January Wrap... February Look Forward...

Okay, time for the monthly update. How did things go? 

I was planning on reading 5 books, working out 5 times a week, writing 10 blogs, buying less from Amazon and starting the move prep.

Well, I read 6 books, this is the tenth blog and... I can explain...

I did not hit five days each week, but that's because I was sick for a few days one week so I didn't work out. I'm okay missing the goal for that. Things like that happen. Now, granted, colds haven't happened much in the past two years. Masks and social distancing have done wonders for over all health in that way. I was actually really surprised when I ended up with a cold this month. Tested for Covid twice just to make sure it was a plain old run of the mill cold. It was. I don't recommend them. But it was better than getting really sick for sure. 

I bought four things from Amazon in 2021 and eight in 2022, though three of those were groceries and gifts which I haven't been counting. But still five random items versus four.  I also realized that with the move coming up the odds of me spending less at Amazon in 2022 versus what I spent in 2021 are not good. I'm going to try to be mindful, but I'm also going to accept that so many stores run their storefronts through Amazon now and I'm going to need so many random things that it's just not likely I'll end up spending less. 

As far as my plans for the move prep, our closing day got pushed from March 16 to April 15 so I moved the prep to start this month. 

Which is so stupid, I know, I mean I could have gotten a really big head start on it all instead of pushing it off, but I did mention I was sick for a week right? And then I just sort of forgot about it all. Or at least tried not to think about it all. But I started again this weekend in the pre-planning phase and I'll start working on it this month and put the big push on in March assuming that the date doesn't move again. And of course, realizing that for a week of March I'll be on vacation so...

Twenty twenty Two was going to be a year of semi-goals right? Guidelines. Directions. Overarching themes. Not strict goals? 

At least I think that's what I said...It was pretty close to that anyway. 

So January was hit and miss, mostly hit if I'm being kind and I try to be kind so let's call it mostly hit. What is on tap for February?

Reading: Let's aim for five books again. February is shorter than January but I'm partway into three books right now so I think 5 is more than doable. 

Writing: Ten is a good number again, I think. Though if you all have any ideas on what you'd like me to write about that would be great. 

Workouts: Still aiming for 5 days a week balancing weights, cardio and stretching

House: Start the move prep FOR REAL

Vacation: Get everything booked and ready for Hawaii. Mahalo!

That seems pretty solid for February I think. 

Sorting it Out...

Starting the sort before the move. Mostly that's been thinking about what I want to get rid of and working myself up to it. 

Which sounds really weird right? But...

I want to get rid of the china doll that was my mother's when she was growing up.
I want to get rid of the giant stuffed bear I've had since I was five.
I want to get rid of the stuffed lion that Brent bought me when we dating. 
I want to get rid of the stuffed animals we won at Circus Circus when I was pregnant and we couldn't drink in Vegas so we hung out and played games instead. 

They are all super sentimental items. 

But they are also all things that have spent if not the full 20 years we've lived in this house, close to it, on a shelf in a closet. Obviously when I see them I think about how special they are, but they aren't special enough to display. So...I will take some pictures of them and then send them away. 

I will send the doll to my sister. She will love to have it. She is the doll collector and honestly should have probably gotten it to start with but Mom gave her the baby doll and me the china doll. Fairness, doncha know. And at the time it did seem the fair way to do it. But Susan loves dolls and I don't. So fair wasn't really all that fair in actuality. It was unequal in enjoyment. 

But now she will get a chance to have her and enjoy her and hopefully she won't spend the next 20 years moving from display box to second couch to closet shelf. 

There are other things that need to go as well and it's so easy to think about getting rid of them but then when it comes down to the actual letting go it gets much harder. 

And Brent is an enabler. He's like, we aren't moving into a place that's smaller, just bring it all. 

But I don't want to bring it all. I want to clear things out that we are just holding on to for no real reason. 

I have throw pillows in the closet from color changes in decorating. Those need to go. I have decorative knick knack items that I need to decide which ones are coming with us. Now Tig has been doing his part to help there. We have never had such a chewy cat. We are pretty sure he must have been weaned way too early. But he has destroyed a few things (Tux has broken a couple of things too, don't want to let him totally off the hook) and he's left some crazy marks in others. Now I just have to decide if my "story" that my whales were attacked by sharks and that's why they have lines in their dorsal fins is a good enough one to keep them or if it's time to do a complete refresh. 

Which it's probably time for a refresh. 

Back in the days of the original Queer Eye I remember their interior decorator saying that the biggest mistake people make with decorating is that they get new things in new styles but don't get rid of the old so spaces get too crowded and lose the vision.

I feel that right now. 

I have my whales and dolphins that I've had for practically our whole marriage (some of them, it's taken years to grow the collection). I have my Disney figurines. I have squirrels that are from my childhood. We have some things that were my parent's things. We have some things that were Brent's parents things. We have a small collection of things that are Brent's. I will fully admit that most of the junk around here is mine. He gets to say if he likes or doesn't like things, but for the most part all of the knick knacky stuff is either things that appealed to me or things his parents bought us. 

