Thatgirljj: Inspiration & perspiration

[thatgirljj]

TOTAL REWORK OF CHALLENGE 6/21/14:

 

Here's the deal.  My laptop has been down for a while and I've been sitting pondering what to do with this challenge.  I think I'm going to keep going at it, but seriously re-work the whole thing.  

 

New challenge title: This is Why I Train.

 

My mom has breast cancer.  I have to go down (next county over) and help her with things like understanding the info she gets from her doctors and several days of recovering from surgery.  The good news is that every sign is that this is going to be 100% treatable with a very low chance of recurrence if she does everything right.  So my job right now is to support her in doing everything right.  

 

 

With that being said my new challenge goals:

 

Goal 1: Support my mom in what she needs.  Surgery/recovery.   Company for appointments.  An ear to listen or shoulder to lean on.

 

Goal 2: Support myself.  I can't help her unless I take care of myself.  This means following a skeletal version of Ye Olde Training Schedule focusing on not missing any training opportunities with my friends.  (Workout & social support all rolled into one? Perfect!)  At home training will either be handstands or stretching splits.  I don't need to be killing myself with squats or wearing out my shoulder on the P-bars right now.  This also means eating consistent, healthy meals.  A protein shake is not a meal.  McDonalds is not a meal.  I know from the past that subsisting on both of those leads to binging (and feeling crappy) and I just don't need that right now.  Get some good solid food, good hard workouts and time with friends.

 

Goal 3: Get some of the basic landscaping work done for my yard.  This was originally a main focus of this challenge for me, I've got some big, physically demanding hardscape work to do.  So a slightly lighter set of goals would be:

• Mini-Goal 1: Weedcloth and rocks over the succulent planting area next to our driveway.
• Mini-Goal 2: Build 15 deer cages to keep the deer out of our new plantings next fall.
• Mini-Goal 3: Dig out an infiltration basin in the side yard (about 75% done right now), fill in with rocks and re-fill top with soil to plant in.  

[Mad Hatter]

Yay, all the circus!

 

Goals #3 is really interesting. I'm pretty sure I have a tendency to slump when I'm getting frustrated or tired and I can see how habitually doing that would tell the brain that this is going to be a bad practice. Interesting!

[Lilith]

I like your third goal a lot! When you walk up the straps, walk up there LIKE YOU'VE ALREADY HAD A VICTORY! You can totally do this! And with flexibility also has to come a lot of stability, so you got the yin part down, but now you have to go for yang too.... <3 I will be following you! 

[KB Girl]

That's such a good point about inspiration! It's easy to overlook all the hard work when just seeing the end result.. I'm with you on this one

And yay for gardening! Does that make me middle-aged too?

[Lammis]

I shall be checking in to see progress on the deer boxes and garden.  And inspiration.  But I will be saving your gardening inspiration for later.  

 

Also, Following Ye Olde Training schedule is super hard some weeks!  Good luck!

[thatgirljj]

Yay, all the circus!

 

Goals #3 is really interesting. I'm pretty sure I have a tendency to slump when I'm getting frustrated or tired and I can see how habitually doing that would tell the brain that this is going to be a bad practice. Interesting!

 

In my case, it's bad practice on the brain, but it also means I'm trying to lock down my lats and get proper body position at the same moment I'm trying to do whatever I'm trying to do.  So I'm less effective at everything.  :-P  But yeah, it's one of those circus things like practicing with a smile so your body is just ready to smile no matter how difficult something is.

 

I like your third goal a lot! When you walk up the straps, walk up there LIKE YOU'VE ALREADY HAD A VICTORY! You can totally do this! And with flexibility also has to come a lot of stability, so you got the yin part down, but now you have to go for yang too.... <3 I will be following you! 

 

Well, in my case, flexibility and stability are opposites.  My body is loose.  I have several hypermobile joints and I pike my hips back pretty much 24-7.  I need to be able to consistently hold a good hollow body with my hips open.  I need to be able to lock my lats down in the extreme ends of my range of motion and not dump out my weight into my shoulders.  This is all kind of why I stopped training contortion, because I'm too wobbly and loose already, it's not really good to progress further in that direction, so I need to move in the stability direction.

