Mistr paces herself

[Mistr]

Mistr paces herself - Summer 2021 Challenge

 

 

 

 

My last challenge was all about discernment - picking the best thing to do next. My challenge this time is to keep that up as the world opens up again.

 

I. Battles go much better when I am rested.

My first goal is to let go of activities in the evening. So many nights I want to get more done, or I want to have some time to relax. I need to put down work, chores and big projects at 8pm on work nights. All screens off by 8:30pm. I can do fiber arts until 8:50. Reading non-fiction is okay. Reading fiction is not because I can't put it down if it is good.  Make peace with the fact that it really does take me 40 minutes to close things down and go to bed.

 

II. Strength and Skill

My dojo is open again and I am halfway through a 6-week class to get back in shape. Getting back to where I was at the beginning of 2020 is going to take more than six weeks, but I can make progress.

• At least one type of exercise every day. Core, bodyweight, kettlebells, yoga, biking - all good.
• PT at least once a day, twice is better (details later)
• Aikido twice a week, maybe three times a week. Work on form, not speed.

 

III. Awareness without Attachment

Sit zen every day. If I can't fit in a regular 30 minute session, do at least 10 minutes. If my family is doing distracting things, go outside and do walking meditation instead.

 

Battles I am putting back - cooking, cleaning and gardening. I will do some of all of these, but I'm backing off from what I did before. The yard won't be perfect, there will be weeds in the garden. I can eat simple food that doesn't need much prep for a lot of meals. I will do my share of batch cooking for the week, but I won't worry if there is not a lot of food in the fridge (that's a lie, I will worry; I'll just learn to live with it). I can let the dishes pile up and other people take their turn to clean.

 

Projects - pick only one battle for the weekend. If that turns out to be an easy win, I can pick a second battle. Give myself time to actually relax.

[Mistr]

@RES, remember when you had that hip pain last challenge and it turned out to be caused by a tight IT band? Guess what I was dealing with this week?

 

I have no idea why my left IT band and the muscles in my left leg decided to stage a revolt. My right leg is tight too, but not cramping up painfully. It was bad enough that I went to the clinic to have it checked out this week. I am supposed to foam roll my legs twice a day and take ibuprofen. I have a referral the the physical therapist, but she is backed up for several weeks. This is not the first time I've seen a PT about my legs, so I will just pull out the exercise sheets from before and start doing those again.

 

We did lunges in exercise class today and I felt unsteady. I need to be able to get up from a lunge every time I take a fall in aikido. These need serious attention. I will start with bodyweight lunges, then add weight with KB. I can also do floating lunges with support. Once these are solid again, I will focus on the next thing that needs work.

[Scaly Freak]

6 hours ago, Mistr said:

Battles I am putting back - cooking, cleaning and gardening. I will do some of all of these, but I'm backing off from what I did before. The yard won't be perfect, there will be weeds in the garden. I can eat simple food that doesn't need much prep for a lot of meals. I will do my share of batch cooking for the week, but I won't worry if there is not a lot of food in the fridge (that's a lie, I will worry; I'll just learn to live with it). I can let the dishes pile up and other people take their turn to clean.

 

Learning to let go of things is sooo difficult. To put a battle back is its own form of battle.

[RES]

7 hours ago, Mistr said:

@RES, remember when you had that hip pain last challenge and it turned out to be caused by a tight IT band? Guess what I was dealing with this week?

 

My massage therapist at my chiropractor and a place called stretch zone really did wonders for mine...it's still tender but I can at least walk.

 

ETA: I'm very glad to read you're giving yourself fewer battles, rest is important I'm discovering.

[Harriet]

I love the picture and the theme! Happy battling (in the correct amount, and combined with rest)!

[Mistr]

Weekend update

 

I am happy to report that I did both exercise and zen both days. My track record on weekends is that I have been doing one or the other.

