[Elastigirl]

On 9/16/2022 at 6:20 PM, MaeradCase said:

I like the 50% goal - just enough motivation to start, but the satisfaction of meeting the goal even if you didn't complete the task, because the goal is progress not completion.

 

Yeah! Bite-size goals!

 

😍😍😍

 

😍😍😍

 

Great job!!

Thanks. That's what I'm hoping for with the 50% goal. On track with that and my scrapbooking, but not with the guest bedroom redo.

[Elastigirl]

Weekly wrap up:

 

Yes, there was lots of joys. Enjoying our gorgeous September weather-sunny with enough nip in the mornings to say fall is coming. Enjoying spending the last few moments in the garden.

 

Fitness:

Did GMB workouts, Lots of good walks. One thing I learned from the walk mini challenge was that I have a tendency to underestimate how long my walks take me. I found a  neighborhood loop I could do that really is 10 to 15 minutes (as opposed to thinking it is that and it's actually longer) That made it nice for a couple of days when I was short on time, I did the loop and got a bit of walking it. I also did a Youtube video I found that was 10 minutes of walking. I favorited some others, so this winter when I don't want to go for a walk, I can pull those up for nice rest day movement.

 

Food:

Did pretty good on my eating skills. I think I am tending to eat my snack while staring at the computer, so I am going to work on not doing that this week.

 

Life:

I wrote out my weekly goals, and my daily.  I did 2 pages of scrapbook. The rest of my weekly goals,  didn't happen.  A lot of it was because I had garden veggies that I needed to do things with right away. Also, we have smoke in the air, not super bad like it was, just enough that my allergies make me feel a little run down. Thankfully, it's not bad, but I did just feel a little lower on energy this week.

 

 

Next week:

I'm reading James Clear's  Atomic Habits. It's really good! It's motivating me to work on bit on habits that I had established but I have gotten lax about over the summer. Now seems like a good time to put the routines back in place that make the habits easy to keep.Also, I want to do the chapter one assignment, which is to write out your habits.

 

My morning routine:

Get up: Drink a glass of water, read my Bible

Row ( this isn't a must, if schedule doesn't allow, or I'm tired, but  otherwise it's a yes)
breakfast 

clean kitchen

 

The other habit is drinking water. This is easy over the summer, but get's harder in the fall. I am going to use my clear water jog. It has markings for each 8 ounce and holds 32 ounces. Since it is clearly marked, it is easy for me to keep track of how I'm doing on my water. My goal is to drink it  all by the end of day. I also will drink at least half a glass in the morning, and I usually will drink some tea during the day, and a seltzer at dinner. The extra drinks don't need to be tracked, just finish my water bottle.

[starpuck]

Sounds like a pretty good week still Elasti!    I mean, garden had to be tended, so prioritizing that wasn't a bad idea.

The smoke is serious business.   It's amazing how different I feel when our air quality goes meh.

 

[Elastigirl]

6 hours ago, starpuck said:

Sounds like a pretty good week still Elasti!    I mean, garden had to be tended, so prioritizing that wasn't a bad idea.

The smoke is serious business.   It's amazing how different I feel when our air quality goes meh.

 

Thanks. Yeah, the smoke rolled in again today, but thankfully the wind shift and it blew out again.

[Elastigirl]

I started out the day by reading my BIble and drinking water

Good day today. Met up with friends, one who moved but is back in town visiting, went for a walk, and then sat around outside chatting for a long time.

Did my GMB workout workout in the afternoon. Afternoon workouts aren't my best. I like afternoon naps better.😉 But , I did it, and it got done.

 

I haven't planned out my week yet. Need to do that and write out a meal plan for the week.

[Silmarilliane]

So true how water is much easier to drinking when it's hot - I tend to switch to green tea or roobois! Excellent work on the first week, also, I love pickles! Must be amazing home-making them  

[Elastigirl]

On 9/20/2022 at 7:28 AM, Silmarilliane said:

So true how water is much easier to drinking when it's hot - I tend to switch to green tea or roobois! Excellent work on the first week, also, I love pickles! Must be amazing home-making them  

I  think it still counts if I drink my herbal or decaf tea, so I'm good with part of my liquid being in tea form.  But, I'd like some of it to be just water.

[Elastigirl]

Yesterday was a weird morning. I started great, read my Bible, drank my water. Then, I went out and watered the garden outside. It was super sunny and I decided to skip  doing the rower so I would have more time in the day to garden  It's also house blessing-cleaning day, since Wednesday is my prayer group.  Tuesday I usually also go walking with my friend at noon. So, I planned to clean the house, go on a walk, and come home to do gardening.

Then my friend texted and said she couldn't make it. So, I needed to change plans. I decided I still wanted to walk, and since I wasn't going with her that meant I would have extra time to do gardening, and today would be a good day to super clean everything. Meaning my brain went into Ranger mode- do all the things, and then short circuited and I sat on the computer for too long.😒Finally, I decided I needed to get moving, so I wrote a list and prioritized, and actually started to get stuff done. Went on a medium walk, just did very minimal cleaning, and spent more time gardening.

