Marsia's Diary
- Thread starter Marsia
- Start date
Thanks everyone! I love the elephant and the room - so cozy and fun! I am actually going to have to de elephant as S really likes my elephant sculpture that is in her yard now and I can't bring much outdoor stuff with us. I think it's going to work out great moving. It's stressful, but our quality of life is about to get much nicer and way less stressful in the long run!
Our cat is definitely not introverted and prickly! She sleeps on me all night and wakes up at the break of day to ask me to pet her and talk with her while making her breakfast. I swear she waits for the second the sky gets light!
Good food day today, which was not true yesterday. We were studying in the rv on a cliff overlooking the ocean and got hungry so walked to a pizza place and got salad and pizza, which was good but not satisfying. So when I got home, I had good for me food, which probably put me way over calories. Today I skip roped while K practiced skate boarding. I didn't get very far, but it's a good start at getting some aerobic exercise in. Not much new. I am helping a lot with patents because J got so behind from going out to South Carolina. The realtor met all our neighbors out there today and they are all looking forward to meeting us. We probably saw our neighbors a few times a year at the last house, so this is going to be very different!
Our cat is definitely not introverted and prickly! She sleeps on me all night and wakes up at the break of day to ask me to pet her and talk with her while making her breakfast. I swear she waits for the second the sky gets light!
Good food day today, which was not true yesterday. We were studying in the rv on a cliff overlooking the ocean and got hungry so walked to a pizza place and got salad and pizza, which was good but not satisfying. So when I got home, I had good for me food, which probably put me way over calories. Today I skip roped while K practiced skate boarding. I didn't get very far, but it's a good start at getting some aerobic exercise in. Not much new. I am helping a lot with patents because J got so behind from going out to South Carolina. The realtor met all our neighbors out there today and they are all looking forward to meeting us. We probably saw our neighbors a few times a year at the last house, so this is going to be very different!
Llama
Well-known member
Lovely that your cat's so personable: that should make the move a lot easier. And I love that your new neighbors are getting ready to get to know you already!
Eating after having had pizza may be more calories but it also helps to prevent future overeating so I think you chose well.
Eating after having had pizza may be more calories but it also helps to prevent future overeating so I think you chose well.
Love the sound of this! Glad you had a good eating day today and did some skipping. I can't wait to hear about your Southern Carolina adventures!
Cate
Long term member
I think my elephant would have to go with me. It could be an outside elephant. Are you sure your elephant sculpture wouldn't be happier in Sth Carolina?
I think your quality of life is going to get much nicer too. How long before you move?
alligatorob
Respected Member
Hey Marisa, I think you will like Charleston, and the move will be a lot of work, but exciting. Do you plan to drive? I assume so, its a long ways.
I am impressed, do you also skate board? Both of those things are long in my past now, there was a time I really enjoyed skateboarding. Caution will keep me from trying now!
Thanks LaMa! I think it's the freezing overnight temps here with all the moisture in the air making it feel even cooler. My body says it's winter and time to eat. I am putting on the heater in the house today and seeing if that helps. I am happy we're going to have friendly neighbors, but I also like a lot of privacy. I hope we get both (I am quite introverted, too). My cat is sitting in the sun rolling around happily at the moment. She's going to be so happy to have a pine forest again, I think.
Hi Em! Skipping really made me feel good. I think I'll make it a regular thing. I'll definitely post about all our adventures in South Carolina. The Charleston area seems like the perfect blend of nature lovers' paradise and sophisticated city with all sorts of wonderful things to do!
With the sculptures, J didn't exactly tell S that some of the sculptures are coming with us, and she's bonded with some of them. So I am taking this as a sign to pack lighter. You should see the cost of a moving van here now
, especially because of the great exodus out of CA -the top moving company actually ran out of trucks in CA for people to move out of state with at one point! Anyway, she's charging us about half of what our apartment should cost and has been so accommodating. And we have so many friends who can not find an apartment here at any cost. So we are very grateful, and so I think the elephant will be a nice gift. Also my very favorite sculptures are securely packed in big boxes that no one saw, so they'd be sure to come with us. The family who owned our old house last left incredibly nice stuff for us.
Wow, Rob, you were a skate boarder! I have no balance, so I prefer sports like ice skating where if you fall, it's fine and you just dust yourself off and try again. I am ok with roller skates if I am padded from head to toe, too, but skate boarding seems terrifying!
