Chesire: Getting grounded and finding balance

[Chesire]

A quick introduction:  In my former life I was a massage therapist, but stuff and all...  Now I'm playing at being a feral housewife, improving my gardening and preserving skills, and caring for one dog, one cat, and one husband.  

 

Last challenge I only earned a passing mark by sticking to my stretching and shoulder strength/mobility work; everything else was great, but didn't earn extra credit.  This one continues similarly.

 

The aforementioned shoulder work seems to be a product of pushing into harder work before I had proper base strength (pull-ups before I had good posterior shoulder stabilizing strength), combined with not doing all the beneficial stretching and mobilizing work before or after.  Yep, duh. 

 

Ok, now that the groundwork is set, on the the real stuff!

 

Getting grounded:

• play in the dirt and get the garden started. 
• mental grounding by mindfulness and awareness work
• develop ground/base strength in all ways before moving on.
• spending grounded in value, not price

 

Finding balance:

• balance budget by playing in the dirt.  Don't need to buy if I can grow
• garden for balancing effort, cost, and use (easier to grow and what I'll actually use/save)
• balancing productive vs consumptive energy (somewhere there is an NF image about balancing what you consume with what you produce for mental health.  Imagine that here)
• balance strength and flexibility. 

 

 

Same topics but more fleshed out...

Fitness

I'll continue the shoulder health work.  IF I don't continue with improvements, I WILL be seeking PT after this challenge.  There, said it, now I'll have to follow through.  Right?  I'll return to calisthenics strength work with a focus on control, not pushing forward for exciting goals.  Controlled arm balances and scap activation hangs will feature here.  Back to running!  Woot!  I was pleased that I was still able to run a 5K last week, didn't worry about time.  Also, trying to be lighter on my feet.

 

Healthy Eating

I finished my Walk to Mordor and still have "tracking things" energy to spend.  This will go to tracking calories for a bit.  Other stuff is focusing on vegetarian breakfasts and lunches while maintaining certain nutrition goals.

 

Garden

Use the auto-generated garden planner that I pay for.  Look ahead to be sure I have the things I need, like fertilizer.  Learn preservation methods, canning etc ahead of time so I'm prepared when the time comes.

 

And have some fun along the way.

 

 

[Chesire]

Other ongoing habits and fun things in general.

 

I just passed 800 days on my DuoLingo streak! 

Still playing along in the DailyDare over in PVP.

Darebee abs challenge.

Still working on keeping alcohol to 2 days/week with varying degrees of success.

Kitchen cleaned nightly. 

 

I get to register for my vaccine tomorrow!  And that means there is a pretty good chance I can be linked onto MrC's appointment in about a week! 

 

Finally, I've run 5K 3 times now and, without particular effort, I'm only about 1min/mile off where I was at the end of the season last year!

[Mahalak]

On 3/26/2021 at 11:01 AM, Chesire said:

I finished my Walk to Mordor

Sweet! I look forward to signing the guestbook under your name, or shortly thereafter! I'm so close to the Shire I can taste it!

[Waanie]

On 3/26/2021 at 4:01 PM, Chesire said:

• play in the dirt and get the garden started. 
•  

Cool! What are you going to plant? Anything edible? I have some herbs in the garden because those are always so expensive, and I'm loving it .

[Chesire]

8 minutes ago, Waanie said:

Anything edible?

Hopefully, all of it!  Definitely herbs, thyme, oregano, parsley, sage, and basil.  Tomatoes, green beans, snap peas, spinach, lettuce I had luck with last year, so fingers crossed.  Black and small red beans for drying.  Zucchini and I don't get along too well, but I'm trying again.  Everyone else drowns in zukes, I get maybe 3 total.  My big scary attempt this year is blackberries! 

 

Suddenly that looks like a huge list! 

[Waanie]

Oh, great! Most of those are easy to grow, and don't require so much effort . Most of my blackberries were eaten by wasps last year, but they were tasty nonetheless!

[Chesire]

I was planning on making a points based system to balance the budget between producing and consuming things, but it was become ridiculously complicated very quickly.  So, let's keep it basic.

 

If it involves standing/moving/thinking, it's 1 point per task or hour, whichever is easier to track. 

If I sit, it's 1 point per task or hour, same tracking. 

If it's stupid internet pointless sitting, it's 2 points per 1 hour.  This has the worst effect on mental well-being, so it's very expensive.

 

That's it. 

[Jayniana Jones]

I’m following along again. I hope your shoulder gets feeling better. 

 

One thing I’ve done with points for my writing efforts  to make them more valuable in my mind is to have a goal for the week (which represents the monster). Then I do what you did with a simple point system. At the end of the week, either I won or the monster did. 

[Waanie]

On 3/31/2021 at 9:28 PM, Jayniana Jones said:

One thing I’ve done with points for my writing efforts  to make them more valuable in my mind is to have a goal for the week (which represents the monster). Then I do what you did with a simple point system. At the end of the week, either I won or the monster did. 

I love this idea! I'm not sure if I'll be able to apply this for myself, but it's very cool .

[Chesire]

On 3/31/2021 at 3:28 PM, Jayniana Jones said:

At the end of the week, either I won or the monster did. 

And it's way more fun to be battling a monster.

 

20 hours ago, Waanie said:

I love this idea! I'm not sure if I'll be able to apply this for myself, but it's very cool .

Your monster just requires a different battle technique.

[Jayniana Jones]

How are things going? I hope your shoulder is getting better and that you have nice weather on your end to get those seeds going.

 

[Chesire]

 

22 minutes ago, Jayniana Jones said:

How are things going? I hope your shoulder is getting better and that you have nice weather on your end to get those seeds going.

My shoulder is improving so much!  So much that I need to be strict with myself and not slip back into pushing beyond capacity and maintaining the base strength work, or skipping the stretching.

 

And so far pretty good germination rate for the seeds I started.  still need to do a few garden prep things before the last frost date, but I have plenty of time for that.

[Chesire]

I am still doing the challenge, but it turns out tracking points isn't gonna work for me this time.  It's the one thing too many.  Really, all that matters is doing the things.

 

Stupid changing stress

[Infinity.Creates]

Hey, at least you're riding the waves of the changing stress!

[Chesire]

Good grief! Where did 10 days go?  I've kept up with doing what I said I'd do, but not doing so well with supporting my fellow rebels.  

 

I was able to do a weekend sewing retreat with some lovely people and even had success with my projects.  I'm trying to make a shirt pattern from a shirt I have without taking it apart.  It mostly worked!  I just need to allow for the fact that new fabric isn't as stretchy as older, well-washed fabric and add some extra space. 

 

Shoulder continues to improve!  I refocused on developing the stability and strength I need on the smaller rot cuff muscles before moving on.  If I can't keep a solid base then muscles will fire incorrectly and injury will happen.   I'm typing this to really plant this in my head so I don't go charging forward into battle unprepared. 

 

Also I dove into facial skin care research a few weeks ago and revamped that.  So far I'm very happy with the results and satisfied with the money spent. 

 

Finally, I stepped on the scale the other day, and I had gone over a weight that I hadn't even realized was an upper limit in my head!  After the initial reaction, ugh!, I was very pleased my calm response was to evaluate what had happened recently (hello cakes that amazing friends gave me) and just go back to normal eating, not reactionary cut out all the carbs! or some crap like that.  Mental outlook win!