 

Foam rolling my legs twice a day is making a difference. My hip hurts less and the foam rolling has progressed from excruciating to uncomfortable in a stretchy way. I did NF yoga Fire B on Saturday, which is great for legs and hips. Sunday I did TGUs and sumo shiko. I backed off on the weight for TGUs and still was struggling on the lunge part. I think that the intense workout on Friday mornings is pushing me harder than I want to admit. My body needs recovery time in a way that I haven't felt for ages. On the one hand, that is a good sign. On the other hand, it is frustrating. Thus this challenge.

 

On the project side of things I did not get the one big project done. My excuse is that Elf's new third shift schedule limits the time I can work in the living room with power tools. The big project is to mount a huge flat screen TV on the wall in the living room. We have been talking about getting a medium-sized TV for a long time. That has been quite a way down on the wish list and we had not hammered out what features we wanted. It just so happened last week that one of my friends from the dojo is upgrading his home theater system and needed to get rid of his old plasma TV to make room for a new one. That is why I have a 60 inch (diagonal) flat screen TV taking up all the floor space in my living room. When I am done it will take up all the wall space that is not covered with windows or bookshelves. We will be going from watching movies on our computer monitors to the big screen. I am sure it is bigger than we want, but the price was right. 😉

 

My fun thing was going to a stash sale. One of my spinning friends died unexpectedly three years ago. She was only 63 and apparently in good health.   Her husband decided it was time to part with her spinning stuff and asked our group to help. Two of my friends organized her tools, books and fiber as a garage sale. Seeing that made me feel much better about my stash. I have five bins of fiber. She had enough to fill a walk-in closet floor to ceiling. So I did my part and brought some home. 

 

 

Clockwise from the top: Polypay fleece (not from the sale), brown Finn/Border Leicester cross, grey alpaca, white Wensleydale, grey Border Leicester lamb fleece, center Merino roving in rose tones.

 

All the fiber from the stash sale is washed. The Polypay fleece I got for free from another spinning friend this week. It is straight from the sheep (in 2018 according to the label). It seems that the farmer has too many fleeces in her barn and just wanted to clear some out. Here are some better pictures:

fleece in large trash bag

 

spread out for sorting

 

The whole thing weighs about 6.5 lbs (3kg). There is not a lot of vegetable matter, but there is a lot of dirt and muck in the tips. The locks are 4-5 inches long and densely packed with medium crimp. I washed a couple locks to check it out. They came out bright white, except for the tips. I may have to cut those off with a scissors. It will make a nice woolen yarn. I am planning on using it for a weaving project.

 

I was hoping to buy my friend's drumcarder to make processing all this fiber easier. Sadly, her husband had it priced far outside my budget. I did bring home an umbrella swift and a drop spindle, as well as three magazines and a booklet. Not a bad haul for a modest donation to her favorite charity.  

 

[Mistr]

I decided not to go to aikido on Monday or today. I remember previous times I went back to aikido and started biking after a long break. My quads got so tight I could not walk down stairs. That was when I was much younger. I think they are protesting louder now. I'm going to work on getting in shape first before I really hurt myself trying to do something I used to be able to do.

 

Today I did a hip exercise routine from GMB. It has a lot of the standard exercises and stretches I've done before from PT. I'll keep this up as my PT routine until I can see my actual physical therapist.

 

My TV mounting project stalled on Monday because I don't own the right sized drill bit. I did find the studs using the drill-holes-until-you-hit-something method. Tonight I will get drill bits. I will also grill chicken and work on finances. The actual TV project will have to wait because three things is too many battles for one evening.

 

Family update

Spoiler

Dumbledore is doing great. He has started weight lifting at the YMCA again. He is also monitoring his blood sugar and looking at making small, continuing changes in his eating habits. Being self-employed has been great for him. He is taking control of all aspects of his life. I am thrilled about all this.

 

Elf is doing well at their new job. At the same time, they have relationship drama. They would prefer a local, monogamous relationship. They got into another long-distance relationship last year. I was not too concerned because almost all relationships were long-distance last year. That relationship seems to be going quite well. They have had two in-person visits so far.

