Brief Catchup Blog related to Goals and Challenges

Hello!  I'm so glad you stopped by my blog.  I'm Jodi - Aside from blogging, I enjoy Crossfit, kayaking, hiking/walking, reading and whatever time I can get with my busy husband Jon. This blog will be catching everyone up on some of the goals and challenges of 2026.

In January, I wrote about starting GLP and 5K training. A friend at the gym put together a team for our gym and my original goal was to run/walk it.  However, between the nausea from GLP1, perimenopause challenges, and just feeling "blah" running training did not happen.  However, I was not the only one who walked the 5K.  It was a beautiful morning spent with friends supporting the Ronald McDonald House.  I also wanted to note that I am down ten pounds since January. This is the first time in years that I've had sustainable weight loss.  

The "blah" feeling has been related to my allergies which flared up with increased time spent at the Columbus office. My schedule is supposed to be hybrid with three days in my home office and two days at our Columbus location. My blog about sick building syndrome goes into more detail but, in short, our building has not been cleaned well for the last year to year and a half due to a change in cleaning personnel. I have worked with our facilities manager who has been working with the property management company to insure vacuuming, dusting, and cleaning of surfaces outside of the bathrooms resumes. I have a personal air purifier on my desk and uncovered a filter issue which I've fixed and I run the purifier on medium all the time.  I also started a natural nasal spray that doesn't burn my nose plus I'm using a blue and red light therapy devices in my nose. When I went into the office this past Tuesday, I only experienced mild stuffiness and not the struggle to breath, stuffiness, and exhaustion that I've experienced previously.  I will also say that I put my office environmental challenges on my YouVersion prayer list.  A little divine intervention never hurts. 

The first two and a half months of 2026 were very stressful.  I work with some challenging individuals.  Personalities aside, the issue has been accountability.  Despite not feeling my best in between days at the Columbus office, I worked my tail off laying groundwork to help guide the team toward accountability.  My husband has been going through his own stress as well.  What we did not know, until it was too late, is that our cat Patty was absorbing our stress. Patty was showing signs of urinary distress and when we started seeing blood in her urine, we knew it was time to get her to the vet.  She is doing well now and is on special food, both wet and dry, from Royal Canin.  Knowing that I was part of the problem, I began doubling up on meditation.  I do a morning session before work and I have been doing bedtime mediation music which helps calm me.

The work I put in laying the foundation for accountability for my coworkers is working.  For the first time in years, I took a vacation! I enjoyed a bus trip visiting the islands of Georgia. While I do take vacation days here and there, it is generally a day of self-care appointments like a haircut and massage which are fantastic but not the same as taking an extended period of time away from any offices and laptops.

Our culture celebrates hustle, stress, and being busy 24x7 but our minds and bodies were not made to sustain constantly being in "flight or fight."  Our ancestors "flight or flight" kicked in if they had to hustle from a bear that entered their camp or while they were gathering food.  Today, we're a culture of toxic productivity. I am not saying that we should become lazy; rather, we need to strike a balance between giving our all to our career and taking rest to recharge our bodily systems.

Thank you again for stopping by my blog. I hope this post encourages you.

Jodi

Resources:

I linked to other blog posts with the blog post itself so that you can read the detailed stories.

I wanted share the two products I started using this year for my allergies.

Beekeeper's Natural Nasal Spray from Amazon

The red and blue light therapy device I bought is the WZU Red Light Nasal Care Device which is no longer available on Amazon.  However, there a similar devices available if you search for the product that I mentioned.  

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Rest Is Not Failure: A Gentle Word About Toxic Productivity

There is a quiet pressure many of us carry—an unspoken belief that our worth is measured by how much we produce. If we pause, slow down, or say “not today,” guilt creeps in. We feel behind, lazy, or disposable. This is the subtle harm of toxic productivity: it convinces us that rest is something we must earn, rather than something we are designed to need.

Toxic productivity doesn’t always look dramatic. Often, it wears a respectable face. It looks like answering emails late at night “just to stay ahead.” It sounds like ignoring your body’s signals because someone else “has it worse.” It tells us that exhaustion is a badge of honor—and that stopping is weakness.

But constant output is not the same as meaningful purpose.

Even God did not design life to be a nonstop grind.

In Ecclesiastes 3:13 (KJV) we are reminded:

“And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.”

Notice what’s included in the gift: enjoyment. Not endless striving. Not depletion. Not proving ourselves. Enjoyment, nourishment, rest.

Even sacred work has a boundary. Rest is not a reward for being productive enough—it is woven into the rhythm of life itself.

If you are tired, you are not failing. If you need to slow down, you are not weak. If you feel burned out, it does not mean you lack discipline—it means you are human.

You are allowed to step back.
You are allowed to say “this is enough for today.”
You are allowed to be valuable even when you are not producing.

Rest does not erase purpose—it restores it.

May you give yourself the same grace you would so freely give to others. And may you remember that your worth has never been dependent on your output.

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