met to look into my eyes. In September, I brought about a very positive change into my diet and the twitch disappeared. Just like that. Then, a friend of mine who's a doctor told me that nutritional deficiency is one of the main causes of these eyelid twitches and all was well. But because I was in Eleven From Stranger Things mode last week, I went back to having just one proper meal a day and guess who returned to say, "Sup?". I am happy to report that the situation is now under control as I'm back to eating more regularly. Weird.

  • And while I'm back to taking care of myself physically, I've decided to have no more self-assigned deadlines. I find that my obsession with doing everything, and doing everything within a given time frame is not helpful at all. So no more planning my day hour to hour. No more compulsion to move on to the next task only after finishing the task at hand, and thereby throwing a fit every time the task at hand cannot be completed in a timely manner. Taking it easy and not limiting myself by time seems to be working with the anxiety thing.

  • Also, I've come to the realisation that everything doesn't have to be perfect. This goes hand in hand with having the compulsion to get to task number two only after completing task number one. For example, when it comes to cleaning my house, I first go around the whole house dusting and cleaning all the surfaces. Then, I hoover. Then, I mop. Which is why it becomes necessary to set time aside for cleaning every week and when I realise on the afternoon of my cleaning day that I don't have that much time to spare, I lose my shit. It's now become important to take a step back and digest the fact that things can't always be done in that order. So even on busy days, I could maybe clean just the surfaces and hoover the next day. Birds don't drop dead from the sky if I don't do it all in one go. That happens only when I crack windowpanes with my mind while bleeding out of my nose.

  • In blog news, I want to announce that The Husband has a name. I don't know why I resorted to refer to Shane as The Husband on this blog in the first place. When I was starting out, I didn't know if people were going to read this blog and for some reason, it made sense to not address him by his name. But it's been over a year and it just doesn't make sense anymore considering how all of you know his name and I get e-mails all the time where you ask me to convey your regards to Shane and not The Husband. Hell, he even gets e-mails addressed to him. So from now on, Shane will be called Shane on this blog. It's the end of The Husband era and it feels incredibly liberating. Here's to many years of Ankita and Shane :)

  • Another new thing on the blog is the weekly music playlist tradition that I started two weeks ago. Music is a big part of our lives as Shane listens to all kinds of music while working and sends his favorites to me. I feel like it's our modern day version of teenage dating and mixed tapes, and I've decided to compile 7 (1 for each day of the week) of my favorite picks from all the songs he sends me every week, in order to share a tiny portion of our lives through music with you guys. So every Thursday, you get a snippet of the love he showers on me through music. Although our go to app has always been Spotify, I use Soundcloud for creating my playlists because a) my main audience is based in India and Spotify isn't available in India yet and b) it's easier and more data-efficient than Youtube. But if you're aware of any other alternatives that'll work better than Soundcloud, please do let me know.

  • Speaking of new features on this blog, there's a surprise coming up for you guys. As you're already aware, we both work really hard on this website to make your user experience better. And now, we're working backstage to bring something new to you guys. So while we're at it, we'd really appreciate some input on anything you might want us to implement on this website.

  • And while we're talking about blog updates, guess who got a VERIFIED GooglePlus profile? That's right, I have a verified GooglePlus account now and I'm controlling the urge to misuse the word 'literally' to explain how I'm feeling right now. Oh, fuck it. I'm literally on Cloud 9! This literally blew my mind! I think I get why people do that. But yeah, yesterday was a big day for me when I found out, and this tiny step in the right direction is actually a very big deal to this tiny person. Yesterday, I gave myself a pep talk. In that, I told myself that hard work does pay off and I should continue being focused on where I want to get. I am in competition with no one, and I will constantly strive to get better at what I absolutely love doing. I'm grateful for Shane who has been my rock throughout, and to my readers who've stuck around from the beginning, nudging me towards my goals. And before getting carried away, I want to say, HELL YEAH I GOT A VERIFIED PROFILE! CONGRATULATIONS, ANKITA! *Self-pat on the shoulder*

  • Oh, and before I forget, our wedding video got over a million views on Youtube over the weekend. I can't believe it either. Like, A MILLION? How many zeroes is that? A lot of you, and by that I mean A LOT OF YOU, have sent me messages over the past year telling me how you found me for the first time through this wedding video. Most of you confessed to having stalked me after seeing the video and that's how you stumbled upon this blog. And you guys have been so amazing that you actually stuck around. Thank you for stalking me, you weirdos. I can't tell you how much I love you for that! So to celebrate a million views on our wedding video, I'm going to share it here for any of you guys who may not have been aware of its existence :)

  • And while we're on the topic of Youtube, I should mention that I GOT A VERIFIED YOUTUBE ACCOUNT as well. Yep, I actually have a verified Youtube account where I haven't really uploaded a single proper video. I just have a bunch of random dubsmash videos from before I even started this blog but this feels surreal. I can't believe it, guys. So I was thinking...maybe...should I...I don't know. Do you think I should test the waters on Youtube as well? Would anyone watch me? Would anyone care? I never even considered it till I got this verified profile. But let me know what you think!

Also, comment down below if you found this blog after watching our wedding video. And comment about whether I should consider getting into Youtbe as well. If I get enough comments, you know that I might just do it ;)

That's all for today. Happy Monday, everyone!