Feats IV - taking it easy

So yesterday was a washout, so to speak. And a mess, so to speak. That is the first time in my adult life I've had a 24hr stomach flu, and hopefully the last. My todo list definitely went undone.

My plants are growing! Overnight one sprung. Now if only I could remember which one it was. I'll give the others a little while to see if they also spring, and plant more seeds if they don't. Also I really have to do something about the gerbras and poppies .... soon. Maybe tomorrow.

Today I did stuff like tidy the house, read my email, water my plants, and not eat very much. For some reason, I just don't feel like it today. I gave some thought to cooking the meatloaf I'd planned for yesterday, but with the dearly beloved at some work thing, and not feeling like eating anyhow, I decided to not bother.

I watered my orchid, which involved filling the container it sits in with water, a few drops of orchid fertilizer, letting the orchid sit in it for about 15min, then taking the orchid out and dumping the water. Apparently this is how to water orchids, or so the internet tells me.

I thinned the poppies somewhat - I'll do the rests of it tomorrow, when I have decent light, and possibly also plant them out into my as yet unoccupied pot. Along with some thyme.

What else? I read The Last Continent, and started on Carpe Jugulum. I did a set of pushups, using the kitchen table because I can't do proper ones. I did some stretches to help my spine.

So, things happened. Other things didn't happen. Tomorrow, there may be cooking. And possibly repotting of seedlings.

Time for an early night.

Feats II.

November 9th:

• Didn't sleep because of owwie neck and shoulder. Sigh.
• Had AM dose.
• Was told I was appreciated for all the stuff I make happen around here. That made me happy. I sometimes feel the magic house fairy is invisible.
• Started thinking about and writing down my life/fitness goals for the next six week cycle.
• Worked on my ToDo list
• Started my bucket list
• Wrote more about tasks and management or lack thereof of same.
• Tried to call mum and dad on skype.
• Spent time on Facebook.
• Cleaned up my inbox a bit.
• Did my veg box order for next week.
• Had painkillers.
• Reported a website error to my veg box company.
• Filled in a survey for Ocado, in hopes of winning 100 quid grocery money.
• Found inspiration for my six week goal cycle. 
• Wrote more, nearly fell asleep sitting up.
• Ate food, had a cup of tea, and read Animal Farm.
• Told Ocado that their automail was spamming me about a non existent delivery. Got an autoresponder email back. Nice.
• Browsed Ikea's website for lighting to put near my plants.
• Got sidetracked into looking up lightbulbs on amazon.co.uk. This would be more useful if I knew what kind of lightbulbs were in the sockets in my house.
• Tried to reach a lightbulb.
• Started my Ocado shop for next week.
• Wrote meal plan for up to next Tuesday. Well, some of it.
• Re-investigated slowcookers, and definitely decided on the Cusinart PSC650U. 
• Bought the slowcooker, it should arrive Monday. Before midday.
• Looked at about a billion slowcooker recipes.
• Took my laundry in.
• Emptied out the drip catch cup for the third time today.
• Randomly found a recipe for Vegan butter for baking.
• And then I found a recipe for Gluten Free Brioche. No prizes for guessing what I want to experiment with at some point. 
• Wrote up my goals properly. Ish, anyway.
• Had some dinner.
• Had a hot bath.

Today was one of those days where I feel like I did bugger all and just moped at my desk and was generally a bit of a washout. It's a pretty active kind of bugger all now that I'm looking at it, though.

Feats I.

The achievement posts I was doing earlier this year worked for propping up my self esteem and making me a) feel like I was doing something and b) giving me the wherewithal to do more things.

Numbering restart, change of title, etc.

The photo is a vintage car I saw on my walk to the nursery. 

8th Nov:

• Woke up around 8am.
• Filled in my status update on Patients Like Me.
• Had AM dose.
• Showered, including using my new Biotherm skincare stuff.
• Did laundry.
• Talked to Mum on Skype for a while. 
• Hung out laundry.
• Wrote a generic update on how I've been going over the last few months.
• Signed up to become a "Friend of Normand Park". It's a park nearby, with allotments. I'm thinking about getting an allotment next year.
• Checked and emptied undersink dripcatching cup. Cleaned up mess, replaced with larger cup, since apparently 350ml is too small for 24hrs worth of drip.
• Had PM dose. 
• Had food.
• Went to World's End Nurseries, got 20L bag of compost, carried it home. Ow. 
• Had a bottle of coke on the walk there, because I was feeling tired.
• Got started on my overall tasklist, using Workflowy. I'll write a post about my tasklist at some point.
• Changed next week's physio appointment time because something came up for my physio. Bonus: it now no longer conflicts with my style/colour assessment appointment. 
• Drank about 2L of water or so. And 2 very large mugs of yerba mate tea. I'm testing to see if inadequate hydration has been a contributing factor to my ongoing fatigue and uncertain sleep. 
• Packed up a bunch of stuff to give away at a clothes swap - mostly shoes, socks, and some businesswear that needs a new home.
• Started writing post about my tasklist. Meta, wot.
• At said clothes swap, accidentally came home with a full length coat, 2 skirts, and a handbag.
• SAW PEOPLE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A MONTH. Hi, goths. Howzit goin'?
• Got home at 2am. Did not leave stuff in cab.  
• Emptied the not-quite-full leak-catching cup underneath the sink. That's about 500mL of drip in about 8hrs. Worrying. It has definitely got worse in the last week or two.
• Made oven chips for a early-morning-before-bed snack. 