 

Things got more interesting when Elf and their partner made friends with another person online. They talked about how they felt about polyamory and decided they were both willing to make an exception for this person. I'll call their primary squeeze B and the person of interest C to avoid more confusion. C was in a bad living situation with their ex, staying with friends of their ex. The three of them had been talking about medium term plans of getting to the same place. Recently things in C's life went from bad to worse and they needed to get out. Elf and B agreed that the best thing to do was have C go stay with B. Elf is understandably worried that this will destabilize their relationship with B, but was willing to send C money for a plane ticket anyway.

 

I am proud of Elf. I expect things are going to get very difficult, and I hope they don't get hurt.

 

[sarakingdom]

Congrats on putting back one of the battles! Managing the right number of battles is such hard work.

[Mistr]

Things actually worked out as planned last night, miracle of miracles. I went to the hardware store and bought a single 7/32 drill bit. I'm sure I could use an approximation for most things, but I'm not willing to take chances with bolting a very heavy TV to my wall. I will be using four bolts into the studs and four into drywall anchors. I am hoping the distributed weight will be okay.

 

I grilled chicken and washed dishes while it was cooking. My family eats an amazing amount of protein. I made a 9.6 lb pork shoulder on Monday. Elf made corned beef in the crockpot the same day. I froze a third of the roast pork because it would not all fit in the fridge. I was thinking the chicken would be too much and I'd have to freeze part of that, but now I don't think so. My grocery carries boneless skinless breasts from giant chickens. Five breasts were 6.5 pounds. Dumbledore and I split one for supper and Elf sliced up half another one to put on a salad. The roast pork and corned beef are both half gone. I'm not complaining, just surprised.

 

That finished off my batch cooking for the week. Dumbledore promised to cook veggies. I will gently remind him about that tomorrow.

 

I did an hour of work on accounting. That felt really good. I like my new laptop a lot. My next task is to make Ubuntu look more like Xubuntu. I liked that version better.

 

Tonight is theoretically free, aside from drilling holes in the living room after Elf wakes up and sitting zen. I'm going to do zen early for a change so it is not hanging over me. Luckily it rained today so mowing the lawn has to wait.  

[RES]

2 hours ago, Mistr said:

Luckily it rained today so mowing the lawn has to wait.  

I can send more your way if you would like to delay it further  

[Mistr]

I have done two days of GMB hip exercises and another day of the dojo fitness class. Also lots of foam rolling.

 

I can report that the foam rolling is much easier and almost to the point of feeling good stretchy instead of ARRRRGH stretchy. My left hip felt much better after class this morning. I also noticed that my left knee is better. It was acting up before my hip was. No general pain, but some movements were NOT okay. Today I could jog on it and it was fine. Today's class was mostly strength, core and mobility and not cardio. It felt much easier. Apparently my strength training has held up while my cardio suffered. Lunges are still an area where I need lots of work. Everything else felt pretty good.

 

I am planning on going to weapons class tonight because working with swords is a good way to end the week. Tomorrow Dumbledore and I are going on a day trip, so lots of walking and no aikido. If I'm good I will get up early and do TGUs and hip exercises before we go.

 

The new drill bit worked like a charm (once I set my drill to forward instead of reverse). I think I am on track to get my living room floor back this weekend.  

[RES]

On 6/25/2021 at 3:46 PM, Mistr said:

The new drill bit worked like a charm (once I set my drill to forward instead of reverse). I think I am on track to get my living room floor back this weekend.  

Funny how those little things make such a difference  

[Harriet]

On 6/25/2021 at 9:46 PM, Mistr said:

Apparently my strength training has held up while my cardio suffered.

 

After time off? I read that VO2 Max can decline after a couple of weeks, while strength takes much longer to decay.  How was the weapons class?

[Kishi]

On 6/25/2021 at 3:46 PM, Mistr said:

If I'm good able I will get up early and do TGUs and hip exercises before we go.

