Koaladle

[Koaladle]

I'm here with the Rangers because the theme of the mini spoke to my very soul. 

 

I was medically retired from military service a couple years ago. While it was a relief to get out, I lost my discipline, self worth, and confidence; I gained a ton of weight, went through a really bad depressive period, and am only just making actual improvement with my health. Recent recovery efforts have made some genuine, long term changes: I ditched sodas (for seltzer, tea, and regular water), am eating smarter, and have had a great month following a schedule I made for myself. After the two years I've been at Nerd Fitness, something is starting to click with something else and I'm ready to write up--and follow through on--this challenge. 

 

 

Here's what I have going right now, along with how I want that to evolve:

1) A Google calendar schedule with notifications. This is awesome because it is so easy to ennui your day away as a housespouse. 

• This is a great tool to see what I need to do for the day, but I really want a place where I can take notes, doodle, or really highlight an achievement. On good days that's "whoo, personal best!" and on rough days, "I PUT ON PAAANTS". Sometimes successful pant wearing holds more weight than folding ten loads of laundry and I want to give that proper recognition. The goal is to buy a bullet journal and use it every day.

2) I hydrate really well and stay conscious of what I'm eating (most of the time). Me and my enchanted rose sippy cup thing hang out a lot, and when I go out to eat (frequently, lately, because hurricane recovery nightmare process of doom with extra demonic laughter), I keep an eye out for the healthier option.

• I want to start actually calculating my calories again and track that in my journal. What fell apart over the last few months in that all my ways of tracking progress are on four different platforms. It was an ache in the rumpus to try and update on the thread when I have but one screen and six tabs of information open.

 

3) I have a schedule for my week and I follow it (mostly)

• The reminders going off in my phone are a big help. My phone doesn't notify me of anything but calls, texts, and reminders so I'm not overladen with demands on my attention. However, winter is coming (Florida is a little slow with that) and it brings SOCIAL OCCASIONS! I need to make sure that late nights, the consumption of Seasonal Adult Beverages, and other festivities don't interfere with following the schedule, or if things get shifted around I need to make sure I'm following through with the work when I commit to it. 

 

But where are the workouts? Dietary changes? KOALADLE THIS FORMAT IS INSANE!

Weirdest rage gif I've ever found, enjoy

It's all in the calendar:

MWF, workouts (which I'll track in the journal and make progressively harder; I've been keeping a mental tally but I want it on paper)

MTWTF, self care (anything from getting a nap, a hair cut, reading a book, whatever. It's a chance to check in and tweak the day for what I need)

MTWTF, creative outlet (not only is it fun to do, but on rough days I still have something to show for myself, to myself)

MTWTF, do chores (a housespouse's work is never done! I have to work at least two hours, but usually I'll get started and find other things to do)

SMTWTFS, eat with family (this is a combination of "can't eat if you don't cook" and making sure my spouse and I spend time together every day)

 

These are responsibilities I have as the housespouse. My family relies on me to do the necessary and mundane, so I need to have the discipline to run this household with pride and efficiency. I know those traits are in me--I was a squared away sailor from my quarter bouncing sheets to my mirror shine boots not long ago. 

 

 

 

[TGP]

that is the COOLEST rage gif I ever saw.

I love it!  I'm following along ofc

[Koaladle]

DAY ONE

Today only has one official line item (eat with family), so technically I'm not out of line for tracking my food, cuddling the dog, and napping until bedtime. However, in the interest of making tomorrow a raging success, I'm going to:

• check bike tires for air
• fill water bottle
• pick workout clothes (they get worn so frequently, I hang each outfit in a grocery bag rather than folding them)
• hydrate
• wash/dry remaining linens (in this wondrous, advanced modern era, this is a passive chore so might as well)
• make a meal plan (for grocery shopping tomorrow)
• make weekend to-do list (house schedule runs on the work schedule)
• buy the journal and get ideas about formatting

I'm also going to see if I can't finish up the purple stripe on this blanket I'm knitting (there's a lot of work to do, so that would be huge) and cuddle my puppy baby dog son sweetie face waggle butt because it's Sunday. Sundays are a little bit bracing for Monday but mostly for cuddles.

[Koaladle]

10 minutes ago, TGP said:

that is the COOLEST rage gif I ever saw.

I love it!  I'm following along ofc

 

RIGHT. It manages to combine two of my polar opposite, favorite things. The internet is magical.

 

[SkyGirl]

6 hours ago, Koaladle said:

 

RIGHT. It manages to combine two of my polar opposite, favorite things. The internet is magical.

 

 

DUDE YOU FOUND THAT WEIRD AL GIF

 

FOLLOWING IMMEDIATELY AND WITHOUT HESITATION

 

(Also, I really like your goals, and I think you're a badass for trying to keep on top of your health while also dealing with hurricane recovery. All my hats off to you.)

