I posted on facebook that I feel like I should be better at some things than I am and so I am going to focus and do my best – said for perhaps the 47 hundredth time….
First up: a daily schedule that builds in some mindfulness skills to help me accept me more. I’m actually going to a weekly class right now to help me learn some skills around being able to step back from stressful situations and not go into my own little spirals all the time.
Also some general medical stuff: Since Edgar joined us I’m definitely walking more every day which is great. I also need to follow up on a referral for a sleep study as well as putting some thought to some more focused activities than “walking the dog.”
Also important: thinking about what I need to do to decrease the stress I put on myself (and yes, I know I put it on myself). So one of the things is money, obviously. So I went back and found the #MoneyMasterClass that Gail Vaz-Oxlade did on twitter back in 2020. I’ll be doing that as I can – so sometimes more than one task in a day and other times skipping a few days in between.
Another is the house – I like our house but it’s so much to keep on top of and clean and stuff. So I have a household planner that I’m going to try and stick to as well.
I guess it’s a sort of “fuck I’m turning 50 soon” level of motivation.
For me one of the fun parts of trying to do something again is going back and re-reading what I did the last time. So in August 2021 I wrote this blog post about values. And you know what? It still stands. I’ve read and re-read it and I think now I couldn’t really add or say anything any better.
So there we go. I dreaded writing this for a while and after reading and reflecting, I’m done. Now where is that meme…
with thanks to the US National Park Service
Relationship with self series – Calm
I also listened to the first session on the calm app in a series called “Relationship with self.” There are 15 sessions in the series – about 10 minutes each.
The first is called “self-trust.” It is about the importance of trusting yourself and how that can seem so hard to do when all you see when you look back are the mistakes you’ve made over the years. So instead the idea is to to try to look at the good choices too. You’ve made it this far; you’ve avoided problems; you’ve started this journey etc.
So that’s my lesson for today. Sometimes it’s not enough to not focus on the bad, sometimes you need to search for the good.
A few years ago (2016) I signed up for NerdFitness. It looks all different now but I signed up for a lifetime plan so I still have access to the basics that I want, and need, right now.
I don’t know if these posts will make it on the blog or not but I definitely needed a place to also type out what I was doing, along with my little notebook.
So here’s the plan: on Sunday 27 August I will step on a scale and I will take all sorts of measurements. I have a chart in my notebook for both. Measurements will be redone every two-ish months. Weight will be redone every two weeks. I’ll see how that goes.
The chart for measurements is complete – it’s just boxes to fill in.
The chart for weight is gonna be a dot graph. So the X axis represents the dates – every two weeks from 28/8 to 29/1 fits on a single page of my notebook (this is gonna change though; I want a big enough notebook for 1 month of lines on a page so I will have a longer time scale for this graph too; I’m gonna pick up a new notebook as soon as we’re home). The Y axis is gonna be the weight.
Petty annoyance: I prefer thinking in KG but my scale is in pounds BUT now I figured out how to switch it to KG. So now the petty annoyance is just going to be that it seems like everyone else in the world thinks in pounds for weight. I’m still gonna stick to KG. So I’ll fill in the Y axis with whatever I weigh on the 28th and then each line will either be 0.5 of a kg or a kg – knowing I can put the damn dot for the weight anywhere in there.
The next is supposed to be finding my “Big Why” – I’m supposed to find the motivator for changing what I’m doing. The idea is that articulating the reason(s) will help when you get stuck: “Those who have a ‘why’ can bear with almost any ‘how.” The more personal, the more “deep” the better or something. So not just “It’s good to be healthy” – of course it is, we all know that but it’s not enough to have had me change up till now so it’s definitely not gonna be enough going forward.
And then I’m supposed to share the big why(s). I’ll have to think about how best to do that. I have a lovely group of online friends I’ve known, heck for over fourteen years now, and I have shared my start with them. We’ll see if I get around to sharing that part publicly or not. But for now, I guess it’ll suffice to say I’ve come up with a couple of Big Whys and shared them with Toby and a small group of friends.
Then my plan for the week from a health perspective:
– find time for mindfulness every day
– move a little bit more than yesterday
– drink water and take my iron & vit d
I did write all that up there before August 27, 2022.
And I started off well.
And then life happened and Toby went to BC for a couple of weeks and I just did my best to get the basics done while he was gone.
So now he’s back and I’m gonna re-start and so I am going to post this now as a way to help keep me accountable. By Sunday October 2 I want to re-read my notes from back in August and see how I can plan out a re-fresh starting on October 11 – yes, a Tuesday but that’s when I will be back from almost a week in PEI!
September! … It has warmth, depth, and colour. It glows like old amber.
– Patience Strong
Well, even in my very late 40s there’s something about September that makes me think of new starts, new beginnings, new possibilities. And, even for me, it’s been a while since September meant I started a new academic year. It’s fun though now to see how excited Q is for a new school year to begin! So even though it’s still August, today’s post is dedicated to September.
September also reminds me that rest is as important as activity to growth – the trees are starting to drop their leaves, animals foraging in earnest, the sun seems less strong.
I took most of the summer off from everything really – my folks were away a lot, #PandaCat died, we got a new puppy, house stuff was happening etc. – and so I was content to just coast really through July and August and now towards the end of August my brain is getting excited about structure and schedule and habit-forming.
So habits – the last time I did this was in June when I tried to think of a theme to work around. I had all these grand plans but only kept a few going. And in reviewing them now, a couple are still important and so I’m going to start again with them in mind.
SELF focus for September:
❶ schedule – a day
❷ mindfulness – being present
❸ health – menopause
Schedule: I am going figure out what I would like “a day” to look like. Three different days actually: in-office work day, WFH work day, non-work day.