 

FTFY. Sleep is worth skipping TGUs for, no joke.

[Mistr]

I think I figured out what was bothering my left leg. I'm still not quite sure because I don't know the physiological connection, but so far testing indicates

 

DAIRY

 

I was thinking the likely cause was biking and aikido because those both happened at the same time. I've been doing a little aikido and it does not seem to make any difference. I have not done any more biking, so I'm sure that is not it. I had a couple really bad nights where muscles in my shin and around my hip hurt. I can do most movement and there is no sign of injury, so what gives?

 

The only other thing that changed at the same time was that I started having Greek yogurt with fruit and protein powder for breakfast. This used to be my normal summer breakfast until I figured out that the yogurt was giving me gas. I did not notice a lot of gas this time around, except when I also had ice cream. I decided to try an experiment and not eat yogurt on Monday. I did have some cheese in my eggs at breakfast and as a snack in the afternoon. Monday night was still bad. Tuesday things started to get a little better. On Wednesday I did not have any cheese at all and by the afternoon my hip felt nearly normal. I still have tight muscles, but not shooting pain. I went to aikido and could move and take falls.

 

All through this I was foam rolling my legs and doing leg exercises. I can tell that the lunges are helping me get stronger and more stable. So far as I could tell, none of the exercises did anything for the random pain. I am going to continue the no dairy experiment until I get to see my physical therapist on July 12. Two full weeks should be enough time to tell if this is another fluke or if it really makes a difference.

[Sloth the Enduring]

Stupid dairy. How can something so good be so evil?

[Harriet]

12 hours ago, Mistr said:

I am going to continue the no dairy experiment until I get to see my physical therapist on July 12. Two full weeks should be enough time to tell if this is another fluke or if it really makes a difference.

 

Alas, this would be very sad because cheese. But if it is so, then it is so. I hope you get a clear result one way or the other.

[Kishi]

I'm there with you as someone with Hashimoto's who can't eat dairy on the reg. I hope the experiment tells you that you can go back to the things you like; otherwise, I'll be with you in solidarity on team No Dairy.

[Scaly Freak]

I'm going to go against the general consensus here and suggest that discovering that your pain could be caused by diary is a good thing. You have information now. You can experiment and take action, and that is a good thing. If you are correct, your life is about to have less pain and fewer restrictions and that is never bad, regardless of what you need to stop eating.  

[Mistr]

My experiment seems to be working. Last night was the first time in three weeks that my left hip didn't hurt at all. I did not have any dairy on Sunday or Monday. On Saturday I had half a grilled chicken sandwich that had cheese. My brain wants to say that a little cheese won't hurt, but I suspect it is lying.

 

I do have plans to make food that involve smaller amounts of dairy. A little sour cream in the dressing for potato salad, yogurt in cake batter for strawberry Bundt cake. If the pain is inflammation based, the triggers tend to be cumulative. I will see if I can cut back other things. Which ones is a mystery at the moment.

 

One fun thing I did this weekend was listen to podcasts from my zen teacher while I prepped wool. He talked about shugyo, which in this context means doing things that are difficult or scary. In martial arts, it often means doing tedious physical labor in cleaning the dojo. I considered my current challenges and decided to focus on going to bed on time. In theory that should be easy, but in practice it's not.

 

I am hoping that consistently going to bed on time will give me energy to exercise first thing in the morning. I am going back to working in the office two or three days a week. I need to plan for that and get my act together again. I already got French CDs from the library to listen to on my commute. I am not quite ready to exercise at lunchtime at work yet, so I want to get that done at home.

 

In family news, Elf decided that working third shift is a bad gig, and has put in applications for over 20 other jobs. They have 6 interviews scheduled already. Dumbledore and I told Elf to be pickier this time. Apparently we are fighting conditioning from Elf's birth parents about their right to be picky. They think that because they don't have a degree or certification, they should just take whatever they can get and suck it up. I said "you already tried that and look how well it worked. Be choosy this time". It helps that Elf's sweetie C is also job hunting and Elf told her to not just take the first thing, but be picky.

