Maintainers Weekly Chat September 17 - September 23
September becomes even more so. We've had to close the windows at night to prevent the heating system from turning on. I actually wore a jacket when I went out yesterday morning.
My challenge this week is to get more exercise. It's easy to have a reason not to get out for a walk.
I have done all I can do for now to get my father into care. They are bringing him home to his house this morning some time. I did his laundry, left food and money, and will drop off a list of things I think he'll need help with, addressed to both social agencies he's dealing with.
Now I have to start straightening myself out. I have been so anxious I haven't been sleeping so I've been drinking waay too much caffeine, eating too much sugar, not doing my morning yoga or weights, etc. I will start with forcing myself to drink one glass of water for every caffeinated beverage and I will try to limit the caffeine to 3 beverages per day again. I'm hoping to somewhat normalize my sleep after I find out what the social agencies are prepared to do for my father. I'm sure some of the anxiety will dissipate if I know there are other people looking out for him.
It's a waiting game now with my father. But I have to get on with my life too.
My kitchen looks like a murder took place in it. DH and a friend of ours spent 11 hours canning 48 pints of pickled beets. It will take a day or two to locate and remove all of the pretty little red flecks. It's worth it - the recipe is DH's great-aunt's, and there is nothing like it anywhere. Like my MIL's dill pickles ... some things you cannot buy! Kitchen smells funny too, but I think that has more to do with the fresh-fermenting kimchi experiment on the counter.
Well, with the ceiling removed in the hall bathroom, we discovered a small roof leak. The good news is that the leak is around a screw that holds the flashing for our Solatube, and is under workmanship warranty. Yahoo! And it's good news that it happened to rain when it did, so we could see what was going on. I get to insulate that ceiling this week - the 16" of loose-fill fiberglass attic insulation became 16" of loose-fill fiberglass of bathroom floor insulation when the ceiling came down. Not surprisingly, I will be opting for batts to replace it. On another "amusing" note (gotta laugh, it beats screaming), 1 case of the flooring I plan to use in the bathroom covers 19.8 square feet. The bathroom floor is, of course, 40.2 square feet. I suppose that since this is my first time laying that kind of floor, the extra practice area is a good thing.
And the replacement kitchen faucet has almost the exact same leak that the old one did, except it's only in one of the supply lines. Positive spin is that I hooked up the hot water to the non-leaking cold supply, so at least there is water for basic necessities. That's another phone call to make today.
I am anxiously awaiting the first frost - ready for a little relief from the gardening! Aside from the raspberries and cherry tomatoes, just about everything is done producing. Potatoes are harvested, onions are hanging, leeks are next up. 120 heads of glorious garlic stored (we LOVES our garlic!).
Dagmar - my heart goes out to you! I just can't imagine the emotional toll this is taking! Hope you take some time to take care of yourself this week!
I had an absolutely fantastic weekend. I have been in maintenance for about 2 months now. I still have some doubts on days, but overall, I feel really well about how I am managing my life.
We have a vacation coming up next week - we rented a cabin in Pennsylvania for us and the dogs. We'll see how I do when I'm out of my normal routine. But I am very excited about this vacation!
I've been logging my food on a "Myfitnesspal" app on my ipad for a full week and have gotten used to the ipad rather than a paper food journal. I haven't had the patience to do this all summer. It's not a coincidence that slightly cooler weather comes through and I all the sudden have more patience. Hooray for fall! One feature of this app really annoys me, though. I finished logging for one day at 1200 cals and the app tells me that if I kept this up, I would weight 142 lbs in 5 weeks (from 154 lbs)! I finish at 1500 cals most days and it still says 146 in 5 weeks, in short, very unrealistic #s. I think I finally figured out how to turn this feature off this AM bc it's just irritating. Maybe once I get more of a history logged with weigh-ins it will "learn" the calorie levels my body needs to lose weight?
Unfortunately with the cooler weather my great sleeping streak has ended. All weekend I woke up from horrible, violent dreams multiple times and couldn't get back to sleep. It could be bc BF was gone all weekend, could be my allergy meds, could be the weather. BF will be back today so we'll see about the rest of the week.
