Lou_be_Lou

47 blankets sounds fabulous. All of the warm.

Hi hi hi! Its good to be back - but I need to remind myself that some following is fine. Following all of the things is not needed........ Excited to be back. Last year was mixed, amazing bits, including a great trip to NZ, some fun music projects, interesting work work, great relationship (we're past the 2 year mark, which is massive for me) (somehow having someone to play with eats time), but a nasty bout of fatigue that I think I am finally utterly over. Life is good. How was your 2017? And how is the steam age yarn quest coming along???? I think the stochastic-ness of it would mince my brain - definitely like seeing the whole pattern in advance (which I can then add bits too [gotta love short rows for shaping]) when I knit.

If you want to do it, do it. Shifted cities within NZ (800km), then to Scotland (kind of a cheat shift as there are similarities, just not with the accent, and linguistically easy as a version of english is spoken in both countries). There will be hassles at both end of the shift - its an excellent chance to shed belongings, and inevitably you keep the wrong things, and discover that replacing other things is way more awkward than anticipated....... I certainly appreciated renting to get to know my new home town (well, buying was not an option at the time), but it gave me opportunites to try out different areas, and eventually settle. Random info - I shifted with two suitcases of stuff, followed by shipment of semi-essentials, leaving other things in storage for quite a few years. It was worth the storage/shipping fees. One thing that massively helped me was getting out and doing some community things soon after shifting - meeting people who have nothing to do with your work is incredibly useful. Creating a network of friends from different areas made me feel at home. For me it was also a sight unseen shift - so reading up about the area and town and local culture was incredibly helpful for deciding whether to go for the shift. A big shift, and a shift into a different culture (which it sounds like you'll be doing) is an amazing opportunity for adventure. It also can be an amazing opportunity to enrich your partnership with your husband - my parents shifted from NZ to Sweden for about 17 years, then headed back again - their shared new joint experiences really strengthened their marriage (I guess this could go either way - in their case it was a positive). 15 years on, I still miss regularly seeing people (friends and family) from nz, but am delighted to be living where I am, no regrets at all for my big shift. Good luck with it! How exciting.

Decent morning here - got up early-ish, so had time for yoga before work, slightly seized up from running yesterday, but yoga helped a lot. I'm starting to remember which muscles to be thinking about in the different positions. Loving the feeling alive effect of morning yoga. My other achievement was talking myself out of my "I could go for another treadmill session tonight" - no, that would be trying to do all of the things all at once. Plus, tonight is bass playing and hunting down documents for my tax return. Joy oh joy.

Yay! Many thanks for the warm welcome. And yes, it does feel a good bit like coming home. Now I just need to remember to not treat it like a hotel.

Absolutely yes, all of the support and all of the gradually making our lives better. I'm contemplating borrowing your idea of more fun for next time. Some routine first, then pad out the time around the routine with some fun. My 12 hours of being back feel pretty good so far! Yay.

But if you're still managing to meditate, then that is a win. And it sounds like you just need to get rid of your virus before doing Tai Chi. Take good care of yourself.

Bows, hides amongst the new students...... slightly mortified by gi straining at the seams. Yep, another reboot attempt. Life has been fun lately, all good except for excessive consumption, and inadequate exercise. Yup, the ever expanding Lou_be_Lou needs to do some decreasing. More to the point is that I'm unfit enough for it to be affecting day to day living. Big reason for action = wanting to be fit enough and strong enough for music and life things. Plus, I'm feeling like a lapsed martial artist, and nope, I say no to lapsing. Goals for the challenge. 1) stay well (= avoid all of the gluten and most of the dairy, and pace myself with increased exercise) 2) decrease = moderate decrease in nutrient dense foods and increased veges. I will weigh less that 77.3 kg (that was tonight's shocking discovery at the gym..... BMI temporarily = 29, which is too close to obese for my liking [yes, I know BMI = bollocks, but I feel much better closer to the lower end of the overweight scale, so I'm using BMI = 29 as a wakeup call]) by the end of the challenge. 3) enjoy exercise (I'm not setting a fixed schedule here, just get my butt moving most days, options include: yoga (at home and in class); walking, including stairs at work, thus avoiding work lift roulette (the number of lift stalls with folk stuck in it is well into double digits, step away from the lift); running (treadmill or outdoors); kickboxing on a sunday night; jujitsu on a tuesday, possibly thursday; and at home kickboxing practise. But I am not to try to do all of that every week because that will mean crashing and burning and becoming ill. Yep, I'm attempting to learn from past mistakes. 4) play that bass. Six days a week. Yes, really. I've managed an ok unofficial day one (first yoga for a long time, felt challenging, plus bass practise), and an ok official day one (pre-work yoga, lunchtime walk, evening gym with a slow 5k on the treadmill, and pre-work bass). I just need to not do all of the things all of the time. Slow and steady. Bows, gi creaking in complaint, leaves dojo.