J is so into the Charleston area. He said it was soooo hard coming back here. One amazing thing about our new place is that much of the basement is an artist studio already, and we live a few houses away from a gorgeous river, and there is a community boat ramp! Plus we both love architecture, and Charleston is an architecture Mecca extraordinaire. Add in the amazing food and friendly people, and I don't see how we couldn't fall in love with the place. I think we're going to be very happy campers!
I am making cream of leek soup because I have realized that I am craving fatty things, so I am making up a batch with just a little bit of potatoes and mostly leeks, onions, and garlic. I hope this helps to stick with IF and stay under calories. I did ok yesterday, but didn't get much exercise. I baked and cleaned and had a cozy domestic day yesterday. Today is a packing day.
Also I gathered research on all sorts of colors and came to a conclusion - I am with Cate, and am picking earthy but lighter and a little more neutral colors. They are soothing and happy all at once. After all this craziness I think I am going for soothing. Ok, I think my soup is ready - smells so good!
Hi Em! Skipping really made me feel good. I think I'll make it a regular thing. I'll definitely post about all our adventures in South Carolina. The Charleston area seems like the perfect blend of nature lovers' paradise and sophisticated city with all sorts of wonderful things to do!
With the sculptures, J didn't exactly tell S that some of the sculptures are coming with us, and she's bonded with some of them. So I am taking this as a sign to pack lighter. You should see the cost of a moving van here now
, especially because of the great exodus out of CA -the top moving company actually ran out of trucks in CA for people to move out of state with at one point! Anyway, she's charging us about half of what our apartment should cost and has been so accommodating. And we have so many friends who can not find an apartment here at any cost. So we are very grateful, and so I think the elephant will be a nice gift. Also my very favorite sculptures are securely packed in big boxes that no one saw, so they'd be sure to come with us. The family who owned our old house last left incredibly nice stuff for us. Wow, Rob, you were a skate boarder! I have no balance, so I prefer sports like ice skating where if you fall, it's fine and you just dust yourself off and try again. I am ok with roller skates if I am padded from head to toe, too, but skate boarding seems terrifying!
J is so into the Charleston area. He said it was soooo hard coming back here. One amazing thing about our new place is that much of the basement is an artist studio already, and we live a few houses away from a gorgeous river, and there is a community boat ramp! Plus we both love architecture, and Charleston is an architecture Mecca extraordinaire. Add in the amazing food and friendly people, and I don't see how we couldn't fall in love with the place. I think we're going to be very happy campers!
I am making cream of leek soup because I have realized that I am craving fatty things, so I am making up a batch with just a little bit of potatoes and mostly leeks, onions, and garlic. I hope this helps to stick with IF and stay under calories. I did ok yesterday, but didn't get much exercise. I baked and cleaned and had a cozy domestic day yesterday. Today is a packing day.
Also I gathered research on all sorts of colors and came to a conclusion - I am with Cate, and am picking earthy but lighter and a little more neutral colors. They are soothing and happy all at once. After all this craziness I think I am going for soothing. Ok, I think my soup is ready - smells so good!
Hi! I had such a nice day yesterday. I went through all my clothes again and got rid of about another garbage bag of them. Then I organized some more while listening to a livestream of this really creative and fun permaculture guy who actually answered a question I wrote in to him. That was wonderful! And then K and I went to the thrift store and got tops for moving to a hot place. I got 7 gorgeous tops, and a couple sweaters and some pants. I never see that many things I love. I think I have several new favorite tops now. I also got a couple of nice rash guard shirts (the shirts that go under wetsuits). I use them both for under my wetsuit and for not getting sunburnt while swimming. K got a good pair of walking shoes and some tops and replaced her "Sgt. Peppers" Beatles jacket that she outgrew, so she is really happy. And when the clerk rang up all that, it was about what 4 blouses would have cost in a normal store.
I am feeling so much better and want to lose at least 5 pounds in the 6 weeks before I move. I'm actually enjoying organizing things, which is a small miracle considering that I just packed for a year straight and was utterly sick of it. It does feel really nice to leave beautiful things for S. She is so kind, and we want to show appreciation.
Oh, exercise - went to a lovely park that is former polo fields and took a walk at dusk while J and K ran. I think I'll join them in running until I get too tired and then I'll walk next time. I'm doing IF about half the days now. I want to increase that until I go full IF. I have a lot less appetite when I do IF.