Becky, your weekend of canning sounds fun! I have been trying to coax a friend traveling through SC and GA to bring me a big bag of "seconds" from the apple orchard so I can make my mom's apple butter. There's nothing like keeping a good family canning recipe tradition going. BF hates it when I cook with a lot of vinegar. When I make my salt & vinegar roasted chickpeas he always comes in, sort of winces/squints, and finds a reason to leave the house. The smell is, um, unique, I'll admit it, but the results are so good!
Dagmar, gl getting yourself back to normal. It's important to take care of yourself, too!
Jen, your vacation plans sound lovely. I love cabin-type trips in the fall. Enjoy!
Same old stuff for me this week. Work, rehearsals, trying to walk the dog, get some strength training, and healthy eats in there too. Have a good week everyone!
With September we get slightly cooler temperatures and thankfully the humidity has ceased for the most part. We were able to turn on our evaporative cooler on Friday which meant much more comfortable sleeping! We did have to switch to the AC for a couple hours yesterday afternoon, though. Just a tad too warm in the kitchen when I was doing the most work to get dinner ready.
We went to Arbitrage yesterday. This is a great movie that I really recommend. No violence really, but a lot of F-bombs if that thing bothers you. The only downside to this movie was not the movie at all but the fact that THREE cell phones went off during the movie! This theater doesn't do the standard "turn off your cell phone" message before the shows--I wrote to them and suggested they start doing that.
Megan,
I hate those kinds of nightmares. I hope you start sleeping better-- that's the worst! And that part of the app would bug me too.
My heart goes out to you Dagmar. I'll be thinking about you-- lots of positive thoughts!!
Jen-- so glad you are feeling so positive about maintenance. I subscribed to your blog and have been thoroughly enjoying it!
I have a trip planned this weekend to Tahoe to do the Tough Mudder-- for once I'm not worried about gaining on a trip. I do need to think about healthy snacks to bring-- some protein-- something for breakfast Saturday morning before we start, etc. I'm planning on pigging out after on whatever I feel like!
Becky-- hate those surprises. Yesterday in my quiet house (now that dd is not home singing!), I'm pretty sure I heard some sort of creature in the attic-- we've had mice and rats before. So a call is in order to the exterminator but I think it will have to wait till next week. Hopefully they don't multiply and dominate before then.
Bill-- I hear you on the cool nights and getting out to exercise. Dh came back from his trip and told me that our doxie looked huge. I had changed the dogs' food and I think it has more calories (grain free) but I didn't reduce the portions. Fine for Great Dane that NEEDS to gain, not so much for chunky doxie. So his rations are drastically cut down and we took him for a 60 minute walk. He was so out of shape that he had to get carried for part of it.
My challenge this week is to be the ultimate b*tch to my pupils, and to remain so throughout the year. I've tried the "firm but nice inside" method ("be benevolent to your pupils", they say, yadda-yadda...), but the truth is, punishment works better than positive reinforcement, at least with the ones I've been lumped in this year. Maybe shouting once or twice works for my male colleagues who're bigger and taller than I, but when I do it, it just doesn't work without an additional hefty does of punishment. Well, so be it. I'm sorry about it, but so be it. I am NOT destroying myself spending a whole school year telling myself "I'm sh*t" because of some ungrateful brats who can't keep shutting their trap for more than thirty seconds.
At least I'm not stuffing myself with food out of stress. *This* is a positive outcome.
Nasty, cold rain tonight in east Kentucky. We donned foul weather gear and slogged out a hike this evening anyway.
ICU - Kim Chee sounds interesting. We got a Harsch crock a few years ago that is great for kraut. Would love to try Kim Chee in it next.
Megan - We use MyFitnessPal as well. The inaccuracy of calories burned through exercise and their crazy projections are annoying. I'd weigh nothing at all by now according to it. But it's good for logging our meals. Very comprehensive food database. The only thing I've eaten I couldn't find was paw paws.
Vinegar and salt chickpeas sound pretty good! I do miss those chips sometimes. Recipe?
I stayed OP yesterday, despite a visit to the hospital and my dad insulting me 3 times while in a conference with 2 doctors and an intern. I am going to stay away while they try to talk my dad into accepting a long-term care bed. He is still adamant about going "back home". My anger (which is triggered just by being in the same room with him) is causing me to open my mouth and blurt out stuff better not said.
