Help Yourself #2...

Finished my Self Help book for February. This one was Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? by Dr. Julie Smith. It was promoted as a practical self help book with tools that you could use to improve your mental health. 

Full disclosure I used to read psychology books for fun. I entertained the idea of going back to school and becoming a psychologist for a long time. My mother in law did do that and worked as a counselor. She also shared books with me that she thought I'd find interesting. Or that she thought I might figure out what was wrong with me and fix it, I was never exactly sure which one. Probably a little of both. 

Anyway...

A review I saw of this was one sentence, "Somebody has." And that sort of fit my take away. There wasn't anything new for me. But there was A LOT in there. It was sort of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Dummies. Really simplified chapters with overviews of fairly complex issues. But with actual things you can do to help yourself as well. It was kind of like being hit with a firehose of information, but the soaking came from a LOT of mist instead of a blast of water. If that makes sense to you.

There were a lot of chapters and subchapters around different issues, which would be handy if say you were looking for help with anxiety but didn't have issues with your relationships. But the chapters and information built on each other and referenced each other so you couldn't really skip around. So you were left reading a lot of information that might or might not be useful to you.

In my 20s I would have found it all pretty interesting because it would have been the first time I was introduced to concepts like your breathing is tied to your emotional state and because I wouldn't have been reading it to help me with an actual problem I was having taking in all of that information would have been good. The sampler platter of cognitive health practices. 

However if you are someone who wanted help with something, some specific issue you were having, it would be a lot to try and wade through. I especially felt badly for anyone with anxiety reading the book. Reading all of the other issues and trying to absorb all of the information she was continually pushing out would have made it so much worse I would think. It would have been really overwhelming around chapter 30 if not before that.

The only thing that kept it from being a DNF was my personal goal challenge. And trying to keep in mind that I was trying to compare what 20 something me would get out of it vs. 54 year old me. I didn't feel like saying 20 something me would find it fascinating I think but 54 year old me found something else to do. Though that's pretty accurate. Instead I powered through. 

It wasn't a bad book, and if you are interested in how CBT works it might be a good choice. But if you are looking for actual help with an issue I would suggest finding an actual CBT therapist and going that route. Even with a few weeks of visits it would probably be quicker than powering through the book. 

Hopefully next month's choice will be more interesting to me. Or if not more interesting than at least shorter? 

One Month Down...

End of January and hitting all my numbers. Which is good. When you are already not hitting them in January it makes for a really big struggle year. 

I read the bio, read the self help book, read the Stranglings book, cleared a couple of books off my Kindle and a couple extras. 

Writing I hit the one fiction piece a week, two pieces to Dana, three nonfiction plus a few more. I sat down and wrote more days of the week than I didn't. 

Working out, that was a start and stop stutter step get it going thing. I worked out 17 times last month which means on more than half the days so that's not terrible. 

Did Picture of the Day again and made some progress around getting the house settled and sorted out. 

So now I'm looking at February. 

The reading and writing stay the same. That's a yearly overarching goal so that's steady. In fact at some point today I need to sit down and start on Dana's piece. I've been sending her something that is a little different than what I typically write, at least the part I'm writing now it is. It's a weird thing. Started as a flash in my head of a scene then automatically started filling in this super wholesome backstory that did not fit with the original scene at all. So I'm trying to figure out what the bridge is. Where does it all go so terribly wrong...or does it never go there and that first scene will never play out?

If you're thinking it's mean of me to talk about it and not post it, first off, thank you for liking what I do, and secondly I'm keeping it in my pocket for the weeks that will surely come where I'm too busy, stressed or out of pocket to write something new and then I'll post it as my weekly fiction piece on the blog. Planning...I can do it. 

Workouts I'm switching up a little. Which I do every month. Even though I wasn't as consistent last month as I could have been I'm still doing a little shift this month. I'll finalize tomorrow but for right now it's weights on Monday and Friday and cardio Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Thinking of doing the little 3-12-30  (3 mph, 12% incline, 30 minutes) one day a week, maybe two. It's supposed to really get your heart rate up so I'm thinking of testing it out. If it's too hard on my knees I'll go back to flatlandering at a higher speed.

I'm not going to do Picture of the Day this month. The list just didn't really grab me. I mean I'll still post way more pictures than anyone ever really wants to see but there just won't be that one themed one. Though I added back in Selfie Saturday on a whim that first Saturday in January and I'll keep that up for awhile. So at least one day a week it was kind of a wash. 

Still thinking about that word of the year idea. Ocean. And staying in that flow feeling. Doing what I need to do to get in to that feeling of balance. I've been trying things here and there seeing what feels good. Trying to make sure that I don't get stuck doing things just because they are habit. Mindful floating. The ocean will drown you if you don't pay attention after all.

But I'm pretty pleased with how January went. Though as I mark my progress on those yearly goals I am looking ahead wondering what the hell I was thinking. I've got 11 more months of four blogs a week and two nonfiction slow reads a month. It seems a little daunting right now, not going to lie, but it's why I do it right? I like that feeling at the end of the year when my boxes are checked and my tallies are marked. Can't get there without this part.

I hope your first month went well. And also, as a side note, I figured out how to make January not seem so long. Skip Dry January. Honestly, Brent and I were talking over the weekend about how crazy it was that it was already almost February and how fast it went. Then realized we didn't do Dry January this year. I could count the number of drinks I had on one hand and have fingers left over so it was a barely damp January but just not having the YOU CANNOT hanging over our heads made it much more bearable.

Life of the contrarian...

Help Yourself #1.A

Remember when I wrote about the monthly self help book that I said I'd actually read two this month? Well here we are to talk about the second. 

It was actually one of the "clear it off the TBR pile" books. I didn't realize it was a self help thing at all until I started or I probably would have saved it for a month. But it was incredibly short, took less than an hour to read, and now it's off the list so that was good. 

Kevin Hart's This is How We Do It: A Pep Talk.

This is actually a really good example of the sort of thing I read a lot of in my 20s and early 30s and gives me a good perspective on how I've changed. It was good, I want to get that out of the way. Enjoyable read. If you find him entertaining at all there are parts where you can absolutely hear his voice speaking to you. And it was just exactly what it claimed to be, a pep talk. 

It was around what he called his 15 tools to live your best life. Basically, be positive, be dedicated, work hard, do what you say you will those sorts of things. Nothing groundbreaking but a good go get 'em sort of message. 

Now here is where my 20s me (and even probably into my 40s me) would agree with him and my 50s me takes a different older, wiser, more empathetic to the world view. He talks a lot about being positive. About being likable. About ignoring that negative mindset. And this works for me. I preached it for a long time. Choose to be happy. Focus on gratitude. And I still do it. For myself. But what I learned later in life is that advice like that can actually be really frustrating to people who are depressed. Or anxious. 

Be happy. Oh! Okay, why didn't I think of that? sort of thing. If it was that easy they would have done it a long time ago. I will say that I've always (and he does too) given the caveat that if you need medication or outside help seek it. Get what you need to feel better. But the relentless drumbeat of just be happy can be really awful for people who are fighting their brains all the time and can't JUST be happy. So for those sections I had a voice in my own head thinking "sometimes it's not that easy."

But then there was a great nugget in his 15 that he labeled nonreactivity. In the Four Agreements it was Don't Take Anything Personally, I call it developing a sense of Unfuckablewithness. It's basically that you cannot control what other people say about you or feel about you. There are going to be people out there that just don't like you. And there are going to be people who will go out of their way to let you know. And there will be people who go behind your back to tell others. None of that has anything to do with you. 

And it's a hard one to master. I work on it all the time. But it's one that will change your life. There is an Eleanor Roosevelt quote out there, "What other people think about me is none of my business" and it's such a solid one. When I'm feeling a little more feisty I might go with "To care what you think about me, I first have to care about you."

And even with people I do care about I try to remember that unless what I'm doing is hurting them, their opinion of me shouldn't be stronger than my opinion of myself. 

And it's not just when people are trying to drag you, it's daily stuff. Last week Brent and I were talking to a friend of ours and he was apologizing for something that neither of us had taken as a slight. I told him he would have to try harder than that to insult me. And that's unfuckablewithness. You have to try hard. You have to make an effort. I mean, I don't want you to, but normally if you do something shitty to me I'm either not going to really pay attention, assume you've had a shitty day and just lashed out, or you want a reaction.  

And if I give you a reaction because you were shitty you will be shitty again. So...

And often I am sort of amused by it. Like I see you out there thrashing at me for whatever reason you have but I've turned you into a toddler throwing a fit in my head and I'm just going to let you burn yourself out. The other thing I try to do is look at what you are doing again. Are there two ways to take this? One is that you are being shitty and one isn't? Go with the isn't. 

I'm not perfect at it. Not by a long shot. But I am a lot better at it than I was in my 20s. 

When I first came across this principle in life, that you don't have to react to everything, It sort of blew me away. I was glad to see it in his pep talk. 

It was a clever book, there was some good stuff in there, and it was also a great perspective book for me. Reading it when I was younger I would have thought Yeah! I need to get up earlier and be there longer and always focus on positive things and....and now at my age I read it and thought, that's super interesting that this all works for him. I hope he doesn't burn himself out. 

If  you want a Kevin Hart pep talk and you've got an hour and a Kindle I think it might even be a free download still. 

Help Yourself #1

Finished my first (and second but we'll get to that) self help book of the year. 