I am feeling so much better and want to lose at least 5 pounds in the 6 weeks before I move. I'm actually enjoying organizing things, which is a small miracle considering that I just packed for a year straight and was utterly sick of it. It does feel really nice to leave beautiful things for S. She is so kind, and we want to show appreciation.
Oh, exercise - went to a lovely park that is former polo fields and took a walk at dusk while J and K ran. I think I'll join them in running until I get too tired and then I'll walk next time. I'm doing IF about half the days now. I want to increase that until I go full IF. I have a lot less appetite when I do IF.
Wow, I would love a Sgt. Peppers jacket! Unreal!
Charleston sounds so exciting, maybe I'll move there myself!
Thanks all! Cate, I wish you happy clothes hunting if you do get out to the op shop. Even if I have a thrift store shopping trip where I don't find much for me, I still like going to be around other people picking out nice things for themselves. I didn't used to notice things like this as much before the pandemic, but now I feel more in solidarity with people, and just enjoy being out with other people enjoying themselves.
LaMa, I do feel on a roll now. I realized this morning that the culture pays all this attention to the ego - the bad parts that don't seem under control anyway, I realized that a part of learning to be more nurturing to myself is to strengthen the nurturing parts of the super ego more. We have an internalized parental/authority voice (the super ego) that could help us stay on track if we focused more on the nurturing parts of it. It's like the culture thinks of the super ego as fixed - we get the voice that our parents and authority figures programmed into us. But I realized today that this is a nature/nurture thing - we can keep programming that voice ourselves to be as nurturing for us as we need. And we can customize it to our nature, not what helps other people, but what actually resonates with us. I don't know if I am making any sense, I just had this idea because the stern talks I have with myself about staying on track are not working, and. I realized I am not being very Thich Nhat Hanh about all this. (I try to be more compassionate like him when I think of it.). He would gently and firmly have you go back to the task at hand with the focus on how good for you what you want to accomplish is. The other day K commented on how there is a defeatist voice in your head you can listen to, or a nurturing one, and that I don't have much of the nurturing one. So this is why I am thinking about this lately.
Em, the Beatles jacket is one of those double breasted brass button tailored jackets with the piping. It's not as colorful as the real Sgt. Peppers jackets, but K loves them anyway because she loves the Beatles so much. But if I could sew well, wow, would that be so cool to make the colorful ones! And if you ever are on the east coast of the US, please come visit us! Actually we bought extra bed frames from the seller of the house because we know we are going to be living in an area where it would be so fun to invite people over, so we're planning our smaller rooms to be able to double as guest bedrooms. So if any of you make it to the US, you all have a lovely guest bedroom or two waiting for you!
Financially, we probably should not have gotten such a nice house, but we did pay off all our debt and we can now afford to have people over and treat them out to dinner and things now, which will be such a nice change from always just scraping by. It feels like a really nice change knowing that all the work we do from now on will benefit our quality of life, and we can finally share that with friends and family.
Yesterday we went to the farmers' market for the first time in a few years. We got local honey and jam, kobasha squash, leeks, red and green cabbage, cool colored eggs including green and blue eggs and a big goose egg, and lots of different greens and shallots and things. It was so nice. I realized I don't buy enough fresh veggies because my mom's fridge is so small and it is badly designed where the freezer is on top, and you have to crouch to get to the back of the fridge. (I hit my head on the freezer handle if I am not careful.) So I am going to go to the farmers' market and to the local produce stand more so I can buy veggies throughout the week.
K made omelettes by kind of egg, and we liked the green eggs best. She also made hollandaise sauce and breakfast sausage. She's getting to be a pretty good cook, and I am just coaching on how to tell if your oil is hot enough and things like that now. I stayed under calories and within the IF window yesterday and am almost at low weight again.
LaMa, I do feel on a roll now. I realized this morning that the culture pays all this attention to the ego - the bad parts that don't seem under control anyway, I realized that a part of learning to be more nurturing to myself is to strengthen the nurturing parts of the super ego more. We have an internalized parental/authority voice (the super ego) that could help us stay on track if we focused more on the nurturing parts of it. It's like the culture thinks of the super ego as fixed - we get the voice that our parents and authority figures programmed into us. But I realized today that this is a nature/nurture thing - we can keep programming that voice ourselves to be as nurturing for us as we need. And we can customize it to our nature, not what helps other people, but what actually resonates with us. I don't know if I am making any sense, I just had this idea because the stern talks I have with myself about staying on track are not working, and. I realized I am not being very Thich Nhat Hanh about all this. (I try to be more compassionate like him when I think of it.). He would gently and firmly have you go back to the task at hand with the focus on how good for you what you want to accomplish is. The other day K commented on how there is a defeatist voice in your head you can listen to, or a nurturing one, and that I don't have much of the nurturing one. So this is why I am thinking about this lately.