 

My gardening dilemma; also known as Instagram doesn't match my reality. I follow Instagram accounts and they show how they cover the garden in the fall with yard clippings, and it's so convenient, and good for the yard. I get all excited to do it. I posted about how my fern clippings hardly covered anything. I decided to try grass. Saved the grass clippings from the last two times the lawn was mowed. It filled a garbage can. Yay, I thought, this will cover the whole row where my zucchini and cucumber plants were. Reality: it covered one tiny corner. 

 

Today;

Did the rower in the morning. Did my GMB workout. My quads were sore from Monday, and now they are more sore!  I think they will be fine. Made some baked apples with the last of our apples. Went on a short walk after dinner. There was smoke from a wild fire , so I made it a short walk. This afternoon the smoke was really bad, this evening was better, but my allergies don't like it, so I made it a short walk.

 

 

 

 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Instagram doesn't match anyone's reality, even the people doing the posting.

[Elastigirl]

21 minutes ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Instagram doesn't match anyone's reality, even the people doing the posting.

Very true.😃 To be fair,  the people I follow are just posting their experiences and they are trying to be helpful, they aren't trying to post a false picture. But implementation is harder then watching it done. 

[Silmarilliane]

I have constant reminders to do all the little things around the house/garden and more often that not I see this long list and just don't do anything... I'm trying to bucket things into when I can actually get them done, but generally it falls to 'green bin goes out tomorrow, I need to cut the grass today' type prioritisation.

Very frustrating the cuttings didn't cover as much as you wanted - any neighbours you could ask for cuttings from?

[Artemis Prime]

What's your tree situation? We have lots of maple trees and have had good luck chopping up the leaves in the fall and then putting them on the garden.

[starpuck]

What's the benefit of covering things with clippings?   I mean, here in Chi-town, we just tear down the old dead garden bits, and let the snow and brutal cold have its way with the soils and stuff.  LOL.   The only thing we do is put leaves around sensitive plants, like the newly reborn rose of sharon that grew from the ashes of the one we ripped out years ago.   You don't get snow much do you?   And certainly not the like ... High of -5 with wind chills hitting -60.  Right?   I would have thought PNW gardens could just like 'chill out man' for a few months then be back to ready.

 

I hear ya on the 'do all the things, and then get side tracked' bit.  I have that happen too.

[KB Girl]

17 hours ago, Elastigirl said:

today would be a good day to super clean everything. Meaning my brain went into Ranger mode- do all the things, and then short circuited and I sat on the computer for too long.😒

Ohhh yes. You’re not alone with this EG!

[Elastigirl]

18 hours ago, Silmarilliane said:

I have constant reminders to do all the little things around the house/garden and more often that not I see this long list and just don't do anything... I'm trying to bucket things into when I can actually get them done, but generally it falls to 'green bin goes out tomorrow, I need to cut the grass today' type prioritisation.

Very frustrating the cuttings didn't cover as much as you wanted - any neighbours you could ask for cuttings from?

Yes, I find I function better if I have assigned times for things.  If I can do it  as just part of a routine, it's more likely to get done.  With the neighbors,  I still don't think it would be enough, and I don't know what chemicals they use on their lawn.

16 hours ago, Artemis Prime said:

What's your tree situation? We have lots of maple trees and have had good luck chopping up the leaves in the fall and then putting them on the garden.

Sadly, no maple tree. 

14 hours ago, starpuck said:

What's the benefit of covering things with clippings?   I mean, here in Chi-town, we just tear down the old dead garden bits, and let the snow and brutal cold have its way with the soils and stuff.  LOL.   The only thing we do is put leaves around sensitive plants, like the newly reborn rose of sharon that grew from the ashes of the one we ripped out years ago.   You don't get snow much do you?   And certainly not the like ... High of -5 with wind chills hitting -60.  Right?   I would have thought PNW gardens could just like 'chill out man' for a few months then be back to ready.

 

I hear ya on the 'do all the things, and then get side tracked' bit.  I have that happen too.

For the vegetable garden, the two main purposes are to protect from weeds , and to hopefully build the soil up as it decomposes. I've put compost on it before, but we have so much rain, it washes away. I may just put a weed cloth on it, and buy compost to put on it in the early spring.

I do have to cover my dahlias with yard clipping and protect the, They have hollow stems that grow out of tubers. If water gets in the stem, and then it freezes, it will kill the tuber (bulb)

9 hours ago, KB Girl said:

Ohhh yes. You’re not alone with this EG!

😃

[Silmarilliane]

4 hours ago, Elastigirl said:

and I don't know what chemicals they use on their lawn

 

Ohh yes, very fair point. Hope the weed cloth works instead 🤞

[Harriet]

On 9/22/2022 at 6:05 AM, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Instagram doesn't match anyone's reality, even the people doing the posting.