Mindfulness – just something I’m always working on; whether it’s a bit of reading about stoicism, the Calm app, yoga. Something.
Health – read the damn menopause book. That time is creeping up slowly but surely and I really want to be sure I have some sort of idea about what’s going on. We don’t talk about this stuff enough and I need to learn.
Also for health – I had an appointment with a specialist clinic for weight management and my own doc as well. I am waiting for a referral to a sleep study and in the meantime I’m going to start walking more in general and focusing more on my health.
HOME focus for September:
❶ minimalism – organize/declutter
❷ mindfulness – being present – family-sized 😉
We live in a fairly large house. The problem with this of course is that we acquire enough stuff to fill the large house. And then some. This will really probably be the focus every month for HOME but key tasks for September for decluttering:
① Lisa’s Stuff – organize jewellery; what do I want to keep; offer the rest to family / friends and then sell / donate what’s left
② Q’s Stuff – this was going to hopefully be done over the summer but we never quite got there. So we’re still going to work on getting everything out of Q’s rooms and really clean and maybe repaint them etc. We’ll continue to do a bit every day and then hopefully over one of the weekends between now and Thanksgiving we’ll get the big stuff done.
③ Art – hang more of the art I love and offer up the stuff we no longer adore.
And a mindfulness focus too. I’m going to try and encourage us to each pick an activity to do sometime in September together – whether it’s walk in the park or a movie night with popcorn on the pull-out bed. Sort of like a “family date.” Wish me luck ????
Sometimes I wonder what the librarians might be thinking...
And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days.
James Russell Lowell
I seem to always love the idea of planning but then, stress hits and my most well-worn response is avoidance. I plan to get things done and then they don’t and the next thing I know it’s bedtime and well, that’s about it really.
Yesterday (June 4) there was a “Daily Jay” on the Calm app about “time confetti“; about how little things add up to disrupt your plans and goals and break up your day and cause irritation. Prioritizing is definitely not something I am good at – but it’s comforting to know I am not alone and that there are so many external factors influencing this that I have no control over at all. Thankfully my work is one of those places that really is not there when it’s not supposed to be there. I don’t get messages on my personal phone etc. So that’s terrific. Work is also flexible enough that when I need to take breaks during the day, that’s fine, the work day doesn’t have to be precisely 9 to 5 but also understands that work is not all consuming.
confetti 😉
Okay – so back to trying to plan, think about what’s important, not necessarily going off on all sorts of new and fun directions. I mean, new and fun directions are great. But I don’t have to follow the path RIGHTNOWTHISVERYINSTANT. I can make a note, and follow up later.
One of the ways I thought I would do this would be to think of big themes for the month and if something pops up that fits into the theme – yippie! and if not, and it looks cool, I can make a note and maybe use that to come up with another month’s theme.
THEMES FOR JUNE
There are some easy ways for my brain to group things and also a few topics I want to learn more about which themselves have lots of subheadings so the big overall groups are:
SELF
OTHERS
HOME
NATURE
SELF focus for June:
❶ schedule – a day
❷ mindfulness – being present
❸ health – menopause
Schedule: I’m trying to figure out what I would like “a day” to look like. Three different days actually: in-office work day, WFH work day, non-work day.
Mindfulness – just something I’m always working on; whether it’s a bit of reading about stoicism, the Calm app, yoga. Something.
Health – read the damn menopause book. That time is creeping up slowly but surely and I really want to be sure I have some sort of idea about what’s going on. We don’t talk about this stuff enough and I need to learn.
Also move more. I have an appointment with a specialist about weight management and stuff also.
OTHERS focus for June:
❶ reading – neurodiversity
❷ support – volunteering? politics?
The idea here is to not lose myself in my own little bubble. The Ontario election annoyed me to no end – the lowest turn out in years, maybe ever? WTAF?!? The cons killed people during the pandemic no less than if they had pulled a trigger on a gun and you will not be able to convince me otherwise. And they were rewarded with another majority? @#(P YPVDLI but rather than retreat to the safety of my world with only my people in it I want to do more.
Concrete tasks here:
① deliver egg cartons to the food bank
② bring black take out containers to the farmers’ market for re-use
③ chat with Laura about how to _do something_ about the politics stuff that’s frustrating me
④ read this: recommended by a friend:
HOME focus for June:
❶ minimalism – organize/declutter
We live in a fairly large house. The problem with this of course is that we acquire enough stuff to fill the large house. And then some. This will really probably be the focus every month for HOME but key tasks for June:
① Lisa’s Stuff – organize jewellery; what do I want to keep; offer the rest to family / friends and then sell / donate what’s left
② Q’s Stuff – a big goal for the entire summer is to get everything out of Q’s rooms and really clean and maybe repaint them etc. So we’ve got to start whittling his stuff down too
③ Art – hang more of the art I love and offer up the stuff we no longer adore. This has already started which is great.
NATURE focus for June:
❶ birds – pigeons
❷ tree – northern red oak
Y’all know I’m weird right? I wanna learn more about birds and trees but I keep going off on all sorts of tangents and, while fun, it’s really not sinking in. So, thanks to a random chat with the wonderful Abby, I fixated on pigeons for June. I know nothing about pigeons but they’re everywhere. So I’m gonna learn about pigeons.
Sometimes I wonder what the librarians might be thinking…
Same with trees. There are a bazillion trees out there. So overwhelming to know where to start. But we just planted Tom in the fall – Tom is the name we gave to our northern red oak (Quercus rubra) – so that seemed like a good place to start.
