I've always been a quote collector. Each year in high school I wrote down all of the senior quotes in a notebook. I think I occasionally looked back at them. I had a gigantic book of quotes at one point, too, and I'm pretty sure I went through it with a highlighter. (Oh, wait. Looking over my shoulder at my bookcase I see I still have "Words of Wisdom.")

While I've since trashed that notebook, I am still a connoisseur of quotes. I think for the entire seven years we lived in that little town in Missouri, I had a quote (I think by Kenny Rogers) on a post-it note (that interestingly never lost its stickiness) attached to a kitchen cabinet: Don't be afraid to give up the good for the great.

I have a few things taped to my computer monitor at work. One is this quote: Write like you're already famous. And another is a quote about paying attention to God so he doesn't have to throw bricks at us. And there's a new one that I found while reading a Facebook post from a well-known New York photographer. He said it rather casually, but it meant enough to me that I pulled out my post-it notes and wrote it down: Continue to push yourself until there is a decent possibility you might fail.

Now, he was talking about aspiring photographers, but I felt like it applied to so many aspects of my life that I just had to look at it all the time. And I've found myself looking at it a lot lately. And thinking about it even when I'm not looking at it.

Since my last endo appointment, I've pushed myself to be more diligent about watching over my blood sugar, especially since my A1C was on a downward trend. Although my Dexcom sensor failed this morning after roughly 24 hours (moisture got to it somehow) I was very good about remembering to test after meals.

And I was especially good about pushing myself not only to walk this morning for the first time in a week, but to not take the wimpy/short route. I went back and forth about which route to take right up until I had to turn. I'm so glad I went the regular way and I felt so good to push myself to not take the easy road and to keep going and to challenge myself to walk fast enough that my legs got all crampy.

It felt good to feel that way. It felt good to push myself. And my mood reflected that all day. Sometimes we need a little push to remember that sometimes it's the simple things like a good walk or a day's worth of in-range blood sugars that make all this hard work worthwhile.