Jayniana Jones Stays Steady

[Jayniana Jones]

I was torn about doing a challenge this round because my mom is getting worse and I'm struggling to care about much besides how I can help my dad out. Yet, I found that writing down what I plan to do helps me care a little bit about caring for myself. It's also nice to see that despite the chaos that surrounds me I'm still making progress on my goals. So here's my challenge for the next four weeks.

 

Maintain my daily yoga streak.
Today is day 371. I meant to post a celebratory post in the Woot Room section for my 365 days in a row milestone but I didn't get to it because of other things going on. 

 

Eat 5 fruits or veggies a day. 
I've been pretty lax with what I'm consuming because of emotions so I figure I'll start making small steps to cleaning up my eating. I've been keeping track in my head, but I'll log it on my phone so I have documented progress. A simple yes or no is my logging method.

 

Continue rehab for my ankle and knee daily.

I met with a surgeon last Friday for my foot. Even though my progress is slow he thinks the physical therapy is helping. I'm weaning myself out of the lovely walking boot into an ankle brace that is reminiscent of old fashioned leather boots with lots of eyelets and laces (I put a picture of it in the post). It is not comfortable but if I understand correctly this is what I get to wear for a long while (it may be for the rest of my life, I can't remember and made a note to ask at my next appointment). I'm still trying to wrap my head around the list of what I can't do ever again. It's quite lengthy. At the moment, I'll be happy if I can walk around my house with nothing besides regular shoes and orthotics. 

 

Writing five days a week or five hours. 

I have a romantic comedy novel draft that is waiting for me to edit it. Despite the things going on, I'd like to make time to work on it because it's a nice distraction. I put the hour goal also because I don't know what each day holds for me. I inherited my mom's clients (she's a web programmer) so I have extra work to sort through to figure out what I can do and what I need to hire out. My writing time may be done more in chunks of time instead of daily depending on what her clients need.

 

Thank you so much for following and reading what I post. It means a lot.

 

[FatboySuave]

Following! Congrats on the yoga streak! I'm glad you decided to stick around and continue to focus on yourself. I know how tough things are for you right now, but stay strong and fortify!  

[Schaengel]

Following again

 

Also that Yoga-Streak needs to be celebrated in styles...so:

[Vibrantella]

11 hours ago, Jayniana Jones said:

Today is day 371

WOOT!  Amazingly well done!!!!  

[SaltyDragon]

Hard to believe it's been a year. Congratulations on the streak!

[Leimanu]

We should all carry confetti in our pockets!

 

How's the Staying Steady?  Hope it's going well!

[Jayniana Jones]

My mom passed away last night of ovarian cancer. While I'm sad, it's a relief that she is no longer in pain. I will miss her dearly. At the moment, I just feel numb. Before she was unable to communicate we had some frank discussions and her final wish for me was that I take my hubby to Kauai with no teens. So I'm tweaking things to make that happen. 

 

I've logged many miles over the last two weeks going from my house to my parents' house (about a 45-minute drive one way) daily to help care for my mom. Today is the first day I don't have to go anywhere. Well, technically, I was supposed to go to physical therapy but I canceled because I didn't want to answer the question "How was your weekend?" 

 

I can't tell you how many times I was tempted to chuck my yoga streak. Yet, the huge streak number and the fact that yoga helped me deal with the chaos of my emotions kept me going. Today is day 384.

 

My ankle is still being problematic. I'm trying to work my way out of the walking boot and so far I'm not able to be in the new brace for longer than 3 hours. Now that life will be taking on a new normal, I'm hoping I can focus on my recovery better. 

 

My eating goal wasn't terrible. Last week I managed 6 out of 7 days of eating better. The previous week (the week of the 9th) wasn't great because my dad doesn't eat fruits or veggies with most of his meals. I got 2 out of 7 days because I wasn't with it enough to grab things from home. 

 

The writing goal didn't happen because I haven't had much time to myself except for a yoga session. It seemed someone needed something somewhere and I wasn't the best at setting boundaries. 

 

So that's things in a nutshell. I have a feeling that I'll find a lot of free time coming now that I'm not trying to be in two places at once. For the moment, I need to face some work items. My mom was a web programmer with databases being her specialty. I'm a web designer with enough database knowledge to be dangerous. She has some customers that need website updates which require database knowledge and at the moment they're willing to have me do it. My fingers are crossed that I can make changes without needed to code anything for the database. Thank goodness for backups.

 

As a side note: Ladies, ovarian cancer is often not discovered until it's at an advanced stage.  Please take a moment to become aware of the symptoms. Catching the cancer symptoms early could save your life.

 

I hope everyone's challenge is going smoothly.

