December 2021

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labelleizzy: (Default)
Friday, March 27th, 2020 11:41 am
saw a very #relatable post on Tumblr (when do i not find relatable posts on Tumblr)
#i love tumblr

it said something like, "housebound, communicating by writing, not allowed to touch anyone not of your household. I've never related to Jane Austen's novels more."

so. that's a thing.

had my second Zoom meeting with my trainer, Etty. plagued with technical difficulties because my phone is four years old and the battery crashes like, all the time. Last time we started with the laptop, and shifted to the phone mid session because i hadn't charged up the laptop. LOL
Today the phone just straight up died after a half an hour video call. 75% charged, my right butt cheek. Ran inside, got a battery pack (thank gods for that one burning man art project we did, we have like 5 battery packs) and we finished the session okay.

my leg had started to hurt kind of a lot. no dancing, no workouts, minimal walking, not a lot of stretching. full body tension, you know what i mean if you have old injuries that still give you grief. and now instead my muscles are SORE but not tense in the same way.

i call it "fun-pain". when you cuss going up and down stairs because your inner hamstring is twanging from yesterday's workout. that's fun-pain.

okay now the cat has pinned my arm to the kitchen table while i type on the laptop, might as well make this a long post.

monday mar 16: Notified of Shelter-In-Place (SHIP). washed & folded a bunch of my damn laundry. we were already more or less Hobbiting in place (HIP) so i didn't think i'd mind too much. my thoughts about that have somewhat changed.

Tuesday mar 17: day 1 mandatory SHIP. walked outside w jeff. Met neighbor Jessica, talked about skillsharing and foodsharing, turns out she runs an email list for the local community. picked up dry cleaning (keepign 6' distance) and washed the hell out of our hands.
Video conference with therapist, our first couples counseling. went well, i think.
watched *your name* which totally fuckin deserved the awards it won.

Wednesday mar 18: finished writing "Would you...?" and posted to tumblr.
* did a color sketch of the red tulips on the verge of losing all their petals. Looks good on the black paper, and I think i did a decent job of getting the proportions right. posted photos to my art instagram, which you can see if we're FB friends.
* Started watching Legend of Korra and DAMN THE HAPPY PLACE FOR ME! woo!

Thursday mar 19. Jeff had discovered that the garbage disposal was leaking under the sink cabinet, so he took it out, found it's all rusted and pitted and the motor was... well. not healthy. he ordered a new one (five+/- days for delivery) and we set ourselves up to wash our dishes in the laundry sink. thank fuck we had the laundry sink, but ughhhhhhhhhhh handwashing all the dishes and pots and pans.
* Cut out 25 or so of two kinds of fabric to make medical masks from.
* Finished reading _REd, White, and Royal Blue_ which is SO GOOD that I'll try and put a link in the comments. everyone who like fanfiction and queer fiction will probably love this little AU. it made me so happy, i gasped more than once, laughed out loud, and literally felt my heart warm.

Friday mar 20. slept the hell in, got lost in Tumblr, and didnt get my breakfast till 1153.
* i insisted on us stripping and remaking the bed with fresh sheets because usually we would have had a wednesday visit from the cleaning folks, so we had to do it ourselves. Jeff was helpful when i explained.
* (looking back from the friday following this day, we have GOT to sweep and mop the floors because argh the dust is getting to me pretty good.)
* Jeff repaired the leak in the hot tub that has been costing us $ and gallons. I helped a little by lying on my face on the deck with a mirror so i could see the gasket that was leaking and was able to confirm that it was no longer leaking. perhaps that's not a little thing, can u imaging the PITA of being in the hot tub with tools, then having to climb out and lay down to try and see if you did it right? it's the context switch that's expensive, cognitively. I knew this, blogged about it in my election day post, but confirmation.

Digression: some hospital workers are working the long ass days like I worked on election day, only EVERY DAY. Try to find something you can do to support your hospital workers, your friends and family who are isolated, or people who are hungry.

