Debt, word of the year, and a motto

Time to take stock and admit to myself that I am in debt again. I haven't been denying it, just pushing it to the back of my head really. There are a couple of reasons but mostly just being careless and spending whatever I felt like over the past month or two, along with one or two bigger ticket items. €320 for an injection into my hip? Yay. Anyway, time to get back of track. I bought a budget calendar from PositiveReduceMyDebt (who I've been following on instagram for a couple of months now) and have filled out some goals for January. 

1. 15 no-spend days
2. Stick to €25/week for food (given I ended up spending just over €90 already, this will be very tight)
3. No-spend year - exceptions for January: step ladder and watercolours
   

I have taking some money out of savings to cover some of the bills and will work on getting the overdraft back down to zero over the year while building my savings back up. I do technically have enough in my investment account to cover all of it but I want to leave that where it is if possible. Head down and onwards. And the same applies to food and eating and meal planning. I let things go completely to pot in December and while I enjoyed it, I also badly need to get that under control again. 

So, over the Christmas break, I made a meal plan for January, wrote a shopping list and on Sunday I cooked. My aim is to mostly only have to cook every second week or perhaps twice a month. I think time will tell on that one. On Sunday I made a big pot of vegetable soup, lemon chicken with veg and potatoes, and a chicken and spinach curry. 

My meal plan is not one planning exactly what to have each day but rather a rough outline and then I can choose what I want to have on each day. 

Yikes!

• Butternut squash and ricotta frittata (6 servings)
• Chicken and spinach curry (4 servings)
• Oriental lentil stew (4 big servings - new recipe, depending on what it's actually like, this may make more servings than 4, I think)
• Cauliflower and broccoli gratin (4 servings)
  
• Lemon chicken with potatoes and veg (6 servings)
• Honey chilli pork (4 servings) - except they had no pork in the butchers so I took the suggested veal instead. Without checking the price first. Veal is expensive. How carelessness leads to yet another drop on the debt puddle!
  
  

 

So that's 28 dinners. For lunches, I planned for potato and leek soup, spicy lentil and carrot soup, pumpkin soup, and vegetable soup. Since I didn't even use half of the cabbage I got in the vegetable soup I made at the weekend and still ended up with 10 servings, I don't think I'll need to make all of the rest of those this month. I am also having a week or two of eating some of the meal replacement pouches that I should have, but didn't, use in December. Essentially starting over with a couple of weeks of the transition phase that was supposed to end just before Christmas. That will actually take care of some lunches, too.

The only word I could come up with for a word for the coming year was support. It made me kind of uncomfortable though, so I tried to think of something else. Before realising that I was feeling mostly uncomfortable with the idea of needing or asking for support. Probably a good indication that it really is the right word for me this year. Support it is. 

And then on Saturday I read something in a tweet that I am also adopting as a kind of a motto for a while. If the right words come along at the right time for me, I'll grab on to them: Discipline always trumps motivation. 




Don't wait until you're motivated to do something. Don't wait until you feel ready to start. It may never come. Discipline always trumps motivation.
Decide the kind of life you want to lead and say no to everything that isn't that.
#2022

— Cécile Chemin-Gordon (@MuayCe) December 29, 2021

The day has started well

I went for a PCR test* this morning, which meant a badly-needed 20 minutes extra sleep. Then I got there 10 minutes early but they were already set up so they swabbed me immediately. They swabbed my throat instead of my nose and my very difficult to swab nose is very grateful.

Because I was finished there so quickly, I had time to stop at the clinic in town on the way to work and pick up the prescription I thought I might not be able to get until the new year. The shop that actually makes the orthotics wasn't open but when I asked the porter if there was a letterbox, not only did he show me where it was, when I said I'd need to go and buy an envelope first, he gave me an envelope. Such a nice, really lovely man.

Then I just missed the bus to work so crossed over to the other side of the square to get the other bus and while I was standing there, a friend came over to say hello. She was on the way to a work meeting and running late so there was no time for more than hello and a very quick hug but I still got to get the warm and fuzzy feeling of knowing that even though she was late, she still took a minute to walk the less direct way so she could say hello. And a hug. There have not been enough hugs these past couple of years. So glad I got my booster already. 

All that and I'm just about to get to work, just a few minutes ahead of the time I said I'd be there. What a lovely first hour or two of this Thursday.

* One I'll pay for myself but I have a ticket to fly to Ireland on Saturday so better safe than sorry.

Feeling full

Just a quick note for posterity. Today was my first official day eating food again after 12 weeks (we won't mention the holiday). I had to get bloodwork done in the morning so I didn't get to have my breakfast (a meal replacement drink) until almost eleven o'clock. I did sneak in a Milky Way on the way back to the office from the clinic, though. Not at all in the plan but I felt like I needed to have something to make my mind believe not immediately flip out and start eating all the things.

For lunch, at around half past one, I had a serving of the pumpkin soup I made at the weekend (50.5 kcal, 3g protein) and 50g of feta cheese (136kcal, 8g protein). Total 186kcal and 11g protein. Target is 200kcal and 15-20g protein so not quite there. The 50g of feta was way too much - on paper I had wanted to do 25g but that seemed like such a small amount I decided to go for 50g. 200g is the standard pack size here so that was a quarter of the feta I had bought.