Em, the Beatles jacket is one of those double breasted brass button tailored jackets with the piping. It's not as colorful as the real Sgt. Peppers jackets, but K loves them anyway because she loves the Beatles so much. But if I could sew well, wow, would that be so cool to make the colorful ones! And if you ever are on the east coast of the US, please come visit us! Actually we bought extra bed frames from the seller of the house because we know we are going to be living in an area where it would be so fun to invite people over, so we're planning our smaller rooms to be able to double as guest bedrooms. So if any of you make it to the US, you all have a lovely guest bedroom or two waiting for you!
Financially, we probably should not have gotten such a nice house, but we did pay off all our debt and we can now afford to have people over and treat them out to dinner and things now, which will be such a nice change from always just scraping by. It feels like a really nice change knowing that all the work we do from now on will benefit our quality of life, and we can finally share that with friends and family.
Yesterday we went to the farmers' market for the first time in a few years. We got local honey and jam, kobasha squash, leeks, red and green cabbage, cool colored eggs including green and blue eggs and a big goose egg, and lots of different greens and shallots and things. It was so nice. I realized I don't buy enough fresh veggies because my mom's fridge is so small and it is badly designed where the freezer is on top, and you have to crouch to get to the back of the fridge. (I hit my head on the freezer handle if I am not careful.) So I am going to go to the farmers' market and to the local produce stand more so I can buy veggies throughout the week.
K made omelettes by kind of egg, and we liked the green eggs best. She also made hollandaise sauce and breakfast sausage. She's getting to be a pretty good cook, and I am just coaching on how to tell if your oil is hot enough and things like that now. I stayed under calories and within the IF window yesterday and am almost at low weight again.
Llama
Well-known member
So true and so necessary. It'll need a lot of work before I can be strict with myself while remaining kind but I'm not giving up on it.
K is a very perceptive young person. You did something right there!
I think the green eggs are low-cholesterol? At least that's how it used to be here. If I remember correctly eggs in general have mostly been redeemed though, so maybe it doesn't matter beyond them being tasty, pretty, and high in protein.
Cate
Long term member
I think I used to be more nurturing towards myself, but somewhere along the line, I let that slip. I must encourage my inner nurturer & keep back that voice that puts me down. It is sneaky.
That Sgt Pepper jacket sounds wonderful. I didn't realise they were a thing again. Tell K when I was at High School, in about 1968 I think we had a Science & Maths teacher called Mr Lucy. A friend & I got so far ahead in Maths that he was really impressed & we (I) asked if we could play some Sgt Pepper in class as a "reward". I brought in my new record for the next lesson & he had a small record player & we played it in class. It was back in the day when nothing like that ever happened at school but he allowed it. The headmaster was headed our way & we quickly had to hide the record player in a back room. It was so much fun! My sister went to see the Beatles in Melbourne. Happy days. I was so jealous.
Farmers markets are a wonderful thing.
That Sgt Pepper jacket sounds wonderful. I didn't realise they were a thing again. Tell K when I was at High School, in about 1968 I think we had a Science & Maths teacher called Mr Lucy. A friend & I got so far ahead in Maths that he was really impressed & we (I) asked if we could play some Sgt Pepper in class as a "reward". I brought in my new record for the next lesson & he had a small record player & we played it in class. It was back in the day when nothing like that ever happened at school but he allowed it. The headmaster was headed our way & we quickly had to hide the record player in a back room. It was so much fun! My sister went to see the Beatles in Melbourne. Happy days. I was so jealous.
Farmers markets are a wonderful thing.
Thanks LaMa, Cate, and Vic! I haven't been doing well tracking calories, but I did manage to do weights the day before yesterday and jogging today. I'll start back up on calorie counting tomorrow. I love the farmers' market eggs. They are lovely colors and taste so good!