I'm not a huge hoarder, as anyone who knows me knows. It actually makes me uncomfortable to have too much stuff. I used to come home from visits to New Mexico and do a massive clear out because my family leans toward hoarding. Not the full fledged stuff you see on TV shows, but every surface covered, boxes and boxes of stuff in the garage and every closet crammed full of things. I hated it when I was growing up. It makes me even more uncomfortable now. 

I've shared the story about when Brent and I were first married I didn't want ANY knick knacks or even pictures on the walls. I kept everything pretty pristine for the first couple of years. Now, to be really fair, it's not like we had extra money to spend on decorations but even if we did I wouldn't have. The apartment was so empty that when my sister visited she drew pictures on notepaper and taped them to my walls because she couldn't stand how blank everything was. 

But even with the fact that I feel uncomfortable and overwhelmed when I get too much stuff I still have a hard time getting rid of things at times.

Part of it is really weird. I tend to anthropomorphize things. Which I have learned is very common among my writer friends. It's probably why we are writers. We can imagine other people and their feelings and write stories about them. We started doing that with dolls and stuffies and dishes and blankets and... Well you see the problem right? If you are worried about hurting that book's feelings it's hard to part with it. 

The other part is that I feel like I should feel something about other things that I just don't. Like my mother gave me her wedding china years ago. At first I was excited because I remembered eating off of it for special occasions when I was a kid. But it turns out the china I remembered wasn't her wedding china, it was china she got years later. I had zero connection to the stuff she sent me. And it's got lead in the paint so we couldn't eat off of it even if we wanted. And yet...I haven't gotten rid of it. Because it feels like something I should be attached to.

What tends to happen is that I mention getting rid of something, or having something and people say, "Oh that must mean so much." or "What a lovely thing to have." and I'm sitting there thinking, well...okay. I guess I'm supposed to be attached to this thing. 

When we would get back from New Mexico and I would go on a spree getting rid of things we started doing an imposed time out. Brent would have me put the things in the garage and wait a month or so and then see if I still wanted to get rid of them. Because more than once I came home from a visit and just grabbed everything in site and got rid of it only to discover a few months later that I REALLY needed some of those things. So it became a slow get rid of. 

But since I have gotten rid of things and regretted it in the past Brent is wary when I want to get rid of things now. So we end up with me just keeping the things because he's afraid I don't really want to get rid of them, which he then thinks because I didn't actually get rid of them I must have wanted them instead of it just being not a big enough deal to me to insist that I didn't want them. 

So I have my own weirdness where inanimate objects have feelings along with the feeling that stuff SHOULD mean something to me and then the times where I've dumped stuff and regretted it and so I go into a weird spiral when it's time to get rid of things. 

It's a vicious cycle which ends up with me having too much stuff. 

But with the move we are (I am) taking the opportunity to get rid of the excess. To clear things out. To get a jump start on my Swedish death cleaning. 

And that starts with me preparing my head and my heart to do it. 

Because I mean it, I'm not moving all of those throw pillows!

This.....IS Jeopardy!

Okay, it's the next day so I'm out of the spoiler zone, even for me.

I love a Super Champion on Jeopardy. I think it's exciting when people get on long winning streaks. I'm impressed by ANYONE who makes it on the show, that test is no joke. But multiple day winners? Super cool. 

I liked James and his BET IT ALL mentality. And how he actually changed the way people play the game. I liked Ken when it seemed like he was always just going to be on. Which he now is and it's not nearly as fun as it was when he was on his win streak so be careful what you wish for, I guess.

This season has given me an embarrassment of riches. There was Matt whose "What is" style drove people bonkers though I totally got it. Answer the same way each time and you won't get tripped up. What is a winning strategy? Thirty eight wins! Just seemed untouchable until Jonathan beat him. 

And then Jonathan went on to win 11 games of his own! Wow!

And that's about where I really start to get excited. Right around 10 is when it starts to feel like something big is happening. And it's only happened like a dozen times. Winning at least 10 games is HARD. So to have three Super Champions in one season SO FAR? Crazy. 

Now, there could be a shift happening that changes that. It could be becoming more common as there are more resources out there for people to utilize to become better Jeopardy players. Websites with every question ever asked. Study guides for most popular categories (you better know your US Presidents). Even clickers that mimic the buzzer. Though Amy used a ballpoint pen to practice and seemed to do just fine with that. 

Ah, Amy. Our girl was on a ROLL. And then...well. Forty games is amazing. And she only had two Final Jeopardy moments where she could lose (barring her making a terrible bet). Her first game and then last night. And during the beginning of her run she went some crazy number of Final Jeopardy questions without missing any! Not last night, of course, but still!

I love a Super Champion. 

But Amy's run was bigger than just that. 

A few years ago (maybe a decade at this point?) a friend on Facebook pointed out that I seemed to celebrate victories by the LGBTQ+ community more than those of straight people. I asked him why he cared. Which is kind of a shitty response from me, but I think it's an odd thing to point out. Because it seems really obvious to me. We all need to celebrate the firsts and the first fews until it's not an issue. Anytime there is a first for any under represented group. 

The first woman to do something is important. Because without the first we don't get to the 100th or 1,000th or the I have no idea how many it's been. 

The first gay man to be mayor.
The first black president.
The first female AND black AND Asian vice president.
The first lesbian woman to be a military commander.
The first bi governor. 
The first trans woman to be a Super Champion on Jeopardy. 

