Maybe it's the crispy night, or maybe the cuddly quilt tucked in around me, but either way I'm feeling content in a way I haven't for many years...feeling powerful and satisfied.  Not "powerful " in a ready-for-a-fight way, or chip on the shoulder way. More like an I Can Do This way.  Over the summer, I've learned some amazing lessons, and made friends with the monsters under my bed.  We have a healthy respect for one another - I allow them to stay as working guests...not as the Big Bads roaming as they please. They will remain to kindly tap my shoulder when there is something I need to  perhaps take a closer look at.  They will not be allowed to screech and grawk and enclose me in fear.  They have been reduced to cuddly little gremlins. I have re-learned, these past few months, that I Am Able.  That I may not know how to do something, but am damn skippy able to figure it out/ask for help/find someone to do it.  I most enjoy doing it myself.  I'm feeling a Pioneer spirit, and am impatient to get rolling with it.  I feel like I've been asleep for a very long while, and am re-learning myself.  One thing I'm adding to my Tiny Steps is this...because it has to be...I am adding a weight loss goal.  When I realized I was spending $450/month on smoking, I knew it was time to quit.  So I did.  And promptly gained 60 pounds.  Yes.  So my weight loss goal is not a vanity thing. I simply cannot move about in this world as I would like.  I actually feel less healthy as a non-smoker because of this.  Smoking changes your metabolism.  So, yes, quitting was good, but now it's time to change the after effects.  I want to be able to snowshoe and xc ski and simply walk a flight of stairs properly. I want to see outwardly what I feel inwardly.  So the walking plan will begin again.  To start.  It has been a night of reflecting back, feeling satisfied and wonderful with all that's been accomplished, and planning for forward movement, one Tiny Step at a time.