It was really delicious, even if my soup was a bit watery (I wanted to make sure I got 6 portions out of it). Definitely proof that protein is very important when it comes to feeling full, though. I don't think just the soup would have satisfied me. Now, however, it's half past four and I really need to have another meal replacement but I am still full. And normally I would have had a double portion of meal replacement soup for lunch. Mad altogether. 

Anyway, I can wait another three-quarters of an hour or so but I have aquajogging at quarter past six and will definitely need the energy for that. Tai chi then almost directly after that. I normally try to drink a meal replacement drink after tai chi. And then it looks like I'll have to have another one when I get home. I'll have to see if I have enough here to bring two with me. 

Overall, not a bad day. Especially considering some of my experiences during my holiday, I'm kind of surprised I am feeling so full. Need to hold on to this and make sure to keep portion sizes well under control from now on. The bowls that I never used to use at home because they were too small are now the perfect size and will be staying in regular rotation.

 

Buying food

Today is the final day of the 'fasting' portion of the optifast programme. From tomorrow, we will eat four pouches/meal replacements per day and replace the fifth pouch with a meal that has 200 calories and 15-20g of protein. 

I kept to the fasting regime really well, far better than I expected. And then three weeks ago I went on holidays for two weeks and, well, I did not keep to the fasting regime. I mean, I didn't discard it entirely but I did decide to eat some things while I was in Ireland. Not large amounts of things, and I definitely felt it in having an uncomfortable tummy for the day if I did eat, but I probably ate something on more days than not. And in the last two days, I ate quite a bit of chocolate. Still, from the first day back, I was back to the pouches and have kept to it. I presumably lost less weight than I might otherwise have lost but I assume that the bloods I'll be having done tomorrow won't be as good as they might other have been. Most of all, it was good to feel out my boundaries a little bit and recognise a few of the situations and foods that are likely to be problematic. I'm trying to take a more pro-active approach and actually deal with that kind of thing. My therapist is going to work on it with me over the next while.   

And with eating the food comes the buying of the food. Far more than eating, my spending has gotten a bit out of control over the last month or two and I need to rein that in properly now. I've just bought what I needed to get started this week but from next week/the start of November I plan to switch to a cash envelope only for food. My plan is to allocate €150 per month. That gives me €30 per week in 'five-week' months, or, in a 'four-week' month, €30 per week plus another €30 to stock up on things or buy more expensive items, like olive oil or the good balsamic vinegar or meat.

 Meal planning will be the order of the day for sure. 

Too lazy to switch on my laptop

So I'm going to do something I don't much like doing and post from my phone. Perhaps it will help me to be more concise. 

This week has been a bit up and down. I had my first online yoga class on Monday and once again was filled with horror (and shame) at how restricted my body is when it comes to movement. Mind you, when we did the first downward facing dog I thought I'd never manage (and that was my favourite the one other time I did yoga years ago), but it sort of worked. Getting out of it again was tough. But by the end of the hour, when we had done it four or five times, it actually was getting a bit better. So, not entirely hopeless. 

Similar to my experience with tai chi, I wasn't able to even pretend to flow from one movement to the next but I did my best with just stopping one thing and repositioning for the next. I've arranged with the yoga teacher to have a private one-on-one session so that she can actually see what I'm able to do and give me some advice on alternative movements and so on. I am feeling a bit proud of myself for that.

On Wednesday, for our optifast sport unit we walked to the river and then had to walk 20 minutes in one direction and then 20 minutes back, trying to maintain the same pace. I was surprised that I was actually able to walk for 40 minutes in one go. Well, ok, I did have a two-minute break but I didn't sit down for it. I was feeling pretty stiff by the end, though. Between that 40 minutes and walking to and from the river, we walked for almost a full hour. 

I mean, on the one hand, I wouldn't have been able to do that three months ago. On the other, it did me no favours since my back (the lower right-hand side/hip that's been so much trouble the past couple of years) seized up a bit overnight and I ended up calling in sick to work. I stayed home on Friday as well - and am feeling very guilty about that because I feel like I probably could have pushed through it. But I just couldn't find the mental wherewithal. I know it was probably the right thing to do but still. The guilt. 

On the positive side, over the weekend, I've been productively pottering and it feels great to finally be far enough out of the hole of depression I was living in for over a year that I am just randomly doing things that have been lying around for ages. I even did my washing yesterday and was astonished at the fact that when I thought about doing it, less than an hour later the first wash was down in the machine. And it even included the bed clothes. I can't even count the number of weekends where I spent a substantial amount of time trying to convince myself to bring washing down and didn't manage to do it until two weeks later I was about to run out of clean knickers. So I'm not as lazy as I always hate myself for being. Depression really is a hell of an illness.

So, here are some little things for me to add to the list the next time I log in on a computer:

- Got the washing done and hung to dry on Saturday. Including bedclothes.