Yay for your yarn quest - sounds superb! Plus, all of the fun.

In Scotland we even get 2nd January as a bonus hangover holiday. So no guilt for a malfunctioning start to January! I hope your cold is almost banished. Love your writing.

Mistr - SUPERB!!!!!! Massive congratulations. Absolutely delighted for you. Well done you. Have you stopped smiling about it yet?

OH wow, I'm liking the party! Doing ok here, not turning up enough in the thread - but i've definitely done more moving because of the challenge. Week two though - grrrrrrrr I was sick! Had two whole days in bed, then a couple more quiet quiet days to recover. Bass playing - moderate amount of playing, loads at the beginning, my 2 gigs of the challenge both went well. Daily movement - I'm on about a 30% success rate - but I do very much enjoy the days that I do it. Time in the mornings is an issue....... Martial arts - going well. Yoga, I've made it to as many classes as I could, and loved it. Running - complete fail. DUH. This week is an odd one - 4 sleeps until longhaul flights! This week is all about work deadlines and getting home sorted in anticipation of vanishing. Not sure when I'll manage to log back in..... But I'm getting to jujitsu on tuesday, and rehearsal tonight, and need to do morning exercises everyday - so those are my goals for the week for here. Next challenge? I'm not sure if i'll make it a formal one - but my running shoes are going longhaul with me, and I have to have to have to make up my 10 opponent kata for my next kickboxing grading - the challenge of it is that we're not meant to reuse any blocks, kicks or punches..... plus I want to use lots of different directions and the tidy freak in me (usually quite well buried) would love to be traditional enough about it to finish on the same spot I've started....... Thanks for the party!

Definitely good to be back - not massively participating in the forums this week (blaming schoenberg for this......) I'll feel more back when I'm actually reading about what other folk are up to, but sleep is a higher priority.... Oops. Absolutely! It seems more doable after the mahem of december. Absolutely re maintenance - being mostly uninjured is amazing! the mostly is my right big toe, I suspect its happy days are over..... Yay for arthritis..... but wow, doing daily exercises for it keeps it sooooo much happier than if I leave it be. Hello hello hello!!!!!!!!!! and YAY, because! Checking in. So far the week has been good. Bass playing everyday, and the music for saturday's gig is still seriously hard, but much of it is getting more playable. I'm always amazed by how much I improve with intense practise. But intense practise usually needs an element of panic before it happens, so I'm not beating myself up about not always managing it..... And my daily maintenance is done (yup, every day). Even clams. I just don't get them. And heel raises, which i get but hate. Plus, Sunday I practised kicking, tuesday I got to Jujitsu, and today, yoga. YAY. Definitely more exercise than for a while. All good.

Brief semi-place-holder. Yup I'm turning up this month. There's all sorts of life stuff (mostly good) trying to take all my time, but no, I'm going to 1) play that bass 2) actually do my morning injury prevention routines (back maintenance, dodgy foot mobility, arm flexibility) more mornings than not. 3) Exercise = make it to yoga, turn up at JJ and kickboxing, do some running All other things are optional (except for making it to work on time, that one is compulsory, oh and playing with cats, also compulsory). Am I all or nothing it again? Maybe..... But I do not like the nothing end of the scale. Good to be back, in preparation I got to the gym yesterday, and did my morning body maintenance today. Feels good. Now emergency practise (mighty hard music to learn by Saturday - a nice mix of Milhaud, Mozart and Schoenberg, but ouch, it is a challenge to learn).

hello hello!!!! I like your general things to remember! Oh yes, you need not do all the things for all the people. Sounds like you've been enjoying having more time to just be you.