Visibility is important. 

Especially right now. 
Especially for the trans community.

We have state legislators trying their best to outlaw activities for trans kids. And worse than that we have legislators trying to outlaw medical treatment for trans kids. 

The whole my body my choice lobby when it comes to vaccines won't leave trans kids, their parents and their medical professionals alone to decide the best course of treatment. 

And those people have used fear to try and get their way.

They did it with bathroom bills. Oh no! Men who want to rape your daughters and wives have just been waiting for a chance to put on a dress and sneak into the bathroom to do it! 

They are doing it with sports bans. Oh no! Men who aren't good enough for the men's teams will pretend to be women so they can dominate all of the teams! Do you want your daughter to have to compete with a big burly man who will also be sharing a locker room and a SHOWER with her? 

It's what they do.

They try to instill fear of trans people. Trans women especially. Very rarely do they come after trans men with the same fervor. Trans women get a special kind of hate and fear directed at them. 

But for 40 nights Amy won on Jeopardy. Every night on your TV screen you got to watch a trans woman just play Jeopardy. And play well. And smile and tell stories about her cat and her girlfriend and if you followed her on Twitter I guess she gave a recap everyday on what that episode was like to shoot. 

She was there. Visible. And not at all scary. 

Okay, well maybe to the people who had to face her in the competition, because she is pretty darn impressive. 

But not some burly man in a dress just waiting to sneak into a bathroom.

She is just Amy. In love with Genevieve and with Meep. Wearing a very conservative set of pearls. Answering more questions right than wrong. Forty episodes worth of wins. 

I love a Super Champion. 

And I love that we have our first Trans Super Champion and I was there to see it happen. 

Cannot wait for the Tournament of Champions this Fall. 
What is an abundance of riches?

Hope...

Everyone gets the story wrong. 

The story about Pandora and her box of woes.

Even when they get some of it right, they get the rest of it wrong. 

But most people only know the barest bit of information.

Pandora had a box with all the world's woes. She wasn't supposed to open it but did. Releasing everything bad. But there was one thing that was left in the box. And that was hope. 

So first let's deal with the misogyny that the whole myth is based on. 

That's the part people skip to get to the box and the hope part. 

Pandora was the first woman. 

Her entire reason for being created was to cause turmoil. That's part of the myth. The bros the gods had created first were just hanging out having a good time, drinking and relaxing, but not really doing anything. There was no reason to do anything. Everything was already good. 

The gods like their drama so came up with the idea of adding a woman to the mix. 

A woman.

One. 

Drop one woman into a group of guys and let nature take it course. 

Then men would fight to get her attention. Drama would ensue!

But what if it didn't? What if, because everything was so relaxed and chill adding Pandora to the mix would just be...well...cool. No drama needed. What if this group of humans decided that competition wasn't necessary. That there didn't need to be one big dude winning her. Maybe they would decide that people aren't prizes. Aren't things to be won. That they could all just get along and what ever happened was natural and no need for jealousy. 

Well, that wouldn't be good entertainment at all.

The gods like it messy. 

So they crammed a bunch of horrific things into a jar (later translations turned it into a box, but it was a jar) and sent her with it. Gave her a healthy dose of curiosity to her personality and then said, "Oh, by the way, don't open the jar. (wink, wink)"

Because you know they wanted that fucking jar opened. 

Same problem I have with the biblical mythology around Adam and Eve. Okay, so you created these beings that are intelligent and want to learn everything and you put a tree in their midst that will give them knowledge and tell them don't eat it. 

Why plant a tree with that fruit? I mean, you're the one who made the whole shebang right? So why put that tree there if you just wanted happy fun time Barbies to play with? Or if somehow that tree has to be in creation why not plant it someplace else? You know, not in the garden where you put your people?

And, yeah, the misogyny is baked in there as well. That wicked Eve being the one to eat the apple. 

Wicked Pandora opening the jar. 

Out fly all the bad things. 

Now the world (no matter which myth you follow) is filled with wickedness and it's all the woman's fault. So we have two explanations built into one. The reason why there is evil in the world and why women suck. 

So yay...

But with Pandora there is that last little bit. That bottom of the jar one thing left piece. 

Hope. 

Oh here is our moment of peace with the story. 

Yes, there is all of that wickedness in the world but there is also Hope. Don't lose Hope. We all have Hope. Hope will make it better.

But...

Why was hope in a jar full of bad things?

Why would they get all of the horrible things they could think of to make the world messy and dramatic and more entertaining for them to watch and then toss in hope?

Could it be because hope isn't actually a good thing?

Think about when you hope. 

You hope it's going to get better.
You hope things are going to change.
You hope nothing goes wrong.
You lose hope, you have hope, you are hopeful, you are hopeless. All centered around either getting out of a bad place or not wanting a good place to end. 

Hope isn't a good thing. 

Hope is what you have to convince yourself that everything that sucks will change. 
Or that everything great won't. 

Hope is what makes poor people play the lottery. 

Hope is what keeps people in terrible situations.

Hope is not an action. 

Hope is the thoughts and prayers of getting shit done.

 

So Pandora's jar didn't have hope in there by accident. Hope was in the bottom of the jar because it's the heaviest. The weightiest. The worst of the bad things. 