 

You mean there isn't a really race of women with identical smoochy faces, no pores and smooth bubble hips exactly 2.5 times the width of their waists?

[Harriet]

On 9/22/2022 at 4:50 AM, Elastigirl said:

My gardening dilemma; also known as Instagram doesn't match my reality. I follow Instagram accounts and they show how they cover the garden in the fall with yard clippings, and it's so convenient, and good for the yard. I get all excited to do it. I posted about how my fern clippings hardly covered anything. I decided to try grass. Saved the grass clippings from the last two times the lawn was mowed. It filled a garbage can. Yay, I thought, this will cover the whole row where my zucchini and cucumber plants were. Reality: it covered one tiny corner.

 

Clearly, you need to steal other people's clippings. And make a voodoo garden.

[Elastigirl]

On 9/23/2022 at 9:33 AM, Harriet said:

 

Clearly, you need to steal other people's clippings. And make a voodoo garden.

Now that I think about it, that's probably the Instagram Influencers method too.😃

[Elastigirl]

A few moments ago I went to post a weekly update. Realized I hadn't done any work on my big projects. I went and spent a few moments on my  Yellowstone scrapbook. Choose a cover photo.

 

The other cool things I did this week was bake sugar cookies and decorate them I  used my pumpkin and leaf cookie cutters. They were for our church bake sale at our fall festival. They took longer than I thought to make (per usual) so I recruited my husband to help me Friday night. Of course, I am lousy at remembering to take photos, so you will have to trust me that they turned out good. And we sold them all!

 

Weekend was good. Friday we went to a fancy restaurant with a gift card. I had steak. Ate the whole thing. Saturday was our big church fall festival. We were part of the set up crew, so Saturday we helped set up tents in the park. And there was lots of eating there too.

 

My bonus goal was drinking water. I did great at drinking water first thing in the morning.  This was a habit I had that I just sort of dropped. So I am finding it fairly easy to pick up.  I  did semi good at remembering to fill up my clear water bottle. Didn't drink all of it, but I think I am drinking more than I was.

 

Did my workouts. Went on walks. Most of the week I ate sensibly. Used my daily planner. Like I said, I didn't do much scrapbooking. But, we've had awesome weather. So hubby and I went for after dinner walks, It's getting darker earlier every evening, so gotta do those while we can.

[Silmarilliane]

Mmmm cookies. Were they pumpkin spice flavoured or just shaped?

[KB Girl]

Sounds like a good event, this festival  

You don't like walking in the dark? I kinda enjoy it. 

[Elastigirl]

10 hours ago, Silmarilliane said:

Mmmm cookies. Were they pumpkin spice flavoured or just shaped?

Just shaped like pumpkins.

5 hours ago, KB Girl said:

Sounds like a good event, this festival  

You don't like walking in the dark? I kinda enjoy it. 

It was fun. No, I  like walking at dusk but not the dark. Well, if we are out somewhere and it is dark and pleasant weather I enjoy it. But if I'm at home, and it's dark and cold, I can rarely talk myself into going on a walk. We have sidewalks, so it's safe enough, I just want to curl up and read a book or watch TV. This year, I am thinking about talking myself into walking up the street and back, about a 5 minute walk, after dinner. I might have better luck talking myself into that.

 

[Elastigirl]

Good day today. Started my day with a glass of water, a half a banana, and reading my Bible. Then I did my rowing. After breakfast, I did my workout. My ankle was a little sore, so I foam rolled it before my workout. It felt fine for the workout. I was going to go for an afternoon walk, but smoke blew in from the wildfires, and so I didn't. Later in the afternoon, it cleared out some, so I did a bit of gardening. Around 5:00 hubby and I decided to go for a pre-dinner walk. Dinner ended up being a bit later. But, like I said to KB Girl, it's really hard for me to motivate myself to go for a walk after dinner if it is dark.

 

For dinner we had the last of the summer squash from the garden.

 

The following is thoughts on my Zone 2 work with rowing:

Friday, I looked again at my target heart rate for Zone 2. I use my Fitbit, which isn't super accurate, so I also do the talk test. However, since my target numbers were lower than I thought, I decided to monitor my Fitbit a little more carefully and make sure I wasn't going into Zone 3. My highest number is 114, but with the talk test I'm fine until about 120, so I try to stick to 100- 120.  Today, I paid more attention. I noticed that I was often pushing  it at 120 and starting to go over. I think now that I've been doing it awhile, I have a tendency to see if I can push harder, and then that increases my heart rate. So, the goal for this week is to focus on the sweet spot. Not , too slow, but not a push either.

 

 

 

[sarakingdom]

On 9/21/2022 at 3:49 PM, Elastigirl said:

I  think it still counts if I drink my herbal or decaf tea, so I'm good with part of my liquid being in tea form.  But, I'd like some of it to be just water.

 

I read recently that the study that found coffee was dehydrating was a study done in the 1930s on three people. That is not a legit sample size. That's not real science. Caffeinated drinks count,  IMO.