sade

I'm not dead yet! It has been an...interesting...two weeks since I checked in. My sister-in-law's kids (all three of whom live with my family), were diagnosed with pretty bad scabies. Rather than face the near-Sisyphus task of washing every piece of fabric in a house with eight people, we decided to abandon the house and live in a tent! Meanwhile, we hope, any scabies in the house will die from lack of host, and those on us will be taken care of by the two rounds of medicine. Of course, mother nature decided this would be a fantastic week for daily downpours, in between shots of heat wave. So all-in-all I haven't been doing the greatest. Been moving every day, and mostly keeping up with my health tasks. Nourishment isn't going the best. But I'm still here, and still limping along.

I'm doing OK this week. I posted my motivation on my rooted nook, and I've found that it's helped with eating. Exercise hasn't been a problen--I love my exercising, after I remember how great it is. I mysteriously forget it from time to time, and stop. Same with eating well. Sleep is probably going too well. My meds are making it so I can easily sleep ten hours at night, and take a midday nap.

Hi everyone! How are y'all doing on this week? If we last this week we get to go to level 1, right?! I didn't take the advice of posting my motivation somewhere, and I think it's come to bite me. I'm going to write it out tonight, though, and stick it on my tablet cover where I'll see it several times a day. One of the things it will say is, "Discipline is remembering what you want." That's a quote by David Campbell and I think it is absolutely true. But another way to look at it is, "There is no discipline, only love."

Hey, everyone! I've been kind of MIA, but I'm still here. Week two was all over the place with almost everyone in the household being sick. And then a surprise road trip to a neighboring state. For the Amulet of Movement I've been doing pretty well. Even on the road trip I got some in--we went to an amusement park and a few of the rides allowed you to control the spins and it took a lot of muscle and had me breathing hard! I've also re-started consciously pursuing non-exercise activity. Things like parking the car at the farthest corner of the lot at a store, and taking stairs and whatnot. Those things add up. On the Amulet of Health I'm also doing really well. Weak points are water and fish oil, though. I'm going to have to revise my goal with the Amulet of Nourishment. My mind is having some kind of block on this point, so to reduce pressure the goal is changing to include a freggie every time I eat anything. I'll still be reducing carbs, too, but it's not going to be "official." Yesterday I had a chance to go hiking around our nature preserve--I just love doing that! Here's a picture of me in my unabashedly-nerdy hiking outfit. The red thing in my left hand is the new Swiss Army Knife that is my birthday present (though my birthday isn't until next month). You will read about it in Sade's adventures shortly! (Though in Sade's adventures it's engraved with runes which say something else; the knife actually reads, "Amor vincit omnia," which is what's engraved on my wedding ring.

I went through my quote collection and found this one I think could apply for the goal of body confidence: "You have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens." --Louise Hay

I love to collect quotes (and poems!) so I'll be pulling out relevant ones here and there and posting them. "You have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens." --Louise Hay

I was kind of hoping that my allergy would be to sugar I have absolutely no problem avoiding banana temptations, because I know how serious the consequences are--I've often longed for having more of a direct consequence from overeating or excess sugar. Would make things so much easier, y'know? (Though avoiding foods for allergy purposes DOES suck a lot of times.)

One other thing to note...when I started eating lower carb this week, it felt like a coming home. Like I had some hot dogs with sauerkraut, sans buns. I know hot dogs aren't the healthiest thing out there, but it still felt good to eat them without the buns. Same thing for things like my bread-less Reuben sandwich. I find it very interesting that those things feel more 'normal' to me at this point, despite a really long break in eating right.

What workouts are these? The names sound intriguing! How has your week gone?

How has the week gone, Stephanie? You and I both have a bed/wake time goal component--I only had a problem with one bedtime and one waking time. I'm pumped about it! Have you picked out a class on Skillshare that you're starting?

Being an example for your (future) kids is such an important thing. I am very aware of that with my children, and it IS a big motivator. That's a big part of my motivation, as well. I hear ya about the reading time and the commute. I used to have a long bus ride to work--when that got cut out, for a few years I was doubting my identity as a reader! Could I really think of myself as a reader when I hadn't read more than two books in a year?! Thankfully I've been reversing that trend.

Body confidence is soooo important! What a great goal! Do you regularly skip breakfast?

I can definitely sympathize there. Recently I've been worried that the defining phrase of my life will be "wasted potential" because of seeing time slip away from what I really want to do. How did the rest of the week go?

I love the main quest statement! What a great way to think about it! And the life quest is inspiring, too, and the idea of adding that on to charisma really makes sense. I'm similar in my responses to success and finishing a cycle. This reminds me of a quote I really enjoy: "The artist must be an egotist because, like the spider, he draws all his building material from his own breast. But just the same the artist alone among men knows what true humility means. His reach forever exceeds his grasp. He can never be satisfied with his work. He knows when he has done well, but he knows he has never attained his dream. He knows he never can." --Rheta Childe Dorr I think we can be considered artists in working on our bodies and lifestyles :-) It is a fun process, indeed! And what's been fun for me is introducing other people to those recipes and they like them even more than the "real" version. Like, my favorite way to eat spaghetti now is with fried cabbage instead of the noodles. (The cabbage has to be cooked right, though.) I've had a few other people try it and they really enjoy it, as well.

Way to go on your quests! You are inspiring in keeping up with your challenges each day. The plank challenge sounds really fun, I'm going to look in to that. As well as the BBWW. I hope your rest day is as restful as you looked forward to!