Zaethe and the Forge of Opportunity

[Pherales]

I've spent years of my life waiting for opportunities to present themselves, or trying to make the best out of the opportunities I've been given.  And all up, I have to say that it's been a pretty mediocre way of living for me.  I'm not exactly presented regularly with excitement or interesting things, and then I lament the lack of them in my life.

 

So the experiment is to lay down the things I want, and then create those opportunities in my life through daily hard work and effort.  Some are health and fitness related, some are career, some are life in general.  I debated whether this was more of a battle log or a bucket list thread, but I'm planning to put daily active effort into things and actually battle for the things I want, so it feels right that it's here.

 

There'll be a mix of log tracking and rambling as I muddle my way through figuring out how to do all the things I want.

 

 

 

[Pherales]

The List  (added to as things come up)

 

Health and fitness

 

• Lose 100kg
• Walk a marathon
• Learn a dance routine
• Climb a mountain

 

Career

 

• Get a degree
• Publish a novel

 

Lifestyle

 

• Buy my own home
• Learn to crochet
• Craft a blanket

 

 

 

  

[Pherales]

Today I came in over 800 calories under my recommended limit (my limit is 2300, I still ate like 1600ish calories) and I'm completely stuffed.  Goes to show just how much difference in caloric value there was in the rubbish I was eating.

[Pherales]

Payday today, which is once every two weeks.  It's the one day I give myself permission to eat something completely junktastic.  Which today was an entire bag of sour cream & onion chips.  

 

As time has gone on, I've noticed that having this one day every couple of weeks where I can have something rubbish really means I enjoy and appreciate the treat.  And it's meant that some things I used to enjoy, my palate really doesn't like any more.  Even diet soda is just way too sweet now, I'd rather have a cup of fruit tea.  Speaking of fruit tea, I picked up a box of 20 hot or cold brew bags, peach and pineapple flavoured, and they are the most amazing things I've ever drunk.  No need for any sweetener of any kind, and it totally squishes that sugar craving.

[Pherales]

Feeling like I'm really lacking in active self care at the moment.  I'm in a tight squeeze over the next few weeks financially, my car registration is overdue and I need to pay it before the start of November, and in order to do that I need to basically not spend much at all between now and then.  Which means a few purchases I really wanted/needed to make have been put on hold, and I'm pushing to making the groceries I have in the house really last, which the exception of spending a few bucks today to stock up some eggs and tuna.  I'm not in a terribly rough spot, but it's one of those things where you become more acutely aware of it when it's happening.

 

Problem is, my default for self care at the moment seems to be lie in bed and play games on my phone for a few hours.  Which is very relaxing but it's not really beneficial in terms of self care.  I need to really take a look at what things really make me feel better and what I can do to incorporate those into my life more often.  I'm not the most feminine of women in terms of beauty things, so the suggestions my friends have of painting my nails or getting a facial tend to fall on the meh side of things.  Plus my nails are so bizarre that polish never sticks to them.  I've had professional nail techs do full gel manicures that are supposed to last like 4 weeks and they come off in 36 hours.  So it always seems like a waste of time. 

 

I think a big problem at the moment is that I don't really quite remember all the things that I enjoy.  I've spent a few years kind of making myself into a hermitnerd, wherein all I do is sleep, eat, and play video games.  And now I'm in a predicament where I've almost forgotten huge chunks of myself.  While exploring to find them again is exciting, it's also incredibly daunting and figuring out where to start is a bit of a challenge.

[Pherales]

Step one of forging my own opportunities, my alarm has now been set daily for 6am.  It doesn't matter if I lie in bed for another hour after it goes off.  What matters right now is that I wake up at that time.  Getting up both early and at a set time means that I can dedicate more of my day to more things I want to do.

 

This is a pretty big thing because I deal with some tough pain issues that can make sleep rough.  But maintaining a steady wake up time and in turn bed time should help my body with falling asleep.  If for nothing at first but I'll be so exhausted from being up at that time.  So it's a pretty important thing for me to be getting up at a regular time, and I've always preferred being an early bird.

[Pherales]

Do you know what helps with sleep?  Some kid on a dirt bike not railing up and down the road at midnight for the third night in a row.  Police are gonna be keeping an eye out for you now laddo.

[Pherales]

In the end I fell asleep somewhere around 4am.  So getting up at 6 didn't happen, I ended up awake somewhere closer to 11.  Bit of a difference there!

