Severine's First OCR: 8 Weeks To Minimize Unreadiness

[Severine]

11 hours ago, NeverThatBored said:

Oooooh, pretty. Also, yay jumping on the meditation party train!

 

Don't you have a 500+ day streak on Headspace? Something to emulate  Any recommendations for favourite meditations?

[NeverThatBored]

33 minutes ago, Severine said:

Don't you have a 500+ day streak on Headspace? Something to emulate  Any recommendations for favourite meditations?

 

Hmmm. They all start to blur together after a while, but some of my favorites were the focus pack and the sports motivation pack. I also like anything that uses the noting meditation technique.

[zeroh13]

3 hours ago, Bookish Badger said:

Oooh, pretty! It sounds like you had a lot of fun. And D's mom "fixing" the painting sounds so much like something my mom would do. Tho she wouldn't be surprised when I fended her off with a loaded paint brush (which would probably devolve into a paint fight - note to self, don't do a paint night with Mom.)

 

I checked the paint party link, and have a question: how booze-centric was the party? Based on the website, it looks like they're advertising "an excuse to drink, make your own souvenir." And there's nothing wrong with that; just that now that Mr. Bear is dry I've been looking for things to do that don't have drinking as a major component. It's harder than I'd expected.

There's a place near me like this, it's BYOB. But they also have a family friendly weekend thing. Which I imagine has a lot less booze. You might be able to find something similar. Sometimes parks and community centers host painting events too.

[Severine]

51 minutes ago, zeroh13 said:

There's a place near me like this, it's BYOB. But they also have a family friendly weekend thing. Which I imagine has a lot less booze. You might be able to find something similar. Sometimes parks and community centers host painting events too.

 

Oh, true! We looked at another company that advertised family-friendly events. But didn't go to that one because, you know, children.

[Severine]

Yesterday (Friday) had some good points:

• I worked out on purpose! 30 minutes on the elliptical.
• I tracked my food and ate maintenance-ish despite eating 2/3 meals being non-home cooked food
• When choosing takeout food I looked at the nutrition into and chose something I didn't regret later
• Used standing desk for about 3 hours
• Meditated (have done so every day since starting)

It had some not-so-good points, mostly to do with insomnia impacts. Dealing with exhaustion and brain fog and feeling guilty about being reduced fun (as I call it) for the people around me as a result. And I didn't get as many things done as I wanted but if I am honest with myself I have to say I think I'm coping reasonably well considering.

 

Already this morning (wait shit it's 1:25, aaaaauuughhhh) I've gotten some things done despite being totally knackered, and I had a nice veggie omelette for breakfast and a couple of chicken empanadas from the farmer's market for lunch so nothing too terrible. Also the spellchecker built into my OS doesn't think empanada is a word. Screw you computer! Added to dictionary.

 

Oh hey @NeverThatBored I read an interesting financial article today and I thought, as a fellow budgeteer, that you might want to hear about it. They were discussing the various psychological impediments to good financial decisions like saving for the future or taking interest rates properly into account when borrowing money. The researchers described an interesting phenomenon where people don't think of their future self as the same person as them, which leads to discounting the importance of costs or adverse impacts offloaded onto their future selves. And then, here's the funny thing: apparently people who are shown digitally-aged photos of themselves are more likely to choose to invest money for retirement. Seems so simple. The researchers talked about using various tools to strengthen the connection between present and future self in order to encourage decisions that benefit us over the long term and not disproportionately in the present at the cost of future risk or hardship.

 

It occurred to me that food and exercise, for me, often work the same way. The siren song of "next time" is that it's some else's problem to be good and you can do whatever you want right now, assuming that someone else (some magically more virtuous later version of you) will fix it.

[NeverThatBored]

7 minutes ago, Severine said:

And then, here's the funny thing: apparently people who are shown digitally-aged photos of themselves are more likely to choose to invest money for retirement. Seems so simple. The researchers talked about using various tools to strengthen the connection between present and future self in order to encourage decisions that benefit us over the long term and not disproportionately in the present at the cost of future risk or hardship.

 

Dude, that's so interesting. Clearly we need to figure out how to make digitally aged photos of ourselves now!

[Bookish Badger]

1 minute ago, NeverThatBored said:

Clearly we need to figure out how to make digitally aged photos of ourselves now!

There's an app called AgingBooth that does this, I think it's the app that was used in that study. It & the study were mentioned in The Productivity Project, which in part inspired my current challenge.  

[Severine]

5 hours ago, Bookish Badger said:

There's an app called AgingBooth that does this, I think it's the app that was used in that study. It & the study were mentioned in The Productivity Project, which in part inspired my current challenge.  

 

Dude!

 

Also, I had no idea you were currently doing a challenge, so thanks for mentioning that. I thought you were still in battle log mode...must come remedy my ignorance.

