already behind
thursday, january 3, 2019


it's no surprise that i'm already behind this year. this layout should have been in progress by mid-november, but i didn't get to it until three days ago (i did think about it, but i didn't come up with an actual layout idea until this past week). then this entry was supposed to be up on the first, and here we are. really, last year was the end of some hard, unstable years for me. just too much going on and then being too tired from too much going on.

but i'm ready to restore the habits and routines that helped me. in fact, restoration is my word for this year. i'm getting back to myself, my loves, my joys. last year was exhausting. it wasn't just the kids in and out, it was life in general, and politics, and living in a shit hole apartment (which is still a shit hole, but i'm feeling more capable of dealing with it), and so on. i felt really beaten down. most of my present was just too much to deal with, or at least felt too much to deal with.

and i realize i didn't have it that bad. but it's also not a contest, and often hearing about the garbage being done to other people (from the calling of cops on black people just for existing to putting migrant infants and children in cages) can weigh on you. last year weighed a lot on me with both what i was dealing with and hearing what others were dealing with. some of that weight is still there, but i've been making my way slowly through some personal recovery with the downtime and am feeling more capable of dealing.

i did spend the last week or so doing a lot of thinking and getting ready for this year. i actually have real goals and am finally feeling motivated to work on them. most of my goals deal with restoring the healthy activities and habits that were the victims of circumstances over the last couple of years.

i'm getting back to consistent exercise. i kept trying last fall, but things just wouldn't stay settled enough. i'd get a week or two in (if i was lucky) then something would come up. you just can't build momentum on a few weeks at a time. this year i'm going to find ways around that, try to make sure it's the first thing i do 3-4 days a week. right now i'm focusing on lifting. i do not need the frustration of trying to lose weight challenging me when i need to focus just on getting back into my healthy habits. i may never get back to trying to lose weight because weight doesn't equate with health and my goal is to be as healthy as i can be at whatever weight i am while enjoying life. life is just too short for anything else. so i will be lifting 3-4 times a week, 40 minutes a session. when it warms up in spring (assuming it lasts longer than 3 weeks like it did last year), i'll add walking 2-3 times a week, then do the same in fall (again, assuming it lasts longer than 3 weeks). i'll continue to dance with the dishes as well.

one of these days i'll have to go through all my cardio workouts and get rid of everything except my absolute favorites. i want to get back to some of them one day (just not now), but i don't see myself being inspired by ALL of them in the future. i want hha, tj, and my mma for sure, maybe one of the rockin' bodies. the rest? i'm not so sure. i'd say they were a waste of money except, they did help me when i needed them, and most of them were well used. they taught me a lot about what i like and what i love and what will happily get me moving. so, most of them did serve a purpose, but it's getting to be time to let a chunk of them go. i'll have to remember to do that soonish.

(and i'm sure a number of people are already laughing to themselves about that.)

anyway, i have two major diet goals: getting back to healthier whole grains (like brown rice etc) and going vegetarian three times a week. it's going to sound silly, but one of the reasons we stopped eating brown rice is because our rice cooker broke...and neither of us did a very good job cooking brown rice even when following directions (don't ask). so white grains just became easier to use. we did keep some of the whole grain pastas, but not all the pastas available to us have a whole grain option. as for why we started eating meat pretty much every night again: the husband started cooking more. he'll eat vegetarian. but it's not his default thinking, so putting together vegetarian meals for him is hard. i did tell him i wanted to do this again, and also pointed out that it should help with food costs (which we need since rent is going up by over $100 in march, plus we'll be paying for insurance out of our own pockets—which unlike the a.c.a. shit we have we'll be able to use, but still). he wasn't thrilled but he agreed to it, and i agreed to do the cooking. i'll have to dig out my veggie books and recipes again. ;)

one additional major diet thing is dealing with my sugar problem, which i kind of let go out of control recently. don't get me wrong, i'm still allowing myself to eat sweets, but i do need to reduce the amount of sweet. while i believe everything is okay in moderation (as long as there isn't an actual physical/health issue), i was doing anything but moderation last year. sweets are my go to comfort foods. and i tend to crave them after dinner in particular for some reason. and put a bag of candy in the house, and it's most definitely not safe and gone in a day or two. i am proud that i did learn to limit my bowls of ice cream to two scoops, and usually only had one bowl any given day (course, then i had to stop ice cream for awhile because the cold and damp of it in cooler weather was triggering my asthma). so overboard was more the name of the game last year. to help with that, i'm going to try to use kind bars to replace some of my sweet treats. yes, they have sugar and are sort of like candy bars, but they are candy bars with protein and fiber.

writing is another major goal for the year. last year was the worst in terms of word count since i started counting. my first year when i was inconsistent as hell, i still got over 175k. my worst year before the last two years, i managed 121k. in 2017, my count was just over 32k, and last year it was just over 13k. that's abysmal. i'd also stopped submitting until about october of last year (then i submitted for a month or two, but mid-november, i stopped again). there are a lot of reasons for these horrible counts: grandbaby care upended my life, and even when he was out, he wasn't really, and there was a lot of upheaval. by the end of most days over the last two years, even if i wanted to write during my creative time, i was too exhausted. even if i couldn't sleep, i just wasn't mentally there for it.

so, i'm reclaiming my creative time (which tends to be around 2 am) and writing again. well, revising (it just seems easier to get back into the swing that way, especially since the book i'm revising has a strong character with a completed book behind her that, while not being represented, has gotten positive feedback even when rejected—sounds weird, but it works, trust me). aiming for 250 words/day for now (last night i got 274; tonight, well, this whysper counts as my writing). and i'm not going to worry about how late it is when i finally go to bed. i'm going to write 250, then if i'm on a roll, i'm going to keep going. i also intend to get back to submitting. once a week, i work on my submissions.

i'm still working on my youtube channel, domytriesthis, as well, but...we're going to put it into its place, so to speak. i film two days a week, monday and friday. no mid-weeks even if a box comes in. it does mean filming more than one video a day (and i do have to get to the point where i can do three in a day, but for now, two is fine), but that's doable. the channel still isn't self-supporting, so i'm having to rethink a few things: focusing more on lower end indie brands, buying more drugstore, reducing my purchases overall, getting things on sale, etc. i'm already reducing inbox clutter to help with that by unsubscribing to all but the most important brands i need to keep in touch with for sales. i'm working on creative content that will rely more on what i already own rather than buying new. stuff like that. i want dtt to get to the point where it's self-sustaining, but that will take a long time, and between now and then, i'm not going to stress the numbers, but neither am i going to bury us financially. i know i can find a balance in there.

i'd say balance is what i do since i did it for so long, but the last couple of years have most definitely been way out of balance.

so, already behind as i am, i am still in a better place than i was through 2017 and 2018. i'm ready to grab my life with both hands again and restore that balance while doing what i do best: keeping busy. hoping that means you'll see a lot more of me here (and over at alden.nu, and yes, that's on the list to get to as well), but i'm not going to make any promises. seems i did that way too much before we finally hit radio silence for the last half of 2018. for now, just know that i'm working on it, and the schedule does include more than one hello a month around here.

heck, who knows, maybe there will eventually be a redesign of the site (and alden.nu), but let's not bite of more than we can chew at the moment. this year i'm focusing on restoration. next year can be for revamping.