This month's choice was some deliberate counterprogramming. Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls: A Handbook for Unapologetic Living by Jes Baker. I felt like it would be a good choice to dive into when the barrage of January BE THIN TO BE HAPPY advertising started. 

I liked a lot of it. I really wished a lot of it had been more prevalent when I was growing up. Which if it had been there probably wouldn't be a need for it now, but still...I can wish. 

It's about not just body positivity and body acceptance and all of those buzzwords that you hear but about loving yourself, and giving yourself permission to love ALL of yourself and all of the wonderful diversity around you. And also how to advocate for yourself and how to not limit yourself and how to push back on people that try to limit you because of your size. 

It was aimed at someone younger and heavier than I am, I think, but it was still good to read and I took things from it. 

Some things I didn't agree with and I had to sit with those things and think about them. Did I not agree because I'm 54 years old and have been steeped in diet culture my entire life or did I not agree because my own research and life experience has taught me differently? And sometimes it was one, sometimes it was the other. 

I reached a point about 5 years ago where I decided to stop struggling with my weight. To just stop. It wasn't doing me any good. It was making me feel badly about myself every day. I mean it's right there, struggle with my weight. I decided that I was the size I was and so I was just going to make sure I was in the best physical shape, best healthy state, I could be in, size be damned. And so I focused on what I was eating, eat real food not processed pseudo foods, and I focused on working out. I can lift heavy things, I can walk quite a few miles, I'm good. 

I went through my closet and got rid of any clothes that didn't fit. All of the things I had been saving for "when I lost the weight" I cleared it all out. Some of you remember that. It was something like 6 bags of clothes to Goodwill. Oh how I wish I hadn't done that...

BUT at the time it was really important to do it. I needed to clear out that feeling of failure every time I looked at that super cute black dress with the multicolored polka dots that I had only worn twice before I got too heavy to fit it. And all of those jeans in various sizes that I couldn't have pulled past my thighs no matter how much I was lifting at the gym. Everything I touched needed to fit. And I need to love it.

No punishment clothes. Because that was a thing I would do when I was at my larger sizes. I wouldn't buy anything nice because clearly I didn't really deserve it. I bought utilitarian things. Things that I didn't really like, thinking it would encourage me to lose weight. But I hadn't lost weight. I had been the same size for a few years. This is what my shape was and I needed to stop punishing myself over it. I wasn't all the way to body positivity, but I was working on body acceptance. 

And then the pandemic hit. And it was a terrible year with personal trauma and societal trauma and so I baked. A lot. And we ate. A lot. And I stopped wearing anything with structure. Soft clothes every day. Which, again, at the time was how we dealt and I think it was fine. But I gained even more weight from where I had been for years and now I was looking at a whole new closet clean out. If I ever stopped wearing soft clothes, which I wasn't sure I would. 

But about a year into the pandemic I tried the food elimination process to see if my joint pain could be caused by what I was eating. Okay, wait, that's not exactly accurate. That's what I told Brent we were trying it for, but really I was trying it to see if it would help him with some acid issues he was having. Our doctor had recommended he try an elimination diet before but he wouldn't do it, too much hassle, didn't want to force me to cook special foods, yada yada yada...So when I read Michael Symon's book Fix it with Food I knew I had an opportunity to see if it would work. We had actually been planning on doing it the year before but then... see the above paragraph... 

So I did the elimination diet and discovered that yeah, food was an issue. I was eating things that were making me feel lousy. (We did not discover what was triggering Brent's issue completely, but did discover that nightshades are no bueno for him) And I lost 25 pounds. (Really wish I had kept those clothes.) 

But I didn't lose 25 pounds because it was a diet. I lost the weight because I wasn't holding on to so much fluid anymore. I lost the weight because of the decrease in inflammation and the accompanying decrease in pain. I was able to work out more because I hurt less. I was smaller because my body stopped trying to protect me from the poison (to me) I was eating daily. 

And that massive weight loss did trigger a small stretch of "oh I should lose more" but I got it nipped in the bud and I have settled out at the same weight (in a range of 5 pounds) for the past two years. This is where I am comfortable. My knees don't complain, my body feels healthy, I can eat intuitively. 

And as I read this book I thought, I wonder if I had been raised with body acceptance if I would have figured out that there are certain foods that make me feel unwell sooner than I did. Instead of believing that all of my health issues were because of my weight, if I had realized that being overweight isn't a health issue unto itself, if I would have figured out how to treat my particular body well earlier. 

Because for years we have all been bombarded with the message that being fat is the problem, instead of looking at weight gain being a symptom of a problem (sometimes) or not having anything to do with the problem (most often). Like take diabetes, we've been told for years that being heavy is a cause of diabetes. Lose the weight, get your blood sugar under control.

But is that right? 

Not really. Being heavy and having diabetes often do go hand in hand but not that being heavy causes diabetes. The same thing that causes diabetes, your body's inability to process or regulate sugar, and the food choices you are making, causes weight gain. It's why you often lose weight AND get your diabetes under control when you change the way you eat. It's not that the weight caused one, it's that the sugar issue caused both. See?

And I sort of knew it. Or was figuring it out much earlier than the recent research has shown. Think about the problems right now with Ozempic. It's a great drug for helping control diabetes. But people are using it for weight loss. Because it changes the way your body processes blood sugar. It helps manage that and a side effect is you aren't hungry. So you lose weight.

When we did Atkins years and year ago it was the same thing. It's a diet that a lot of people have used to get their blood sugar under control and you lose weight. The thinking (when we did it) is that the weight loss is what triggers the good blood sugar. But it's the fact that you aren't hungry that triggers the weight loss. I figured out once how many calories I was taking in a day on Atkins and it was scary low. But I was never hungry because of what I was eating so I didn't worry about it. 

But I didn't quite put it together.

It took years to figure out that my weight and my health weren't really tied together. A change in doctor helped too. Not ending each appointment with "lose weight" was a bigger relief than I ever thought it would be. The only caveat to that is that I do have more knee pain with my arthritis when I'm heavier. Even heavy and fit is more pain than if I'm a little lighter. Which makes sense in a way that a lot of other things don't. A joint that is damaged is going to feel better supporting less weight. It's also why it feels better when I keep up the muscle work around it that helps support the joint. Keep moving to keep moving. 

But anyway, the first self help book of the year was around diet and fitness...except not. It was partly around how the diet and fitness industries have completely warped our understanding of how our own bodies work and how the advertising and glorification of thinner bodies over fatter ones has made us all think that thin is better. As I said, I think the book was definitely aimed at someone younger than I am, and someone larger (in her description of plus vs. straight sizes I am firmly in the straight sizes category, I just have a plus size mentality), but I also believe it would be a good read for just about anyone. 

We all need to learn that all sizes and shapes of people are just that, all sizes and shapes. And apply that to ourselves. I have gorgeous, sexy, stunning and handsome friends of all sizes, I could just never apply the lense I saw them through to my own mirror.

Eat good healthy food. Give your body the best foods it needs to run the best way it can. 
Be active. Get your heart healthy. Give your muscles some work to do. 
And enjoy your body. Every bit of it. Dress in what you like to wear. Get clothes that fit your body and your style and go be fabulous. 

2023 How's it Gonna Be?

Okay, I've been watching The Wheel and went from the first night hearing him do that "One in three, who's it gonna be?" and thinking oh gosh that's annoying to two weeks later having it firmly stuck in my head and REALLY thinking it's annoying. So now you know where the title for the blog comes from today. You're welcome.

So this year is kind of an odd combination of goals and meanderings. I've got some hard numbers for things (really hard for number of blogs, actually) and some soft ideas around how I want the year to go. A mix. 

So let's start with the hard numbers.

60 books.  I know this is what I set for last year with the move planned and I surpassed that even with the down time. But this year I'm breaking it up a bit into subgoals and that will slow my reading speed. I'm doing two nonfiction and three fiction a month. I talked about it before. I'm going to do a self help book to see what I take from them in my 50s vs what I took from them in my 20s. Though I'm not re-reading ones from my 20s for the most part. I'm doing one bio/autobio a month. And then the fiction is two free choice and the Fantastic Stranglings pick. Though those extras could shift a little depending on how the other reading goes. I think it will be 5 books a month but it might be 4 one month, 6 another. Nonfiction is just so much slower of a read for me I think this will actually be challenging. There is also another sub-subgoal to make sure that at least one book a month is off of my TBR already owned pile. I've got SO MANY books loaded on my Kindle that I've not gotten to yet it's almost embarrassing! Almost. I mean it's totally not. But I do want to read those books. I wouldn't have them if they hadn't looked interesting at some point, right? 

208 blogs. This one is crazy in a way. When I break it out to weekly numbers it's totally fine. But when I then add all of those weeks up and look at what I've done in the past I'm like...whoa. Wait a second. In 2014 I wrote 177 and in 2015 I wrote 185. Those are BY FAR the highest totals I've ever reached. So instead of taking one of those I decided to sail right past it. Or actually I didn't even look at my historical numbers when I was deciding on this one. It's one fiction piece a week and three non-fiction. That's the average. And that's what I'm really aiming to do. Now if we go on vacation or something happens I'll play catch-up somewhere but the real goal within this goal is to sit down and write more days of the week than I don't. Dana and I are working on some sort of exchange as well and I'm not sure if that will be extra fiction or if I will send her things before you see them. I'm not sure just yet. But what you should be seeing is 4 blogs a week. Some of them will be extremely short, I'm sure, but there will be blogs.

