[Rolling Stoney] Changing Shape

[Stonie]

Rolling Stoney changes her shape

 

This challenge is all about change for me. 2017 was going to be a big year, but it happened in a way I didn't quite expect. My plan was to cross-train hard, eat well, do the derby, work hard, buy a house... but literally none of those things happened. I broke my ankle. Derby, cross training, working, and being able to cook my own food all went out the window. My partner got made redundant so our house loan got canned. And my boss is selling her cafe so I may not even have a job in a few months. But as of last month I can walk without a limp again and I'm so close to getting back to derby training that I can at least throw most of my focus that way and still feel like I am moving forwards in life. 

 

My long term goals look like this;

Walk again sans limp. completed 23/3

Be cleared to skate again. (planned 19/4)

Skate a whole 3hr training session. (planned early May)

Re-Pass my Minimum Skills. (planned June)

Play a full Roller Derby Bout. (planned August)

Find a new job.

 

My goals this challenge are focussed on adapting to the change that I'm currently experiencing in many parts of life while still trying to complete my current long-term goals. I need to prepare my physical form for my triumphant return to roller derby by cross-training what I can and eating well to fuel said training increase. So going to the gym is a thing. Between working and training I burn energy like a wildfire so I need to prep food accordingly so I don't eat like shit at work when I can't be fucked getting something rounded and healthy. I need to prepare my resume and a portfolio for if or when my job goes kaput so I am ready to attempt to jump into a new job. As a teenager and an adult I've always been a design oriented person and I loved jewellery design. There are two in-house jewellery studios in town that I aim to approach for training and hopefully a job, but I can't do that without a portfolio. And finally I need to keep myself accountable and organised so I'm trying out this whole bullet journal thingo. It's working good, even if mine aren't pretty like the ones on instagram. 

 

Change of Body

Gym 3x week. (Lower body, Upper body, Core, Cardio & Yoga) 

I had great plans at the start of the year to continue the cross-training I had been doing in my derby off-season, but that plan got de-railed after I broke my ankle. After 3 months of being immobile I have to start back at the start, but that's okay. I have a gym membership and a plan. I had to split my workouts into upper, lower and core because I was spending too long at once at the gym and it made me reluctant to go more then once a week. My lower body workout it pretty short right now because of my limited ankle strength and mobility, but I need the habit to be there. Yoga can be done at home. 

 

Change of Job

Work on jewellery/design portfolio, post daily

My job is on tenterhooks right now. Potentially my boss may sell her business and the new owners may or may not keep me on. With that and my partner's recent redundancy I have found myself needing a change. After having 3 months off work I realise that hospitality is no longer what I want to do. I cannot do the work for so little thanks anymore. Back in school I was really passionate with design and specifically designing and making jewellery. I don't know what it was about melting bits of metal together but I loved it. There are no jobs available right now but I plan on getting together a portfolio of sorts and approaching the two local studios in town and seeing about a job. I figure I can't do that without some substance so I'm going to use this month to work on some designs. I will post the designs as evidence. If I happen to not want to draw jewellery specifically I can draw anything else and it still counts. 

 

Change of Food

Meal prep 1x weekly

Meal prepping healthy meals was another thing I was getting really good at before I broke my ankle, and sticking to the food I planned to eat was also working really well for my energy levels. When I broke I wasn't totally in control of what I could eat and as I didn't have to leave the house I just ate what I could carry with one hand. Going back to exercising and work means I need all the energy I can get and I can't keep grazing on whatever I can find at work because it inevitably ends up being cake or pancakes or just coffee. It makes me sluggish and bloated and I am perfectly capable of prepping food to take with me. 

 

Change of Habit

Bullet Journal Daily

I'm testing out the whole bullet journal thing, and I think so far it's working for me. While I do tend to drool over the beautiful instagram ones, I don't have the handwriting or the patience or the funds to pay for all the beautiful stickers and many pens to make it beautiful. Thankfully it's also a functional thing so I'm going with that. I'll work on my penmanship later. I need to update my journal every day and use it for anything I can think of. Adding in to-do jobs, writing down my gym sessions, planning meal prep... So far it's working really well for everything and I want to continue feeling organised. It's something I've struggled with my whole life. 