Misc thoughts:

I really enjoyed seeing people tonight. I wish I could see people more often, form deeper relationships, etc. I miss that kind of thing. Immensely. But no one lives out this way, and no one knows me well enough to want to make the effort of coming out this way (fair enough, really).  I miss being part of an ongoing social conversation. I miss being noteworthy. Honestly, I doubt anyone around here missed me in my six week absence. I'm simply not embedded enough on anyone's radar for that to be noticeable. Not surprising, really, given that I'm simply not around most of the time. I'm pretty sure such a thing would be ... well, challenging, to say the least.

At any rate, it's about the time of day (4am) where I should do the sleeping thing. 'night all.

19, out and about

After some lag, more posting.

Yesterday was a pretty odd day. I was up all night trying to sleep - partially because the dearly beloved was sick and also not sleeping, and partially because I slipped and googled 'London Parkour' and got inspired. And then my brain would *not* shut up.

The upshot was, I got a good 3 hours sleep.

It was a beautiful day outside - sunshine, almost no wind, just lovely. A little chilly to my Queensland sensibilities (15C), but still.

I was stuck inside. I was waiting for 3 deliveries. First nice looking day in WEEKS, and I had deliveries. I pouted about that for a while, and then found a stretching routine, and then did that sitting in the the sunshine that came through my front windows.

I also wrote about my plan to do parkour soon. I'm not fit for it yet, but hey, there's an easy way to get there - sweat. Lots of it.

So, I cooked myself something interesting, and tried a new tea, and took photos and wrote about both these things. Since by then all my deliveries had arrived, I then took advantage of the fact the sun wasn't going to set until 8.30pm or something silly, and got out of the house.

I picked up my prescriptions from the doctor's, put them in and collected them from the pharmacy, and then went down the road to check out a park I saw ages ago but hadn't investigated.

Turns out it has a bunch of climbing gear, balance logs and things. For kids only. Maybe they won't mind too much if I use it when there aren't any kids around? One can but hope.

I also took a bunch of photos.

And then I went home and got some sleep.

18, Stay a while, and listen.

Today's first attempt at one of these ended up being a blog post about exercise. I got sidetracked. For the second day in a row.

So anyway, today I wrote a blog post, linked above. I also did some housework, although not as much as usual, because my right shoulder has a crazypainful spasm. I blame Deckard Cain.

I googled a recipe for paleo meatballs, to try and make some snack-sized meatballs I can freeze. I would normally not bother with my shoulder the way it is, but the meat was defrosted a couple of days ago, and I'd feel guilty about throwing it out.

Oh, and I made myself breakfast. Mushrooms, rosti, lean ham and two duck's eggs. Duck eggs taste ... not quite the same as hen's eggs. I think I'll scramble them with garlic or something next, as they were just a little peculiar for my tastes just fried. I will admit, though, they looked gorgeous. Om nom nom. Overall, as far as my dietary requirements go, it was a pretty good breakfast. 470 calories, 15g carbohydrate, 27g fat, and 42g protein. Maybe a little high on the fat side, but certainly okay otherwise. It probably seems a little high in calorie count, until you take into account that I don't snack, probably won't eat again until 4pm, and then it'll be something fairly light, leaving me about the same calories for dinner. Today I'll probably go over on fat, under on carbohydrate, and hit my protein goal. A detailed analysis of my food requirements will probably get a post of its own, sometime, but not right now. In any case, I'm satisfied that I tried something new today.

So, the shoulder spasm has put paid to plans for a workout this evening, which is somewhat annoying, but these things happen. On the bright side, it means I'll get dinner at around 8pm instead of around 10pm, which is a definite plus.

Still to do: clean out the fridge of perishables in preparation for next week's trip to Seattle, since it's bin day tomorrow. 

.... and hit level 20 in Diablo 3.

16, move every zig

Today's been a productive day.

•  Housework! Laundry, dishwasher, a quick tidyup. 

• Wrote a blog post, State Change, about how I've been going the last couple of weeks. I really appreciate the messages of support, empathy and encouragement I've been getting. Thanks guys, you're all incredibly awesome.
• Talked to my mother on Skype for an hour.
• Had some lemons that were getting to their use-by date, so I juiced them and froze the juice for use in home-made electrolyte replacement drinks (so much cheaper and probably better for me than Gatorade). 
• Ordered the groceries for the week.
• Ate in a timely manner before going to the gym. Hopefully this means I won't hurt too much tomorrow. Fried eggs with lean ham and rosti. Mmmmm. Om nom nom. 
• Went to the gym, and worked out. I think I can safely say I've achieved one, possibly both of my 6-week strength goals. For pushups, the goal was 12 minimum extension knee pushups as a single set max. Today, I did 10 full extension knee pushups on my second set. For one-arm rows, the goal was to do a 7x10kg set. Today I did a 4x35kg, on my fourth set, which is nearly double the weight per hand of my goal. My third set, which wasn't quite good form, was 4x40kg. I think I can fairly say that I've probably overachieved. I'm going to do a formal retest on Wednesday to see how my progress is going. And then set some new goals - again for a 6 week period. 
• Had a wonderful hot bath.
• Finished reading "The Way of Kings" by Brandon Sanderson at the end of my bath. Excellent timing, that. And now, to bed!