 

[Koaladle]

37 minutes ago, SkyGirl said:

 

DUDE YOU FOUND THAT WEIRD AL GIF

 

FOLLOWING IMMEDIATELY AND WITHOUT HESITATION

 

(Also, I really like your goals, and I think you're a badass for trying to keep on top of your health while also dealing with hurricane recovery. All my hats off to you.)

 

Thank you! We got back from Disneyworld, made hotel reservations in Georgia, evacuated within three days, spent a week in a hotel, came home to a  leaky roof and a collapsed ceiling, and camped out in the driveway (in our trailer) for two months. During that time, I got super restless; riding to the gym and having time to myself was nothing short of luxurious. I skipped my routine the last week and a half to focus on cleaning (ceiling to floor, thank God for neighborly neighbors), and last Wednesday alone I folded eleven loads of laundry (because absolutely everything that could fit in the washer, did). We still have a couple things that need fixing before I can use the kitchen (the fridge still smells like roadkill under a bell jar in the Arizona summer; the electronic interface for our gas stove burned out, and the microwave has no power), but enough of the house is habitable that I upgraded my sleeping quarters to the couch. I figure as long as I don't get careless with take-out choices and use the calendar to keep myself focused, that's a good start. 

 

Unrelated, your gif acquisitions fill me with joy.

 

But then I realize I want to find one as perfect to send back.

 

This is gonna be fun.

 

 

 

[SkyGirl]

27 minutes ago, Koaladle said:

Thank you! We got back from Disneyworld, made hotel reservations in Georgia, evacuated within three days, spent a week in a hotel, came home to a  leaky roof and a collapsed ceiling, and camped out in the driveway (in our trailer) for two months. During that time, I got super restless; riding to the gym and having time to myself was nothing short of luxurious. I skipped my routine the last week and a half to focus on cleaning (ceiling to floor, thank God for neighborly neighbors), and last Wednesday alone I folded eleven loads of laundry (because absolutely everything that could fit in the washer, did). We still have a couple things that need fixing before I can use the kitchen (the fridge still smells like roadkill under a bell jar in the Arizona summer; the electronic interface for our gas stove burned out, and the microwave has no power), but enough of the house is habitable that I upgraded my sleeping quarters to the couch. I figure as long as I don't get careless with take-out choices and use the calendar to keep myself focused, that's a good start. 

 

Egads. That sounds like a nightmare. I'm glad things are improving, but I'm still hugely impressed at everything you're trying to juggle.

 

 

And as for GIFs:

 

 

Game on.   

[Super Starling!]

I'm going to be thinking about that Weird Al gif for days. Following! 

[Koaladle]

 

 

 

[Koaladle]

2 minutes ago, Super Starling! said:

I'm going to be thinking about that Weird Al gif for days. Following! 

 

[Elastigirl]

You are the gif queen!  Wow, the Hurricane clean up sounds like a nightmare, glad you have friends to helps you, and seem to have kept most of your sanity. I love your sippy cup!

[Fonzico]

I dig the relentless calendar notification process - it really can be so hard to keep up on things when you're at home... The cycle of feeling like doing nothing and then feeling like shit for doing nothing, which makes you feel like doing nothing... It's brutal.

Especially when nothing seems terribly urgent.

 

Hence the genius of the calendar.

 

Good luck!

 

 

Sent from my SM-G900W8 using Tapatalk

 

 

 

 

[Koaladle]

10 hours ago, Elastigirl said:

You are the gif queen!  Wow, the Hurricane clean up sounds like a nightmare, glad you have friends to helps you, and seem to have kept most of your sanity. I love your sippy cup!

 

Getting crowned Gif Queen is like

 

My friends are super wonderful; the clean up so we could start moving in was a nightmare with three people, and I somehow expected myself to manage all of it. Downright silly. 

 

[Koaladle]

7 hours ago, Fonzico said:

I dig the relentless calendar notification process - it really can be so hard to keep up on things when you're at home... The cycle of feeling like doing nothing and then feeling like shit for doing nothing, which makes you feel like doing nothing... It's brutal.

Especially when nothing seems terribly urgent.

 

Hence the genius of the calendar.

 

Good luck!

 

Sent from my SM-G900W8 using Tapatalk

 

Oh look, you summed up my day!

 

Mondays are one of my Big Responsibility Days (as clear from the above schedule). Normally it's not such an issue to get up and get out the door, especially when I put in a little effort on Sundays to get everything staged. I had a full water bottle, clothes laid out, drank plenty of water, put in effort to collaborate on a meal plan and to do list (husband was dog tired so I didn't push it), bought the journal, and spent a good deal of time trying getting formatting ideas. All in all, a nice, lazy, day that set me up well for the beginning of the week. I even put my laptop away at 2200 and was asleep soon after!