And that's it for hard numbers. Now into the rest.

Fitness/weight/health I want to make sure I get back into a good balanced routine with weights/cardio/flexibility. The past couple of months with everything they've entailed has gotten me out of balance. I've stuck with doing some light cardio, my sciatica has felt better while walking, but I've really let down on most everything else. I want to get back into the solid routine I had working for most of 2022. I also want to drop the extra weight I put on over the past two months while everything fell apart. It's not much, just a few pounds, but I want to get back into that happy knees range I was hanging in last year. I've already seem improvement there as I've stopped popping advil 5 times a day. 

I'm going to try and pull all of my photos off of Facebook and have those albums stored here instead. Once I get that part someplace else I'll make decisions about my social media usage as well. As you know I swing from it's bad and I should leave to it's great and I can't go because all of the people who live in the magic box are there. But a lot of the people in the magic box have already left so it's getting easier and easier to go myself. Last one out get the lights.

I want to finish getting the house set up. We paused to give our finances a chance to recover but I need to figure out how to balance that need and the need to finish settling in. We have a few spaces that need some furniture and then I need to sort and organize again. Starting to figure out the things we put away places that just don't work there. 

And that sort of dovetails into the overarching theme for the year. I want to find what works. Like overall, what makes a day a good one? Is it getting things done? Checking off those lists and getting gold stars? Is it feeling cozy in my house? Is it having things clean and tidy? Is it sitting and reading or coloring or watching a documentary? Is it working out? Is it a walk around the neighborhood? Or in the woods? Or at the coast? What is the combination of things that works for me? Not for anyone else, except Brent and Katie when she's visiting, but what makes me feel happy? 

I'm starting with blogs, reading, fitness, planning, picture of the day and posting on Facebook. We will see where I end up. 

Happy New Year! I hope 2023 is a great year for all of us. It's been a really rough stretch and I think a lot of us are starting to feel like we are breaking out of a rut and ready to move forward again. Fingers crossed the Universe co-operates!

Wrap Up!

I normally do this one on the last day of the year but I don't really need to wait this year so you get it early.

Aren't you so excited?

Looking back at January to see what I even set as goals for the year and...oh yeah, I didn't really. With the move coming up I was going to set quarterly goals. Because the year would break up so nicely. The first quarter preparing for the move, the next moving and settling in, then on to the living our lives as normal with everything all done and settled.

Ha!!

Okay, so it didn't work out that smoothly but we dealt with it, right?

I did have some overarching general goals for the year. I wanted to read 60 books, and I hit that and a few more. Though I was going to work on clearing my Kindle of owned books that keep getting bumped for new and I totally did not do that. Looks like something for 2023.

Writing, I set goals for that in only two months and hit both of those. It was a light year. I did publish the whole series I wrote when Katie came out to us but not to the world. I like that series because I think it helped other people understand a little more what was going on. I know it opened the door for people to ask me questions they might have felt uncomfortable asking other people. So I'm taking that as a big yearly win for writing. Inform, entertain, engage. Those are my writing goals. 

Fitness and weight, so this one is funny. Funny fuck you not funny ha ha. I had posted that I really wanted to lose that last 5 pounds and get really consistent with a good blend of weights and cardio. And I totally nailed it. Weight was staying in that range of comfort in my body and for my knees. I was working out 5 to 6 days a week with good balance between everything. Thinking about adding in some more flexibility work and then came November. I got sick the beginning of November and that was met by the death of a friend and then that cascaded into the worst bout of sciatica I've ever had and I've not been 100% since.  My consistency went out the window and my weight bounced back up. Just in time for the end of year round up. Ha..ha..ha... But I'm still going to take it as a win because I was there for the majority of the year and I will be there again as the sciatica is slowly getting better. Just frustrating for it to fall apart like that. 

I had set a decreased Amazon shopping goal then immediately unset it as soon as I realized that we would need so much more stuff than normal due to the move and how many stores just use Amazon as their storefront now. I need to think about that again for this year. Stores don't make it easy to go direct and Amazon is still a piece of shit so...

There weren't other main goals set. Just a general, "Hey! Let's see how this goes!" sort of vibe. So now that I've covered those bare minimum goals that were set, hey, how did the rest of the year go?

It was a little rough. 

I think this year was the first year I really felt old. Like this isn't a blip or a bump in the road, this is a full scale we are on the other side of the hill and sliding fast. It was the first year I told Brent I should probably revise my "We are Living to 100!" plan. Because for the first time I'm not sure I'm going to make it to 100. Or at least not to 100 living my best, independent life. 

It was a year full of physical breakdowns. As soon as I'd get one issue fixed another would crop up. I've had ankle issues, wrist issues, weird bleeding, the aforementioned sciatica issues. I've had hot flashes that would melt your face if you stood too close to me. I've had mornings where I just felt like I'd been hit by a bus, then a tractor trailer, then dropped from an airplane. What the fuck? 

We have a high deductible health insurance plan. For those of you that don't live in the US that means that there isn't a monthly amount taken out of Brent's check to cover our insurance, we just pay the whole bill until it reaches a certain level. Most years this works out for us quite well. We don't pay a lot for health care. This year we met that level and the past few months have been in the "You don't have to pay more, you poor thing" range. We start over on Monday, and I already have two doctor's appointments scheduled  so we might hit our targets again this year. 

The only other year we've met our high deductible was when Katie broke her ankle and had to have surgery. That's the sort of year this year has been. 

BUT...the good news is I've discovered that I know my own body pretty darn well. The chronic issues that I was hoping to fix don't look like they are fixable but I've learned some great compensating moves. (Ankle and toe issues on the same foot, fix the ankle the toe acts up, fix the toe the ankle acts up, make each work in a wonky way and it's manageable). My wrist issues flared and are now back but I honestly think I might end up cancelling that appointment. I did a little self adjustment of a few carpal bones and it seems to be getting better so... 

I also got on estrogen. The mini-pill. Just a bare hint of estrogen really. But it was enough to knock back the daytime hot flashes to zero and the nighttime ones are only a problem if I don't practice my other self care. Watch the sugar, don't drink hard alcohol, exercise. And even then it's like one a night instead of one all night. 

And here's a bonus kicker...

My food issues are fading. Estrogen gives protection from inflammation. We had soup dumplings for Christmas and it was going to be my quarterly "ouch" meal. But no ouch. So we had Godfathers and I had the barest of itch reaction to the nightshades, like so bare that if I wasn't looking for it I wouldn't have really noticed and nothing to the gluten, even though I'd had gluten just a few days before. I'm going to try some more nightshades on Saturday and see how it goes. But this is amazing right? If it sticks I'll try some chicken next. And bourbon. Oh bourbon, I've missed you. 

Now, what this means for me is that I can be less careful of what I eat. I won't have to study every label and menu like it was the meaning to life. BUT...because I know now that there is an underlying issue going on that the estrogen is protecting me from I won't go back to eating the way I used to. I'll still live mostly gluten free. I'll still really limit my nightshade intake. Chicken would be a sometimes food. But it will mean that I will be able to get a donut at the Timbers matches. I will be able to do a dinner cruise in Hawaii without eating only the lettuce from the salad. I will get a level of freedom back that I have missed terribly. 

And I will also suggest to women who are going through menopause that if they are having digestive and joint pain issues they should try an elimination diet because their estrogen was protecting them before. Though Katie put it best that food reactions due to menopause will never be studied because well, menopause and estrogen and the medical field doesn't view those as areas worthy of study. But let's hope that a more women reach the highest levels of care providers we see more studies in women's health and we start to understand estrogen a little more. But until then I will just be grateful for the push Kate gave me to actually get on it. Serious life changer.

So now with the last few days of 2022 fading quickly I'm looking at 2023. More set goals, more things around the pieces that bring me the greatest joy and sense of accomplishment. 

I hope your year has been a good one overall. I hope the painful times were met with love and support. I hope the joyful times were shared and multiplied. I thank you all for reading these blogs. It really does make me happy to share my life with you all. 

And that's a wrap on 2022. 

See you next year!

Halfway For Real...

And we've reached it. Halfway through the year. So what did I decide?

And yes, this is totally on theme for the week. I mean part of the core of me is these goal lists.

And I know they are silly. They aren't life shattering. Nobody but me cares if they are done. They aren't even that hard to accomplish (usually). But they are a huge part of who I am. Brent says I can make anything a game. And it's true. I've always been that way. I am constantly playing some game or another in my head. I never outgrew "hot lava."

Something I figured out a long time ago is that my game playing is tied directly to what we talked about yesterday. I needed to have a story in my head all the time when I was younger. I was a voracious reader (that hasn't changed much), but I also made up elaborate stories with my Barbie dolls and other stuffed toys. There was drama. It's a way to disassociate. When you don't know what is going to happen day to day with your caretaker it's much more pleasant to have a story you are either pretty sure will all work out (books) or are in control of (toys). 

And I just never stopped doing it. 

I tell stories. Some of them even end up here in this blog for fun. But I have a running story in my head at almost all times. I anthropomorphize EVERYTHING. When I let anyone know the running dialog in my head that is happening at all times I get looks that vary from amazement to amusement to shock that if I'm not institutionalized I should at least be medicated.

And a lot of the stories I tell in my head as I go through the day are wrapped around a game. Or an impromptu dance party. Or both.