 

[J3NN]

Go you! Forgive the short post, but I'm cheering too on and can't wait to see your jewelry and how your bujo gites and commiserate over meal prepping. Onwards!

 

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[fleaball]

Ouch, what a rough sequence of events. Looks like a solid plan though. Rooting for you!

[Stonie]

To start, yesterday looked like this;

 

Apr 18

Body: nothing planned today.

 

Food: Ate what I'd prepped on Sunday for the day at work. Sunday is going to be prep day. 

 

Job: An old jewellery design I dug out of my school portfolio that I never made. Fiddly but I reckon it could turn out great. Seen lots of stackable rings on Pinterest lately too. 

Spoiler

 

 

Habit: Ended up at work for 9 hours and that really put strain on my ankle so I did no physio exercises, just rest and ice and elevation. 

Spoiler

The whole structured but free-form style of bullet journalling seems to work really well with my type of disorganisation. I don't have to worry about keeping the pages in order because I can just add them to the index, and I have the whole month calendar written out on one page so I can see what's coming up and I can add to it as I think of stuff. 

[Severine]

Sucks about your ankle but you have an awesome attitude about working back from it. And roller derby is super cool

 

Oh and three cheers for plain and functional bujos! The ones on instagram are pretty, but pretty doesn't get stuff done. There's bravery and authenticity in a bujo that dares to be plain, and doesn't need to apologize to anyone.

 

Best of luck for both your job situation and for your partner finding something new.

[Stonie]

Thanks for the support, everyone I have a pretty good support crew of family and friends and derby teammates so they've kept my spirits up. And I have been volunteering heaps as part of the league so I've been kept busy while out of action. 

 

Apr. 19

Food:

No food prepped as it was my day off.

I had beans cheese and eggs on toast for lunch, snacked on some cheese and crackers in the afternoon and had arancini and salad for dinner. 

 

 

Body: "Leg" Day

 

Job & Habit

[Stonie]

Apr. 20

 

Food: Ate my prepped food. Sick of Cabbage & carrot salad. Come to the conclusion that I need more protein in my lunch because I was ravenous all day.

 

Body:

Thanks KB swings. Participated in derby training for the first time in 4 months and 9 days and that was super exciting. I got a round of applause. Made me feel good. I only skated the first hour and left it at that; I didn't want to push my ankle. I did my core workout for the last hour of training while everyone else practiced hitting each other and doing transitions. 

 

Habit:

 

 

 

 

 

Job:

Didn't draw any jewellery stuff but I did draw this nifty comic about something that happens at work all the time and makes me laugh because it's such a contradiction.

 

 

 

 

[Stonie]

Apr. 21

Food: 

Ate the last of my food prep. Felt a bit more full today. Think I may have had a meal from work too. Come to the conclusion my lunchbox is too small for the amount of food I want to / need to take with me to stop the stomach grumblies. 

 

Body:

 

Only did some yoga to try and kill the ache in my legs from training and exercising and working. Legs were hurting more then my ankle. That was a nice change. 

 

Habit:

 

Job:

Did no jewellery design but did do a little bit of header and subheader design practice to make my bullet journal a smidge prettier. 

 

Apr. 22

Food: ran out of food prep for today because I forgot that I had to work saturday when I was doing prep. Had a bit of salad leftover from the day before so I ate that. 

Body: rest day. Had to work and I was sore and didn't sleep well so I decided to just not. 

 

Habit:

Instead of designing jewellery I spent a bit of design energy on prettying up my journal. just small things that make it look less scrawly, like headers and subheaders and using a ruler. Haha. I've also created a little meal planner for the week to help my food prep goal, and a work roster tracker, and put in a yearly calendar (sorry, "future log" - blah.) I have to say, I'm enjoying the fact I can just put everything in the one book. Makes me feel super organised. Something I struggle with. xD 

 

Job:

No jewellery design again today but I have been pretty-ing up some of my bullet journal pages and test-running out a few new ones.

 

[Stonie]

Well Week 0 went quite well. Having a journal nearby that had my immediate stuff I need to do as well as a tracker and everything makes getting shit done much less stress-inducing. So far. We'll revisit that statement in a few weeks when week 3 rolls around and I lose my motivation. 