 

That's such a good point about inspiration! It's easy to overlook all the hard work when just seeing the end result.. I'm with you on this one

And yay for gardening! Does that make me middle-aged too?

 

It just makes you awesome!  I never saw a gardening wrap-up at the end of your last thread... Where are you with that?

 

I shall be checking in to see progress on the deer boxes and garden.  And inspiration.  But I will be saving your gardening inspiration for later.  

 

Also, Following Ye Olde Training schedule is super hard some weeks!  Good luck!

 

I'll see if I can figure out how to post the scale drawing from my workshop if you want serious inspiration!  (My task for today is to finish work on the last scale diagram.) I still have more research and design work to do (and possibly a consult with a geological/soils engineer), but I have the basics for the highest eroison area of the yard.  

 

And it's not really super hard.  Partly because the skeleton of Ye Olde Training Schedule is group classes with my friends.  And partly because I don't mind missing a workout here or there, since I know it's the whole picture I need to be concerned about.  But it may be a little more challenging to get in some of these workouts because my son is out of school for the summer, so I either need to hit the gym when he's at an activity for a few hours, pay $5 for gym daycare, or substitute an at-home workout.  

[KB Girl]

Oh yea I didn't wrap up at all.. was too busy! But i'll update on it soon  

[Jill Beat]

I keep finding more circus peeps around here and am LOVING it!  I started taking aerial hoop classes ~20 weeks ago (and 12 weeks of pole dancing before that) and am loving it.  I'm trying silks at the end of this month! Yikes! 

 

As for the litter box, have you thought of something like this:

[Reverberance]

The goals look great. Best of luck.

[sylph]

"So I need to detach myself a little bit from getting inspired by how perfect someone's leg line is, and get into being inspired by their focus and work ethic."

 

This is an awesome way to look at it.

[thatgirljj]

Pre-challenge update:

 

Gardening Last friday I laid down the weedcloth, the kitten alarm clock had me up at 5:45, so I did most of the layout and cutting spaces for my plants by 7:30am so it wasn't yet hot.  Super easy task at that hour, I would have been dying if I did it at 1pm. Tuesday the rock is being delivered... OMG guys, I can't even tell you the miracle that is online soil ordering/delivery.  We've used this company before at our old house and seriously, you order online, they show up in a 2 hour window with a truck full of rocks or soil and BAM it's shoveling time.  So I should get that part of the challenge garden knocked out by the end of next week.  (It takes a just a leeeeettle while to move 2cu yards of crushed rock by hand.)

 

The last meeting of my landscaping class was yesterday and it was soooooo super crazy helpful.  We presented our landscape plans for critique by the instructor (an experienced landscape architect who specializes in native plants).  I came in with a pretty solid plan and I got some suggestions that are going to make it AWESOME!  I had good plant choices and a solid idea of generally where to put them, but I got specific suggestions on how to arrange it to make the wash area into more of a dry streambed, and plenty of encouragement to put in some larger trees (which my husband wants too, but I was a little tentative about committing to).  So now we're going to have a sycamore that partially shades the lower side yard, and a couple oaks and ironwoods up on the hill... all totally gorgeous trees, and it reduces the number of perennial shrubs I need ($ for 3 shrubs > $ for one tree and the trees have a longer lifespan).  By the end I had classmates gasping and murmuring "Wow... you could get on the garden tour!"  (Which is silly since the local native plant garden tour showcases all different types of gardens, from amazing to modest.... at least 2 other people had designs that would probably qualify when they're grown in.)   

 

So this next week my gardening tasks are to redraw a blank plant plan for the hill area so I can work on the revised plan, shovel 2 cu yards of crushed rock into place and build 4 deer cages.  No big thing.  

 

Inspiration  I am only doing mindset work on that this week because I have a lot of shoveling on my plate.