Because hope feels like it's a good thing. 

And that's even worse. 

I hope you feel better. (because right now you actually feel shitty)

I hope the weather is good tomorrow. (because odds are it's going to be shitty)

I hope I get a promotion. 
I hope I win the lottery.
I hope I hope I hope...

What a horrible thing to let out of the jar. 

The feeling that shitty things could get better without doing anything except hoping.
The dread that good things are not going to stay that way so you hope.

Hope isn't a positive.

Or maybe... 

Maybe it is.

Maybe Pandora put it in there herself when she saw she was being set up by those assholes on Olympus?

Maybe as she was getting her gifts from each of the gods, (Pandora is the one with all the gifts, it's her name) there was a pause after the wisdom portion. Maybe she overheard them cackling together about what a mess she was going to cause. Maybe she looked around the joint and saw that little packet of hope just sitting there. Shining brightly because the gods had no reason to not have hope. What were they missing? They were gods. Everything's coming up Mt. Olympus! So hope would be fat and sassy. EVERYTHING was full of hope and good cheer. 

So a quick snatch and grab and shove it in the jar of disasters. Pull the nasty bits over it to hide the glow and BOOM! Hope is at the bottom of the jar wondering what the hell just happened. The gods send her to earth. The dudes are like, cool...she seems nice. 

Pandora opens the jar, not because she's overly curious but because she knows that she's totally fucked up the plans of the gods who were setting her ass up to be the scape goat for...well...EVERYTHING.

She opens the jar, the evils of the world escape. The gods wring their little devil hands in joyous mischief and sit back to watch the world slowly burn itself up. AND THEN...

Pandora takes one look toward the heavens. Opens the jar again. The glow starts out low and then grows as hope climbs up to the opening and flies free. 

Pandora drops the jar and "HOPE OUT, MOTHERFUCKERS!"

Hope becomes part of Pandora's plan then.

The gods never intended for us to have hope. Hope was all theirs. Fat and sassy and shiny. Always good things for the gods. Hope was not something they ever intended to share. 

It was Pandora's fire moment. 

Because hope can keep us warm. Keep us moving. Get us motivated. 

Hope is the spark that leads to the deeds that moves us out of the thoughts and prayers moments and into the action. 

So which story do you like? Which version?

I think everyone gets the story wrong. 

The gods didn't give us hope. Not at all.

Weird Day...

It's been a weird day.

Right after I posted my blog yesterday I found out that my friend who recently had surgery was back in the hospital. She's improving now but they are keeping her in the ICU for a few days. It looks, right now, as though she had an adverse reaction to the pain medication they gave her. 

As soon as I heard, my mind did that split thing. One half super worried about her, and her recovery and the other half saying, "See? I told you that you shouldn't consider getting surgery." Because that fear reaction, that what if? is part of what keeps me from getting work done. Every single surgery you have comes with risk. And for me, that worry is larger than it logically should be. I mean, take my friend for instance, this is not the first procedure she's ever had done and the rest of them all went off with no issues. The percentage of good outcomes is much larger than the bad ones. But the bad ones carry more weight.

It's evolutionary. It made sense, when things were a lot more dangerous, to really mark and make note of the things that might possibly kill you. Gary ate the white berries and dropped dead, you might want to steer clear of the white berries. It's going to make a big impression. 

Today we (her other friends and I) have gotten updates on her condition and like I said it's improving. But I will have the knot of worry until she is safely home again. 

I also had a dream last night about another friend of mine that died almost two years ago. We fought in the dream. And as we were fighting the part of my mind that recognized it was a dream butted in, "hey, you don't want this to be the only interaction you have" and I tried to back out of the fight, but couldn't. 

It's not a hard one to figure out. The last interaction I had with him had been a fight. We hadn't spoken in almost a year when I got the word that he had died. It was really hard. Knowing that we would never reconcile was tough and still is tough. But I also have to admit that I couldn't have changed anything. Well, that's not true, clearly I could have, but I wouldn't have. What we fought over was important. Why we fought was important. If he had listened and changed he wouldn't have died when he did, or at least the way he did. So...I couldn't have changed what happened. I wouldn't have. It would not have been in me to do so. 

So I was thinking about him this morning with that same combination of grief and anger I had when he died and what was in my On This Day feed? Multiple posts from him. Jokes we had with each other, the time he turned me into a personalized meme, and just conversations held in comment sections. It was hard, the constant punch of when it was good. Which made the anger and the grief stronger.

So today has been a worried, angry, griefy day. Weird combination. And not the best for shopping.

I was part of the way through the grocery store before it really hit me. I bought extra random things at Target, I actually looked around Macy's when I was there to return something, and I had about four off list things that had cart jumped at the grocery store. None of that is super typical for me. As I was reaching for a bag of snack food I stopped and actually thought "What is up with this shopping today?"

The answer came fairly quickly. Worry. Anger. Grief.

Oh. That's why I thought I needed all of the random cleaning supplies and snacks. Got it.

I mean I didn't put them back but at least I know why I think I need them.

Here's to a speedy recovery and better dreams.

A Little Work...

This is going to be a body issue/vanity blog so if that sort of thing bores you to tears go ahead and skip it. I won't be insulted.

