Categories
Diversions

reboot

It’s kind of amazing how things that people just sort of made up one day can carry so much meaning and influence.

Today is January 1. Today I will start to try to be a better me. Like I get to define better so that’s all well and good; and there really wasn’t anything wrong with “yesterday’s” me – she just didn’t always make the healthiest choices for example.

So time – something we made up to count; and even more so calendars. Why is January 1 the “starting point” for many? Why not Spring? That’s when everything blooms again after all. hmmm

Today’s aside (you had to know it was coming)

The US Astronomical Applications Department says there are six principal calendars in current use: Gregorian, Jewish, Islamic, Indian, Chinese, and Julian. And now I have a new book to watch for in the used bookshops!

How are you approaching the new year?

Some general ideas I have:

‣ stop buying stuff we don’t actually need

‣ stop wasting food – I think this really means we need to plan better

‣ schedule in the stuff I want to do (so I don’t forget and also so I don’t spend time on things that are easier but less fulfilling – social media and phone games, I’m looking at you lol)

More specifically I want to do some stuff every day so I don’t even have to think about it:

◉ move more; starting with a 30 minute walk every day

◉ stretch more; I think I’m going to try the Yoga with Adriene January focus on energy

◉ drink more water; starting with 2L a day (I think I do about this now but I want to be sure so next up…)

◉ tracking food and movement

◉ do something creative every day; practise piano or cross stitch; knit or colouring. Something.

Anyway, happy day!

Categories
Around the house In the kitchen

Random cleaning chores

It occurred to me, probably as I seem to be inundated with “spring cleaning” e-mails, that there are some things that I really ought to schedule into my life. The things that you don’t think about on a day-to-day basis.

This happened to me also because I was reading a short story about bugs in a ceiling light fixture and looked up and there was a bug casting a shadow in the family room light fixture so I took down the five fixtures on that floor and gave them a good wipe and dusted the bulbs and stuff. And felt very accomplished.

So I googled “monthly chores” and “seasonal chores” and poked about a bit.

Somethings that I haven’t thought about cleaning:

  • baseboards
  • curtains / blinds
  • screens – like computer, tablet, phone
  • the in-house garbage cans
  • light fixtures

Things I have thought about cleaning or have actually cleaned in the past but can’t remember the last time I did:

  • the dishwasher
  • the ovens
  • the coffee maker (this is fine, I just got a new one!)
  • the outdoor bins
  • pillows

I am grateful that we have someone who comes to our house every other week and does a really good clean of the bathrooms and kitchen and also vacuums and gets all the floors clean.

So I made a new page in my journal for monthly chores, so at least I have someplace to start! I guess I will also have to do one for “seasonal chores” – I mean, I don’t think I need to clean the ceiling light fixtures monthly….but maybe they do attract a lot of bugs. I’ll have to monitor!

So – cleaned the dishwasher on 6 March. We pretty much run the dishwasher every day. Toby cooks a lot (yum)! and we’re mostly still working from home so there are lots of coffee and tea mugs and water bottles and lunch plates etc.

I took out the filter and washed it. Took out the spray arms and soaked those in soapy water while I wiped down the rubber seal and the sides of the door – how the heck does the side of the door get so gross?!? For all the general wiping I just used a cloth and some random “all purpose cleaner” I got in some eco-friendly cleaning subscription box of stuff I once got seasonally that has now sadly gone out of business.

Then I reassembled all the parts, put a bowl of white vinegar on the top shelf and ran a sanitizing cycle.

until next month anyway…

What’s next?

This week’s focus I think will be catching up on all the mending – Q has a few stuffies with ribbed seems and a couple pairs of trousers that need mending as well.
Also I need to get going again on the basement. I’ve gone through the shelves under the stairs, so next up is the actual suitcases. How many suitcases do we need really?!?

Categories
Around the house Health

September 2022

September! … It has warmth, depth, and colour. It glows like old amber.

Patience Strong

Well, even in my very late 40s there’s something about September that makes me think of new starts, new beginnings, new possibilities. And, even for me, it’s been a while since September meant I started a new academic year. It’s fun though now to see how excited Q is for a new school year to begin! So even though it’s still August, today’s post is dedicated to September.

September written on a plain background surrounded by fall leaves

September also reminds me that rest is as important as activity to growth – the trees are starting to drop their leaves, animals foraging in earnest, the sun seems less strong.