Organisation helps massively! I think I need to figure out an easier plan Z for when life goes a bit tits up and cooking feels like far too much effort. It doesn't happen often anymore, and I've temporarily sorted this by baking some bread for my freezer, so that is very easy to just toast and throw something safe on top of, but having run out of my bread last week was bad. Mind you, I was also bad enough to remember that eggs are very very easy to cook. Just back from lunchtime yoga - most of the class was fabulous, a section of it was impossible! Oops. Weirdly it was only impossible on one side...... gives me ideas of things to work on. Frustratingly I can't remember the name of the impossible bit, which sometimes helps with finding related poses that will help build up to the challenging bits..... all good, feeling about 6 foot tall after yoga. YAY.

I'm still here! Still going. Had about a week of being a bit bleugh. Oops. Made a classic mistake of not having chicken soup in the freezer. I'm not sure if I then compounded not being great by eating some convenience food (still gf, but all a bit more processed than really works), or if it was always going to take me a week to recover...... or if I went from recovering straight into a bit of a virus. Anyway. Now doing much better again. Have managed footcare and backcare most days. Some bass practise (not helped by setting my calendar to october, so my sticker reward record is a bit messed up - DUH!). New bass toy is glorious. YAY! Though the temptation is to use all of the effects through the effects loop, apparently there is a moderate middle ground? Had about six days of not moving much, with one day of a lot of walking in the middle. Yesterday got to my first yoga class of the semester with the usual glorious instructor - YAY, back to yoga as we know it!!!! It was great. I'm sore, but inspired. Tonight I got to jujitsu - good fun. Night night. It feels good to be starting to recover from last week.

Ok, wiggle room required. Since my last update I've managed, 2 x bass playing, 1x footcare, 1 x backcare. But I had a small procedure at my gp's and it wiped me out - I hadn't expected it to zonk me - so I've been cancelling things - had a sick day yesterday, didn't get to jujitsu tuesday or tonight, bailed from jazz tonight. And you know what, getting de-zonked matters way more. So I'm taking a free pass, I'll exercise if I feel up to it, and if not, no guilt. I want to do backcare and footcare tomorrow morning because they're a good way of calibrating in the morning, after that, I'll just play it by ear. On a more positive note, I got a new toy today - I've been eyeing up Radial Tonebone Bassbone V2 for ages (website here:http://www.tonebone.com/bassbonev2.php), its a bass preamp, but with amazing features like a pzb booster which changes the signal level and impedance from piezo pickups (which I have on my jazz bass) to make it more compatible with amplification, and an effects loop that you can blend with the unmodified input (wet/dry mix) - anyway - I've been wanting to buy something like this for years, finally spotted this on-line months ago, finally was paid for some work that meant I could splash out. First reaction to it - wow, I don't sound soggy through my amp. The sound is crisp and clear, and cool sounding. And that is before I even start playing with the effects loop. Money extremely well spent. YAY for new toys!!!!!

Aggggghhhhhhh - i'm normally about 90 minutes from edinburgh, but I'm away that weekend!!!!! Just AGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!! Sodding typical......... Have you booked flights? YAY for setting out your epic quest.

Superb!!!! Your training course sounds incredible and helpful and inspiring and all of the good things. Also brilliant that your knees coped so well.

Work and sleep are both very important, if sometimes mutually incompatible......... yep, not helpful, but it sounds like you're doing good at focusing on them both.

They are very good books though! Just saying. Butz zey kept me avake, Bekause I hadz to know vat happened nexkt...... Vich deveats ze purpose! Ja?

Oh my word - take good car of yourself - loads of kitty cuddles required after that! Glad that you're ok - thats the important bit - phew for it being at a slow speed. Yep, you definitely need some self pampering after a shock like that, or go and hit things, or a combination of the two. Wowser. Good luck with the insurance.

Car tetris! Oh yes.

I'm very happy to have swapped bass playing for kayaking - and thats exactly why I like aiming for close to practising every day, but with wiggle room - this way, I haven't failed at a goal and have no guilt for what was a mighty fine day. This week is going ok. 2 x backcare and footcare. Loads of bass playing yesterday (today's happens later). Rest day from big exercise yesterday (oh I enjoyed this) And I've been for a 5k run this morning. YAY.