This week has been a week full of body stuff. One friend of mine posted this really great exchange about how we all try to hard for body positivity. Loving all of the things about our body that we haven't in the past. The whole I don't have stretch marks I have tiger stripes thing. And how that is actually really hard and maybe not even necessary. Instead of positivity how about neutrality? I don't love my stretch marks, but they are there anyway and oh well. 

Here is the actual post (spelling choices are theirs):

"User: fairycosmos
look. i don't think my stretch marks are beautiful. i don't think they're tiger stripes or natural tattooos. i don't think my acne is beautiful. i don't think the bags under my eyes are beautiful. i just think they're human. and i don't think i have to be beautiful all of the time in order to be accepted and loved and sucessful. i don't think every small detail of my outer appearence needs to be translated into prettiness.

User: serotonin-sunrise
fun fact: this POV is actually called "body neutrality" and it's SO MUCH more accessible/realistic for a lot of people. it's based on the idea that the way we look is the least interesting/important thing about who we are, and that our bodies are worthy of respect regardless if they fit the mold of the current beauty ideals."

I like that in a lot of ways. I am more than what I look like for sure. It's very empowering in all the best ways.

And because, quite frankly, I hate my stretch marks and my cellulite and my acne scars. Hate them. Getting to a point where I just feel neutral about them might be easier than getting to a place of love.

I can remember sitting in class at East West and learning that cellulite is all dependent on your connective tissues. That's why there are skinny people with cellulite and heavy people with none. It has nothing to do with fat and everything to do with fascia. I thought to myself that day that if only I had known that growing up it would have changed everything. I NEVER wore shorts once I hit high school. I am extremely self conscious in swimsuits and in leggings. I hate the dimples. I have tried creams and jellies and special rollers and on and on trying to get rid of it. Just to find that it will always be part of me because of the way my body is put together. What a huge shift that would have made.

Except it wouldn't have. Because I know now that my level of fitness has nothing to do with the level of cellulite I have. That it's not anything but genetics. And I still hate it. So...yeah. 

Body image stuff is always so weird. And so personal. 

There is an author out there in the wild who has had the total "Republican Woman Package" done. She posted the 10 year challenge that was out there on Facebook. Her picture from ten years ago was of her as a very attractive red head. Now? She's got the long blonde extensions, the fake boobs, the lip plump, the nose sculpt. Instead of being dressed in a cute outfit she's dressed in a tight red dress (power color, doncha know?) with high heels. I told a friend she looked like she went into the plastic surgeons office and asked for the "Ivanka." It's a Stepford Wives sort of thing. They get more conservative and they go blonder and more and more Barbie. But you know she feels gorgeous now. And all of her social circle that looks just like her all feel they are gorgeous as well. In their very same ideal of what beauty should be. 

A friend of mine has gotten a series of procedures over the past few months. She's really open about it, so I'm not talking out of turn here. She has, for as long as I've known her, had things she wanted to get done and she finally took the opportunity to do them. She had to do it in phases and the first things she got done was her neck lifted, her chin done and I believe her cheeks sculpted (I can't remember for sure and sure I could go check but it's not important to the story so I won't.)

The first series of photos she posted were right after surgery. And wow...it looked so painful. A lot of bruising, which makes sense, trauma to the skin even if it's planned trauma is still trauma. Then she posted a few after the swelling went down. I couldn't wrap my brain around the changes. As in I would see a picture of her and it was like I was looking at her cousin, or maybe a sister. Definitely a resemblance but it wasn't quite her. And at the time I thought it was probably because I was seeing a still photo. If I heard her voice and saw her mannerisms my head would catch up to the new look a lot quicker. 

I asked her if she had a hard time seeing herself in the mirror and recognizing herself as herself. If the changes were enough that they didn't match her vision in her head. 

Part of that was (side trip here) due to my experience during the pandemic. Like I mentioned before, my hair stopped growing after a few months. Pretty sure it was stress related but I had about a half inch of growth in the beginning and then nothing. So while all of my friends were seeing their natural hair color (for some of them) for the first time in a long time, or were experimenting with long hair, or seeing how they looked with gray hair I had basically the same hairstyle with just a faded red instead of my deep red. I had serious hair envy.

I have always said that if my hair would go completely gray I would embrace it. I like the gray hair I do have. It's silver and shiny and lovely. But I still didn't really know how much I had. So as I watched my friends embrace their gray I was envious. When we were finally able to go back to getting our hair done Sara brought my hair back to close to my natural color and we changed the style. I was going to grow it out and see what I was working with. So in that lull while my stress was leveling back out we cheated it ahead with a color wash. Sara looked at my roots and let me know that I wasn't anywhere close to full gray yet. Maybe a few more than a few years ago, but not a ton more. Not at a level where I would be happy with it. But brown we could do. So brown we did. 

And I hated it. 

I hated the style. I hated the color. I hated the fact that every time I looked in the mirror I was reminded about how much I hated it. I felt like there was a football on my head and I hated it. NOT Sara's fault, by the way, she did exactly what I wanted done. And even patiently waited through two cycles with me doing it to make sure it was that I really did hate it. Because, yes, I kept it for a little bit to make sure. I mean if it was just a matter of not being used to it then that would fade quickly. But it wasn't that. I wanted my red hair back and the style I thought I wanted I didn't, I just wanted change. Luckily my hair started to grow again and I am able to get change that way as I grow it out for a while. 