Saturday mar 21: Jeff and i had sex, yay! it was nice.
* went for a walk around the neighborhood, met Carlos and Yvette on the corner, the house with the short chainlink fence and kids toys in the yard, across from the house with the lemon trees.
* had the idea of offering services to parents i know with short art lessons or reading lessons. should drop a note in carlos and yvette's mailbox to that effect, with my phone number for texting.
* got the idea to take a long drive. after some negotiation with Jeff we decided on santa cruz so we could see the ocean, and i said if we're there anyway we should get take out at Mobo Sushi, which is one of my top three sushi restaurants in the whole Bay Area. So we did. And then we found a bench overlooking a section of beach, watched people dog walking and some kids playing, but almost entirely deserted, relative to how i think of santa cruz beaches. People were all social distancing!
* (i havent talked much about this because a ton of people have been shit talking "stupid people going to beaches" but i feel we were quite responsible, and so was everyone else we saw, adhering to the established guidelines.)
* so we ate sushi and watched the sunset. I took a few photos, they're also on my instagram, it was a lovely ocean sunset. and then we drove home, and washed our hands washed our hands washed our hands.

Sunday mar 22: Jeff starts to set up the little blue office for video calls and working from home. We got my old desk out of the garage (it's a beautiful desk) and assembled it once we moved all the storage out of the blue room.
* Before the coronavirus blew up the world, he had been thinking of quitting his job. I wanted to support him, i know he's hella burned out, but fortunately GrlPurple convinced him that maybe quitting a well paying job with excellent medical insurance just as a pandemic is ramping up might not be the best choice.
* his work is not currently demanding that everyone work full 40 hour weeks. which is a relief.

***end of first week of SHIP

Monday mar 23: *facepalm* just realized that for maybe the first time since i was a teenager i completely failed to note the Ides of March.
* My mood tanked. had a very quiet day, not much social interaction.
* Did make myself get up, sort out the sewing machine, and sewed most of a dozen mask blanks together on three sides. Filmed part of the process and posted video to facebook. #covidclasses
* okay i guess in retrospect that was a fairly productive day.
* watched a video of the Northern Lights with Jeff. it had classical music and was incredibly restful, i felt my face relax while we watched it.
* watched more Korra, and started watching Sex Education on Netflix. I *really* like it, now that we're past the awkward high school pilot interactions. Definitely getting better the more of it I see.

Tuesday mar 24 Couples Therapy session on Zoom with Lara. NOtes: both feeling underappreciated, we need to talk more about chores and requests made of each other. I need better attention signals (my hearing and my ADHD) because Jeff feels disregarded when I miss his bids for attention. I mentioned needing more explicit versus implicit directions, which he didnt want to be responsible for, which is fair but i still need it. we talked about responding to one another with curiosity and patience vs reactivity and defensiveness.
* i wrote up the notes for the session into the google doc we are sharing with Lara (jeff wrote them up last time I think its a good idea if we alternate, both contributing, both taking responsibility)
* After therapy we took a drive out to get groceries. Jeff went in and I stayed in the car, listening to music and facebooking. He's healthier than i am and doesn't have the lung medical history I do.
* We made dinner together and ate, then went to the Tiny Blue Office for a virtual cocktail hour with the Duartes, Roger and Daniel, Mindy and Steve, Amy (GrlPurple), Rob and Laura (and their dogs). That was really nice, so nice it surprised me. I didn't realize that I missed the Duarte daughters!
* new insinkerator garbage disposal was delivered a day early! WOOOOOOOOt

Wednesday mar 25: had a morning Zoom workout with Etty. My first workout in a couple of weeks. I was tense as shit and my knee had been giving me pain from musculoskeletal tension.
* after the workout i had a mood crash, a sad/overwhelm.
* i need to eat more. i know, i KNOW that when i don't eat enough i have a mood crash, i've been hyperglycemic and then now formally diabetic for *years*
* Jeff installed the brand new insinkerator. It's very shiny and very quiet.
* I restored the undersink compartment to its previous storage-shelf self, and moved all the dishwashing infrastructure back into the kitchen.
* Jeff designed and 3d printed the components he needed to install the not-sodastream into the craft sink. Look! fizzy water in my house!
* I cooked salmon for dinner. it was yummy.