(Reality check break here: I am using always language here because my normal swing is between slightly manic and even keel. When the pendulum swings toward the depressive side the voices and the games get quieter. They don't go away completely until I'm very much in the down swing, but they do die off. Thankfully those swings are generally short lived, and when they haven't been I've considered that I should be medicated as well, but I want to be medicated to get the voices back so...)

So anyway...goals/games are a central part of who I am. 

And what are we looking at for July? 

Not a lot. Like I mentioned before we are still settling in and there are times where my schedule blows up because of work that needs to be done or calls that need to be made or me reaching a point where I am OVER IT from dealing with work that needs to be done or calls that need to be made. So I'm doing goal light, but still have some things on my radar.

Basically easing in to a new routine and new schedules with the move and Brent heading back into the office. He is planning on being on site three days a week. Monday and Friday working from home. So I will need to meal plan and errand plan around when I have the car and when I can sort of plan on him being home. 

I'm going to switch up my workouts. I'm going to do timed body weight moves for July. Super short but constant motion sort of things. I will plan those out over the weekend and not actually start until Monday. I hate starting a new routine on a Friday so I'll finish my June schedule and then move on. Along with the body weight stuff I'll do cardio daily. Just because I cannot wrap my head around working out 10 minutes a day and calling it good. I've already doubled up from where the idea originated, they did five. Which worked out to three minutes of work and two of rest. I'll do five of work and five of rest. Then a half hour of cardio. 

Writing, I'm going to stick with this theme idea. Assuming I can come up with some themes. I put the call out on my Facebook page and if you have suggestions please leave them as well! I think 20 blogs in July. If I wander off theme then I don't think I'll count those toward the total, those will be bonus content. 

I'm also going to do a round of Picture of the Day. I haven't done one in ages, but the July list is really good so I'm going to pick that back up again. 

And then like I said, setting up a new schedule framework. What needs to be done on rotation to take care of the house? What meals work best for unpredictable home arrivals? And also working on those last lingering items that will make the house feel more settled. 

As July rolls on I'll think about the rest of the year. What do I want to aim for? And of course I'll also be thinking about my new hashtag. I didn't use my 53 one much, in fact I used it so little that I can't remember what I settled on, was it #MeAt53? That seems like it might have been it...but anyway...on to a new one soon! #54MoreYears? 

Maybe not...

February Doldrums...

 I'm writing the first quarter off. Just so you know. The monthly goals are falling apart. The move is doing a number on my head. The brink of nuclear war is taking up space in there as well. Along with massive flooding in Australia, the worry over lifting the mask mandates everywhere while at the same time trying to be hopeful about it. It's all a bit much. So I'm just going to go back to that original idea I had in the end of December of revisiting the goals at the end of the first quarter after the move is done. Though now the move has been moved out a month and I really think it will be June before I'm settled, so let's look at goals in July shall we? 

So...nuclear war? How odd is it to have that top of mind again? Brent and I were talking about it this weekend then I talked to our kid as well. When we (Brent and I) were teenagers none of us believed we would avoid nuclear war. It was just kind of an accepted belief that we would go for as long as we could and then oh yeah, Cold War becomes Hot and we die. 

The plan (growing up in New Mexico where missiles and labs are located) was to run outside when the first launches happened so we would die in the initial blast and not have to die slowly from radiation sickness or starvation. It's why a large cohort of Gen X considers themselves at least passive nihilists. We grew up watching people talk about peace while hovering over the big red destroy everything button. Hard to believe there is a real truth when that's your foundation. And the ones that were more active than passive nihilists grew up to be Republicans and are doing their best to reject all moral foundations so... (I'm not even sure if I'm kidding about that anymore)

So anyway, here we are, the closest to actual nuclear war than we've been since I was a teenager (Putin put his "defense" on high alert over the weekend as the invasion of Ukraine didn't go exactly as he thought it would. Now he's holding nukes over their heads as they offer to talk). The speeches we are seeing Putin make show what happens when an autocrat starts to really lose his grip. Grip on his mind and grip on his power. It's really frightening. And it's possible this is going to lead to WWIII, The Nuclear Edition. 

And my mind is right back in the space that it was as a teen. 

We read stories about what is going on. We realized we could all end up dying in a nuclear blast after all. And then we went to the opening game of the MLS season and cheered on the Timbers. 

When I was talking to my kid about it I said I had thought about it a few years ago. That living with the feeling that we could all die if the leaders of the "free world" decided to get their backs up about something. I wasn't sure when I was rethinking it if the just sort of detached acceptance that there was nothing I could do so I would just live was a reflection of being a teenager. If it would be different as an adult. Especially after living life pretty sure that the nuclear threat, though still there, was really low. And now I know. It has nothing to do with age. It's just the way to deal with it. 

I cannot control what Putin does. I cannot control how we respond. I can send money to help Ukrainians who have been bombed out of their homes. (Those conventional weapons can do plenty of damage, no nukes needed) I can remind people here about who has supported Putin when it comes times for elections, but even that I can't figure out how to make them see how badly their party has betrayed them. I basically am revisiting the whole nothing really matters because nothing is in my control life of a teen as an adult. 

But now with the added twist of understanding that though nothing really matters because nothing is in my control; everything around me matters. 

What?

Nothing matters so everything matters. Nothing matters because I have no control over it. I can't make things happen or not happen in exactly the way I want them to happen or not happen. But everything then matters because I have no control over what is going to happen. 

Every moment I get with the people I love matters because there is a chance it will be the last. (Thank you pandemic for reinforcing this one)

Every fun thing we get to go do matters because there is a chance that the world will close down or blow up and won't get to do them anymore. 

The small moments matter. The big moments matter. It all matters. Because it might be all we have left. Because nothing matters anymore. 

I've turned into an optimistic nihilist or a nihilistic optimist. Or I guess I should say I've shown that I never stopped being that. I just used to pretend to be more purely optimistic. Or at least I used to pretend to myself. Brent says I've never really changed and that anyone who knows me would say that optimistic nihilist is pretty much who I am. I'm kind and believe people are usually trying their best but are still mostly assholes so fuck those guys. 

So the goals are on hold while we all just focus on survival.

Mask mandates are being lifted, people have settled into their hardened vaccine or anti-vaccine camps. 

Omicron cases are fading but the virus lives on.

I'm hopeful that we are into the endemic life adjusts to normal phase, but I was hopeful about that last year the first time mask mandates were lifted and the Delta variant came out to play. So...hopeful but not positive.

I'm hoping that Putin doesn't completely lose his mind and use his nukes.

I'm hoping that the invasion is pushed back and the Russians don't continue to carve up Ukraine and Ukrainians. 

I'm hoping that the Republicans and the Libertarians that have spent decades preaching that caring for others as much as you care about yourself is weakness, fail. I'm hoping that somehow through the end of the pandemic, the devastation in Australia and other parts of the world from extreme weather and fire events, the threat of nuclear war and any of the other catastrophes we have brewing we end up in a world that considers what others need as well as our personal needs when making decisions. 

I'm hoping. But you all know how I feel about hope. 

It's what you do when there's nothing left you can do.

Because we can't really do anything. 

Nothing matters.

Everything matters.

And we March on...

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. 

And How Did We Do?

End of the year wrap up time. 

I decided to go back into full tilt goals for 2021 hoping that made the year a little better than 2020. And because I was full of optimism for 2021 at the end of 2020. I mean vaccines were approved and starting to roll out, things were going to go back to semi normal. I mean what could happen?

Well, Betty White died today. Eighteen days away from her 100th birthday big deal celebration that everyone was really excited about. So yeah, that's 2021 for you all wrapped up in a giant sauerkraut bow. 

But I still rolled with a lot of goals so let's see how they went.

Actually? Pretty good. For me, on a personal goal filling level.

Reading, I was aiming for 84 books and when I finish the book I'm reading right now it will be 88. A little more but a clean break between years, which I LOVE.  I also finished the Discworld series and the two essay collections of his that I had on the list. Check and check and bonus end of year check.

Writing, so this was  mixed bag but mostly positive. I wanted to write 147 blogs total and 42 of those being fiction. When I publish this one I'll be at 149 total and 42 of those were fiction. So that's a check and a check. The boo bag part is that I had been planning on three total submissions, two contests and one other. That just didn't happen. I thought I might come in with a last minute push but instead I realized I don't really want to submit anything right now. I am not sure if the drive to be published and validated by an outside source is completely gone or not, but at least for now I just don't want it anymore. It's not important to me. So though I missed the gold star check for my 2021 goal I don't feel that badly about it. These goals are supposed to help me learn and grow and get better, that's a learning thing for sure. 

I wanted to shop less on Amazon. I did. I went from 113 orders to 91. Which isn't a ton less, but it's less, if you take out the groceries and gifts for others (Amazon still makes that much easier, gift cards or delivery off of their wish lists is super convenient and that's where they get you) the number drops all the way down to 40. That's a significant drop. So I'll keep working toward that knowing that it might be almost impossible for me to completely abandon them as they've got so many businesses just using them as their store front.

Flexibility. This was metaphoric and literal. I made sure to include a few nonfiction books by and about people who have much different life experiences than I do, and a few fiction as well. Which isn't unusual for me, but I made sure this year to make a special effort to look for authors and books in groups I felt like I didn't really know enough about. So that was the metaphor part. Be more flexible in my thinking. Embrace these kids today and their changing world view. Try to understand instead of getting rigid in my though patterns. I'll keep working on it.

The literal was adding some more stretches into my workout routine. That was successful as well. Still need more, so it will show up tomorrow, but I did make progress. Inches of reach were gained. 