 

For those who haven't read it, here were a couple of the specific studies mentioned:

 

"In one, Emily Pronin, a psychologist at Princeton University, asked people to make decisions about how much of a disgusting cocktail to drink. Some chose for themselves, some for the next participant and some for themselves in two weeks’ time. When choosing for themselves, people opted for the smallest dose. But they went for a larger amount for another person – and for their future selves."

 

"Brain imaging points in the same direction: thinking about your current self fires up different brain regions than does thinking about your future self, which activates the same areas of the brain as when we think about other people."

 

Seems like a real flaw. THANKS FOR NOTHING EVOLUTION.

[NeverThatBored]

New challenge goal: stare at our aged faces every morning? Bahaha. 

 

[Dagger]

Maybe a better idea: Always ask what future you would do or what you'd suggest to a friend.

[Severine]

Shockingly productive day despite exhaustion.

• I did some batch cooking even though I didn't really want to, and once finished I was very happy I did it. It was this recipe, which I double and modify a little by using sriracha instead of tabasco and a mix of kale/chard/collards instead of just kale. It is an amazing one-pot dish, vegan and gluten free for people who care about those things. It looks gross but it is DELICIOUS and has good nutritional stats. I have previously recommended it to @fleaball and now I am spreading the propaganda. 
• Did laundry.
• I did a bunch of tidying up, including sorting through our periodicals
  • I HATE old stacks of periodicals accumulating into junk towers...one of my grandfathers did this and his place was this gross smoky my-wife-died-and-I-refuse-to-clean nightmare (it was, of course, my mother's job to clean his apartment every week) so stacks of magazines always wig me out. So I have two magazine racks on the wall in the kitchen: one for this month and one for last month. Everyone in the house knows they have two months to read things before I mercilessly recycle them. It is a benevolent tyranny, though - at least everyone always knows where to find the latest issue of whatever.
• Did my meditation.
• Used standing desk for 3-4 hours.
• I ate decently well and tracked everything, and didn't have anything sweet except fruit.

Now am off for an evening walk during which I plan to call my grandma. Multitasking double goal fulfillment FTW.

[fleaball]

I still need to make that. Rawr.

[Severine]

3 minutes ago, fleaball said:

I still need to make that. Rawr.

 

We could always do a batch cooking party once you have brain space for thinking about food prep in an organized way.  Like, everyone chop stuff, make a whole bunch, and then divide it. Have done it before and it's a good way to exploit economies of scale while simultaneously making a dull thing a bit less dull. And our kitchen is pretty big so there's plenty of room for lots of people.

[fleaball]

6 minutes ago, Severine said:

 

We could always do a batch cooking party once you have brain space for thinking about food prep in an organized way.  Like, everyone chop stuff, make a whole bunch, and then divide it. Have done it before and it's a good way to exploit economies of scale while simultaneously making a dull thing a bit less dull. And our kitchen is pretty big so there's plenty of room for lots of people.

I'd be down for that. 

[zeroh13]

50 minutes ago, Severine said:

It looks gross but it is DELICIOUS and has good nutritional stats.

This happens to a lot of the food I make... gross looking but sooo goood.

 

And saving that recipe. I assume it's a sweet and spicy dish?

[Severine]

1 hour ago, zeroh13 said:

This happens to a lot of the food I make... gross looking but sooo goood.

 

And saving that recipe. I assume it's a sweet and spicy dish?

 

It's honestly not super spicy but I guess that sort of thing is relative. It is easy to adjust with the amount of sriracha you add, anyway. But yeah there's a nice natural sweetness from the pineapple that blends really well with the peanut butter and the savoriness of the greens, and the little bit of spice makes it interesting. If I have scallions when I make it, I chop up a bunch (raw) and keep them handy in a tupperware in the fridge so that when I have a bowl I sprinkle on a handful and that makes it even better.

[Severine]

Final update before I sign off for the night: I went on my walk and had an awesome talk with my grandma and I feel much better about the world in general.

 

Also I hit 10,000 steps today which is not bad for someone who got 45 minutes of sleep. I feel like I am gaining momentum toward fixing this. Now to try sleeping. Fingers crossed!

[Dagger]

6 hours ago, Severine said:

Final update before I sign off for the night: I went on my walk and had an awesome talk with my grandma and I feel much better about the world in general.

I don't really have anything to add but a smile.

 

:3

[Severine]

I slept 3.5 hours last night! Without taking an ambien! That is a huge victory. I take it as a sign that I am on the right track.