Thursday mar 26: Yesterday.
* sore as HELL from wednesday's workout. pectorals and ... i think theyre hamstrings, squatting and sideways moving muscles i need to look up the structure of the thigh because i need to be intentional about strengthening whatever they are. Because my knee doesn't hurt when that muscle is limber. #research goals #exercise goals
* reordered my Rx for levothroid and warfarin
* drove out to get more canned cat food, got curbside pickup at the vet. I paid verbally on the phone and they brought it out to the car when we arrived. also TIL that the Tesla control console screen will let you open the trunk while still in the car.
* Jeff made us a lovely LOVELY lamb dinner, and I enjoyed eating it BUT i must MUST REMEMBER to take my probiotics EVERY TIME i eat an unusual protein because my bowels HATED their job

which brings us up to today

Friday, mar 27. Had another workout with Etty, despite interruptions from phone-battery crash and digestive upset, I feel like it went really well. Since the gym is actually closing for the duration of this coronavirus epidemic, Etty and I need to work out a new payment method. She has two methods I don't have, and I have two methods SHE doesn't have, hahaha.
* leftover steak for lunch and one or two of those mcvities chocolate digestives that are just SO COMFORTING with the last of my tea
* my fingertips/cuticles are starting to crack and peel again. i have a couple of spots that are bleeding, and the manicure i got with Amy and Joanne before the SHIP started has been peeling off. I think I would like to spend a little time exfoliating my hands, trimming up my cuticles, shaping the nails, and painting them again. P sure i have some nail polish remover around here.
* I want to start composting again. I'll work on diverting my green waste and find out if the garden center near us has any of the red roundworms, start up my worm bin again.
* I found some art cards that I can color in and I want to start sending art randomly to friends, and family.
* god WHY AM I SO BAD AT PHONE CALLS i have a voicemail from my sister that's like four days old and short videos from my sisterinlaw that are nearly that old that i haven't watched. UGHHHHHH

Thanks for sticking with me through this long-ass post. I'm going to try again to subscribe to all-yall so i get notices when you post.

sending love and immunity-strengtheners,

Liz
labelleizzy: (inherent worth and dignity)
Wednesday, November 20th, 2013 06:22 pm
I've been writing these posts for about a year now, I believe. (correction: since April 2012, so 18 months or so)
I have had difficult time rebuilding a fitness habit since I damaged my leg taking TaeKwonDo in 1998. It was the first time I could remember in my life where my whole body felt strong, balanced, powerful. My feelings about fitness and strength got very complicated after that injury, for various reasons. As feelings often are the motivation for actions...

Well. Due to the Waldorf teacher training, I shored up the foundation of my emotional life, started to take better care of my health, discovered my knee was indeed borked. Had surgery two years ago to replace my ACL, and worked to build my strength up in "pre-hab" and also in re-hab...

I started this 100 things series, like a lot of people did, to write many posts about something that interested me. But I had a sneaky second reason.

I was writing with much more regularity than I was exercising.
*shrug*
So I decided to chain the two habits together.
The one motivated the other, you know? I had an excellent excuse to write, IF I got off my duff and got out or got to the gym. It did work, and I wrote a lot about how I was changing, what body part hurt the most this week and why I thought that was, my hopes and dreams and goals for the whole endeavor, and so on.

But this post today, is because I have realized that I now... I just GO to the gym.
I've successfully built a habit that I wanted to build, and I am seeing remarkable results. I am SO much STRONGER than I once was. Body looks better, functions better, than it has in nearly 20 years.

Building for the future, me. And I'm glad to be doing it for ME (and for Jeff... Keeping up with a younger man can sometimes be *ahem* arduous) and not to fit into a wedding dress or to please someone else.