Which leads us to fitness. I had two things here. I was going to finally try that elimination diet to see if it helped with my joint pain and I wanted to lose 21 pounds. Well I did the elimination diet which we all know how that went. And because of it I lost the weight as well. Full disclosure I'm at 20.3 pounds down as of today, but all month before this last week I was at 22 pounds down so this is a temporary Christmas yummy treats bump that will go away again in the new year. 

I did Daily Gratitude, Picture of the Day and Daily Calm in January, February and March. I wasn't sure when I set goals if I was going to do them all year, and I didn't. I did discover that the daily meditation just didn't really float my boat. All of the benefits you are supposed to get, I just didn't get extra. I realized that though I don't do a formal meditation practice I've been meditating in my own way for a very long time. I just didn't call it that. So that's good. It takes the "I can't meditate!" stress away. I can. I do. I just don't call it that. Daily Gratitude and Picture of the Day lost their interactive shine. People either aren't seeing them, or they just aren't commenting like they used to so I didn't feel the need to keep them up publicly. And since I set them up as a temporary goal I felt no pain in dropping them.

So 2021 was a year of most things checked off. Most goals reached. The biggest ones for sure done. 

And it still felt like a mess of a year. In fact it just felt like 2020 stuck around for another go round. 

I made the joke last year that 2021 sounded like 2020 Won and now we are headed into 2020 Too so...

But that's not actually fair. I mean we did have an easier time of it. No family deaths. No real sickness. We all got vaccinated without any major side effects. We had a family vacation to Disneyland that was fun. We've gotten to spend all of the holidays together without the fretting that we had last year. Omicron is here and we are all pretty sure at some point we will catch it but we aren't worried, as we are all vaccinated so it should be really mild if we do. So 2021 was okay. We just need to step back and see it. 

But I'm still hoping that 2022 is better. 

February Now One Day Shorter...

I told Brent this morning that we are going to miss seeing our last day in Disney World Memories on the On This Day Feed because they happened on the 29th. No 29th this year, no flash back memories. Which, in a way, is good I guess. We can use less of this Covid-times time. One day closer to the end of lockdowns and quarantines and no vaccines right? That's how this works isn't it?

Sort of...

So how did my now smaller sized February go as far as my pretend goals? Or real goals that I make up. How does that go? Real Pretend Goals? Pretend Real Goals? Whatever...

It was actually a fairly decent month as far as hitting numbers goes. 

This will be the 13th blog which is the exact number I needed to average each month to hit my overarching goal for the year so that's nice. 

Reading is a funny one. I read more this month and ended up 4 books behind to the 3 behind I was last month...what? Still fine. I'll catch up at some point with a stretch of quick reads. But I do have a few non-fiction ones that I've been catching up on that are slower paced. Just the nature of non-fiction over fiction. 

I did the 20 Daily Calm sessions. Still just not enjoying them. Not sure they are doing me much good either. It's interesting they seem to be geared toward people who suffer from anxiety. Which makes sense, right? People who are stressed out and anxious are the ones that would be most inclined to looking for ways to help with that. For me? I'm just looking for help with a busy brain. Not an anxious one. But I'm just not sure I will ever get there. And I'm starting to think maybe it's not even a destination I should be aiming for. But I'll give it another try before I decide for sure. 

POD and Daily Gratitude were all checked off (or will be at the end of the day). Like I said that one for me starts a rhythm and it's hard to just stop so I really am feeling like I've committed myself to a year. We will see. Definitely hard to do when we are at home all the time. But the cats are always up for a photo so that's a help. 

The flexibility was a good start. Just a reminder to add it back into my workouts helped start loosening things up. Next month (spoiler alert) I'll actually take some measurements and have an actual goal there. 

Actually did the elimination diet that I talked about. And it has made a difference. I think it's part of what helped with flexibility as well. Less pain makes it less difficult to stretch out. The ten days wasn't as hard as I thought. Had a set back with nightshades that was unexpected to me but not to anyone else. I'm not sure why Michael Symon didn't include them in his eliminated foods as they seem to be a trigger for a lot of people. But anyway...the ten days wasn't horrible. I did feel better at the end. Less pain for sure. Less stiffness.

I've been using my pointer finger on my left hand as my main gauge. Though my knees and my feet follow along with it. But when I started I couldn't bend that finger first thing in the morning. It was that stiff and swollen. And it hurt. It hurt all day, even when I worked the stiffness out of it by mid morning the pain was there all day. So as I've added things in that has been my guide. How does my finger feel in the morning? And because it hasn't been a smooth everything is perfect transition back all I've added so far is meat and the first day of dairy. I do two days of an added item, then a day off going back to the base diet, then add again. Chicken, pork and beef and one day of dairy is all I've managed. Chicken I had a slight reaction to. A little swelling and a little pain. Nothing catastrophic for sure, but I was still surprised when it happened. I mean, chicken? Really?  Pork was totally fine. The first day of beef was fine the second caused what I'm describing as a warning. I was slightly puffy the next day, and there was like an echo of pain. If that makes sense. It didn't really hurt but it was on the verge of hurting.

So meat is going to be a not two days in a row thing for chicken and beef. But pork is fine. Which is fine, I want to look at a way of keeping the calories lower and the vegetables higher anyway. Because I've lost 8 pounds so far and though I know I'll probably put a few back on in the short term I'd like to keep this trend going and lose the rest of the weight I want to for the year. And eating no meat, dairy, flour, or extra sugar and not drinking alcohol has definitely pushed that along. BUT...I really am not happy eating this way. Or not eating this way. So I need to find a good balance. 

But I'm still adding things back in so I don't really know what the end product is going to look like. Tomorrow I'll get the final read out on dairy and take a "clean" day. Then I'll add flour for two days. Then a clean day. Then the slow roll out of the nightshade brigade to see if maybe it was just one or two that caused the issue. 

So what am I looking at for March?

Well finishing the elimination test that's clear. And more of a challenge than you would think. As I mentioned, I really don't like eating this way. I love food. It's part of my enjoyment in life. And now that I feel better I have the voice in my head telling me that it wasn't REALLY all that bad...but it was and I need to finish strong so I don't have to start all over again. 

Flexibility I'm going to try for an increase in my reach of 1/4". I honestly have no idea if that's a soft or strong goal but it seemed like a good idea when it popped into my head so that's what I'm going for. I'll do baseline measurements tomorrow and go from those. Seated stretches, knee twist to the ground and reaching for my toes. 

Reading. I'll just keep plugging along. It's a yearly goal so I'm not sweating it yet.

POD and Daily Gratitude, like I said, I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up in it for the year but I am not holding myself to that firmly. But for now, March is on. 

Daily Calm. Hmmm....I'm going to give it one more month but I think three times a week this time. So 15 times in March seems good. 

Writing. I mentioned this earlier this week. I'm going to do a fiction push. Forced March Fiction Month! (still makes me laugh) and I've settled on 12 pieces as the goal. I am still looking for prompts and found a website yesterday that does mini-contests with their prompts so I might even knock off one of my submission goals for the year as well. Wouldn't that be nice? Now if I do submit to them that means it counts toward my fiction goal, but you might not see it on the blog until later after they reject me. You'll just have to trust me that I reached the goal even if you've only seen 10 pieces by the end of the month. 

The schedule kind of went out the window in February and March it will be a little wonky as well. I'll be honest when all of my will power is going toward what I'm eating there isn't a lot left for rigid planning and I'll have a week where I'm adding in an extra out of the house block of time later in the month and I want flexibility there. So...I'll try that scheduled again in April and see what I feel I need as far as focused time. So far things are still moving along, but just at different times. 

So there's February in the books and March laid out. 

Three more months until Brent and I are eligible for the vaccine and hopefully everything shifts again. Though only slightly on the hopefully part. As much as it's been a hassle at times, it's also been a lot easier to plan and schedule things like cooking at home with Brent's commute being 3 minutes instead of "who knows? let's guess. don't burn dinner!"

Good luck to us all. 

And keep wearing those masks!

Eliminate Update...

So the ten day elimination cycle is over. Phew! Already learned a small piece of what is causing issues. Nightshades. Just don't know if it's all of them, someone of them, volume of them, I know none of that so that will be a stretch of trying to figure out as well. Just another week of adding in at the end of the original plan. 

But for now I'm at the end of the full elimination; so what happened?

I'm not completely pain free. That did not happen, which is a bummer. But I do have significantly less pain so that's good. So I'm better but not all better. But honestly, better at all is good. Right now it's just my old standby areas of pain. The toe I wrecked quite a few years ago, my Achilles tendon that has been an issue since my twenties and the added new one, my left pointer finger. But the finger is tender now, where as before the elimination I couldn't bend it in the morning at all. So a little pain is a step up. Age is fun...

I lost 6.2 pounds in ten days. Right? Now, I know that's not real weight loss, it's due to the really low calories while I was eating a smaller handful of foods. And I know I'm eating too few calories right now. I can feel it in my energy levels and my workout performance. But I will hopefully be able to keep the calories in check as I add foods back in and not add the weight all back on. 

And then the real challenge right now for me is the adding things back in part. For the past ten days I've been following (with modifications) Michael Symon's book and plan. He had meals lined out and options for dinners and lunches and breakfasts. He also has sections of recipes for when you find out if something triggers you. Like dairy free recipes, meatless main courses, flour free, sugar free, all of that sort of thing but what he didn't have, and I didn't notice, was a plan for adding back in.