Week 0 Wrap Up

 

Food: 1/1

Prepped on Sunday 16/4 for the week. Slight problems ensued when I didn't prep enough and I was still hungry even after eating. Will prep more food to be able to sustain my work/derby/gym routine. 

 

Body: 4/4

Got in an upper body, lower body, core and yoga session plus 2 cardio sessions and one hour of derby training this week. And I felt it. It has been 4 months since I did consistent exercise so I'll get used to it again, but ugh. I hate DOMS. I also did my ankle physio rehab most days. I'm going to change that up a bit next week to do an AMRAP of each of my exercises so I just do what I feel like doing daily, instead of trying to do 3 sets of all my exercises. Hopefully this will mean I do my rehab exercises less sporadically and strengthen my ankle better.

 

Habit: 6/6

This Bullet Journal. I like it.

 

But seriously, I'm going to need another journal soon because I'm filling this one up quickly. I'm keeping track of the stuff I need to do and stuff that's coming up and anything else I can think of putting in it that I need to keep organised. 

 

Job: 6/6

A few days weren't technically jewellery designs but I stretched my general design muscle and that's something I haven't done in a while. I like it. I need to start finding inspiration from my nearby surroundings to bring into jewellery ideas if I want to keep putting things down.  

 

 

Week 1. Apr. 23

First day of the challenge (technically.) It was off to a good start. 

 

Food: 

Planned, shopped and prepped for the next week. Made a page in my bullet journal for the week's meal plans. Bought the stuff; cooked a breakfast frittata for the week and roasted some bacon, broccoli and cauliflower to go on some couscous with some feta for lunch. Took me probably an hour's worth of actual work, at a stretch. 

 

Body:

Just ankle rehab today. For anyone interested, this is what I've been told to do by my physio. I try to do it daily. From tomorrow I'm going to do AMRAP of each workout and do to the best of my abilities daily, so I can do it every day instead of sporadically, which I've been doing. 

3 sets BW squats

3 sets 1-leg squats

3 sets Decline Calf Raises

3 sets 1-leg theraband balance

Walking on tiptoes

"Running" - ahahah. 

 

Tomorrow: More rehab, and go to derby training. Skate for 1.25hours.

 

Habit:

Got a lot of small jobs done today. Look at that happy little smiley face. 

 

Job:

Took some inspiration from my daily work to create these ideas. I'd like to see these ones actually made. Good ol' coffee latte art. 

 

 

 

[WantMy$2]

Good luck! I love the animations you choose.

[fleaball]

I'm super jealous of your artskillz.

[Severine]

Love the hand lettering practice! It's so soothing.

[Stonie]

7 hours ago, WantMy$2 said:

Good luck! I love the animations you choose.

Thanks! I'm trying to jazz it up a bit. All these fancy challenges with themes and stuff. I'm just glad I remembered to add gifs this time

 

6 hours ago, fleaball said:

I'm super jealous of your artskillz.

I've had a little bit of practice xD "I was always the artistic one in the family" - you know, that old deal. It gets better the more recently I've practiced. Funny that. xD

 

5 hours ago, Severine said:

Love the hand lettering practice! It's so soothing.

It really was! Maybe if I practice lots and lots and lots it will flow over to my daily handwriting. I'm sure my boss would approve. 

[J3NN]

On 4/20/2017 at 7:28 AM, Rolling Stoney said:

I had beans cheese and eggs on toast for lunch

This sounds good, and it's not just because I'm kind of hungry right now. Do you have a recipe that you use? What kind of beans? How much cheese? What kind of eggs? Dangit, now I want this and I don't even know what it is. Good protein, healthy fat. Is it filling?

[Stonie]

13 hours ago, J3NN said:

This sounds good, and it's not just because I'm kind of hungry right now. Do you have a recipe that you use? What kind of beans? How much cheese? What kind of eggs? Dangit, now I want this and I don't even know what it is. Good protein, healthy fat. Is it filling?

 

It is pretty filling! It came about while I was at work one day and had a specific craving and they were some of the things off the breakfast menu that I just threw together and it turned out wonderful. And super easy to whack together when I forget my food prep. >.> You can always use more beans and eggs and toast depending on your hunger levels too. 

