Elennare does some things

[Elennare]

Spent last night doing research and snuggling the kitty, so I did not do my exercise or stretch.  There's an option to treat her surgically (remove the thyroid), and there's a special diet that might help.  There's upsides and downsides to both options, and I will be calling the vet later today to discuss.  I'm leaning towards trying the diet option, though we'd have to go exclusively wet food with it because the dry food option is just garbage, which will be an adjustment for everyone, but if it works it'll be easier than surgery.  Not sure about cheaper over-all, but definitely easier.

 

In good news, I'm still sticking with my diet (but man has it been hard the last few days!) AND I've found a good solution for my morning coffee.  A yogurt-mango-coffee smoothie is delicious, and quick to make.  And it can double as breakfast.  I fully understand that I am weird for thinking mango and coffee go together well, but I like it.

[ohlemontine]

29 minutes ago, Elennare said:

A yogurt-mango-coffee smoothie is delicious, and quick to make.  And it can double as breakfast.  I fully understand that I am weird for thinking mango and coffee go together well, but I like it.

Oh wow, I never would have thought of that, but it sounds interesting enough to try! 

 

I'm so sorry to hear about your cat and all the craziness going on there. Hopefully one of those options can work better, cuz it does sound like the injection would be pretty improbable for you and your cat's lifestyle. 

[raptron]

Gah, so sorry about your kitty. Hope you had a productive call with the vet about alternate solutions!

[Elennare]

Talked to the vet Saturday morning (after she called me back on Friday while I was in the bathroom, and then I called back and got put on hold for 10 minutes during which time she left for the day.).  She doesn't want to do surgery, because in her opinion it causes just as much trouble as it solves, so she recommended the diet option.  But, she wasn't sure if it was even still available, so said she'd look into it and get back to me.  Still waiting to hear back.

 

Chugging along with my diet.  I think I've had a few more accidental slip ups, but mostly doing well with it.  Saturday morning I weighed myself and was down 2.6 lbs.  So that's cool, assuming it's actually true.  Which is a question because I decided to see what I weighed Sunday morning, and the scale said I was 2 lbs heavier than I was on Saturday!  So I don't know which is the correct measurement, or if my scale just needs a new battery and is spitting out complete garbage at me.  Still, I guess I'm down at least a little bit, so that's promising.

 

The weekend ("weekend," since it started Thursday night) has been crazy, so I haven't done my exercise or stretched.  Thursday I had back-to-school night for Little One, Friday I had to help Husband get ready for his trip (he needed me to calligraphy a thing.  And yes, that's a verb now.), and Saturday through some time this afternoon I've had the boys by myself.  While we've had a LOT of things going on.  I did at least manage to take them swimming for a little bit last night.

 

I kind of feel like I'm failing at everything currently, though.  First day of school was today.  I had most of the stuff ready last night, and despite that, somehow we still didn't make it out the door on time.  They barely made it (I hope Little Bug found his classroom ok, because I couldn't walk him over to it), I didn't have the paperwork I was supposed to turn in filled out because I couldn't find it (located as soon as I got home, thankfully), I forgot to label Little Bug's supplies with his name (also forgot to label the one thing for Little One as well, but another parent had a pen I could borrow to fix that), and I didn't get a picture of them on their was to school.  And I made delicious healthy breakfast, and they both barely ate any.  The house is kind of a disaster, too.  I tried so hard to do things right, and it feels like it just doesn't matter, because it'll all fall apart anyway.  I'm sure there's something else important I've forgotten as well, but I don't know what, so it'll probably jump out and screw things up when it's too late to do anything about it.

[Manarelle]

2 hours ago, Elennare said:

I kind of feel like I'm failing at everything currently, though.  First day of school was today.  I had most of the stuff ready last night, and despite that, somehow we still didn't make it out the door on time.  They barely made it (I hope Little Bug found his classroom ok, because I couldn't walk him over to it), I didn't have the paperwork I was supposed to turn in filled out because I couldn't find it (located as soon as I got home, thankfully), I forgot to label Little Bug's supplies with his name (also forgot to label the one thing for Little One as well, but another parent had a pen I could borrow to fix that), and I didn't get a picture of them on their was to school.  And I made delicious healthy breakfast, and they both barely ate any.  The house is kind of a disaster, too.  I tried so hard to do things right, and it feels like it just doesn't matter, because it'll all fall apart anyway.  I'm sure there's something else important I've forgotten as well, but I don't know what, so it'll probably jump out and screw things up when it's too late to do anything about it.