Or I guess I should say, he has a plan, add things in one at a time over two days. Which when I first read that I thought there was no way that would be enough time and thought I'd probably add a new thing a week. But then the nightshades incident happened and I realized, oh, well, this doesn't take long at all to realize it doesn't agree with you! So I'm following his recommendation of a new thing over two days. 

But no plan as in no recipes to build on the new items. No system for what to eat now. Like the meatless recipes might still have flour and dairy. So they don't work until you've added back in all of the things and know what you have to do without.

I'll figure it out, but as I was putting together meal ideas for the next few days I realized that I'm a huge creature of habit and a lot of my meals have multiple items I've eliminated. Like I'm having chicken tonight. Great. I'll do a stir fry. But make sure no sugar so no teriyaki sauce. I'm doing a pork loin over the weekend, no mac and cheese for a side. Beef on Monday umm...after two days of chicken and two days of pork I'm running out of things to pair! Like I said, I'm figuring it out. But it's a challenge. 

Assuming everything adds in nicely I'll be done with this part by the end of February. But if I get a reaction to something I'll need to take a step back and do a couple of days of the elimination to clear it all out. By the time March starts I will look at adding in the nightshades again. Or testing to see if I can add any of them in or if that's just a no. That's going to take a bit of time since I know that something in there is causing an issue. I will, of course, start with green chile and hope that that is not one of them. 

Then after all of that is done I'll have a drink. 

I know that sounds like a joke but the last thing to add back in will be alcohol. 

So I'm starting the second half of the process now. The first half was successful as far as noticing that there is an issue and already knowing one of the trigger areas. The second half looks daunting right now and I am so over it already but it's the actual important part so I will keep telling myself that over and over. And then when I have some more answers I will start designing a new way of eating. 

But right now? Looking at the weekend? I'm ready to toss it all out the window for a stack of pancakes or a breakfast taco...

*sigh*

But I will be excited for my chicken and pork instead. 

Soooo excited....

Updates...

So we went ahead and started the elimination diet I talked about. Brent doesn't really have any joint pain but he's doing it with me which is nice. But for ten days it's no flour, no meat, no dairy, no alcohol, and no added sugar. Today is the fourth day. 

I was expecting to be cranky and feel a little under the weather. I was thinking it would be like when we did Atkins and those first few days were rough. But I'm guessing since it isn't low carb that's why we aren't feeling icky. Hungry for sure, but not icky. 

I think, maybe, possibly, I felt a little better this morning when I woke up. But not enough to really say YES! THIS WORKS! But it's only the fourth day. Next week I'll know. And I'm not sure which way I want this to go. That yes, something I'm eating is causing my joints to hurt or no, it's not that. If it is food related then I will need to not eat that food. And I love food. 

Like really love it. 

Brent and I were talking about it last night, and how bummed I was not to be buying things for the snow days coming up. I have snow day foods I love. Fresh breads and soups and cookies. Then I said it was the Lunar New Year on Friday and there would be no dumplings this year, which there should be dumplings on the Lunar New Year. And Sunday is Valentine's Day and even though we don't celebrate the holiday it's always nice to get some chocolate on a good deal. I have special food for every event. I just get a lot of pleasure out of eating. 

If I had to choose I would say get rid of the meat. If it's meat then I could work around it I think. Cook meat for Brent and just not for me.

Dairy would be tough. I've done it. I was dairy free for over a year awhile ago. I want to say I did it for almost two, but can't really remember. I was trying to figure out what was triggering my adult cystic acne and dairy kept coming up as a probable culprit. Turned out it wasn't. It was a hormonal imbalance but...I tried. And I dealt with it. No fake cheese, those were just not okay. I just did without even though I missed it at times. I wasn't worried about sugar at the time so used Vanilla Almond milk in my cereal and it was super yummy. I did soy in my lattes (which considering it was a hormone imbalance turns out that was a HORRIBLE choice) and I got used to it, but never really loved it. Now I could do oat or almond even at Starbucks. 

Flour would suck. I love bread. Tortillas have already been the hardest part to not have. Yesterday I was hungry and that's all I wanted. But there are some substitutes I could do that would be...eh. But do able.

No alcohol would be a slight bummer but I've gone decades between drinks before so it would just be a matter of getting back OUT of the habit of having a drink now and then. It would be a lot more then than now. Brent would have to learn how to drink alone without guilt. But I know I can be completely sober without an issue.  

Added sugar is what it is. I've cut it out during this stretch (lots of fruit so it's not tough) and we only eat it on the weekends anyway so if I were to cut it back even more, which I know I probably should, that would suck at times but wouldn't be impossible. And especially if I have to cut flour and or dairy. Since added sugar comes in the form of baked goods and ice cream right now. Cut one of those and the other goes down. 

But I'm sort of hopeful that it isn't any of those. Because I love to eat. And I love to have a nice bourbon and ginger ale as well. 

But if it isn't any of those them I'm at square one. Is it just because I'm older? Is it just because I am heavier right now than I should be? I will have to go in to the doctor and see if she wants to run any tests or if she will just tell me "Hey, see this number? Lower it and then see how your joints feel." with the implied Fatty at the end. 

But that's where I am with this latest experiment. Just at the beginning. Not sure what the results are going to be. Not sure what I want them to be either so we will just see. 

Which is what experiments are right? Run it and see what you find out. A negative result is still a result.

I'm just not sure which would be more negative... 

More of the Same Plus!

Okay, so what am I going to do in February to work toward goals or add new goals?

I'm going to go ahead and carry on with POD and Daily Gratitude for another month. Those are both really hard for me to give up once I get going with them, so I might have committed myself to a year by accident, we will see. 

The Daily Calm/meditation piece I decided to look at hitting 20 days this month instead of trying to force it daily. Hopefully that works out for me. It's not my favorite thing that I do so it's very easy to push it off, I'm hoping that I didn't just give myself permission to skip even more. We will see...

I mentioned that we are going to try the inflammation elimination diet that I had planned on doing LAST year when we got back from Disney World but...Covid. But that starts next week. It's 10 days of no meat, no dairy, no added sugar and no bread. We will see if it makes any sort of difference. My joints have been SCREAMING at me lately and if this works then I will be thrilled. Unless it turns out it's dairy and bread that trigger the pain then I will be really bummed. But the first step is the elimination part then I'll start adding in the missing pieces one at a time. It will be interesting to see if it makes any sort of a difference and interesting to see if we do have food triggers if they are the same ones. 

My stretch goal this month is working on my flexibility. Hahahahahaha!! Get it? Stretch goal? Oh whew...so funny. Okay, maybe just me... But I am working on it. I am not measuring it very closely this month. Basically just starting out trying to loosen everything back up before I really push the gains. 

The writing, reading, fiction and submissions are set for the year so I am just working toward those end numbers. I won't write a blog every day, I worked out that I need to write 13 a month to hit my numbers so most weekdays with weekend makeups if I need them and I'm good. Which is nice. That frees up either Saturday or Sunday to not have to think about putting something out. Which should be a relief for you all.

The scheduled time that I started last month I shifted just a little. I turned a few of the particular times into merged time blocks with other things. Like (and I'm just putting all of this down and I don't really expect you to find any of it interesting, so that's okay) last month I had from 8-9:30 as a time for chores and 9:30-11:30 for working out, cooldown and showering. This month it's 8-11:30 for all of that. If I workout at 8 or still at 9:30 then that's just fine in the schedule. The reason for the shift was last month I would have my smoothie after my workout, and if I had it at 11:30 it counted as lunch. This month I will be doing that elimination diet which means that my smoothie does not make the cut and I will need to actually make lunch. And make lunch for me and for Brent so I need to shift the workout earlier to leave time for making lunch. See? So much more information about my life than you need. But the scheduled time seems to be working out. It gives me a frame for the day and also kind of gives Brent a heads up on what I'm doing when as well. 

Chores themselves are shifting days a bit. Trying to make sure I hit each room of the house at least once a week for cleaning. With running the sweeper on the main floor daily. Two cats with wooden floors makes that pretty much a need to (for me). And then I have a monthly list that runs along with weekly chores, like once a month I wash the filters in the vacuum and the sweeper, clean the fans, run vinegar through the coffee machine and things like that. And another list on top of that of special project type things that aren't monthly but do need done a few times a year and I pick up those and add them as a fit them in thing. This month it's tidying my pantry and shelves. 

I know, you are all really shocked that I live such a rock and roll lifestyle. Though, honestly, if you've known me for any length of time you already knew I did these sorts of things. I'm just really grateful that I have time to do them without having a full time outside job and a small child to raise. Because when I had those things I still WANTED to get these things done and would get super frustrated when there weren't enough hours in the day to do them. I'm glad to be past those years and wish I had had more grace with myself while I was in them. 

So anyway...

February is started. We will see how it goes!

And So We Come to the End....Of January.

So how did the Full Bore Goals January go? 

Not bad. 

Terrible. 

Really well.

Just depends on how you look at it. 

Let's see, I did write a blog every day. So that's really good. I also did my public gratitude mostly daily, I did have one day I thought about posting it but didn't so I had to do it the next morning. But still counts. I also did the daily POD (I need to do today's to have it count as all 31 days but I'll get it done). So those things went really well. 