 

But as we all know, even the best laid plans can go like this:

 

The first thing to go wrong was that I woke up in the middle of the night. I was too tired to do anything to get myself sleepy again, but too awake to actually rest properly. The sun was coming up by the time I DID get tired, so I made the decision to rest up and just get the day started a little late. Anyway, I totally forgot we had the contractor coming over the work on a leak that sprung up, and after that I realized I was too gross to go out but also incredibly hungry, but we hadn't gone food shopping and so going to the gym just feel by the wayside. 

 

Good effort, amirite?

 

On our way to breakfast (because, after all, we have been out of groceries for a couple days), my husband and I got into our first spat in months (we are normally like this), which ended in tears, a panic attack, a tidal wave of anxiety (complete with nausea and facial tics, yaaaaay), but after a quick ugly cry at home we set out to go grocery shopping once and for all... except, like, I got there and was so wound up I didn't even know what we agreed upon for the meal plan, so we ended up in the checkout line with sandwich supplies, canned soup, and sparkling water. It was a mess. Drive by the butcher to get meat, and guess who was closed! At this point, Husband is frustrated to be on hour five of miscommunication and false starts, so we called it and went home.

 

Gif inspired by a true story

(This is a good time to mention that I've been diagnosed with PTSD and a related anxiety disorder,

so sometimes being a person feels like holding your breath while swimming to the bottom of the Mariana Trench)

 

 

Right, so we get home and I am just done. Even when we went out, I made sure to wear my gym pants so I could get changed quickly--which is kind of a big deal, because I already showered in the morning and my butt length hair was mostly dry. I'm a human super soaker when I work out, so I was signing on to deal with all that a second time in twelve hours because it is Day Two of the challenge. I can't tap out that soon. But, as anyone who's dealt with stress disorders will know, panic attacks are exhausting. Hoping I would feel better after a nap, I passed out with Dogface for a couple hours; I woke up still feeling like this:

 

 

I have a few choices: I can give myself lower expectations...

 

 

...stay cuddled and cozy on the couch but beat myself up all night...

 

 

...or be like this penguin.

 

And you know what? Koalas are lovely and fascinating and adorable, but I'm here to build up my discipline. I need to be the penguin. I still have enough hours in the day to fulfill all my responsibilities if I get to work right meow. So I'm gonna. Right meow.

 

 

[Fonzico]

You be penguin #1 and I'll be penguin #2, mkay?

Sent from my SM-G900W8 using Tapatalk

[SkyGirl]

I ... am so beyond impressed with you right now that I can't even.

 

 

You have had a Terrible, Awful, No-Good Day and yet you are penguining it like a champ. Kudos to you. How is your evening going so far? Have things taken a turn for the slightly less sucky?

[Koaladle]

1 hour ago, Fonzico said:

You be penguin #1 and I'll be penguin #2, mkay?

Sent from my SM-G900W8 using Tapatalk
 

 

I penguined the shit out of my workout. Literally no condition was ideal and I STILL managed to rival my personal best. 

7 minutes ago, SkyGirl said:

I ... am so beyond impressed with you right now that I can't even.

 

 

You have had a Terrible, Awful, No-Good Day and yet you are penguining it like a champ. Kudos to you. How is your evening going so far? Have things taken a turn for the slightly less sucky?

 

I am exhausted, but really, super proud. 

 

 

So, I got that second wind, made a commitment to fulfill my commitment to myself, posted, and bounded across the house to inform--not ask--my husband he was going to give me a ride to the gym (our truck is on the fritz and I might have this thing with stress ANYWAY). I started barking orders ("GET MY HEADPHONES FROM THE TRAILER! LOCATE MY KEYS! HURRY BEFORE I WUSS OUT"), put on the first shoes I could find (too small, booo), and got out the door while I still had vim and vigor. Blasting "Learn to Let Go" on my slippery-when-wet backup headphones, I got on the first Satanilliptical I could find, and just WENT FOR IT. I didn't have a water bottle, my shoes were pinching, and I was pretty sure I wasn't going to make it fifteen minutes, let alone my standard thirty five, but by the grace of Lizzo, Carly Rae, and Kesha I almost beat my personal best--which was a harder setting and with ideal conditions. Like, not the Satanilliptical under both the A/C vent and a huge fan with not water bottle. I looked like a mess, felt like a mess, and stumbled out of Planet Fitness 40 minutes later like the only survivor from a zombie hoard, BUT I DID THE THIIIIING!!

 

 

I still have an hour of chores and an hour of creative outlet to do, so I'm going to spend a little time catching up on my notifications, grab my knitting, and get to sleep early. As a reward, I'll shift my hour of chores to the morning. 