So I wondered if after having her chin done, which she had wanted for ages, what did she think? Did she recognize herself? Did it feel like her? 

And she said it felt like she was seeing the her in the mirror that she used to see. It made me smile to think of. Imagining her looking in the mirror and smiling at herself, "Welcome back." 

AND...it took until her December trip to Mexico for me to realize why I was having the disconnect. The pictures she had posted all had like tiny little smiles. The pictures from Mexico had the full face smile. And I recognized her again. It wasn't the work so much as the pose.

She had another round of work done this past week and posted a picture from her recovery bed. Even knowing how much pain she must be in, she was smiling and looking very happy. She was finally getting the body she had been planning on for so long. 

So it's all made me think.

Body neutrality is all well and good. I mean I'd love to get there. I'd love to be able to look in the mirror and not worry about if I felt pretty enough. Look and acknowledge that there are those parts of me that I honestly am not the fondest of, but eh, who cares? And I for sure don't want to become the Barbie prototype. I don't want to look like all of my friends and I don't want my friends to all look like me. I mean, I will change a hairstyle if I feel like too many other people have the same one. I have always dreamed of lifting and tucking and filling my way into smoothness but I'm terrified that something will go wrong in the surgery and I'll end up looking worse. Or that I will hate the scars more than I hated the droop.

So what is the answer?

I don't have one. 

I see my friends who are body positive being really happy.
I see my friends who are body neutral being really happy.
I see my friends who color their hair being really happy.
I see my friends who have gone all natural being really happy.
I see my friends who would never lift and tuck being really happy.
I see my friends who would (as one put it) live in the surgeons waiting room if they could afford it being really happy.

There is no "The" answer.

Just your answer. 

And for me, right now, it's working toward neutrality while still lifting and sucking in imagining a miracle surgery that would make everything "just so."

And flexing in the mirror when I work out. My biceps still make me very happy.

So find your answer. What makes you happy? Any of the above? A little of all of it? Find the place where you feel your best about you. 

And don't worry if it looks like you have a football on your head. Sara can fix it. 

Chewing on New Ideas...

The book I am currently reading, an essay that I just finished reading and an interview which lead to another book on my TBR list have all touched on a new idea, or new to me, or new way of phrasing an idea anyway. We have (we in the general) replaced a god centered religion with a non-deity centered faith based system. 

We are all still deeply religious but now instead of there being a god or gods at the center of it all it's a belief. Part of the tribalism. We use celebrities or political affiliations or social stances as the center of our "religion" and then switch from using our Thinking Rational brains to deal with information we use our Feeling Faith Based brains. 

And you cannot use a Thinking brain to change the beliefs of a Feeling brain. 

In fact the more deeply held a belief in the Feeling brain the more tap dancing and cherry picking it will do when presented by facts to show how those don't matter.

I've talked about the tribalism before. And I've talked about the difference in believing something and something actually being true. But this was a new thought for me. That it's actually become religion. And once a religion takes hold it's really difficult to root it out. 

Some of us have done it; left a religion we were raised with. And any one of us who has can tell you it's hard. It's a foundational shift. And that's a really small phrase for what that means. Just imagine you are sitting in your house right now and the foundation moves. What happens to the entire house that is built on that foundation? Right? Now you can understand. It's not a little thing. It's everything you are that it is woven into in some way. Even things you don't think about daily. It will be years before you find all of the damage that was done by the change. 

And I've talked about how I feel like I'm pretty good at saying "I don't know" or changing my mind about things when given better facts because I went through leaving the church. But even then I know at times I've had to catch myself when looking at information thinking, "This doesn't feel right" instead of just looking at the facts for what they are. Now, I will also say that often when something doesn't feel right it's because it isn't. But that's not because of the feelings, it's because the facts have been presented incorrectly. Whole numbers instead of percentage of the whole comparisons and such. But what has to happen when you get a "this doesn't feel right" twinge is not that you dismiss everything out of hand, it means you have to look at the source material yourself. You need to understand what you are seeing. 

Not, "Do your own research" where you find three opinion articles that agree with you and dismiss the 200 that don't. But actual, where did this chart come from? What numbers were pulled for this comparison and yes, sometimes, who funded this study? What is their goal?

When I finish the two books with the concepts in them I might write more about it. Especially when I get the second one, because it's going to be challenging some things I really believe so I might be angry posting about that one...because being right is my religion. 

Kidding. 

Sort of.   

But for now I'm chewing on the ideas. And they are really interesting. 

Covidities...

In just sheer volume of people affected these past two weeks have been the highest, heaviest numbers of close Covid cases for us. Entire families have it. People who have already had it have it again. People who had avoided it the whole time have it. I was going to get coffee with a friend this morning and she woke up with a sore throat, which in the before times would have been "eh, up to you if you feel up to getting coffee" and now it was, "yeah, no. Stay home. For sure not worth the risk." Brent was supposed to be traveling for a conference that went from three days to two days to cancelled. Friday was supposed to be an in person event at work that was cancelled. Tomorrow's hockey game has been moved to Sunday to give time for players to clear Covid Protocols, last weekend two out of three games were cancelled.

