The quality of your life is brought about by the quality of your thinking
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Saturday, March 31, 2018
Blogging the A-Z of April
I did this challenge in 2013 and it seems crazy to me that that it already five years ago. Those who say that time just passes more and more quickly the older you get are absolutely right. For some reason it came to mind again recently and I thought I might to it again. It was definitely an interesting exercise to come up with something to write every day. It's actually about as simple as it sounds, you simply blog every day in April except Sundays (exception this year for 1 April, I think) using A-Z as your guide. There is an official website but I'm not going to actually sign up this year. What I found very stressful last time round was trying to visit other blogs as well. This year, I simply want to do it as a writing/blogging exercise for me. To ease the pressure, I'm also allowing myself to simply post a photo on days that writing something just isn't going to happen easily.
Sunday, March 11, 2018
Life is a bit of a slog
Really trying hard to keep going these days. Not getting a lot done but everything little thing take so much mental effort it's like a huge achievement when something does actually happen.
Last weekend got a big black bag (black bags are actually blue over here, but I still call them black bags) and went out to the balcony and dumped all of the dead plants into it. At the end of July last year I had access to a car so I took a detour on the way home and bought soil, compost and stones as well as a few small pots of herbs with plans to fill up all of my big pots, pot on the herbs and maybe plant some bulbs for the spring. And the herbs have been on the balcony dying ever since. Well, I kept them alive for maybe three months. Actually, the parsley still hasn't died, so all is not lost. And the soil and compost have been lying on the living room floor. So, the dead herbs from the balcony, as well as the two amarylis that I got for birthday and xmas presents from work and left outside once they started to die off, went into the bag. And I cleaned up the mess that the sap from the amarylis made when it was knocked over and then we had minus temperatures for a while. I moved the bags of soil and compost outside, which has helped with the little tiny fly problem I've been having, and hopefully, since they had a few days of freezing weather now, too, any remaining fly-offspring have been taken care of, too. Such a simple thing to just drag those bags outside but it honestly took me a couple of months of being really annoyed at those little flies to just do it.
Since I had the industrial strength cleaner (leftover from when I moved) out to take care of the frozen sap on the balcony, I also tried it out on the sap that leaked all over the inside windowsill last year when most of my aloe vera plants died. It was absolutely rock solid and nothing I had tried had worked and it had, quite honestly, added a good bit to my feeling bad over and over and worrying what my landlord would say when he found out. But the industrial strength cleaner, while terrible for the environment, actually managed to do the trick (after leaving it to soak for half-an-hour). So that was one more thing achieved. Today I took the approximately one minute I needed to turn around the butcher's block-style rack I have so that I can easily pull it in and out from under the tiny counter, giving me a bit of space to actually work with. Something that it occured to me might be a good idea probably a year ago. But at least it's done now.
Just about an hour ago, I actually took that black bag, added all the current rubbish to it, and brought it down to the big bin downstairs. Today I have also done a wash, which is now hanging to dry. On Thursday I brought the patchwork blanket downstairs and washed it (I told my brother at the start of February I was going to send it to him - that's how long it has taken me to get up the energy to do that task). Today I've made carrot and orange soup, with five portions waiting to go into the fridge for lunches next week. I ate the final portion of pasta bake that I made last weekend and the final portion (well, ok, two portions but they were small so it's now one very big portion) of the soup I made last week is heating up for me to eat for dinner soon. I've made egg muffins to have for breakfasts again. Last week was the second week I did this and I totally burnt them so I was really careful this week. I'm using six eggs and having three muffins every day for breakfast (Monday to Thursday). This week I added a small onion, half a small leek (both chopped very finely) and a very small carrot (grated) with just a bit of salt and pepper as seasoning.
I have my second appointment with the dietician next week and am a bit nervous. I have not, to be perfectly honest, been following her plan very much. But I have, especially in the last two weeks, started to mostly eat "from scratch" food, even if it that has often meant bread and a slice of meat or cheese. I have lost some weight, although not a huge amount but it is just taking me a long time to get my head in the game and I really want to take as long as it takes. There is just no point in forcing myself to eat a certain way without changing my behaviour from deep within. One thing I have been relatively successful with was her advice to leave 4-5 hours between meals and not eat anything during that time. I have done this at least between breakfast and lunch on most days and between lunch and finishing work on slightly fewer but still most days. Evenings are most difficult at the moment. And weekends are a bit tricky, too. I haven't yet started to keep a proper food diary. I really need to work on increasing the amount of fruit and veg I eat. I have definitely not kept to the treats twice a week idea and am still eating some kind of chocolate every day. But generally just once a day and a drastically lower amount of rubbish then, too. It might shock some that that's a reduction but there you have it.