 

Dumbledore continues to be too busy to do his share of the batch cooking. I am gently pressing on this. I did all the cooking last week. I said I wouldn't cook this week, but I want to have things in the house that I can eat. I made cabbage salad and cucumber salad today. I'm also planning on grilling brats. Between those and the chicken Elf cooked last week, we should be good on protein.

[Mistr]

In choosing my battles today, I am afraid I am going to have to put back aikido so that I can do more cooking.

 

This morning I discovered that there is nothing in the house to make an easy breakfast, especially if I want to take it with me to work. Eating a little later lets me do IF and makes it easier to work out over my lunch hour. My usual backup is scrambled eggs with cheese and veggies. No good right now while I am avoiding dairy. I am going to throw something together using the frozen veggies that I don't like as a side dish and leftover chicken stock. Maybe with potatoes. Then I need to come up with a boring name so Elf and Dumbledore ignore it. 🤓

 

I am also making strawberry cake to use up the aging strawberries and Greek yogurt. Probably with the aging blackberries too. We have a problem of buying produce faster than we actually eat it.

 

On the plus side, I just talked to my weapons partner and we are meeting tomorrow and next week. I plan on being at the dojo Friday, Saturday and Sunday if my body holds up.  

[sarakingdom]

On 7/2/2021 at 11:03 AM, Scaly Freak said:

I'm going to go against the general consensus here and suggest that discovering that your pain could be caused by diary is a good thing. You have information now. You can experiment and take action, and that is a good thing. If you are correct, your life is about to have less pain and fewer restrictions and that is never bad, regardless of what you need to stop eating.  

 

No one is arguing that having knowledge isn't good. It's the lack of cheese that's unthinkable.

 

 

22 hours ago, Mistr said:

One fun thing I did this weekend was listen to podcasts from my zen teacher while I prepped wool. He talked about shugyo, which in this context means doing things that are difficult or scary. In martial arts, it often means doing tedious physical labor in cleaning the dojo. I considered my current challenges and decided to focus on going to bed on time. In theory that should be easy, but in practice it's not.

 

This is relevant to my interests. Where can I find these?

 

22 hours ago, Mistr said:

Dumbledore continues to be too busy to do his share of the batch cooking. I am gently pressing on this. I did all the cooking last week. I said I wouldn't cook this week, but I want to have things in the house that I can eat. I made cabbage salad and cucumber salad today. I'm also planning on grilling brats. Between those and the chicken Elf cooked last week, we should be good on protein.

 

New house rule: men who are too busy to do their share of the cooking contribute to house meals by becoming dinner.

 

 

45 minutes ago, Mistr said:

In choosing my battles today, I am afraid I am going to have to put back aikido so that I can do more cooking.

 

Make sure Soylent Dumbledore knows you're having to give up things you love to make up for his inability to feed his loved ones once in a while.

 

47 minutes ago, Mistr said:

My usual backup is scrambled eggs with cheese and veggies. No good right now while I am avoiding dairy. I am going to throw something together using the frozen veggies that I don't like as a side dish and leftover chicken stock. Maybe with potatoes.

 

Removing the cheese from the eggs and vegetables (and maybe adding a sausage for calories) doesn't do the trick?

 

48 minutes ago, Mistr said:

Then I need to come up with a boring name so Elf and Dumbledore ignore it. 🤓

 

Not to return to a theme, but...

 

[Mistr]

22 minutes ago, sarakingdom said:

 

No one is arguing that having knowledge isn't good. It's the lack of cheese that's unthinkable.

 

 

Yes, you understand the problem. I live in the Cheesehead state. It's everywhere.

 

22 minutes ago, sarakingdom said:

This is relevant to my interests. Where can I find these?

 

This was an interview on Guru Viking. It is long, but interesting. https://www.guruviking.com/ep98-meido-roshi-hidden-zen/

 

22 minutes ago, sarakingdom said:

New house rule: men who are too busy to do their share of the cooking contribute to house meals by becoming dinner.

