PettyMort's Last Best Hope for Victory

[PettyMort]

Today is going to be better, I said.

 

Today is going to be a success, I said.

 

And then I accidentally reset the router to factory settings and of course no one ever gave the foreigners the detailed internet account information, just the crap wifi password that they chose for us.

 

So now I have to sit around until our foreign people helper person sees my message and tries to get someone to come fix this.

 

Maybe I should just give up and go back to sleep until we go back to work on Monday. This vacation is becoming decidedly crap.

 

 

[PettyMort]

Router, modem, whatever. I broke both of them.

[PettyMort]

Little steps towards progress. I brushed my teeth, had a shower, did some cleaning and found a pile of money in doing so. That's always fun.

Fixy people will be here by 10:30 they say but of course in China that means "at some point today" - no problem. I'm not going anywhere.

Decided to give bab5 crusades another chance and... A dragon? Are you kidding me? Am I watching scifi or Merlin? Bleh.

Crusades lacks all the things I loved about the main show - the wise cracks, the background details, the flawed characters. Now it's just Technomage Angst 90210.

All the rrrrrolled Rs because British accents = wisdom. Sigh.

[PettyMort]

Internet was fixed in 2 minutes. Could have saved him the trip if someone had just told us the damn username and password. I noted it for next time.

[PettyMort]

Ok. After two days off (although one was technically a planned workout rest day) I'm back on track just in the nick of time. It's 11:27pm and I've done my squats, cleaned, worked out and I'm going to read for half an hour.

 

Today's workout: (21/30 completed!)

 

 

Didn't track food really but I can quickly shoot that off. On the bright side, my new Sims 4 addiction means less snacking than when I was watching Babylon 5.

 

Think I need to do some measurements tomorrow. It's been a while...

 

Ben got back today and all is well in the universe. Here's the very accurate sim I made of him.

 

 

 

[PettyMort]

I keep coming back to that 21/30 workouts thing. I honestly didn't think I'd make it that far.

 

So far I'm getting lots of ideas for my next challenge.

 

I should write them down before they disappear from my mind. Also, I woke up at 5am and I don't want to get up yet because a cold snap hit in the night and my bed is warm and I have a Ben to cuddle.

 

So some brainstorming:

 

Nutritional: I really need to work on this. I think I need to start counting macros again. I can still rely on the Obentos deliveries for lunch and salads for dinner but I should be counting to make sure I'm getting enough protein. I tend to undereat and then binge.

 

Fitness: bodyweight works well for me because I don't have to leave the house so I have no excuses. I do well being told what to do, so I think I will keep working through this 30 day workout challenge app. I've almost completed easy plan 1. I could work through the levels. Looking at easy plan 2, it's too easy, so I could do 2-3 circuits of it.

 

Adulting: still need to work on cleaning and building it into a habit. Ultimately the goal is to wake up to a clean slate each day. Secondary goal is to minimize belongings in preparation for the move to Ecuador.

 

Mental: I should start working on my Spanish again. And finishing things that I start. This can tie in to the cleaning because finished = done AND materials have been put away. Funny that I'm so anal at work but dgaf at home.

 

Spiritual: I should get back into my meditation and reading. I joined a digital sangha (such a shame that esangha is no more). I could jump on dharma wheel though. From what I've seen so far it seems a lot more readable. The Buddhist forum here on tapatalk can be a bit dense...

 

Also, despite ditching Facebook I'm still spending a lot of time on my phone. I'm seriously considering getting a dumb phone in Ecuador. Particularly because then if it gets stolen it won't be such a big deal. A smart phone has been a life saver living in Asia but I think stepping away from it could help me acclimatize to Ecuador faster. I could do a preparatory 4 week "dumbish phone" challenge where I delete all the non-essential apps. So basically keeping wechat, tapatalk, MFP, duolingo and the workout app.

 

Also need to figure out a forum-safe goal towards the NSFW goals I mentioned before. Euphemisms galore.

[PettyMort]

Got my butt out of bed and greeted the dawn with yoga. It was awesome.

Decided to take my measurements pre-poop since the poop has decided not to cooperate for now. 

 

Up in gravitational relationship but down in inches absolutely everywhere, which means

 

1) water retention. Will drink more water today

2) gaining muscle mass

3) exercise is paying off

4) I'm going to have an amazing poop later

 

 

Overall inches lost since 3/25 is 14 inches! Woot. 

Now I figure that if I get some cleaning done, do my squats and read for half an hour then all that's left to do today is track my food and it's not even 8am yet. Then I can feed my Sims addiction without guilt! Huzzah! 

 

I think today I'm going to trawl the Ecuador real estate websites and build my future house there. Sims Ben and Sims Kath eloped, and they need somewhere to move in together. They seem to really like woohooing in public places. Maybe that's what's missing from our IRL needs... 

 

 

[PettyMort]

My body seems to like waking up early and I tend to be more productive if I get up and get stuff done first thing. Once the stuff is done I can climb back into bed for cuddles. This morning I set the laundry to go again because I forgot it was in the machine for three days. It's now in the dryer and another load is going. Will I defeat the whole laundry mountain, dried, folded and put away? Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion.