 

I've said it before, I"ll say it again: /hugs. You have a super busy life; hopefully school starting up will ease some of the chaos. 

[Elennare]

School ended up fine. I got all the things turned in, and the boys had a great day.

 

I also had a melt down, and realized a few things. One of which is I have been using treats to help me fight off exhaustion and burnout. This is not a good strategy, but I'm currently at a loss for what to replace that with. Especially since my go-to is a fancy coffee and I kind of need the caffeine to be functional. Plus, all the other things I'd want to do take time and energy I often don't have, so that doesn't really help.

 

I was going to try to get to bed early today, but here I sit on the couch at 10 pm waiting for breakfast to finish cooking. Because I made that and got lunch for tomorrow ready instead of taking a bath and sleeping more. Because I know if I don't, I'm going to eat garbage tomorrow. I need to figure out how to not have to trade one healthy thing for another, but I'm having a hard time with that, too.

 

But I think that's why I can't ever seem to actually make any progress. I fix one thing, but then something else breaks. Usually it's sleep, and then everything falls apart. And I'm so stressed I'm not sure I could actually lose weight even if I managed to do everything else perfectly (though if that could happen, I'd probably be less stressed).

 

Sorry, this is way more vent-y than I meant it to be. I just feel broken and I don't even know what might help. I'm toying with the idea of trying to talk with a therapist, but I'm afraid they'll just tell me some "think happy thoughts" or "try to put yourself first more" bullshit that won't help, and then I'll just be out time and money I don't have. I don't fit the clinical definition of burnout yet, but I'm really afraid I'm going to end up there if something doesn't change soon.

 

Needless to say, I did not do any exercise today. And I intentionally broke my diet to get a snowcone with the boys after school today (they had a truck come, to celebrate school starting). And I'm going to break it in the morning, too (pumpkin spice latte!). And then right back to it.

[Elennare]

I am in a much better headspace today than I was last night, but I still have a lot of stuff to think about and work through.  I am now also seriously contemplating taking the family and up and moving to somewhere tropical where we can live on the water (maybe on a boat?) and not have to worry about stuff for a while.  I don't know that anything will actually come of it, or I'll even want to do that come next week, but right now, that sounds like a fantastic idea.

 

The pumpkin spice latte was delicious.  As was the healthy, diet-adhering lunch and snack I packed for myself.  Breakfast was meh.  I think it would have been pretty tasty if I had coconut flour.  As it was, it came out like a weird quiche.  I ate it, but the boys did not.

 

Going to try to exercise and stretch tonight, but we'll see what happens.  If I have the chance, soaking in the tub takes priority.   And I think I might look into taking an aerial class some time this week.  Theoretically, derby starts again next week (yay!).  Here's hoping nothing changes with work that would prevent that from occurring/continuing.

 

Ordered the food for Isis.  I hope she eats it and it helps, because it is NOT cheap.  Got cans of wet food and a bag of dry food.  We'll see how it goes.

[WhiteGhost]

So sorry to hear about the cat, that is a really rough place to be in.  I hope the diet changes help.

 

Also glad to see you in a better headspace.  You have a lot going on over there in your world

[Manarelle]

On 8/27/2019 at 1:19 AM, Elennare said:

Sorry, this is way more vent-y than I meant it to be. I just feel broken and I don't even know what might help. I'm toying with the idea of trying to talk with a therapist, but I'm afraid they'll just tell me some "think happy thoughts" or "try to put yourself first more" bullshit that won't help, and then I'll just be out time and money I don't have. I don't fit the clinical definition of burnout yet, but I'm really afraid I'm going to end up there if something doesn't change soon.

 

Personal opinion: I am a huge advocate of talking to a therapist, and don't settle for one that tells you bullshit. There was a period in my life where I thought I was doing ok, then had a meltdown over someone giving me an honest compliment. The therapist I found gave me just as much snark and sass as I gave her (when appropriate) and helped me figure out what I was missing - didn't tell, didn't lecture, just pointed out blind spots or things I was subconsciously ignoring. If it helps break the social stigma, consider mental health like physical health - would you wait until a bone is completely broken before seeing someone about it, or go in when it's pretty clear something is not quite right? I feel like the world would be a happier place if people did the latter more often. 