I took most of the summer off from everything really – my folks were away a lot, #PandaCat died, we got a new puppy, house stuff was happening etc. – and so I was content to just coast really through July and August and now towards the end of August my brain is getting excited about structure and schedule and habit-forming.

So habits – the last time I did this was in June when I tried to think of a theme to work around. I had all these grand plans but only kept a few going. And in reviewing them now, a couple are still important and so I’m going to start again with them in mind.

SELF focus for September:

❶ schedule – a day

❷ mindfulness – being present

❸ health – menopause

Schedule: I am going figure out what I would like “a day” to look like. Three different days actually: in-office work day, WFH work day, non-work day.

Mindfulness – just something I’m always working on; whether it’s a bit of reading about stoicism, the Calm app, yoga. Something.

Health – read the damn menopause book. That time is creeping up slowly but surely and I really want to be sure I have some sort of idea about what’s going on. We don’t talk about this stuff enough and I need to learn.

Also for health – I had an appointment with a specialist clinic for weight management and my own doc as well. I am waiting for a referral to a sleep study and in the meantime I’m going to start walking more in general and focusing more on my health.

HOME focus for September:

❶ minimalism – organize/declutter

❷ mindfulness – being present – family-sized 😉

We live in a fairly large house. The problem with this of course is that we acquire enough stuff to fill the large house. And then some. This will really probably be the focus every month for HOME but key tasks for September for decluttering:

① Lisa’s Stuff – organize jewellery; what do I want to keep; offer the rest to family / friends and then sell / donate what’s left

② Q’s Stuff – this was going to hopefully be done over the summer but we never quite got there. So we’re still going to work on getting everything out of Q’s rooms and really clean and maybe repaint them etc. We’ll continue to do a bit every day and then hopefully over one of the weekends between now and Thanksgiving we’ll get the big stuff done.

③ Art – hang more of the art I love and offer up the stuff we no longer adore.

And a mindfulness focus too. I’m going to try and encourage us to each pick an activity to do sometime in September together – whether it’s walk in the park or a movie night with popcorn on the pull-out bed. Sort of like a “family date.” Wish me luck 😉

Sunset in part of toronto skyline
A photo from my balcony in early September 2021.
Categories
Around the house Diversions Health Politics Reading

June 2022

And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days.

James Russell Lowell

I seem to always love the idea of planning but then, stress hits and my most well-worn response is avoidance. I plan to get things done and then they don’t and the next thing I know it’s bedtime and well, that’s about it really.

Yesterday (June 4) there was a “Daily Jay” on the Calm app about “time confetti“; about how little things add up to disrupt your plans and goals and break up your day and cause irritation. Prioritizing is definitely not something I am good at – but it’s comforting to know I am not alone and that there are so many external factors influencing this that I have no control over at all. Thankfully my work is one of those places that really is not there when it’s not supposed to be there. I don’t get messages on my personal phone etc. So that’s terrific. Work is also flexible enough that when I need to take breaks during the day, that’s fine, the work day doesn’t have to be precisely 9 to 5 but also understands that work is not all consuming.

white background with lots and lots of little coloured pieces of paper
confetti 😉

Okay – so back to trying to plan, think about what’s important, not necessarily going off on all sorts of new and fun directions. I mean, new and fun directions are great. But I don’t have to follow the path RIGHTNOWTHISVERYINSTANT. I can make a note, and follow up later.

One of the ways I thought I would do this would be to think of big themes for the month and if something pops up that fits into the theme – yippie! and if not, and it looks cool, I can make a note and maybe use that to come up with another month’s theme.

THEMES FOR JUNE

There are some easy ways for my brain to group things and also a few topics I want to learn more about which themselves have lots of subheadings so the big overall groups are:

SELF

OTHERS

HOME

NATURE

SELF focus for June:

❶ schedule – a day

❷ mindfulness – being present

❸ health – menopause

Schedule: I’m trying to figure out what I would like “a day” to look like. Three different days actually: in-office work day, WFH work day, non-work day.

Mindfulness – just something I’m always working on; whether it’s a bit of reading about stoicism, the Calm app, yoga. Something.

Health – read the damn menopause book. That time is creeping up slowly but surely and I really want to be sure I have some sort of idea about what’s going on. We don’t talk about this stuff enough and I need to learn.

Also move more. I have an appointment with a specialist about weight management and stuff also.

OTHERS focus for June:

❶ reading – neurodiversity

❷ support – volunteering? politics?

