The Good Stuff

There's some good stuff that's been happening in the last week. Not mind-blowingly good stuff but stuff that is good enough to balance out the hard times.

The first is Josh. I've shared a lot over the last year about his ups and downs - especially his downs.Well, he had a major up last week. He's been at his job for 3 months now and for 3 months he's been worried about his work performance. It's his first job in his professional life in his chosen field. He had gotten his degree with a false sense of "I should know everything now I have a degree" but one of the things that you don't know is how much you REALLY don't know. You get a great job and you find you're having to ask advice ... a lot and it makes you feel inadequate. And they're paying you pretty good money so they MUST be expecting you to be brilliant at what you do.

Josh was also having a few issues with being able to tell his supervisors how long projects were going to take. He'd say two weeks and they'd say "that long?!" and he'd feel like he was letting them down.

Anyway he had a performance review last week and his supervisor had written a glowing report about his ability, his work ethic and generally how impressed he was with Josh. And since then Josh has been a different person. He's SO much happier and, by extension, I'm so much happier. It's amazing the difference that a pat on the back can make.

Sam's had some good stuff happen too. He's been asked to train with the top team at his soccer club. It's a huge thing for him because he's had a couple of years off playing - finishing uni and starting his job. He came back at the beginning of the season and was really disappointed with how he was playing but persistence has paid off and he's back playing the quality of football that he's proud of.

And my good stuff is directly related to my Vitamin D project. I had been suffering with aching knees after sessions - especially when it was cold. Two weeks of supplementation and my knees are not hurting AT ALL. It's awesome! My resting heart rate has dropped back to close to normal and yesterday I had my best speed session in about 3 months. I actually ran my last 400 rep faster than I ran my first - I didn't have my usual decline as the session wore on. I don't know if the improvement in performance is from the Vit D but even if it's just that my knees feel better, I'm happy with that.

The only little negative in my life today is that my kitchen is again in total disarray. Iven's taken holidays to paint it. I'm not doing a great job of putting up with the inconvenience this time - probably because he's the one doing it. I wanted to get painters in and the job would have been finished in 2 or 3 days but Iven doesn't paint that quickly and there's only one him so it's likely to take well over a week. And it's not just the kitchen that's being painted. He's doing the laundry as well - the other most important room in the house. Please send thoughts for patience and tolerance.