 

16 hours ago, Elennare said:

Going to try to exercise and stretch tonight, but we'll see what happens.  If I have the chance, soaking in the tub takes priority.   And I think I might look into taking an aerial class some time this week.  Theoretically, derby starts again next week (yay!).  Here's hoping nothing changes with work that would prevent that from occurring/continuing.

 

Fingers crossed for you, you could definitely use something positive right now! Also, if you do move to a boat in the tropics, send pictures - that sounds awesome.

[Elennare]

On 8/28/2019 at 8:38 AM, Manarelle said:

Also, if you do move to a boat in the tropics, send pictures - that sounds awesome.

Oh, there will be many pictures if it happens!  Lots of research and planning to do before it could possibly happen.  Speaking of, I just read an article about how astonishingly expensive things like utilities and groceries are on a tropical island.  The prices the author was flipping out about were pretty much the same as what I pay currently.  Note, I don't know how old the article was because it didn't have a date on it, but the "Can you imagine paying almost $200 for electricity for a month?!?  I almost fainted when I saw my first bill" was hilarious.  Probably less so if you're moving from a less-expensive part of the US.

 

I decided to weigh myself this morning, since I won't have access to my scale on Sunday.  Probably should have waited until tomorrow, but whatever.  I am down another 1/2 lb from last Saturday, and 3 total since I started the diet.  So that's cool.

 

Have been on track with my diet aside from a couple extra Starbucks mornings due to poor planning/leaving my coffee behind as I ran out the door in the morning.  However, I've gotten whatever they call the cold brew with pumpkin cold foam (made with soy milk, obviously), which has significantly less sugar than a latte.  I guess it's not as good as being made with cream, but whatever.  It's delicious, and will probably be my go-to from Starbucks for the fall, unless I'm specifically getting a treat.  And of course I will continue with not getting any (more) for the rest of the diet.

 

Exercise has been non-existent still, but I have done a tiny bit of stretching, so at least I'm still doing most of the things, which is a pretty big win.  Even if I'm only doing the barest minimum to say I did it, it's still better than nothing!  Trying to decide if I want to continue with slowly plugging away at the glute challenge WAY behind schedule, or just start it over on Sept 1.  That'll make it much easier to tell which day I'm on, if nothing else.

 

Edit:  I also want to apologize to people for not checking/commenting on their threads.  It's not that I don't like you, I just don't have the mental whatever to spend on really being social currently.

[Manarelle]

On 8/29/2019 at 3:42 PM, Elennare said:

I decided to weigh myself this morning, since I won't have access to my scale on Sunday.  Probably should have waited until tomorrow, but whatever.  I am down another 1/2 lb from last Saturday, and 3 total since I started the diet.  So that's cool.

 

Woot! Congrats!

 

On 8/29/2019 at 3:42 PM, Elennare said:

Exercise has been non-existent still, but I have done a tiny bit of stretching, so at least I'm still doing most of the things, which is a pretty big win.  Even if I'm only doing the barest minimum to say I did it, it's still better than nothing!

 

Found this today, seems appropriate:

 

That's quite a bit better than nothing.  You've got this. 

[Elennare]

Had a lovely weekend, though it involved more time in a car than any of us would have liked.  Also got to see my brother and meet his new dog, so that was cool too.

 

On the exercise front, I decided I am done with the glute challenge thing, and am just going to do *something* every day in September.  2 days in, things are good, though yesterday was less than I would have preferred.  That's about to change drastically, because I am attempting to return to roller derby on Wednesday.  I'm going to die.

 

My diet has completely fallen apart.  But, due to the way the weekend went (and a small amount of no planning on my part, but mostly stuff out of my control), my choices were have something to eat or stick to my diet.  Zero possibility of overlap between those choices.  I kind of feel like I undid 3 weeks of work in 3 days.  Logically I know that doesn't make sense, but I guess I'm super bloated or something?  Either way, it was not great.  We got home so late last night that today is kind of shot for diet as well, but my plan is to get rehydrated today and get back to the diet for the rest of the week.  After that, I'm just going to eat paleo.  I am definitely not in a hurry to eat more fast food, and plan to keep avoiding wheat.  I don't know which of those is responsible for me feeling like blah, since I had both at the same time, but after not eating any of it for 3 weeks, I definitely didn't feel great after having them again.  So, win, I guess?

[raptron]

You absolutely did not undo 3 weeks of work.

 

 

[WhiteGhost]

12 hours ago, Elennare said:

I kind of feel like I undid 3 weeks of work in 3 days. 