 

And I can blame external factors, but in the end it's on me as well.  There are definitely things I could have bone to improve my chances of sleeping better.  I'm working on improving my sleep hygiene a bit, I know I'll never have the most amazing sleep hygiene because mornings are rough and getting out of bed takes a while.  But once I get out of bed I'm going to work on staying out of bed, setting a rigid bedtime, and getting back out of bed if I can't fall asleep 20 minutes later.

 

I think next challenge is going to be focusing a lot around routine things.  Getting a good nighttime routine is something I really need, definitely.

[Pherales]

Didn't get up at 6 this morning.  Went to bed at a reasonable time, fell asleep fast and easily, and then discovered three hours later that I was just nap-tired, and proceeded to struggle with sleep til 5am.  Not entirely sure how to bust out of this cycle, so I'm gonna keep trying for now and see what I can do about it.

[Pherales]

Starting to feel like I'm getting back into a positive place again.  The last few days have been rough, but I'm working on accepting the things I have no power over, and focusing on what I can do.  

 

I've redownloaded Habitica, because I honestly like having a little 8bit girl to level up while I level me up, and I've set in a few basic daily tasks I'm looking to work on for the next challenge, and I'm just gonna put an extra week of work in.  Because why not.  Progression has to move on my timeline, not anyone else's.  

 

Still going to be trying to get up at 6, but if it doesn't happen because joint pain kept me up, or there were crazy hooligans screaming outside of my window, I'm not going to beat myself up about it.  Just keep moving forward.  The pieces will settle into place as long as I keep poking at them.

[Pherales]

Got up at 11:30 today, rib and shoulder were out all night, barely got any sleep at all even with how late I got up.

 

Then I made myself some oatmeal with mango chunks in it, which was ridiculously good.  I'm learning that if I don't pre-empt myself in the food department then that little food demon on my shoulder starts whispering about donuts and kfc in my ear, and it gets really hard to ignore after a while.  So trying to be present and purposeful about what I'm eating, and aim for filling rather than cravings.

[Pherales]

 

[Pherales]

Oh man.  I managed to find my old account, from 2013.  Just rooting around in old threads for nostalgia's sake and curiosity of what I could dig up.

 

Real eye opener.  I had a whole other kind of drive back then, for sure.  I lurked more than I posted, only 93 posts, but I found the remnants of my old battle log.  And I'm just wondering where all the passion to be amazing went.

 

 

 

I was SO intent on doing these things and being awesome.  And reading it I can feel like an echo inside of me that still wants the things I wanted here.  But somewhere in the last six years it's like I've stepped off the path and said "Nah, mediocre will do".  Don't get me wrong, wanting to lose the weight I've stacked on my body is still a HUGE mountain to climb!  But it feels a little hollow.  Like it's more an expectation or something I need to do (which is also true), rather than also something that fires me up and makes me feel passionate about it.

 

I've got a few more days before the next challenge drops.  I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing, but I'm going to spend some time thinking hard about my reasons why, and what I want from everything I'm doing.  Everything I want, not just "Be healthy."  The fun things too.

[Pherales]

Managed to fall asleep at 6am, not quite what I had intended by wanting to be up at 6am!

 

When I woke up though, I discovered my back gate hanging wide open.  Not good!  Especially cause I checked the tension of the latch and there's no way the wind pushed it open.  There's nothing on that side of the house to see that has any value currently so they didn't see anything worth taking, and nothing has been moved around in the back yard.  But still, very unnerving.

 

Dad has mentioned that maybe the gate wasn't patched properly the last time it was closed and this is INDEED possible.  And hilarious because he was the last one through it.

[Pherales]

I can't believe Tuesday is already pretty much over here.

 

I've done pretty much nothing today and my mood really reflects that.  I feel restless and grumpy and unproductive.  I did manage to put the trash can out by the roadside for collection in the morning so I didn't literally stay in bed and do completely nothing.  But pretty close.

 

Understanding that my productivity directly affects my mood is something I've only really been grasping for the last year or so.  Previously I just figured I was a grumpy old woman and that was that.  But when I'm productive and active I really do have a better outlook on the world.

 

My anxiety has been out for an adventure of it's own since I found the gate open today though.  It's 10:30pm here and I'm actually tired enough that I could sleep, but I'm also so worried that someone might break in.