The Daily Calm thing was a not bad I guess. I did not do 31 days of following their prompts, or 31 days of daily meditation. Some of the prompts just didn't mean anything to me. And meditating is a thing that will get pushed off the list even with scheduled time for it, I discovered. I need to find someplace to do it that is quieter. Which you would think in a house our size with only two people living there would be easy. Tig and Tux would let you know that maybe not... They are not fans of meditation. Even if I started it while they were sleeping they would seem to know I wasn't supposed to be paying attention to them so they would get into things. Which is all excuses that I could manage if meditating were more enjoyable to me. I know that too. I'll probably keep working on it for February. 

Weight? Okay so...I lost my targeted amount early in the month. Then gained it back. And a little more. I actually ended up January, well up. About a half a pound. Which is bad enough but when you know that I LOST ALL OF THE GOAL WEIGHT first and then gained it all back plus that half pound? Super fucking frustrating. I will also say, that logically I know it's not that bad. Why? Because I also am taking measurements as any pro weight obsessive will tell you to do. And I lost circumference from my waist to my knees. And my body fat was 1% lower at the end of January than at the beginning so the weight I gained was actual muscle from the increased workouts over the past two months. So yes, logically I can tell you that it's not that big of a deal. But you all know that when it comes to weight the logic train does not pull into my station...so it still really sucks.

I'm also behind by 3 books for my reading goal. I'm not really worried about that one. I was reading Obama's book to start the year and it was LONG and not a fast read so it slowed my pace a bit. But there will be plenty of fast reads in the year to make up for it. I've already read 4 books for the year and the first 19 days of it were just the Obama book so...I'm okay. I've finished another of the Discworld books and have the next one in the series queued up for February. Racing toward the end there. 

I haven't found any submission items yet, but I did write a couple fiction pieces so that made me happy. 

Buying fewer things from Amazon? Yeah, I think so. I have to figure out a way to track that that makes sense. I used them for four things in January. One was a donation to a charitable organization that had a wish list set up that would ship to them. The others were small things that I couldn't get shipped from someplace else and one item that their website directed back to Amazon to buy the product so... I also need to clarify that Kindle books aren't a thing I'm counting in my Amazon purchase slow down. And as Brent and I talked about, it's not a never shop from them, it's a shop less from them and make an effort to go direct when possible. So...yeah. I'll keep working on that. 

So January overall was decent. I'd give myself an A for a grade if I you caught me mid day, or a C+ if you caught me right after getting off the scale and realizing I hadn't meditated in two days...so you know it's eh to good. 

Today I'll work on what I want to do with February. I'll probably write that out here tomorrow. Every blog counts, donchaknow? I'm thinking about tweaking my scheduled time, I will probably shift some of that around now that I've spent a month seeing what works and what doesn't. I know we are going to do the inflammation test diet so that will be worked in there. I'm not sure about POD or Daily Gratitude. Weight and writing and reading were set at the beginning of the year so those will just be still worked toward. I'll probably try to get better about meditating as well. And also starting to work on flexibility. 

OH! And one last one! 

I was successful in not doing dry January.  Whew...

Working Those Goals...

 #DailyCalm | Believe in your capacity to change. You've got this.

That is the prompt today from Daily Calm. Calm is the program I've been using to try AGAIN to get the hang of meditation. I actually picked it up for the sleep stories and other sleep programs. Part of my never ending search to rewire my head so I sleep more. And as it's a never ending search and it's the way my head is wired you can guess how it turned out. 

But to get access to all of the good things on Calm you have to pay for their system. And once I paid I had to get some use out of it. So...trying again at meditating, and I downloaded their daily reminder calendar for January as part of my DO ALL THE THINGS KICKSTART!

Some of them have been really interesting little prompts. Some direct you to use parts of their program you might not have. Some are just little pep talks, like this one. Because we are halfway through January and this is where most people start dropping their resolutions. January 19th is the average day of quit. By that point most people are just done. The newness has worn off, any quick gains (or losses) have already been had and now you are in the slog. The realization that to lose weight you are going to have to KEEP eating the way you have been. To get stronger you are going to have to exercise ALL THE DAMN TIME. To not drink you have to still NOT drink. 

When you start it looks easy. When you are doing it day after day it gets to be a lot harder. 

And there is the point where you wonder why you even bother. I have battled my weight my entire life. I get it where I want it for brief moments in time and then...well I'm either under or more likely over again very quickly. So why do I keep trying? Why do I even bother? Why not just indulge in a life of bon bons and relaxation? 

Well, I've talked about it. Sure, vanity is part of it, but really it's health. If I get too heavy my joints ache. If I want to live the life I want to live I need to be fit and healthy. Right now that's the driving goal to undoing the weight gain and fitness loss from 2020 pandemic time. The 2021 pandemic time needs to be getting back in shape because it's going to end. The lockdowns will be lifted. And when that happens we're going to Disneyland. I want to be able to fit comfortably in the rides and I want to be able to walk around the parks without feeling like I am going to die.

And then at some point when we figure out who can watch the cats, we will go to Hawaii. I will want to hike and kayak and swim daily. And, most importantly, I don't want to have to buy a new swim suit. I HATE buying swimsuits. Yuck.

So I have an end reason. Which helps. But you do have to believe that you can do it. 

And it's not just the basic stuff, the weight, the eating better, the staying hydrated, the quitting smoking, the not biting your fingernails, not just those sorts of changes. But the big ones too. 

Do you believe you can change?

Really change?

If I believe in anything I believe I am constantly changing. And hopefully always for the better. 

Not the core of me, I think who I am is who I am. But the pieces that I pull around that core. If I learn something new I hope I incorporate it into who I am and how I act. If the world around me shifts and new ideas come forward I hope I am able to listen to them and act on them if they are good ideas. I hope that the person I am not is not the same as the person I was ten years ago and the person I will be ten years from now. If I am then I've become rigid and unchanging and that's not really living. What a shame that would be. 

Keep learning new things, keep working to make yourself the best version of you that you can be, keep believing that you can change, keep working towards a better world and belief that the world can change as well.

That's what hope is anyway isn't it?
The belief in positive change?

Well I hope we are all holding on to that hope right now. And I hope that it helps. We could all use some positive change right now.

Schedule Shuffle...

I'm writing at 8:30 instead of at noon because I need to do a schedule shuffle already. Which I knew I would at times and to be honest as soon as I laid out my "things that need done" I could see an issue. I want to make sure the office gets cleaned at least once a week and I can't really do that while Brent is working and my original plan was to get the housekeeping stuff done during the week so I didn't have to worry about it on the weekend. (breathe)

Anyway...

Kind of hard to clean the office while Brent is working so I figured he'd rather listen to me type for a bit than have me try and clean around him. So first shift, instead of writing during his workout on Fridays I will clean the office. 

But the other chore for Friday is mopping the floors. Impossible to do with the cats awake. So this morning chore time was a quick bathroom clean and now writing, hoping that they decide to take a big nap upstairs this afternoon. Though to be realistic, I think mopping is going to have to be a weekend chore while Brent can watch them downstairs or upstairs. Mopping with awake cats is an exercise in futility. 

Honestly, trying to keep the house clean with two cats is as well.

I'm finally over my little bit of guilt I felt when George died that it was easier to keep the house clean. It made me feel so badly to think that at the beginning. He was a puker as well as the cat hair everywhere. So puke to clean, cat litter dust to try and manage, cat hair in places that he never even went. About a month after he died and I realized my house was still clean on Friday from cleaning on Monday I was like, hey, this is kind of nice. And then I felt horrible for thinking it. 

Now I'm over that. It is nice to have a clean house that stays clean. Having two cats instead of just one is a ton more cat hair. They also get into everything. I mean everything. One of their favorite games is to take a toy and put in their water dish and give it a good soak and then bat that around. Water everywhere. Tig also likes to play with litter. He tracks pieces out into the hallway and then bats them around. It's pretty impressive how precise he is with a tiny little piece of litter, but it does make me feel like I live in a sty even though I JUST RAN THE FUCKING SWEEPER FOR FUCK'S SAKE!

They are a lot of fun, and obviously we love them dearly, and they are incredibly spoiled, but I do wish they were a little neater.

But other than that as the first week with a schedule comes to a close it was mostly successful. A little bit of bleed over here and there and I need to rebalance some days to spread the cleaning load out a little more evenly, but workouts are going well, the little bit of meditation practice is moving along, though I wouldn't say it's going well just yet. Even ten minutes of sitting quietly is difficult for me. But at least with the guided meditation I get my attention pulled back to what I'm supposed to be focusing on every once in awhile. 

(not even kidding just had to take a break from writing to clean up the water mess from Bunny taking a swim, sigh...)

I'm hopeful that I will get some fiction ideas here soon. I'm not actually behind just yet, I have ten weeks of no fiction built in to the year, but I'd rather be ahead than behind for sure. It's just been a week here in the United States so focus has been split. 

I'm so looking forward to a new boring president that you can go days without thinking of.

So here we are a week into 2021 and it hasn't been sunshine and roses, Covid cases and deaths in the US are still rising, though it hasn't gotten a lot of focus this week as we dealt with political uprisings instead. The current president finally admitted he won't be serving a second term, though he was back on Twitter this morning talking about still being around. But not at the inauguration. Which is fine, honestly I don't think anyone expected him to be able to there. My only worry is if Cult45 will also stay away. They tried one coup, it was a lame coup and mostly done for the selfies, but it was still horrible and if they try and disrupt the actual inauguration it could be even worse. 

How crazy is it to be concerned about such things? 