I am always surprised at how much K understands about life. It's nice to see. I agree about the voice of criticism being so sneaky. I feel like I am doing better in general, but it feels like either I am not eating enough veggies (it's a pain not having a big enough fridge to just buy what I want when I want), I am not exercising enough, or I forget to calorie count (or some combo of the above). The positive voice is happy with the exercise and veggies, and the negative voice is saying it would be so much better if I could get it together and get a healthy routine going that incorporates everything. I think I am working toward that, and I am going to tell the sneaky critical voice to hold of comparing me to how I should be doing, because I am working towards it as best I can.
I am feeling really good about moving in about 5 weeks. The packing up again is going well and I feel organized and have good plans for if everything doesn't fit in the moving van. I know just what to give away and am organizing things so it'll be easy to do that.
We talked with a friend who moved out of the area a few months ago. She was planning on staying here all her life, but her ex-husband who owned half her house made her sell it so he could get his half of the profits. She is so much happier now, despite being so miserable to have to move. Her house is much nicer and much cheaper, and she owns her house outright now and has money to spare. That'll be us soon!
Anyway, wow does my body like the exercise!
I am always surprised at how much K understands about life. It's nice to see. I agree about the voice of criticism being so sneaky. I feel like I am doing better in general, but it feels like either I am not eating enough veggies (it's a pain not having a big enough fridge to just buy what I want when I want), I am not exercising enough, or I forget to calorie count (or some combo of the above). The positive voice is happy with the exercise and veggies, and the negative voice is saying it would be so much better if I could get it together and get a healthy routine going that incorporates everything. I think I am working toward that, and I am going to tell the sneaky critical voice to hold of comparing me to how I should be doing, because I am working towards it as best I can.
I am feeling really good about moving in about 5 weeks. The packing up again is going well and I feel organized and have good plans for if everything doesn't fit in the moving van. I know just what to give away and am organizing things so it'll be easy to do that.
We talked with a friend who moved out of the area a few months ago. She was planning on staying here all her life, but her ex-husband who owned half her house made her sell it so he could get his half of the profits. She is so much happier now, despite being so miserable to have to move. Her house is much nicer and much cheaper, and she owns her house outright now and has money to spare. That'll be us soon!
Anyway, wow does my body like the exercise!
Llama
Well-known member
Perfection should be a beacon to help us stay on course, not a destination in itself. You can do this!
Perfection doesn't exist.
I think I have a number of voices going on inside my head all the time. I think when you are feeling unhappy, the negative voices get louder and grow power. Sometimes all it takes is a cheerful conversation with someone to get them to quiet down.
That's great that you have paid off all your debts and still get to live in a lovely home. Must feel good.
I think I have a number of voices going on inside my head all the time. I think when you are feeling unhappy, the negative voices get louder and grow power. Sometimes all it takes is a cheerful conversation with someone to get them to quiet down.
That's great that you have paid off all your debts and still get to live in a lovely home. Must feel good.
Thanks LaMa and Em! I think once we move I'll do a lot better with my diet. I also think its time to start meditating again. And I agree about perfection being a guiding light at best. I think I use the idea of having it all together in a not so healthy comparing way instead of a "working toward better health" type way, and I want to watch that more.
It's actually raining here after the last 2 months of rainy season being so dry and cold. It's really nice and fresh, and I'm going to really enjoy getting outside today. I love how the trees and things look so much happier after a rain. Yesterday I dismantled a bed so I can pack the bedroom full of boxes, and I decided that only the furniture we really like will come with us, as it's so expensive to ship. That will really un-gridlock the place and packing should go much faster now. We made plans to take friends out to a lovely state park and to dinner this weekend, and in general the weekend is quite booked with nice things like the open mike people are showing a documentary made on them that we'll go to after K shows her graphic design work at a show at her school. I go over to the old house today to show how to clean out the pond filters. They said all the flowers came back up and everything is looking nice now.
It's actually raining here after the last 2 months of rainy season being so dry and cold. It's really nice and fresh, and I'm going to really enjoy getting outside today. I love how the trees and things look so much happier after a rain. Yesterday I dismantled a bed so I can pack the bedroom full of boxes, and I decided that only the furniture we really like will come with us, as it's so expensive to ship. That will really un-gridlock the place and packing should go much faster now. We made plans to take friends out to a lovely state park and to dinner this weekend, and in general the weekend is quite booked with nice things like the open mike people are showing a documentary made on them that we'll go to after K shows her graphic design work at a show at her school. I go over to the old house today to show how to clean out the pond filters. They said all the flowers came back up and everything is looking nice now.