 

Recipe;

1 slice of whatever toast you have (sometimes I like white bread, sometimes I like seedy bread, sometimes my bread is bacon...)

1x 133g can of Heinz baked beans (you could be fancy and make your own baked beans, but meh. I like easy. xD)

2 slices of cheese (cheddar, again for ease, but get fancy if you want)

2 fried eggs, sunny side up. (or whatever you feel like.) 

 

Cook all the things. Butter the toast. Pour beans on toast. Layer cheese on beans. Layer eggs on cheese. Season with salt and pepper.

 

Eat bites in between serving customers and making coffee and doing dishes. Lament that it's gone cold. Shake fist at sky. 

[Stonie]

Apr. 24.

 

Food:

Took my food prep. Ate it all. Boss asked if I was moving in for the week because I brought so much food with me. I was definitely less hungry during the day which was nice. 

 

Body: Went to training. Skated for 1.25 hours. Did my physio stuff. Stomped on my bad foot a bit hard and it hurt a bit near the end so I called it there. But I did some good lateral cuts and skated the full "derby mile" - for those not derby obsessed, one of our skills we get tested on is how many laps o the derby track we can do in 5 minutes. 27 is the amount needed to pass our minimum skills. After 4 months off skates I had no delusions of grandeur about doing good, so I focussed on nailing the form of my crossovers and not stacking it. And you know what? I still pulled off 27 laps. My ankle complained around minute two and then stopped complaining so I was pleased with that. I didn't even feel like I was dying by the end of the 5 minutes which was even better! Goes to show that the little exercise I could do while I was non-weight-bearing helped and what little gym stuff I can currently do is actually helping. 

Habit:

no photo because I swapped journals to a new one. Started my new journal. Looks good.

 

Job:

I thought about some designs but I didn't get them down on paper. Busy day at work and then straight to training, then dinner and bed stopped me doing much else.

 

[Stonie]

Apr. 25.

 

Food: Ate my prepped food. Maybe forgot to take something out for dinner so we had takeout. We do takeout once a week so I'm not upset. xD

 

Body: work exhausted me so I just elevated and iced my leg. Rest counts as rehab in my book.

 

Habit:

 

Job:

Instagram also had me aching to do some human figure drawing because instagram artists are awesome, so here are some faces I did;

[Severine]

Loving the art  

 

And grats on your 27 laps! No mean feat when coming back from injury.

[Hymnusal]

On 2017-04-26 at 5:42 PM, Severine said:

Loving the art  

Seconded!

 

I'm glad your recovery seems to be going well! Keep listening to your body, it will tell you when you're pushing to too hard and when it's happy you'll do awesome things! (Like rock your "derby mile"!)

[Stonie]

On 4/27/2017 at 4:42 AM, Severine said:

Loving the art  

 

And grats on your 27 laps! No mean feat when coming back from injury.

 

19 hours ago, Hymnusal said:

Seconded!

 

I'm glad your recovery seems to be going well! Keep listening to your body, it will tell you when you're pushing to too hard and when it's happy you'll do awesome things! (Like rock your "derby mile"!)

 

Thanks guys!  After the end of the week I have to say my ankle is a bit sorer this week then it has been; my schedule is full again with derby and work and cross-training and I'm starting to wonder if it's too much. If I had to choose work would be the first to cut back on, but my other two coworkers have been really slack so my boss and I are picking up the extra work and she can't seem to function without me there. Not really my problem, I know, but it makes it hard to ask to be there less when I'm the most productive staff member there. It is however fuelling my motivation to continue working on my design portfolio so I have some chance of getting out of hospitality. Even if I don't get a job as a jeweller in a workshop my backup plan is to set up my own little workshop and make a hobby a job. 

 

Got a bit to catch up on.

 

Food:

Ate my food prep all week, changed it up on Thursday because I had a dentist appointment so I took a smoothie mix with me instead of my lunch because I knew I was going to be hungry when I got out of the dentist with a numb face. Can't help it. Tell me I can't eat and I get hungry. xD

 

Habit:

Been updating my journal daily and keeping track of lots of stuff. Still not as neat as I would like, but it's functional. Finally committed to the title page too.