Tried some light saber tricks and almost broke the TV. I have decided that the light sabers need to make it to Ecuador if there's even the slightest chance. They were expensive and they're heavy but they're special.

Doing some serious cleaning now. Took out the giant bag of trash and cleared up all the shoes and laundry that's scattered around. Aiming to have the whole place worthy of Mary Poppins by the time we go out to dinner. It's a lovely day though windy and chilly so I might take Ben's bike for a ride. Still no sign of my keys but there's a chance that my spare is on his keyring. Or I'll go for a stroll around the mini lake. I need to get outside.

Going to do my squats and get back to cleaning. It's funny how they were so hard at the beginning but now I can do all 50 in the time it takes Ben to go downstairs to the door of our building and come back again.

I finished the Man in the High Castle. I don't really get the hype. For once I think the TV show is better. The stilted talk got to me.

Started Vonnegut's Galápagos purely because it's set in Ecuador and it's hilarious. If the world ended and it really was up to these morons on a cruise ship to save humanity we'd all be screwed.

I keep daydreaming about living in Ecuador, grilling on a barbecue in the garden, eating glorious fruit, hiking to hot springs and waterfalls, sketching in the historical district... Why don't we have time machines yet?

At the same time I feel guilty about being so excited because Ben is really down that his girlfriend won't be able to come with us. He has fallen in love with her and he's both scared of his own heartbreak and that she's going to be left alone to deal with hers while he has me to help him through it. I know this is kind of hard to wrap your head around. It took me a while to be okay with it myself. But looking at how much it has challenged us both to grow and appreciate each other, it's been really good for us. July is going to be very hard but I think he'll be able to get through it working on his Fiero and hanging out IRL with his best friends. He said if he had met her 3 months earlier then we might have decided to stay in China. We were back and forth on it for so long. I would be able to see the payoff from all the work I've put into developing the curriculum, and I'd be here through the whole accreditation process. Building this school from scratch has been such an awesome experience and I've built one of the very few real friendships I've ever had with my boss.

But we've signed the contract and we're definitely ready to get out of here. China is great but it's not the lifestyle we want and it has turned us into hermits who never leave our apartment. A big part of my Ecuador daydreaming comes from trawling the internet for activity groups in Quito. I've even found a yoga studio in Cumbayá that offers meditation. I watched a bunch of House Hunters International episodes there and there's some great stuff in our price range.

I see us settling down there. Having kids. Building friendships and setting down roots. I hope it is as good as I want it to be. And he'll be able to really do what he wants to do: a brass band that competes internationally in a well established music department. As for me, after some time I might be able to switch over to one of the IB schools to follow my passion for inquiry based learning. But in the meantime I might be able to do my masters through our school; that's something that was mentioned in our interview.

So much hope and so many possibilities.

This was a long post. Break over. Back to work.

[PettyMort]

Took another break from cleaning and did my squats while watching Ben play vermin tide. Then decided to do my workout. Guess what? More squats! Son of a...

Didn't rest adequately so I wasn't able to finish the plank. I'll retry it later.

[PettyMort]

Just counted all the paper money I found while cleaning.

589 China
110 Hong Kong
342 Malaysia
65 New Zealand
466 US
199000 Korea
5 050 100 000 Zimbabwe (actual value is 0 )

Total value in usd: $895

KACHING!

Cleaning is awesome. BRB, going to swim in my pile of money.

[Ann of Owlshire]

Laundry is a never-ending battle. The most you can do is hope to keep the rabble under control  (I feel the same way about the kitchen....)

 

Most of my friends back in Seattle were into poly (I've experimented, but it's not for me at this stage of life)--so it's not weird at all for me  I'm glad it's largely been a positive, growing experience for you.

 

[Ann of Owlshire]

When my father moved to TX with my sister, he left me these gigantic jars of pennies and other change that he'd been collecting for like 30 years. I carried them around a few more years until I headed overseas, and with the help of a friend (they were massive) we finally took them to one of those conversion machines.

 

It took like 3 hours, and amounted to almost $700.... O_O (I had them converted into Amazon giftcards. A large one went to my friend for helping me on what was supposed to be a "quick" errand, the rest went to buying me Kindle books for a long, long time XD)

[PettyMort]

When my father moved to TX with my sister, he left me these gigantic jars of pennies and other change that he'd been collecting for like 30 years. I carried them around a few more years until I headed overseas, and with the help of a friend (they were massive) we finally took them to one of those conversion machines.
 
It took like 3 hours, and amounted to almost $700.... O_O (I had them converted into Amazon giftcards. A large one went to my friend for helping me on what was supposed to be a "quick" errand, the rest went to buying me Kindle books for a long, long time XD)

That's awesome!

[PettyMort]

This is not the deleted post you're looking for...

[PettyMort]

I've been having a bit of a rough week emotionally and everything else has kind of fallen by the wayside.