[FatboySuave]

Sorry to hear about your mom But it sounds like you'll be able to move forward with less weight on your shoulders. *Hugs*

I'm glad to hear that the streak continues and that you're still mindful of your challenge goals. I think a trip to Kuaui sounds like a good way to treat yourself and your hubby and to focus on you. Thank you for sharing your story and I'm glad you're still fighting alongside the rest of us

[Schaengel]

Sorry for your loss.

 

I find it incredible hard to phrase something positive at times like these, but I hope that you find a way to have a positive and happy future with your dad and your family.

[Vibrantella]

So sorry for your loss  

[SaltyDragon]

Oh, so sorry to hear this. This must be so hard, and I know how much you've been through leading up to now. My thoughts and sympathies are with you.

[Jayniana Jones]

Thanks for the condolences. After I week of letting myself spin my wheels, stumble through emotions, and be supportive to my family members, I decided it's time to move forward.

 

So here it goes.

Show and tell...

On Saturday, while waiting for my son to get done with a youth group event, I sat in a coffee shop and painted. The original picture made me smile and my end result (I thought the photo was outside my skill ability) made me smile too. 

 

 

Yoga Streak

My yoga streak continues. Today is day 390. I'm thinking about posting the links to yoga videos I find helpful for anyone who may need workarounds for injured knees and ankles. It seems that I'm becoming quite knowledgeable in this arena. I've been trying out kundalini yoga to add variety in my usual restorative and floor hatha yoga practices. Kundalini is testing my open mindedness because the practice gets a bit more spiritual and vocal. The breathing is weird too. I've only done 3 sessions and I'm not sure whether I like it or not. So far the videos I've tried I haven't had to modify much, so it adds interest from that angle.

 

Eating Well

Last week was good (7/7). It's so much easier to eat well when I'm not an emotional, stressed out wreck.  

 

Knee and Ankle Rehab

I talked with my physical therapist today because I was feeling discouraged about my progress. She gave me a gold star for not backsliding despite not having gone to PT for the last two weeks. However, I'm still in the walking boot. For the last two weeks, I've been trying to wean myself from the boot into the ankle brace. I can handle the new brace for about two hours at a time before there is a burning in my ankle and I have to ice it and then go back to the boot. We discussed my progress (which is happening slowly), the need for patience (sigh), and some things I can do to try to condition my foot for hiking. From what I've read, there are lots of things I may not be able to do for another year or longer (if at all) but my therapist said we can start figuring out ways for me to at least hike and kayak this summer.  Hiking will probably involve trek poles and a knee scooter that can handle rough terrain. The kayak is preferable over a canoe because of the position of my foot once I'm in it. After our talk, I'm feeling more hopeful about my leg and that all is not lost even though at the moment I can't handle walking through a store for longer than 20 minutes.

 

Writing

This week my novel gets attention. Grief has a way of disrupting focus and I figured I didn't need to push it.

 

Now that things are quieter, I can finally catch up on what everyone else has been up to.  I'm looking forward to it this week. 

[SnowOwl]

I've been off the forum for a bit, and am just catching up with you.

 

I'm so sorry for your loss. 

 

I love the dog.

[Jayniana Jones]

On 1/30/2017 at 10:14 PM, SnowOwl said:

I've been off the forum for a bit, and am just catching up with you.

 

I'm so sorry for your loss. 

 

I love the dog.

 

Thanks. Somehow dogs make things feel a smidge better. Both the real ones and the pictures.  

[Jayniana Jones]

Progress update:

Yoga streak continues. Today is day 393. I'm still not sure what to of Kundalini yoga, but so far I can do most of it and I work up a sweat so I'll keep going.

 

Rehab

My physical therapist gave the suggestion of training my leg for hiking by going outside with my slimmer ankle brace and walk around my yard while there is snow on the ground. I'm supposed to stop when I feel a tiny bit of pain. Yesterday, I managed to walk for 4 minutes 20 seconds. Today, I walked for 5 minutes 30 seconds. Buddy partied with me and ran circles constantly. I'm sure if he could speak he would've been cheering "Yeah, my master is finally outside with me!!!"

 

Eating is going well. Next round I may drop this one because it's easy and instead do something with making meals ahead. The challenge is me being able to stand for long periods, but I do have a stool and teenagers who can help.

 

Writing. I'm avoiding it. I feel overwhelmed and haven't been able to care much about it. My hubby pointed out I'm constantly doing and that there may be grieving I still need to do. I told him he's probably right, but I'm not sure what to do with this admission.

[Vibrantella]

8 hours ago, Jayniana Jones said:

but I'm not sure what to do with this admission.

It will come, just allow it to unfold.  I had an epiphany of grief about a year after my mother died - I had been stunned till then. 

 

Your yoga streak is beyond admirable, BTW! Great job with walking, too, and be sure to not overdo it, please!  

