On conferences, wedding planning, losing weight and my mind

Tomorrow I leave with my friends and colleagues Rachael and Katie for the National Council on Public History Conference, to be held in Pensacola, Florida. I'm hoping to blog periodically during the conference, as well as network, network! I've signed up to work the MTSU informational table in the vendor room, so I'm looking forward to the opportunity of meeting alumni and public history professionals interested in the program. Check back here every so often to see our adventures!

In more personal news, I've been frantically planning the wedding for a couple of weeks and, in all of my excitement, Weight Watchers has gone by the wayside. I was not on plan last week and I didn't attend my meeting. I'm not sure where I'm going to go from here. I love Weight Watchers, I love the idea of losing weight, but it's starting to seem like just another chore in my sea of commitments. Thinking about it in the car yesterday, I realized that the only way this is going to work for me is if I see WW as a way to treat myself - an oasis from the daily grind that wears on me. If I see it as a commitment in my long list of commitments, it's easy to discount it as frivolous when compared with coursework, thesis research and writing, wedding & marriage planning, etc., and cut it out of my regimen.

I'm going to have to find a way to balance all of these competing forces in my life. I've been reading Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love for several weeks now, and I really love the way she approaches life. I wish that I could take a year off from work and school to travel, eat, pray, and make new friends. Knowing myself, I would end up seeing even this experience as a stressful commitment, particularly since Gilbert was able to travel only because she had already made the commitment to write the book about her travels. Finding balance is a difficult task that, paradoxically, stresses me out. I do find, however, that when I'm feeding my spirituality, working out, and eating more healthily, I do feel more at peace with myself. It's something I'm going to have to continue to work on but, fear not, dear friends and followers, I'm not giving up just yet!