 

Gym:

Got half of one more workout to do - my core workout. 

Monday: went to derby.

Tuesday: Had a rest day; exhausted after derby

Wednesday: Did my upper body workout at the gym

Thursday: Went to derby, did half of my core workout there after I finished skating

Friday: Lower body day at the gym.

Saturday(today): Gonna do some yoga later on.

Sunday: Gonna finish my core workout.

 

Job:

Missed a few days; Wednesday the 26th. I think I was just too tired to do anything else. 

Thursday;

Just a few doodles trying to recreate a necklace I saw a customer wearing that day. 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday

First time I've seen something around me that I've thought "could I turn that into jewellery?" - the clouds were pretty on the drive home from work. 

 

 

 

 

 

[J3NN]

 

On 4/28/2017 at 11:42 PM, Rolling Stoney said:

the clouds were pretty on the drive home from work

I'm pretty sure if I saw this in jewelry fashion it would call to me and demand me buy it. I love nature inspired jewelry. Would you do this out of metal and gemstones or something else?

[Stonie]

Metal, possibly two different metals for the clouds and the sun? A bronze sun with silver clouds would possibly be cool. I'd have to experiment as to whether the clouds would look better as a single sheet of metal cut into shape or many wire pieces melted together to get the same sort of shape. And I could probably fit a gem in there somewhere if I tried. xD This design is definitely up there on my list of favourites so far.

 

First half of week 2: 

 

Food: 2/7 so far. 

Sunday's meal prep. 

Breakfast this week is two banana, peanut butter, almond meal, protein powder and choc chunk muffins, and they are holding my hunger at bay until 10:30 - 11am, after eating breakfast at 6:30ish. That's the best effort from a prepped breakfast food so far. Lunch is sweet potato, cauliflower and a sausage, roasted. I mostly eat it cold unless it's a bit chilly like it was today. And I made date, pecan and coffee bliss balls as a snack for when I hit 3pm and want to die of sleep deprivation. xD

 

Gym: Physio told me to do more impact stuff with my ankle to strengthen it so I've added skipping to my options of cardio. Did some today. Skipping is hard. Not on my foot. On my breathing. xD Also did some hopping and jumping after skating at training on Monday. Our newbie intake started on Monday so we were going over basic skills which was good for me, doing basic skating stuff again helps me re-teach my muscle memory. 

 

Job:

Sunday: 

Derby related ideas.

Monday: More derby related ideas

Today (Tuesday): Saw a few cute anklets on Pinterest. Saw a thing on the internet about someone creating jewellery to help someone with a lifelong joint issue and the result was beautiful. Also also have often heard an old wive's tale about copper being good for joint pain. Copper is also cheap for jewellery purposes. And quite pretty. Doodled some stuff. Stuff that would probably expand in design after some playing.

 

Habit: Been keeping my journal updated. Added a cleaning tracker. That still hasn't magically summoned any extra energy for me to clean anything but the thought is there xD

[J3NN]

That's lovely, using multiple metals to create layers would give it such depth, I am starting to see this come together. Hope you find a way to make it some day!

 

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[Stonie]

39 minutes ago, J3NN said:

That's lovely, using multiple metals to create layers would give it such depth, I am starting to see this come together. Hope you find a way to make it some day!

 

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I don't know if I mentioned it in my original post but I did jewellery as a optional subject all through high school. 5 years of it. I don't know why I never seriously thought of it as an occupation. I think because I had to travel to undertake more training post-school and I wasn't game to move to the "big city" I never pursued it. Now better late then never! So, I have the skills somewhere hidden in my brain and the knowledge of how to set up a mini workshop if I so choose, which is looking like a much better idea every day I slog through work. xD

[Stonie]

Ahhh Pinterest. Just found many beautiful ear cuffs and now I want to make all the things.

 

Also another thing. The SO and I have pondered the idea of moving house to somewhere we will be able to afford easier - means we have to move back into town but we will be less in debt and have a potentially newer house. And he said I can have a jewellery room in the next house if I wanted  Might hold him to that. xD