This is his swan song (his cancer has spread) and he will have servants and attendants galore to do his bidding. If he so chooses. The only one not at the party is me.
Changing the subject entirely I bought a chip maker for the microwave a while back and DH got some potatoes a couple of weeks ago. We have not been motivated enough to make our own chips yet. Too much bats*^t going on right now.
It is stormy here this morning. It rained a lot yesterday, last night, and the thunder woke me up around 6:15 this AM. I laid in bed for a while. I was sort of scared to get up and shower, the storm was so bad. I was glad I had a dog to walk yesterday afternoon. I was tired and could have easily sat like a lump and eaten a bunch of food. Instead I sucked it up and walked the dog, despite the rain, almost 4 miles (I'm sure Dagmar does this frequently ). I still had two extra snacks when I got home from rehearsal. Will try to do better today. I slept a bit better last night but still not completely normally.
John, I really like how comprehensive the food database is, too. I used to use fitday on the computer and liked the detailed nutrition reports but had to enter a lot of my own custom foods. It seems I did turn off the "If every day were like this, you'd weigh XXX lbs in 5 weeks" feature, whew.
I'm at work so I don't want to go to the link but if you google "Oh She Glows" + "Salt and Vinegar Roasted Chickpeas" the recipe should pop right up. I love salt & vinegar flavor. These certain don't replace the chips, but are salty and crunchy and weirdly addicting.
Dagmar, at least your dad is on many official records as disregarding the doctor's advice. Hang in there. A friend loaned me one of those chip makers, too. I have yet to try it. I should just give it back. I don't need a rarely used item in my small kitchen.
Kery, you will take control over those kids! I know you can do it! My mom is a teacher and at the program she used to teach she had "good" classes and "bad" ones. The bad made her really appreciate the good.
Happy New Year to those who are celebrating!
I brought some iced tea from home as a "special" drink this afternoon, though I might switch to hot tea. I'll try to stick to tea and the healthy snacks this afternoon rather than give in to munchies. It's going to be a long, rainy day in the office.
We've got an all-day rain in the forecast, which always puts me on edge.
Instead of luxuriating in a cup of coffee, I keep getting up from my Aeron & going to the windows & standing & staring meditatively, with panicky thoughts assaulting me: Are the storm drains in the back parking lot working? How high is the Bronx River? Has it covered the roadway under the bridge yet? Have the other tenants moved their cars to higher ground? How many inches of rain did the forecast say was coming, and in what period of time?
Also, after a long wait, and a weekly phone call, the furniture restorer got back to me yesterday. He finished a job in someone's home. He promised to deliver some things to me today. But he may cancel if it rains all day. That fills me with deep disappointment, since I have not seen or heard from him since early in August.
I am trying to remind myself that when life is a mess, and work is stressful (as it was yesterday), the only thing I've got to depend on is me. And this body that I am inhabiting. So I'd better make it strong & take care of it. I did my weight routine thinking things like: This body is the only thing I own that I may be able to keep safe, and is the only thing I can take with me. This body is all I've got. Everything else beyond the surface of my skin is not at all within my control and is likely to be lost eventually.
Saef-- I'm sorry but not surprised that the rain troubles you. When I owned my first car as a teenager-- I was 17 and had saved and bought it myself-- owned it for a month-- before I was caught up in a flash flood in Texas. Terrifying. I had to abandon the car and basically swim away. There were abandoned cars everywhere-- it looked like a parking lot-- it was in a neighborhood and cars washed up on top on lawns, etc. Ever since that day I get very antsy about driving in the rain. Just thinking about it now makes my heart race.
You are right to take care of what you can control.
Maintainers Weekly Chat September 17 - September 23
It's worth it - the recipe is DH's great-aunt's, and there is nothing like it anywhere. Like my MIL's dill pickles ... some things you cannot buy! Kitchen smells funny too, but I think that has more to do with the fresh-fermenting kimchi experiment on the counter.
On another "amusing" note (gotta laugh, it beats screaming), 1 case of the flooring I plan to use in the bathroom covers 19.8 square feet. The bathroom floor is, of course, 40.2 square feet. I suppose that since this is my first time laying that kind of floor, the extra practice area is a good thing.
A friend loaned me one of those chip makers, too. I have yet to try it. I should just give it back. I don't need a rarely used item in my small kitchen. 