 

Perspiration I am going to skip out on handstand class on Thursday because shoveling.  I'm going light on my squats in the gym because shoveling, and I may skip out on my Friday weight training in favor of a day spent playing with the kids in my friend's pool.  I think after a week of shoveling rock that's going to be a better choice, plus it's going to be >90 that day.  POOL!!!

 

 

I keep finding more circus peeps around here and am LOVING it!  I started taking aerial hoop classes ~20 weeks ago (and 12 weeks of pole dancing before that) and am loving it.  I'm trying silks at the end of this month! Yikes! 

 

As for the litter box, have you thought of something like this:

[ snip picture of enclosed litter box]

 

So I have this theory about aerial folks.  You can either handle soft apparatus pain (silk, straps, rope) or you can handle hard apparatus pain (hoop, trap, pole).  Me?  I can NOT handle soft apparatus pain, so you guys who do hoop have my total admiration... it makes my hands hurt just thinking about it.  

 

I have considered some sort of enclosed litterbox.  I'm just hoping that if I go that route that I can force myself to lift the lid and clean it.  Having an open box nags me that it needs to be cleaned.  Thankfully, the box in my office is only a secondary box, since the kitten is now sharing the big cat's box much of the time.  He only uses mine if he's upstairs or confined to my room.  Maybe I can get myself to clean it more since I know it'll be less gross than if it got heavier use.

[Mad Hatter]

If you mean handling pain by copiously swearing and questioning why the hell we're doing this then sure we can handle it. Though for me it's not the hands, it's the feet and ankles on the hoop and on pole it's the inner thigh. Aaaah the burn! But what won't we do for the art. 

[KB Girl]

Nice! Such a great idea to take a landscaping class for this project It's something you'll be looking at/ enjoying for many years to come, so it's really something worth investing in. Having a 2 hour delivery window is just fking sweet! Good luck moving everything though :X 

[Jill Beat]

When I started it was the hands that killed, now it's just the random bruises everywhere lol.  Backs of my knees, my back and tops of my feet are the worst right now! lol 

 

I'm planning on working on flexibility to make my shapes look prettier  

[thatgirljj]

Day 1 of the challenge is off to an awesome start.

 

Approach the straps with strength I did pretty OK with this one.  I'm not going to say I did awesome because I didn't. But my coach knows I'm working on it (and teases me when I don't do it) and I told my usual training partner about it, and so she's helping me with it too.  (We usually pair up on rotations and her and I are at the same level so we usually are paired together.)  I did some good work on keeping my wrist position strong.  I made some good progress on rotating into back balance.  And I'm working on conditioning my wrists in a position that's akin to false grip on the rings... but on straps it puts a ton of pressure on the wrists, so every class I just try to hang there for 30-60 seconds.  Well tonight, one of my trapeze friends had a birthday, so just as I went up into my hang, her class burst out into happy birthday, so I held my hang for the length of the song.     I'm still struggling a bit if I don't get into a locked position right away, but I've been trying to just come down and go back up rather than fight with the straps over it and lose.

 

Gardening/Landscaping Well, my rock delivery guys called this afternoon and asked if they could deliver early... and I happened to be home, so I said sure.  So we now have a whole bunch of rock sitting in our driveway.  I put in about 1/2 hour of work shoveling it, but I didn't want to exhaust myself before straps and I had to make dinner.  So more shoveling tomorrow.  Did you know shoveling crushed rock burns at least 300 calories an hour (for a shortie like me)?  I looked it up.     Also, this morning I measured & cut the mesh for 5 deer cages.  My husband is cleaning out the garage and found his tin snips, so that made the whole process go faster than with wire cutters.  It was still a pain though... cutting is the worst part and I've got a swollen welt on my hand from the tin snips.   But now I have 5 cut, and I just have to assemble 4 of them this week and I'm on target for my goal.  I did the math and right now I only have enough mesh for 15 cages, so when I do all 15, I'll count it as done for the challenge. 