 

Today was really long and exhausting but I feel good about everything I accomplished:

• Spent the morning and early afternoon at the farm and got a lot done. Mostly stake pounding, trellising, weeding, and hoeing. Getting some sleep last night meant I have more energy than I've had the past couple times I was there, and it felt good to tick so many things off the list. The flowers look good, too. I even had enough energy at the end to pick myself a bucket of flowers to take home. I love having flowers in the house.
  • As a bonus my friend K (who I met when we worked together at a different farm) dropped by for 45 minutes on the way to his frisbee game, so I had time to chat with him and he helped me weed while he was there. Yay social time.
• I've been having an issue with my laptop and it's still under warranty, so after I got home from the farm and showered, D and I went to the mall in Burlington to take it to the Windows store. The people were awesome and fixed my issue!
  • There is a really good Indian place in the food court at the mall there (weird to have a good place in a food court, I know) with a real tandoor oven and they make good curry and some of the best naan I've ever had. So we stopped there because it was ~3:30 and I had been farming all day and hadn't eaten since 2 eggs and toast at breakfast. We split a korma because their portions are huge and it was just the right amount of food. I was happy about not overeating despite being hungry.
• I did more batch cooking! This is a thing I did not want to do but did anyway. Felt satisfying and I was proud of myself for sucking it up and doing what needed to be done. And D helped a bit which was fun because I like cooking with him.
  • Made chicken so that we'd have some protein ready to eat. Plus L uses it in their mason jar salads for lunch.
  • Chopped up kohlrabi, hakurei turnips, and carrots into raw ready-to-snack slices to put in the fridge. Also L used some of the kohlrabi for the mason jar salads. Felt happy to be making such good use of the produce I get from the farm. Things like tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers are easy to use, but nobody ever touches the kohlrabi unless I peel it and cut it up into ready to eat slices.
• Took the time to make a couple of nice flower arrangements, and gave my friend J (who was over tonight very briefly to watch GoT with D and L) a mini lesson in flower arranging and helped him make a bouquet to take home.
  • Things are weird with J right now (or should I say again) but I'm honestly so exhausted by everything and so tired of being upset about him that I feel kind of numb about it which is kind of nice actually because it means I haven't been bothered by it or preoccupied.
• Tried to nap but it didn't work. But I didn't let myself get upset about it. I'm trying not to freak out when I can't sleep because I think it just makes everything worse.
• Eating was good today even with the lunch out. 

Still need to do my meditation, which I'll do right after I post this. Then catch up on some threads and figure out my bedtime situation, I guess.

[Dagger]

4 hours ago, Severine said:

I slept 3.5 hours last night! Without taking an ambien! That is a huge victory. I take it as a sign that I am on the right track.

Yay!

 

Also sounded like a really satisfying day, so another yay!

 

My response is so coherent and deep. Yay!

[Bookish Badger]

Woohoo, Sleep!!

[Severine]

8 hours ago, Dagger said:

My response is so coherent and deep. Yay!

 

Haha it's not like anyone is grading them! Stop worrying

 

[Dagger]

3 hours ago, Severine said:

 

Haha it's not like anyone is grading them! Stop worrying

 

I'm not worried, I just find it kinda funny considering how I started my way here a year ago being all deep and full on introspection and stuff, and now I'm mostly just "glad it is going good" and "sad it is going like crap".  Contrasts and such. ^^

[Severine]

Did 30 min on the elliptical this morning and I feel like my pace is improving. Currently watching American Ninja Warrior with D and L (inspiration!) and then going to go for a walk afterward. Feeling happy about this little exercise streak I'm building up!

 

The really good news is the food situation, though. For the last few days I've been doing really well: calorie deficit, nutritious food, no sweets, and most importantly I've been making rational, intentional decisions. No binge snacking! Feels good physically and mentally. There's not enough time before the race for me to lose any significant amount of weight, and I'm slightly sad about that because it'll obviously affect things, but whatever. This is meant to be a starting place and if the race motivates me to continue losing weight that'll be more than enough of a victory.

 

Have an appointment tomorrow with my ENT specialist (I have to see him every six months for a checkup because of a deviated septum) which is annoying because it's downtown at a trafficky time, and then I have a thing in Cambridge in at 2, which results in an annoying situation where it's not quite enough time to be worth coming home in between but a long enough time that I don't want to spend it all sitting in one cafe. I need new running shoes, so I guess I could do that, but UGH I hate going to malls. Might see if I can find a nice park (as long as it's not raining) and work on my lesson planning.

 

Tried sleeping on the floor last night to see if it'd help, since I like ultra firm sleeping surfaces. Didn't, unfortunately, but still got a couple hours. Hoping tonight will be better. 

[WhiteGhost]

12 hours ago, Severine said:

 

Haha it's not like anyone is grading them! Stop worrying

 

@Dagger We need to have a talk about your recent performance here.  You had been consistently commenting at a A/A- level but recently you have been trending down to a C/C+ level.  If you don't bring things up, you are going to end up having to repeat this challenge.