Marsia's Diary

Thanks LaMa! I think you're right. Fun is a lot more memorable!! Plus there'll be pictures if she does forget!

Hi PLB! Thanks for stopping by my diary. My big plan is to make a permaculture garden, but at the moment I am struggling with a yard full of invasive vines. I have some lovely apple and plum trees, a somewhat sunny veggie garden that needs a lot of work, and a good foundation for lovely shade gardens. Have you thought about small raised beds, vertical gardening on fences, or maybe even window boxes of herbs? Do you know what you'll be planting yet? I'm just doing some easy things like greens and garlic this year while I get my garden tamed again! I'd love to hear how your plantings go!
 
What a fantastically productive day, Marsia. You are on a roll :)
 
Thanks Cate! I feel like I am challenging some roadblocks in my head and getting a lot done the past few days. It may be because I am making an organization list and J is helping me with that. We talked a lot about how to rank something as important or not, and it was an interesting discussion because there are so many kinds of important, and there is what you value highly for many different reasons. Also it is getting warmer out and I am coming to life. I don't get much done in cold weather - I turn into a heat-seeking sloth. So living in California is good because it is warm so much of the year! Today was pretty productive, but we just scheduled speech therapy twice a week on top of the physical therapy once a week, so J is going to help because that is a lot of driving and sitting around instead of getting things done. He can bring his work and do it there, so will help out sometimes. It's amazing how much he is helping. I wonder if he talked to a friend who helped him be more helpful or something. He hasn't been like this toward me in quite a while. It's so nice!!
 
Thanks everyone! I gained so much weight this week - I am 5 pounds heavier than my lowest weight. Part of that was making a birthday dinner and keto carrot cake for my mom, part breaking fasting too much, and part nervous eating. I just feel like I can't get my normal work done lately, never mind the stuff I want to do outside or the things I want to do for myself. Also my mom just being her stressed out self makes me nervous. (I am working on getting her to see that the stress isn't good for her, either.) However, I feel skinnier and my clothes are looser than they have ever been, so I should be able to lose the weight fast again. I vow to go back to the resistance exercise this week and keep gardening despite all the responsibilities with driving my mom everywhere. She will get cataract surgery after our vacation, but with her memory issues, I don't know if she should be driving - have to ask the speech therapist. But I am finally to the point where I am acknowledging that if things are stressful, it's extra important to keep me healthy! Yay for taking my own advice!!

We got these hanging chairs at less than half of what they normally are, and I have always wanted hanging chairs in the seating area around our pellet stove. So I am going to put those together today and hope to get all my plants in by the end of the weekend.

I also have a lot of allergies to all the pollen (which is very intense this year from all the rain) which make me crave sugar and caffeine, so I need to concentrate on having vitamin C so I don't eat too much of that zero calorie sugar. It tends to make me gain weight just from the sugar alcohols in it, so I need to limit how much I have of it. And of course writing this I am craving a big mug of black tea with cream and sugar! I may have just one and make myself stop after that. Maybe if I do moderation where I can have one cup in the morning and have to stop. Will see if that works. I am not usually good at moderation, but I have not been able to kick the black tea habit, so maybe it's time to learn some.
 
Marsia said:
And of course writing this I am craving a big mug of black tea with cream and sugar! I may have just one and make myself stop after that. Maybe if I do moderation where I can have one cup in the morning and have to stop. Will see if that works. I am not usually good at moderation, but I have not been able to kick the black tea habit, so maybe it's time to learn some.
Click to expand...

YES! The more you try to cut something out completely, the more you will probably want it and over do it when you have it!

Marsia said:
Hi PLB! Have you thought about small raised beds, vertical gardening on fences, or maybe even window boxes of herbs? Do you know what you'll be planting yet? I'm just doing some easy things like greens and garlic this year while I get my garden tamed again! I'd love to hear how your plantings go!
Click to expand...

So I didn't get started this week, but the weather cooled down quite a bit so I was not motivated to be outside a lot. After an amazing month weather wise, I'm now back to being a wimp about the cold. Lol. I have thought about raised garden beds but our yard is not very level, so that would be kind of difficult! I also like being able to move the pots around. We will probably just plant a few herbs, carrots, and lettuce. I loved being able to just pick a few fresh greens for salad! And my son got a kick out of different coloured carrots.
 