The health insurance company has approved a year-long program for me, which means (I think, need to double-check when I see her next week) monthly half-hour appointments with the dietician and eight activity appointments (I think to be able to try out different exercise classes to find one I like). They cover the bulk of the cost and I have to pay €273 for the year (in three instalments of €170, €58 and €45). I think realistically I'll need two to three years to lose the weight I need to lose but every day I do something that aims towards that goal, well, at the moment every instance of doing something feels like an achievement. One day at a time sometimes has to be one hour at a time and sometimes it feels like all of my strength is going into simply not giving up and actually trying again, with very little leftover to actually make any progress. But as long as I can still do even that much, I'll keep trying.
Last weekend got a big black bag (black bags are actually blue over here, but I still call them black bags) and went out to the balcony and dumped all of the dead plants into it. At the end of July last year I had access to a car so I took a detour on the way home and bought soil, compost and stones as well as a few small pots of herbs with plans to fill up all of my big pots, pot on the herbs and maybe plant some bulbs for the spring. And the herbs have been on the balcony dying ever since. Well, I kept them alive for maybe three months. Actually, the parsley still hasn't died, so all is not lost. And the soil and compost have been lying on the living room floor. So, the dead herbs from the balcony, as well as the two amarylis that I got for birthday and xmas presents from work and left outside once they started to die off, went into the bag. And I cleaned up the mess that the sap from the amarylis made when it was knocked over and then we had minus temperatures for a while. I moved the bags of soil and compost outside, which has helped with the little tiny fly problem I've been having, and hopefully, since they had a few days of freezing weather now, too, any remaining fly-offspring have been taken care of, too. Such a simple thing to just drag those bags outside but it honestly took me a couple of months of being really annoyed at those little flies to just do it.
Since I had the industrial strength cleaner (leftover from when I moved) out to take care of the frozen sap on the balcony, I also tried it out on the sap that leaked all over the inside windowsill last year when most of my aloe vera plants died. It was absolutely rock solid and nothing I had tried had worked and it had, quite honestly, added a good bit to my feeling bad over and over and worrying what my landlord would say when he found out. But the industrial strength cleaner, while terrible for the environment, actually managed to do the trick (after leaving it to soak for half-an-hour). So that was one more thing achieved. Today I took the approximately one minute I needed to turn around the butcher's block-style rack I have so that I can easily pull it in and out from under the tiny counter, giving me a bit of space to actually work with. Something that it occured to me might be a good idea probably a year ago. But at least it's done now.
Just about an hour ago, I actually took that black bag, added all the current rubbish to it, and brought it down to the big bin downstairs. Today I have also done a wash, which is now hanging to dry. On Thursday I brought the patchwork blanket downstairs and washed it (I told my brother at the start of February I was going to send it to him - that's how long it has taken me to get up the energy to do that task). Today I've made carrot and orange soup, with five portions waiting to go into the fridge for lunches next week. I ate the final portion of pasta bake that I made last weekend and the final portion (well, ok, two portions but they were small so it's now one very big portion) of the soup I made last week is heating up for me to eat for dinner soon. I've made egg muffins to have for breakfasts again. Last week was the second week I did this and I totally burnt them so I was really careful this week. I'm using six eggs and having three muffins every day for breakfast (Monday to Thursday). This week I added a small onion, half a small leek (both chopped very finely) and a very small carrot (grated) with just a bit of salt and pepper as seasoning.
I have my second appointment with the dietician next week and am a bit nervous. I have not, to be perfectly honest, been following her plan very much. But I have, especially in the last two weeks, started to mostly eat "from scratch" food, even if it that has often meant bread and a slice of meat or cheese. I have lost some weight, although not a huge amount but it is just taking me a long time to get my head in the game and I really want to take as long as it takes. There is just no point in forcing myself to eat a certain way without changing my behaviour from deep within. One thing I have been relatively successful with was her advice to leave 4-5 hours between meals and not eat anything during that time. I have done this at least between breakfast and lunch on most days and between lunch and finishing work on slightly fewer but still most days. Evenings are most difficult at the moment. And weekends are a bit tricky, too. I haven't yet started to keep a proper food diary. I really need to work on increasing the amount of fruit and veg I eat. I have definitely not kept to the treats twice a week idea and am still eating some kind of chocolate every day. But generally just once a day and a drastically lower amount of rubbish then, too. It might shock some that that's a reduction but there you have it.
The health insurance company has approved a year-long program for me, which means (I think, need to double-check when I see her next week) monthly half-hour appointments with the dietician and eight activity appointments (I think to be able to try out different exercise classes to find one I like). They cover the bulk of the cost and I have to pay €273 for the year (in three instalments of €170, €58 and €45). I think realistically I'll need two to three years to lose the weight I need to lose but every day I do something that aims towards that goal, well, at the moment every instance of doing something feels like an achievement. One day at a time sometimes has to be one hour at a time and sometimes it feels like all of my strength is going into simply not giving up and actually trying again, with very little leftover to actually make any progress. But as long as I can still do even that much, I'll keep trying.