 

Make sure Soylent Dumbledore knows you're having to give up things you love to make up for his inability to feed his loved ones once in a while.

 

Removing the cheese from the eggs and vegetables (and maybe adding a sausage for calories) doesn't do the trick?

 

I have done food prep from first principles (with hogs) and it is a lot of work. Not currently feasible, nor desirable. However, I will say something about it.

 

I am sure I can do something with eggs that will work. I normally use buttermilk to make scrambled eggs. They come out out much better than with plain milk. I am going to try oat milk and lemon juice, since I suspect the acid is part of what helps make the eggs fluffy. I can also cook some peppers, onions and mushrooms to put in omelettes along with bacon or sausage. That is more prep cooking that I didn't have time for today.  

 

I am going to experiment with non-dairy ice cream. I got good results with a coconut milk base last year. I want to see if using oat milk with the coconut milk will cut the coconut flavor a little. I am fine with chocolate coconut ice cream, but I'm not sure about coconut-espresso-toffee ice cream.

 

Agenda for tonight:

• Chicken and veggie surprise
• Strawberry cake
• Potato salad
• Zen

I can see that is too many battles again. The potato salad will have to wait. I can boil the potatoes while I am cooking the other things, so they will be ready tomorrow.

 

[Scaly Freak]

5 hours ago, Mistr said:

I am going to throw something together using the frozen veggies that I don't like as a side dish and leftover chicken stock. Maybe with potatoes. Then I need to come up with a boring name so Elf and Dumbledore ignore it. 🤓

 

Elton.  Harry.  Mona.

 

Boring names.

[sarakingdom]

5 hours ago, Mistr said:

Yes, you understand the problem. I live in the Cheesehead state. It's everywhere.

 

I thought you did. You might even lose your state citizenship over this one.

 

5 hours ago, Mistr said:

I am sure I can do something with eggs that will work. I normally use buttermilk to make scrambled eggs. They come out out much better than with plain milk. I am going to try oat milk and lemon juice, since I suspect the acid is part of what helps make the eggs fluffy. I can also cook some peppers, onions and mushrooms to put in omelettes along with bacon or sausage. That is more prep cooking that I didn't have time for today. 

 

Plain water makes some pretty fluffy scrambled eggs, if you don't overcook them. I can't say if it's better than buttermilk, but worth a shot. I hear you on prep time. You can get precooked sausages so it's not much more work than putting in some cheese.

 

Another option is leaving some granola or muesli at work, and some almond milk, which is shelf stable until you open it. It would store nicely in a desk drawer and be zero prep, if you have a fridge to put the opened almond milk in. Me, I'd prefer the protein of the eggs, but for most people, a good nutty granola/muesli is plenty proteiny enough for breakfast. That could be pretty darned nice, and not add to the cooking load. (Unless you make your own, but, like... give yourself the option not to. Or at least go for muesli, and just mix a large batch of ingredients that doesn't require cooking. It is true you can probably get a cheaper muesli that way. But maybe not this week.)

 

5 hours ago, Mistr said:

I am going to experiment with non-dairy ice cream. I got good results with a coconut milk base last year. I want to see if using oat milk with the coconut milk will cut the coconut flavor a little. I am fine with chocolate coconut ice cream, but I'm not sure about coconut-espresso-toffee ice cream.

 

I think that sounds pretty good. Coconut and toffee work well together, and, while coconut and coffee isn't the most obvious combination, I have seen coconut flavored coffee, so it might be just fine. I think you'd do okay.

 

5 hours ago, Mistr said:

I can see that is too many battles again. The potato salad will have to wait. I can boil the potatoes while I am cooking the other things, so they will be ready tomorrow.

 

I'm a big fan of prepping ingredients ahead of making the dish. Often, everything can be roasted at once, or chopped at once. I'm only good at doing it for holiday meals, when you're really pipelining dish preparation like crazy, but it's the best way.