 

 

If you mean handling pain by copiously swearing and questioning why the hell we're doing this then sure we can handle it. Though for me it's not the hands, it's the feet and ankles on the hoop and on pole it's the inner thigh. Aaaah the burn! But what won't we do for the art. 

 

Yeah, for me it's the joints in my hands.  Ugh, the worst.  Soft apparatus people get some nasty friction burns, but these days I don't even notice them till hours later.  But I've never been able to get over the nervy-ness of the hard steel bars.  

 

Nice! Such a great idea to take a landscaping class for this project It's something you'll be looking at/ enjoying for many years to come, so it's really something worth investing in. Having a 2 hour delivery window is just fking sweet! Good luck moving everything though :X 

 

It wasn't actually that expensive of a class, and it was super helpful.  It taught how to do the design of any space, not just what we were currently working on.  So now I have a handle on how to go through the same process for our front yard and our side yard.  And the landscape architect who taught it was full of helpful insights.

 

When I started it was the hands that killed, now it's just the random bruises everywhere lol.  Backs of my knees, my back and tops of my feet are the worst right now! lol 

 

I'm planning on working on flexibility to make my shapes look prettier

 

Yup.  Bruises are par for the course.  And flexibility looks lovely on the hoop... but it takes a ton of strength too, especially for spinning and orbiting.  (God I love spinning & orbiting.  That's why I'm learning straps, I like single point apparatuses for the spinniness.)

[Lilith]

Great to hear that you are getting stronger and more stable in the straps already! Working on it really is the only way I think, and is far more important than how well it goes right now too. Pfff you hung in the trapeze for long then You do all kinds of scary awesome things I'm in love! 

[Nymeria]

Stalking, of course... 

 

It's great that your coach and your training partner understand your straps issue and are helping you through it.    You're off to a wonderful start this challenge!  I hope you'll post some pictures of the garden when you're finished.

[thatgirljj]

Blegh... today was semi crappy.  On the good news, I moved 75% of massive pile of gravel and finished the contract project for my old work.  On the bad news front, I'm freaking tired and I bashed my head on a shelf in my sons room.  I had to really talk myself into at least doing my handstands training.  No splits, no GMB stuff.  Just 1.5 minutes of handstands & some stretching.

 

Just checking in to hold myself accountable for not doing more and reminding myself that it was good to do something.

[KB Girl]

Doing handstands after you bashed your head is gold medal effort really!

[thatgirljj]

Ok... so yesterday I found out that my mom is having some health issues, and so I'm going to modify my challenge.  Ye Olde Training Schedule is out, I'm not sure that I can follow it regularly while giving my mom the support & assistance she needs.  My goal will simply be to train regularly, no matter what form that takes.    I may dramatically re-work my challenge, or I may just be OK with not hitting the goals that I set out.  We'll see, I need to know a little more about what she's going to need from me in terms of help.

 

In the meantime, this morning I spent a couple hours just cleaning up a small corner of our yard that was a problem area.  Right under our faucet was overgrown with lantana, filled up with dead bouganvillia blossoms and it would get all gross and muddy if the water dripped.  I cleaned it up.  Laid down gravel.  And now it's nice and neat.  

 

[Nuala]

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[KB Girl]

That's quite an improvement! Inspiring, thanks

I hope your mom will be alright.. rework the challenge as needed, but i think keeping it as is and accepting some failure would be alright too! Then at least you've still got in mind what you wanted, who knows how well  you'll end up doing.

[thatgirljj]

Update: Please see page 1 of my challenge for updated goals.  

[Elastigirl]

Sorry to hear about your mom. Glad to hear it is treatable. I like how you rearranged your goals to fit your life.

[Jill Beat]

I'm so sorry to hear about your mom.  Even thought the prognosis looks good, it's never an easy road.  Cancer is a *insert ALL THE BAD WORDS*.  

I'm glad you realize that you need to take care of yourself before you can take care of others.  Don't forget about that.  Ask for help when you need it.  And when you have the time, know that we're all here to support you and cheer you on. 

 

Best of luck to you and your mom! You're both strong beautiful women and you can get through this!