[Jayniana Jones]

Reflection of the last round...

Sadly, my yoga streak ended at day 398. There wasn't a real reason for it other than I got busy running teens to events and doctor stuff. I didn't think about my yoga session until the next day.  I thought I'd be really disappointed about messing up, but I actually felt relief. While the streak was a nice motivation to keep me plugging away at my yoga practice, towards the end I started to feel discouraged by all the things I can't do because of my foot. I think my mistake was I forgot why I was doing the yoga in the first place and it became a necessity instead of joy. 

 

I don't think I will attempt the streak again. Instead, I'd rather do small streaks where I have at least a one day break at the end to keep it fun. 

 

Eating intentionally helped me meet my fruits and veggie goal. 

 

My writing got attention the last week and I logged four hours. It felt good to create.

 

My knee and foot rehab exercises went well. Although, my foot sadly has regressed and I'm back in the boot. No hiking/walking outside without the boot aloud.  

 

I don't plan to do the challenge next round because I have to figure out what I can physically do that I enjoy. Surgery is on the horizon again and I'm really struggling with facing that reality. 

 

 

[Schaengel]

That streak was awesome but if something stops being fun then you have to change it

Hope you'll still be around even without a challenge...you now to keep us updated and also to keep in touch with NF

Surgerys just s*ck. Hope it's the last for a long long time :/

[ChirpyBird]

On 1/9/2017 at 7:15 PM, Jayniana Jones said:

I was torn about doing a challenge this round because my mom is getting worse and I'm struggling to care about much besides how I can help my dad out. Yet, I found that writing down what I plan to do helps me care a little bit about caring for myself. It's also nice to see that despite the chaos that surrounds me I'm still making progress on my goals. So here's my challenge for the next four weeks.

 

Maintain my daily yoga streak.
Today is day 371. I meant to post a celebratory post in the Woot Room section for my 365 days in a row milestone but I didn't get to it because of other things going on. 

 

Eat 5 fruits or veggies a day. 
I've been pretty lax with what I'm consuming because of emotions so I figure I'll start making small steps to cleaning up my eating. I've been keeping track in my head, but I'll log it on my phone so I have documented progress. A simple yes or no is my logging method.

 

Continue rehab for my ankle and knee daily.

I met with a surgeon last Friday for my foot. Even though my progress is slow he thinks the physical therapy is helping. I'm weaning myself out of the lovely walking boot into an ankle brace that is reminiscent of old fashioned leather boots with lots of eyelets and laces (I put a picture of it in the post). It is not comfortable but if I understand correctly this is what I get to wear for a long while (it may be for the rest of my life, I can't remember and made a note to ask at my next appointment). I'm still trying to wrap my head around the list of what I can't do ever again. It's quite lengthy. At the moment, I'll be happy if I can walk around my house with nothing besides regular shoes and orthotics. 

 

Writing five days a week or five hours. 

I have a romantic comedy novel draft that is waiting for me to edit it. Despite the things going on, I'd like to make time to work on it because it's a nice distraction. I put the hour goal also because I don't know what each day holds for me. I inherited my mom's clients (she's a web programmer) so I have extra work to sort through to figure out what I can do and what I need to hire out. My writing time may be done more in chunks of time instead of daily depending on what her clients need.

 

Thank you so much for following and reading what I post. It means a lot.

 

 

Sounds like a fantastic challenge, well done! I'm in the middle of trying to find an agent for my superhero thriller trilogy. Are you planning on going that route, or self-publishing? I'd love to chat more about your book when you have the time!

 

Remember,  you can still do the next challenge and only work on goals that don't include workouts! Things like financial stuff, more creativity, even things like mediate or do things to help you relax and heal every day!

 

So sorry to hear about your mother.  

[Jayniana Jones]

I'm guild hopping over to the Adventurers for this next challenge starting April 23.

Here's the link: 

https://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/topic/97050-jayniana-jones-rises-with-one-leg/

[FatboySuave]

On 2/19/2017 at 4:54 PM, Jayniana Jones said:

Sadly, my yoga streak ended at day 398. There wasn't a real reason for it other than I got busy running teens to events and doctor stuff. I didn't think about my yoga session until the next day.  I thought I'd be really disappointed about messing up, but I actually felt relief. While the streak was a nice motivation to keep me plugging away at my yoga practice, towards the end I started to feel discouraged by all the things I can't do because of my foot. I think my mistake was I forgot why I was doing the yoga in the first place and it became a necessity instead of joy. 

You are amazing for keeping up the streak for as long as you did, but I'm glad you're able to let it go and focus on the true purpose of why you were doing it in the first place. Once something becomes an obligation, it definitely loses its magic. Good job on this challenge! Now I'm gonna hop over and read your new one!