It's been a lot of Covid.

The good news is that most of it has been fairly mild. A friend back in New Mexico was hit the worst. Her daughter caught it and two of her grand children. The babies ended up in the hospital with fairly serious issues. But they have gotten better, everyone came home. So that's a good ending. A few others are still in it right now and we are hoping it all stays on the very manageable side. 

So more Covid for sure but much less severe outcomes. It sucks, but it's not terrible. 

So we have gone into sort of a hybrid pandemic mode. Not as locked in as we were two years ago, not as free flowing as we were a few months ago. We went out to eat on Friday, the restaurant was serving a limited menu because of the call outs on staff. We got our haircut on Saturday and picked up our new car on Saturday so now we are home bound. My coffee date today was going to be outside and masked. Coffee to go after the visit was done. I just did Target and the grocery store on line again for the first time in months. If we are out and about for things, then we are home and watchful for symptoms for a few days after that. The cycle continues.

We also upgraded our masks. No lightweight cloth covers anymore. Now we are wearing the tighter fitted, sealed off, snug, sweat bombs. N95 and KN95 style. I found some that are fairly comfortable even though they look completely ridiculous. They are fitted on the sides like you want, but there is a lovely bit of space in front so it's not pressing right against your nose and mouth. Super nice. Except for the part where you look like a duck. But other than that...

And honestly I think we've all let go of a lot of vanity these past two years. I mean, clearly not all of it. And some of it came back after a brief hiatus. I led the charge in my group of friends on dying my hair again, but now probably half of my "let it go gray!" group is back to "color those roots!" And I'm not sure when I will go back to doing makeup on the bottom half of my face. I mean, I'm only hitting the top half about every 6th trip out places. So what I'm saying is; what's a little duck face?  

But here we are in the middle of a storm of Covid germs just sort of waiting for it to get us. Which is a different mindset as well. Before we were just doing everything we could to make sure it didn't happen. Now we are looking at it and saying, we're vaccinated and boosted and healthy overall so WHEN we get it, it shouldn't be too bad. 

Fairly resigned at this point. 

Which is good. It keeps us from becoming hermits I guess. Though we aren't treating it as a joke either. See the above, new masks, new exposure protocols. 

The experts are saying that this variant is as contagious as the measles and will blaze through all of us fairly quickly. It might even help get us to endemic levels with milder versions of the virus floating around but not as much to worry about. 

That would be nice but I'm past the point of "this is next" with this whole thing. What happens is what will happen. And we will adjust when we need to. And continue to hope that soon we will be living a fairly normal life again. Or adjusting enough to this version that we think of it as normal. 

Good luck to all of us. 

Weighty Issues...

Doing one of my iFit series to start the year. They always have a collection to choose from if you are doing the challenges for a magnet, which we all know I totally am. I always end up picking the walking or hiking challenge. I don't run. My knees and I have agreed that running is not a thing I need to do. The strength training ones might be fun but I can't really see the screen while I'm lifting so they are out. The rowing and biking ones are out because I don't own a rowing machine or a bike. So walking and hiking it is. 

Which is why I am doing a "Walking for Weight Loss" series. Even though you don't work out to lose weight. Work out for fitness. Food for weight. I'm clarifying all of that so you don't say, "Why are you doing this?" while I do a mini-rant about the rest. 

I grew up immersed in diet culture. Though we didn't call it that while I was growing up, it was just normal. Like a fish in water you don't notice it. Until you do. And then you see it's everywhere and you've bought into it, and you are living it. And it's really hard to shake. 

Speaking of shakes, saw an ad for Slimfast last week and both Brent and I could recite the ads, a shake for breakfast, one for lunch and then a sensible dinner! So yeah, it's just part of who I am. Who he and I both are. 

And I passed that along to my child. Though I really didn't think I would. But reading through some old "what do you want to do?" things we had saved from elementary (!) school and there was one about how they wanted to lose a little weight over the summer. 

Ugh. 

I did that. 

And at the time I probably didn't even think twice when I saw it. "Yeah, that's a good goal for the summer. Get fit for middle school! Never too early to start thinking about your health!"

Because that's what we were all trained to believe, that thin is healthy. 

And as you all know, I STILL struggle with that healthy body image today. I actively work to focus on health. Actual health. How do my joints feel? How is my breathing? Am I getting enough cardio for someone with a family history of heart disease? What foods make me feel good, which ones make me sore? But even with all of that active focus I still look in the mirror and think, If only I could shave a little off here, and tighten up a little over here, and maybe lift and tuck this *waving hands vaguely over entire body* situation.

It's just so much a part of what was baked into my personality. 

But...I take heart that as I have been doing this walking series, and so far enjoying it, it's in Italy and it's lovely scenery, I have also been able to roll my eyes at things like "getting into a fat burning zone" and the whole push for weight loss being the important thing. Which, look I get it, their Walking Weight Loss in Turks and Caicos was the number one iFit series last year and it wasn't because Turks and Caicos is lovely, even though it is. It's that magic "weight loss" wording. And even though I am doing it for the walking part, I am doing a weight loss series so they are going to stress weight loss. It's my fault for liking to walk. And liking magnets. I mean how do they even work?