The idea here is to not lose myself in my own little bubble. The Ontario election annoyed me to no end – the lowest turn out in years, maybe ever? WTAF?!? The cons killed people during the pandemic no less than if they had pulled a trigger on a gun and you will not be able to convince me otherwise. And they were rewarded with another majority? @#(P YPVDLI but rather than retreat to the safety of my world with only my people in it I want to do more.

Concrete tasks here:

① deliver egg cartons to the food bank

② bring black take out containers to the farmers’ market for re-use

③ chat with Laura about how to _do something_ about the politics stuff that’s frustrating me

④ read this: recommended by a friend:

Picture of book titled NeuroTribes

HOME focus for June:

❶ minimalism – organize/declutter

We live in a fairly large house. The problem with this of course is that we acquire enough stuff to fill the large house. And then some. This will really probably be the focus every month for HOME but key tasks for June:

① Lisa’s Stuff – organize jewellery; what do I want to keep; offer the rest to family / friends and then sell / donate what’s left

② Q’s Stuff – a big goal for the entire summer is to get everything out of Q’s rooms and really clean and maybe repaint them etc. So we’ve got to start whittling his stuff down too

③ Art – hang more of the art I love and offer up the stuff we no longer adore. This has already started which is great.

NATURE focus for June:

❶ birds – pigeons

❷ tree – northern red oak

Y’all know I’m weird right? I wanna learn more about birds and trees but I keep going off on all sorts of tangents and, while fun, it’s really not sinking in. So, thanks to a random chat with the wonderful Abby, I fixated on pigeons for June. I know nothing about pigeons but they’re everywhere. So I’m gonna learn about pigeons.

A stack of four books about pigeons
Sometimes I wonder what the librarians might be thinking…

Same with trees. There are a bazillion trees out there. So overwhelming to know where to start. But we just planted Tom in the fall – Tom is the name we gave to our northern red oak (Quercus rubra) – so that seemed like a good place to start.

Tom – June 5 taken from the balcony
Categories
Diversions

Half way through January

I thought I ought to check in with how I am doing with my habits and goals and stuff. You know, those daily, easy/hard, things?

Okay first, clearly drinking more water is actually easier than I thought it would be. Even when I did nothing for a couple of days post-COVID booster shot, I still managed to drink at least two of my water bottles full each day. That’s about 1.5L so not loads but more than I was drinking.

Okay – so booster was in the late afternoon of January 5. That first light blue box is January 5. I was soooo wiped out for the 6th and 7th at least.

picture was actually taken on January 21 – but yea, didn’t want to wait till the end of the month for an update

Moving – I was on a good roll there. That booster shot though really wiped me out. You see that lonely red box in there? I got the shot on Wednesday afternoon. On Saturday I figured I should be able to go for my walk – so I did: 40 minutes woohoo. And within 15 minutes of getting home I fell asleep. And napped for 2 hours! So then I guess I just lost my mojo? Will be working on that.

Yoga – ahhh yoga. Again. 5 days straight. Then wiped. And after a couple of days off I realised that my shoulder was actually NOT appreciating all the table top / cat-cow / downward facing dog poses. You’ll see at the bottom of the chart that I thought maybe yoga would take the place of physio maybe? Turns out I was wrong. So I am going to add a physio break to my work day to get me up off the computer at least. Ideally by the end of the month there will be a lot more of that line filled in!

Reading – ahhh reading is one of those things that’s on the list so I get the joy of crossing it off. Actually from the 12th to the 14th I did reading instead of “creating” because I needed to finish this amazing book by bell hooks and get it back to the library. (And yes, it will have it’s own post soon too). But I am also prone to not picking up a book for days, weeks even. So the ability to check it off (or fill in the box) is nice. Same with contests. I haven’t won much lately but it’s a small group of people I’ve known online for almost 20 years!

Ohhh and I made this today for tracking my books. A bookshelf! In my journal 😊

And at least the cats can’t complain much 😉

So creating – the plan from the beginning was:

☐ 1 x each easy list item per week

☐ 3 x each hard list item per month

Well, mostly I’ve been cross-stitching. Once I coloured. A couple of times I’ve written blog posts. Definitely not spreading out the easy list items.

And the hard list? No painting, no trumpet, and no knitting as of yet. At least we baked once before the 15th! Q asked for – and to help make – chocolate cheesecake for his birthday so I got one hard list item done in the first half of the month! Yikes.

And – I managed to bake twice again since the 15th so baking is okay. But none of the other stuff. You’ll see my little note to myself that CREATE is going to get it’s own chart in February and we’ll see if that helps any.