Thanks M2M and PLB! I really wish I could figure out why when our bodies get stressed, they crave what isn't good for them! I have allergies from all the pollen and it makes me crave sugar and caffeine and I had a small ice cream yesterday when usually ice cream doesn't even tempt me. I am taking your advice PLB and thinking of this as moderation! I think I will try what you are saying and really hope it works for me. Thanks for that!

Yesterday we went to a music festival on a small farm in the mountains and it was not only really fun, the food was out of this world. I had baked brie with blueberry sauce for the first time ever and wow, is that good! I bet I can make a zero calorie sugar version no problem. We heard of the festival at open mike night where my daughter performed, and the open mike night organizer was at the festival and told my daughter that next festival, they will play a set with her and back her up (she's a lead guitarist/singer). So my kid gets to play at an awesome music festival in the late summer!!! It's supposed to be out of this world music in the evenings, and they have bon fires to sit around in the evenings. But we came early and were getting sunburned as it was 80 degrees F, so will plan for a whole day thing next time. There were also lovely farm animals and we had fun exploring the farm, too. Then we went downtown and got everyone Teva sandals for the Hawaii trip after stopping for ice cream. I had a yummy chai flavored ice cream. Such a nice day!

There's some stressful stuff with my mom fighting her physcial and speech therapists, but I won't go into it. I want to start to make my blog more positive and about me getting to my goals. She will probably drop out of the therapies, because she doesn't like to work toward goals. But I am not going to stress about it. You know when you see someone constantly leaning into being negative and taking the "easy way" out of things, and they aren't going to listen to how much better your life is if you try leaning toward the positive? Well, that!!
 
  • Like
Reactions: PLB
Wow - it sounds like a great time at the music festival!
So glad you're daughter gets to play there!

It also seems like a very healthy perspective to take in regards to your mom.
I know it isn't easy!
 
Thanks M2M and LaMa! J is doing more with my mom because he isn't burnt out on helping her and I'll leave it to him for a while. The music festival was such a blast. The guy who hosts it looks like an aging hippie Mick Jagger and was so funny and such a gracious host. I love being around creative people so much!!

We planted shrubbery that was free from the neighbor yesterday in a spot where wild blackberry bushes had taken over. My daughter kept referencing Monty Python where the gatekeepers want a shrubbery before they let the knights pass. We wore ourselves out digging holes and having a nice time gardening and now that spot looks so nice. It's next to stone stairs going down to the lower property, and you can see it from the house and looks so much better.

I ate well yesterday and feel a lot better. Not so allergic today, and I was able to have just one cup of black tea with fake sugar amazingly.

The apple blossoms are in full bloom and we are in an area with lots of gorgeous orchards. Love this time of year!
 
  • Like
Reactions: M2M
Marsia said:
We planted shrubbery that was free from the neighbor yesterday in a spot where wild blackberry bushes had taken over. My daughter kept referencing Monty Python where the gatekeepers want a shrubbery before they let the knights pass.
Click to expand...

Your daughter sounds hilarious and now I can hear the Monty Python voices in my head! Haha
 
I love, love, love the sound of your garden & your daughter & the music festival & the crunchy organic farmer version of Mick Jagger :D
 
Thanks Cate!! I :beating: this! Thanks everyone!!!

I haven't been into food at all lately - just eating what's convenient and my exercise is lots of ivy pulling and some digging like your picture. I haven't lost any weight, but am firming up more and more. We went sketching yesterday and J joined us and he enjoyed it, so may do it again. I've been vacillating between feeling very self critical and feeling happy and carefree, so have been staying off the forum because my moods are rather up and down and I feel sort of emotionally imbalanced and just need to stabilize. Getting lots of gardening done feels really good though - for the past year or more I have just been treading water and doing the next thing that needs doing. It feels so good to get something that makes me happy done, and it's great exercise uncovering my plants that are under layers of ivy and jasmine vines and wild blackberries. It looks oodles better when I am done with an area, too. We ran into the guy who hosted the music festival last night at open mike and it is so nice to talk to such a happy, creative person. I am emailing an artist friend and realizing that I need to find an artist community here to join eventually. So I may take a tiny break from the forum here and there. I need to let the self critical mood pass, but think I am getting a handle on it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: M2M
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top