But I have been really trying to make sure I keep my mind focused on health. Actual health. And yes, sometimes that is tied to losing some weight. There is a space where I feel my best. It's why I'd like to lose another 5 pounds this year. That's really my sweet spot for feeling good. It's not thin. I will never be thin and healthy. When I hit the thin zone I am out of the healthy zone just because of the way I am built. I am always going to be pegging the charts at overweight when I am at my healthiest weight. And it took me a long time to make peace with that. Like in the past decade a long time. And for the most part I am able to hold on to that. 

Which means I will probably be adding eye rolling to my weekly workout cycle. Or at least why I need to hold on to that. Because focusing on weight loss can trigger that really unhealthy part of my mind that will turn that five more pounds into 25 more pounds in the blink of an eye. 

Walking for fitness. Not walking for weight loss. 

But the scenery is really lovely. 

New Year, New Me! (Just Kidding!)....

Okay, 2022, here we go. So much pressure to put on an arbitrary date. But we all do it. And there are really sound psychological reasons for it. The human mind likes gates. Likes beginnings. Likes patterns. And so we imbue certain dates and days with almost mystical powers. Birthdays, anniversaries, Mondays...and especially the first day of the new year. January 1. Clean slate day. Here we go day. Let's do this day!

So...let's do this. 

What am I working on in 2022? What are my goals this year?

Well...

Not goalless because that was 2020 and now I've given 2020 mythical powers of suckage and so much is wrapped up in superstition about that year that no goals will not happen again for a very long time. But I'm also looking at moving in the first part of 2022 and settling in to a new house and I'm not actually sure how much of my time is going to be carved out with just that, I don't want to make a goal list and then find out I've got an entire month where I've done nothing at all. And a few months where I've done very little. 

So what does that mean?

I've decided to do a few overarching goals but for the most part I'm going to do them by quarters. Keep moving forward on cool things (for me, in my mind) but not end up feeling like I've let myself down by not being able to do something that I just didn't have time for. It seems like a good plan to me. 

Overarching goals first!

Weight/fitness: I want to make sure I maintain my workouts and keep working on flexibility. I also want to lose about 5 more pounds. That would put me at a weight I'm very comfortable at. It's not thin by any means, but it's not heavy either. I had given up ever getting to that weight again a few years ago because of menopause and how my metabolism has gone wonky, but this year showed me that I actually can still lose weight and build more muscle, I just have to work harder than I used to. So overall; maintain fitness, gain some more flexibility and lose a few more pounds. 

Reading: I'm setting the number fairly low. I know I'm going to be busy for long stretches which means I might only have bedtime reading time. But I will still read so that's going to be 60 books. I don't have a series or anything I'm looking to clear but I'm thinking I need to spend some time clearing off my Kindle of the books I've bought, been given, got for free, and not get new until a few of those are out. But that's so hard to do when a new book in a series or by an author I love comes out. I'm working on a plan there there. Maybe new, old, new, old? Not sure yet. But 60 books this year.

Amazon shopping: still working on using them less. I am aiming for fewer than 91 purchases overall. Fewer than 40 non-gift, non-grocery things. They haven't gotten any less icky than they were last year so I need to keep working toward not using them. (EDIT 1/31 Realizing that with moving house this year this might not actually be a goal I reach. So many places are using Amazon as a storefront now and I will need so many new things. So if I don't hit this goal this year I'm not going to beat myself up too much. But I am going to try to keep my shopping choices mindful)

And now for the first three months of this year. 

The main goals are to get the house and us prepped for the move. That covers a LOT of ground. Rooms need sorted and packed. Things for the new house need purchased. Contractors for projects in the new and the old house need booked. The move needs to happen. All of it will take huge chunks of time. 

So that's the main thing with January-March. I'm going to break down each month into chunks as well. So here's January:

Write: Ten blogs. I'll have more time in January so I want to make sure I take the time to sit down a few times a week and write. I don't have a fiction/nonfiction goal. Just writing. Whatever comes to mind. What I don't want to do is just stop writing all together because I decided not to publish. I still like writing. I still like sharing with the four of you. So I want to make it a priority in January. 

Read: Five books. This will get the year kicked off. I need to read a little over a book a week to reach my goal, or five books a month. I honestly think January I will over achieve on that number, but I have a lot of other things to get done as well so I don't really want to think I *should* be reading, when no, actually it would be more productive if I did a...

Workout: Five days a week. Balance out weights, cardio and stretching

Or if I was...

Sorting: Upstairs. January will be for sorting out all of the upstairs. I want to sort through all of our closets and shelves and get rid of anything that I don't want to move, maybe start packing up things we are moving, and start the repair touch ups on other things. Like nail holes in the wall, scuff and scratch marks that need repaired and painted, that sort of thing. Floor by floor gets the job done in time, right? I'd really like to get the house on the market within a week or so of moving out. Move, have the carpets cleaned, have the whole house cleaned, put it on the market. Boom, boom, boom. But to do that I need to start ahead. So January begins that process.

And that's it. 

I'll set February in well, February. 

So Happy New Year! I hope the year is a great one for all of us and as my friend Carol put it, may 2022 love us back.