[SkyGirl]

 

That is how we Ranger.

 

You may be an Assassin, but today, I consider your no-good day completely Rangered.

 

Way to demonstrate toughness and determination!! Give yourself a pat on the back!

[Yasha92]

Your penguins motivated me to get my sunburned butt to the gym and stop making excuses. As such, following~

[Super Starling!]

10 hours ago, Koaladle said:

("GET MY HEADPHONES FROM THE TRAILER! LOCATE MY KEYS! HURRY BEFORE I WUSS OUT")

 

Reading this made me feel like I was inside my own home. We're always yelling (like, not mean yelling, just loud) to find things at each other. 

 

Why do couples in movies never speak like this? 

 

 

"FIND MY LOBSTER FRIEND AND THE KEYS TO THE SUBARU, ERIC. I NEED TO PICK UP SOME GROCERIES AT WAL-MART." 

[Koaladle]

1 hour ago, Yasha92 said:

Your penguins motivated me to get my sunburned butt to the gym and stop making excuses. As such, following~

YAY! Now get the aloe vera (with lidocane) out of the fridge, apply regularly, AND REJOICE! YOU GYM'D!

 

 

9 minutes ago, Super Starling! said:

 

Reading this made me feel like I was inside my own home. We're always yelling (like, not mean yelling, just loud) to find things at each other. 

 

Why do couples in movies never speak like this? 

 

 

"FIND MY LOBSTER FRIEND AND THE KEYS TO THE SUBARU, ERIC. I NEED TO PICK UP SOME GROCERIES AT WAL-MART." 

 

 

Hahaha, I think Molly and Arthur Weasley fit the bill. My husband and I are pretty much just like them.

[Koaladle]

7 hours ago, SkyGirl said:

 

That is how we Ranger.

 

You may be an Assassin, but today, I consider your no-good day completely Rangered.

 

Way to demonstrate toughness and determination!! Give yourself a pat on the back!

That reminds me, I need to change that icon, but YES!

[Koaladle]

DAY THREE

This was not a Gym Day, so I had commitments to keep (including that extra hour of chores) but it still managed to be a little bit of a rough day. We had to go appliance shopping because we suspected they burned out during the storm, and there's no way to have a pleasant time when you're staring down a big expense like that. We took a break to go home and huzzah! My bullet journal arrived! I ripped it open but found that the pages were so thin that it's not going to work out for my needs. It was so disappointing! After house frustration and a bad case of the Grumps with Ben, I had to just sit down and take a Rage Nap.

 

 

I got up a little too late to walk to band and got a ride, BUT did walk back because Ben was working with the electrician. We went out for round two of appliance shopping, finally found what we wanted at a price we were willing to pay, and got a guaranteed delivery date three weeks sooner. Day ended on a high note!

 

But about the journal: I don't know what I want to do. I'm definitely NOT going to buy another unless I can touch it first (grumble grumble), but then again, I do have watercolor paper I could bind myself. Sorta have a grumpy sneer on my face just thinking about it, but that way I don't spend the extra money and have a paper quality I trust not to bleed or ghost. No dots, but I guess I can just measure obsessively instead. -.- I'm really bummed about this whole journal situation.

 

Commitments for the day were:

• Self Care--Took a Rage Nap
• Creative Outlet--Planned on journaling, rage napped instead, then had Other Important Things that took up my time until my scheduled sleepy hours. I'll go ahead and table this for tomorrow rather than stay up late.
• Do Chores--Went appliance shopping twice (definitely over three hours of work on that)
• Pep Band Rehearsal--walked one way (not an official goal, but I have the chance to move so I try to do so)
• Eat with Family--Went on Recalibration Date due to super grumpy morning with husband (I didn't eat enough yesterday and woke up incredibly hangry, so NOTE TO SELF: EAT LESS FOOD, NOT NO FOOD) 

 

I'm already out of my sweaty clothes with my feet up (boots were a poor choice), so I'm going to charge my headphones but leave the rest of the pre-gym routine until the morning. 

[SkyGirl]

Way to try to keep positive in a grumpy-disappointing day ... good luck with the journal situation!! I'd offer Thoughts if I had any!   

 

Also, I, too, am a fan of rage naps ... mine are more like so-sad-I-can't-talk-to-humans-right-now naps, but I think they accomplish a similar purpose.   

 

Hoping for a better day tomorrow!!

 

 

[SkyGirl]

On 11/27/2017 at 6:30 PM, Koaladle said:

(we are normally like this),

 

Oh, also, I meant to tell you, thank you so much for this gif. This was the 1000% cutest gif I have ever seen and I am overwhelmingly grateful to have had my heart warmed by it.