- Cut back the marjoram and the long dead sunflowers, dill and coriander AND brought the bucket straight down to the organic waste bin.

- Also brought down the glass from the photoframe I broke two weeks ago and put it in the glass bin.

- Aired duvet on clothes horse in front of wide open windows with the sun shining in

- Watered all the plants and even added seeweed extract fertiliser to the water.

- Signs of life from someone special.

- Set up sunrise alarm clock

- Thought about doing a face mask. And then did it.

* The photos are of my Dracaema Singularis. Couldn't figure out how to add captions to pictures in the app. 

Plans for the weekend

The week has flown by, another week full of activity. I discussed this a bit with my counsellor this morning and she's going to work on it with me over the next few months. I'm handling everything pretty well at the moment but the overwhelm never feels very far away and I'd really like to try and work on learning to catch it and pull back on doing so many things before it goes too far and I'm back to not being able to do much of anything at all. Having said that, I'm pretty sure I'm going to try going back to choir when the winter semester kicks off in a few weeks. 

Random photo of an interesting plant, Lithops gesinae or stone plant. That's not just a little orange flower growing in a stone, the whole thing is the plant.

 

This weekend I have some translating to do - about eight hours worth and I'd like to get most, if not all, of it done so that I don't need to worry about it on Monday after my first yoga session. I also want to finish painting the office, which I started a few weeks ago and have gone back to ignoring since. I've done the bulk of the hard work so I really need to get back and finish it. The corners and edges are finished up as high as I can reach myself so I just need to get on the ladder, fill in the foot or two above that and then get the roller out. 

And from a TOMM point of view, Saturday will have to be my Thursday. I realised yesterday that I am not going to have time on Thursday evenings to do anything at home since tai chi doesn't finish until after nine and I don't get home until about ten past ten. That's already a good hour and a bit past my preferred bedtime and there is realistically very little chance I am ever going to feel like doing housework at that stage of the evening. Clearly, finding a half-an-hour every weekday evening for TOMM if I am also out every weekday evening is going to be challenging. I may need to sit down with a pen and paper and figure out exactly how I want to tackle it. It's mostly feeling like moving it, or at least most of it, to mornings before work will be the better option. That worked befores. Except on days I overslept. Some more ruminating is needed, methinks.

Dust as far as the eye can see

Housekeeping has been a very sore spot for a long time now. I was delighted to find The Organised Mum Method and app and I have used it more consistently that just about any other plan I ever came up with. However, after a good burst of starting to get back to it earlier this year, my back was so sore that I did nothing for a couple of months. Looking back through my app history I can see that I actually started on 14 November 2020 and kept going up to 31 March 2021. Then I picked it up again from 24 April to 25 May. That is more than I thought I had done. And on some days I even finished everything on the list. So, the background clutter wasn't really getting touched, but the day-to-day was getting done and no new clutter being added. 

Bits and bobs from shelves/window sill etc. in the bedroom

 At any rate, in mid-June I contacted the concierge service offered by work and asked them to find me a cleaning lady to come and do a deep clean. Unfortunately, I kept expecting it to be "any day now" and it ended up taking them a couple of months. Since my back was still pretty bad and I was generally feeling overwhelmed and not able to anything, I've just been letting the dust gather and doing just enough to maintain some basic hygiene in the bathroom and kitchen at least. 

Finally, on Sunday, after having the date moved twice, someone came and spent about four and a half hours cleaning. She was supposed to be there for five but after three hours I was already feeling very uncomfortable having someone I didn't know in MY SPACE, so I chopped a few things off the planned list and she left after four and a half hours. She seemed to think by the time she left that we were great friends, whereas I had landed more on the side of hope-to-never-see-you-again. A kind of strange person, not the best cleaner, but she did manage to deal with an awful lot of dust and I am managing to calm down a bit two days later and just appreciate the fact that she dusted things that I haven't even looked at for months or years.

The space in front of the dresser was full with boxes and bags of stuff - literally up to the drawers and about as far out as that black stool. You can see the marks in the dust!

It also forced me to deal with some of that background clutter. Now, I didn't manage to actually declutter and sort everything, but I did move most of it over to my other apartment/office. I will try to finish painting that this weekend and then start tackling the piles of bags and boxes one at a time. After already renting it for more than a year, it's time I had more than just one lonely table and chair in there! While the cleaner was here on Sunday, I mostly tried tackling my writing desk, which has become yet another incarnation of the Table of Doom. 

Bits and bobs from sitting room

I did loads of sorting, gathered a big bag of paper to recyle, almost filled six plastic boxes, and it still looks very much like a Table of Doom. So the plan is to first finish painting the office, but also to spend any spare TOMM time working on clearing my writing desk. I'll be most likely reverting to my old scheme of 3 Little Things to get it done. I started with the boxes of stuff that were lying around on shelves or window sills or the tops of cupboards and am making some good progress so far.

When it is all done, I can move the writing desk, and a small set of shelves and drawers over to the office, which will give me loads of space in my sitting room. I'd like to move the table down towards the window but can't quite decide where to move the couch to in order to get that done. We'll see.