When I got back from my trip it felt like I had undone 3 years of work in 1 month (and the stupid scale seemed to confirm this) but after a couple of days back into the groove I can see that my gains weren't lost, just hiding  

[Elennare]

Yeah, I know it's not that bad, but it sure feels like it.

Here's a puzzle for everyone, courtesy of Little Bug's homework. He was given a list of spelling words that included cap, bat, sat, and hatch, and was instructed to write down the 3 words that are actions. Which would you pick?

[raptron]

THEY ARE ALL ACTIONS! And all but sat can also be a noun. What kind of puzzle is this, haha. 

[Elennare]

23 hours ago, raptron said:

THEY ARE ALL ACTIONS! And all but sat can also be a noun. What kind of puzzle is this, haha. 

Right?!?  I'm hoping the 3 Little Bug picked are all acceptable to his teacher, but if they're not, I'm heavily considering sending her a paper with 4 sentences, one for each word, using them as a verb.  Because they all are!

 

We put new batteries in the scale last night, so it's finally stopped spitting out garbage.  Looks like I'm up about a pound from last week.  Not what I really wanted, but far from terrible.  And it is getting to be shark week, so...  Related to that, I am wondering if my falling apart is related to my cycle.  So I've decided I'm going to start tracking that and see if there's a pattern.  As far as my diet this week goes, not being prepared seems to be the theme.  So, I'm trying, but really not succeeding.  Still making better choices than I was before, so that's a win at least.  I'll do my best, but I'm not going to sweat it too much at this point.  And then on to paleo next week.

 

Went to derby last night.  It felt great to get back on my skates.  Since I missed the yearly re-test of minimum skills, I pretty much have to skate with the more advanced fresh meat class.  I'm ok with that, because it'll give me a nice gradual on-ramp to getting back into the swing of things, and I won't have to worry about falling on my wrist again nearly as soon.  But, the 27-in-5 is a regular part of fresh meat practice, which kind of sucks, but is also awesome because it's one of those things that you really can only get better at by doing, and it's hard to do outside of practice.  So I knew I was going to have to do that, and since I haven't been on skates in like 3 months, I wanted to make sure I didn't start being disappointed.  Worked real hard on the way to practice to convince myself to be happy with 20 and super excited about 25.  Guess how many I ended up getting?  27!  And almost another half lap!    No idea how I managed to pull that off after sitting on my butt for 3 months, but I did!  Now I just need to make sure it's a regular thing and not a fluke...

[raptron]

Omg yay! Congrats on your 27-in-5!!

[Elennare]

Got stuck at work late yesterday.  The diet is well and truly out the window.  I'm...surprisingly ok with that, even though I don't like where that's going to lead.  I'm just gonna do my best to stick with my plan while rolling with whatever life throws at me.  Which will be way more "not to plan" than I'd like, but as long as I keep trying, stuff will get better.  Sucks because I want it better now, but that's just not going to happen.

 

Things that are going well, however, is doing an exercise of some sort every day of September.  Did a 20 minute yoga video with Husband last night.  Was definitely more of the stretching variety than "exercise" variety, but stretching is also an important physical activity and it counts for my purposes!  Again, still better than nothing.  Which, is sort of what the focus of this challenge has been, and is entirely what next challenge is going to be - small consistent doing things.

 

Tonight is looking like it may be a challenge to do an exercise, but I'm going to make sure it happens.  After work I'm volunteering at Little Bug's league's bout (he's not playing) and that's going to be right at the time I'm normally doing stuff.  So I'll have to figure out how to do something between work and going to that.

 

In entertaining news, today is the 5-year anniversary of the department I work for being at the current site.  So they had everyone stand in a giant "5" outside and took a picture.  That was interesting, and about as poorly organized as I expected, but here's the fun part.  I wanted to look nice for the picture, so I decided to do my hair and put on a bit of makeup this morning.  Except, the only makeup I could find was my crazy colors costume/derby stuff.  So, desperately looking at the pallets of super bright colors and debating what to do, I saw there was a nice gold.  Figured that would look ok if I put it on lightly, so I went with that.  Only to discover once I started putting it on, it was gold GLITTER eye shadow.  Not "metallic" or "shimmery."  GLITTER.  So, I wore glitter eye shadow to work today. Oops.  But at least I looked fabulous, staring straight up at the drone taking the picture, squinting in the sun, dripping sweat!