But that's also why my new schedule is good. It's kept me from doomscrolling the end of democracy. We might not be able to keep our House in order but at least I can keep my house in order.

Sort of.

If you ignore the cat hair and water puddles. 

It's A Process..

Since I am doing ALL OF THE GOALS right now one of the things I really wanted to work on and needed to try and do is schedule time. Now as you all know, I don't have a set schedule. Haven't had one in ages. And I normally really love that. 

But...

When you are trying to make sure you workout, and meditate, and cook dinner, and clean house, and write, and...well time becomes a thing. So I sat down and figured out a daily schedule. I did blocks of time. Like from 6-7 it's get up, get breakfast done and make smoothies. From 7-8 I'll finish my coffee and peruse my socials. 8-9:30 is round one of chores...and on and on like that. 

Right now we are in the noon to two block for writing. Just so you know. 

Now, I have absolutely zero thought that this is going to be hard and fast. Today there has already been bleed over from the workout/cooldown/shower time into my lunch. And I need to get bread started by 1, and the laundry is not a chore that fits into tidy time boxes, it spaces through out the day. So there will be days where time will be borrowed and moved from section to section. But I needed some sort of framework to set up the basics.

And who knows how long I'll stick with this at all. I mean I tend to rebel against rules, even my own. But I actually like it right now. Or at least the idea of it. But it is only day three of planning things out, and only day one of a weekday schedule so...

The biggest challenge I see is this time slot right here and now. The "I will write for these two hours every day" space. I scheduled it to run with Brent's normal workout time so my TYPE TYPE TYPE doesn't bug him and his conference calls don't bug me. But that's not always going to work. His schedule shifts as well. I might end up wearing headphones with some sort of white noise while I write. I've never been a music person while I blog or while I write fiction. I can be inspired by a song, and often am, for a fiction piece but I tend to write in silence. My voice is all the noise I can handle. But we are in the sharing times so I will adapt. 

But it isn't just the shared space and trying to work around that, it's the whole BE INSPIRED RIGHT NOW! I see this being the time frame that ends up borrowing from others quite often. Nonfiction is no big deal since once I have a direction on that I can generally do it whenever, but fiction? It's hard to be creative on demand but writing is almost always a priority so if a story comes to me I will shift things. I just need to be honest about the time I've shifted and make sure to go back to whatever I shifted away from. 

I also have the challenge of being more motivated in the morning to do things than in the afternoon. But I can't fit in EVERYTHING in the morning. Which is why chores got a split block. Some time in the morning, some in the afternoon. I also viewed the morning chore time as part of my creative process. Which, holy fuck, sound so pretentious...but it is. Not pretentious, part of my process. Cleaning is one of those things you can do without really thinking too much about it. Dusting isn't complicated. But once you activate that part of your brain it leaves the rest to kind of wander around and poke at things. I cannot even tell you the number of stories I've come up with while scrubbing a shower. Though I do often joke that it's probably the cleaning fumes...

Working out needs to be done earlier in the day rather than later as well. If I tried to push it to the afternoon I'd just keep pushing it away. I love being in shape and really don't care for getting that way. In the before times going to the gym every morning before dropping Brent off for work kept me consistent. And I thought about just doing a version of that, eat breakfast then workout before starting anything else, but I'm trying to make sure I get my smoothie in shortly after lifting weights and if I have it at 9 then I want a big lunch at noon. If I work out later and then have my smoothie around 11:30 I can survive with an afternoon snack instead. And since one of my 2021 goals is to lose weight, not doubling up on calories seems like a good idea. 

So round one of chores and the workout take the morning. And they really pretty much do. If I lift and do cardio that's a chunk of time, then cooling down and taking a shower adds a bit more to that. An hour and a half of chores before the workout starts and we are pushing into noon by the time lunch is over. And NOON IS TIME TO BE CREATIVE.

Schedules are so weird. 

But I'm trying. I like the idea of the framework, I like the idea of the structure. I like the idea of being able to fit in what I want to do and see what room I have left for other things.

Oh my gosh...

I am treating my daily life like I treat my vacations! 

Or at least before I succumbed to the whole unplanned beach relaxation days idea. 

I knew no good could come of doing free time on vacation...

And now it's almost one and laundry needs to be switched around and the bread needs to be started so my two hours of writing is closer to one, but that's okay. Like I said, it's a framework.

Guidelines...

I'm not so good with rules, but I think I can work with frames and guides. 

More Goals!

 Can you believe I actually forgot to list a few of my goals yesterday?

I know right? I listed so many how could there be more?

Well like a Ronco commercial just when you think you are done...wait there's more!

These are the sort of nebulous ones. The ones that I'm not sure yet exactly how I am going to measure them. I think that's why I forgot about them yesterday. There isn't a check mark I can tick that said today I did x...but I'm still going to work on these things.

First of the forgotten... Less Amazon shopping. This one is tricky. I love the ease of shopping on Amazon. Though the speed of shipping with the slow down from the pandemic that has sort of left the equation, yet they've still charge me the full Prime membership cost that should include the super fast shipping. No credit there. Which is part of my issue.

Amazon (Google, Facebook) have cornered markets. We could all see it coming but they had us. They hooked us by convenience and then they were able to squeeze out their competition. Why would I order something from someone else and have to wait two weeks for delivery when I could order the same thing from Amazon and have it tomorrow? But then something infuriating started to happen. You would order that thing from Amazon, your brand new Widget, and end up with a Wudget. Complain to Amazon and get the refund when it's returned but notice that the sale link for Widget is still up, knowing full well that what people are going to get is a Wudget. 

So many counterfeit products and so little give a fuck from Amazon. Because why should they care? Honestly. They get their percentage no matter what and a lot of people aren't going to notice that the reason the thing they ordered isn't exact is because it's a copy not the actual thing. Add that to the times they would welcome in a small seller only to watch what they were selling, steal those ideas, and then promote their own version above it. Just not okay.

And then I've have a few friends who have gone to work for Amazon and none of them have had good things to say. They are lured in by the promise of better pay and benefits and then find out that you will be getting those because they work the fuck out of you. And you better keep up because there are other people waiting behind you to get those "good" jobs. And I'm fine that some jobs are hard work, but I'm not fine when they want you to work like a robot while watching you with robots they want to take the jobs in the end run anyway all while bragging on how much better they pay. 

So finally Brent and I reached the point where we needed to accept that our desire for things RIGHT NOW was not a good enough reason to keep using Amazon as our primary shopping location. Yes, it's going to mean we have to be patient (not my strong suit) and in some cases it will mean still buying from Amazon, either because there isn't an equivalent that is out there able to be shipped or because the vendor themselves only works through an Amazon shop, but I am going to buy fewer things from Amazon this year. 

The next one sort of ties with the last one...More flexibility. It's not really supposed to be flexibility in thinking and patience, but that works too. But actually working on my flexibility. As I've aged I've really tightened up. Part is what I've focused on. I've spent more time with weights and less time on the mats but I hadn't really noticed until this year that my hip flexors and my back are just tight all the time. I've always had short hamstrings, but the rest is weird. I've been closer to hyperflexible than tight my whole life. It's reached the point where the tightness is uncomfortable and I want to work towards fixing that. I think I will be able to get a measuring tape out and mark some progress with this, but not sure. But more flexibility. Mental and physical.

And to work with mental part of the flexibility, I'm going to give mindfulness/meditation/relaxation another shot. I picked up the Calm app for one of their sleep programs (shockingly it didn't work for me) but they have a whole host of other things that look interesting and since I already paid for the subscription I might as well take advantage of the programs. That is part of the January #DailyCalm prompts I talked about yesterday. But I am hoping to use them to help get my focus back from the 2020 wander. 

And last one I forgot to mention! Remember last year when we were going to try the anti-inflammatory diet when we got back from Disneyworld? And then when we got back from Disneyworld the world fell apart? Yeah...well...I'm going to try that this year. See if either of us are having reactions to food. If we can feel better by eating, or not eating, certain things then that would be great. I think that will probably be February when we start that. First I want to clear out the cabinets and freezer so January will be a cleanse month. Not like a juice cleanse, but a cabinet cleanse. I hate the idea of finding out that yeah, dairy makes my joints hurt when I have a bunch of dairy in the freezer. Or meat. Or nightshades. Or what ever else I'm going to be wiping out. So we will eat it all first to prevent the waste. Then in February (or whenever I get down to not much left in reserve) we will do the program and see what we find out. 

I'm super torn on this one. Which is stupid. My joints hurt right now. Part of it is weight related, I know. And that's why losing weight is on the schedule for this year. But part of it isn't. My fingers are stiff and sore more mornings than not. That's not a weight thing. That's just arthritis. So if I find that by eliminating certain foods my body will feel better that's a good thing. Except I'm worried that I will be eliminating foods that I really like. Which is stupid right? Why in the world would I want to eat things that I know will make me feel bad? Well because sugar is delicious, Kyle...that's why.

But yeah...I know. 

So there you go. The extras. I didn't really forget them, just kind of. But now I've remembered and shared them. 

And today's Daily Calm prompt is:

Tell a friend about your goal and how they can support you. 

So consider yourself told and your support is the same as always, keeping reading my stuff and telling me I'm brilliant. Easy. (I'm kidding, I know sometimes pretending I'm brilliant is something you can only pull off because I can't see your face or hear your tone)

I think that's it for the 2021 ALL OF THE GOALS list. 

Again...Happy New Year! (It's really a weekend celebration at this point right?)