[Manarelle]

On 9/5/2019 at 12:09 PM, Elennare said:

Worked real hard on the way to practice to convince myself to be happy with 20 and super excited about 25.  Guess how many I ended up getting?  27!  And almost another half lap!    No idea how I managed to pull that off after sitting on my butt for 3 months, but I did!  Now I just need to make sure it's a regular thing and not a fluke...

 

WOOT! That is awesome! I'd wager a guess it has something to do with not being just raw stamina, but also tips and tricks you learned to use the track in your past skate practices. Muscle memory is very powerful, especially when paired with determination. Very congrats to you. 

 

On 9/6/2019 at 4:49 PM, Elennare said:

Things that are going well, however, is doing an exercise of some sort every day of September.  Did a 20 minute yoga video with Husband last night.  Was definitely more of the stretching variety than "exercise" variety, but stretching is also an important physical activity and it counts for my purposes!  Again, still better than nothing.  Which, is sort of what the focus of this challenge has been, and is entirely what next challenge is going to be - small consistent doing things.

 

Nice, glad to hear that's going well for you. Those small things add up over time and surprise you. 

 

On 9/6/2019 at 4:49 PM, Elennare said:

In entertaining news, today is the 5-year anniversary of the department I work for being at the current site.  So they had everyone stand in a giant "5" outside and took a picture.  That was interesting, and about as poorly organized as I expected, but here's the fun part.  I wanted to look nice for the picture, so I decided to do my hair and put on a bit of makeup this morning.  Except, the only makeup I could find was my crazy colors costume/derby stuff.  So, desperately looking at the pallets of super bright colors and debating what to do, I saw there was a nice gold.  Figured that would look ok if I put it on lightly, so I went with that.  Only to discover once I started putting it on, it was gold GLITTER eye shadow.  Not "metallic" or "shimmery."  GLITTER.  So, I wore glitter eye shadow to work today. Oops.  But at least I looked fabulous, staring straight up at the drone taking the picture, squinting in the sun, dripping sweat!

 

Hahahaha, that's fantastic. If ever something deserves a #winning, it's wear glitter to work and owning it like the boss you are.  

[Elennare]

Challenge wrap up!

 

Solid "meh" for a final score.  Started out great, but then sort of fell apart at the end.  Through a combination of poor eating, getting dehydrated, and it just being the wrong time of the month, I managed to completely undo 3 weeks of hard work in just one week.  Yay. 

 

I did learn a few things that will be useful going forwards, however, and have gotten a habit of doing at least one small thing a day going in the last week (even if I've been stretching it to count one pushup or sitting in a squat for a couple minutes), so that's pretty good.  Two steps forward, one and a half back.  Still forward progress, but man does it suck to have so much backwards.  Blargh. 

 

Yesterday was an especially not great day.  Little Bug's practice space got stolen by a lacrosse team with a very rude coach, so his team had to practice on the unshaded, unfinished chunk of concrete next to the rink.  And, by stolen, I mean, the city "lost" his teams reservation for the space and gave it to the lacrosse team.  Which they have done for the last 7 years, apparently.  Also, bringing wheels for indoors and/or painted concrete and suddenly having to skate on unfinished concrete is a recipe for disaster (destroyed wheels if nothing else, but you're also not going to have the right traction - either too much or too little).  Several people left early, including Little Bug, because they just got too hot (because no one was prepared for that!), and a lady fell down and twisted her ankle.  Hopefully it's not broken.  I ended up helping her get off the practice floor and got her some ice packs.  All around not great.

And then, everyone in the family was just too tired, and probably dehydrated, and we ended up all feeling rather sick, so we skipped church and went to bed early.  Not feeling bad about that, because I legit was feeling like maybe I was going to throw up.  Doing better today, but still all tired.  The boys seem all better, at least.

 

On to next challenge!  Where I will be doing way too much stuff at once, not getting enough sleep, and trying to make small changes I can stick with no matter what life throws at me!

[raptron]

22 hours ago, Elennare said:

 

I did learn a few things that will be useful going forwards, however, and have gotten a habit of doing at least one small thing a day going in the last week (even if I've been stretching it to count one pushup or sitting in a squat for a couple minutes), so that's pretty good.  Two steps forward, one and a half back.  Still forward progress, but man does it suck to have so much backwards.  Blargh. 

One thing a day is cool.

 

22 hours ago, Elennare said:

On to next challenge!  Where I will be doing way too much stuff at once, not getting enough sleep, and trying to make small changes I can stick with no matter what life throws at me!

GET AFTER IT.