The other habit I'm proud of building, over the last few years, is the habit of speaking to myself with kindness, of touching my body with kindness. I noticed, today at the gym, gently massaging my tight shoulder and tight knee, that I was speaking gently and encouragingly to my body, moving slowly and gradually stretching as well as I could without judging... "There now, you can do this... It's okay, breathe... Relax, honey... There you go!"

I had to teach myself so much of this. Respect for the body, love of self, valuing self, and what self can do, what bodymind can do together... *wry* was not in the toolbox we got at my house growing up.

So now, having freshly turned 44, it feels as though I have a baseline of fundamental self confidence and physical strength that some lucky bastards have by the time they finish their teens.

Gonna keep moving, keep building strength, enjoy this being embodied thing, spread joy and help out where I can.

Okay. Step out in faith and Get Some Shit Done, now I've got the tools.
labelleizzy: (strong)
Saturday, May 18th, 2013 11:01 am
I forgot/ran out of time to blog Wednesday's workout, and yesterday's workout, well, I got slammed by busyness afterwards.

1) had to go over to the framer's to sign my collage-paintings for the county fair because I had forgotten to do that
2) had to grab some kind of quick lunch that turned out to be just fruit and tea, because I...
3) had promised to come volunteer with Anastasia, the Waldorf school gardening teacher, and help the third grade plant All The Grains.
(oh that was fun... and I got to plant and water in a row of amaranth, which are just gorgeous tiny purple seeds, squee!)

So.

Results of workouts are:
1) the hamstring I pulled/strained on Monday during dance class is a bit more flexible/capable now, and hurts less
2) my ANKLE muscles are hella sore. Like all the way around my ankle is sore. I keep waking up and rotating my foot/feet and they're still sore.
3) I'm starting to see muscle definition in my forearms again, even underneath the fat I still have. I have pleasing curves going from wrist to elbow, and the hollow place at the inside of my wrist is longer and more defined than it was.
4) I'm learning that when a muscle is sore from the workout, I need to do more with it later that same day, intentionally, to keep it from going all stiff and inflexible. Stretch AND work it. Oy, my pectoral muscles. I had to stretch and work them last night before I was able to sleep
5) I can do more than I think I can. Speed and bounciness of legs/ankles/calves varies by day and by how much those muscles have already been worked.
6) Tal does a good job of helping me feel like we are doing choreography drills at least some of the time. She also does a good job of finely judging how far to push me, and we have been finishing JUST before I fail, i.e. muscles haven't yet given out in the middle of a set.
7) I have discovered I like free weights MUCH better than machines. And Tal confirms my belief that free weights are better for more all-round muscle strength, since you have to use more of the little muscles surrounding the major muscles to control free weights properly. Dynamic stability!
8) the sides of the long leg muscles (calf and thigh) need some more concentrated work. I think hiking in uneven terrain would be a good job for them. Again, Dynamic stability... and working the overall system rather than the specific large muscles.
9) Tal helped me specifically stretch shoulders and pecs in a way which I can't do. She groks partnered stretching. I may yet be able to consistently have open shoulders and reach my arms directly vertical over my shoulders, and I may yet be able to open my hips enough to have my knees flat on the floor when I sit pretzel-style (and maybe even someday in half-lotus or proper lotus position for yoga class!)
10) I told Tal that I have a personal goal I expected her to say was ridiculous, which is to do unsupported headstands and maybe someday handstands, and a) she was impressed when I told her I'd sorted out how to do yoga style shoulderstands, and she said your body can do anything you set your mind to do.

Tal gives me hope.
I shared with her that I used to have "a relative" who was so sarcastic in how he spoke to me that I had internalized his voice and used to speak very unkindly to myself. And I also said how I had to learn how to stop that voice from being how I spoke to myself, and had to learn to speak kindly and encouraging to myself.
I was to embarrassed to say that the relative was my dad. =(

But she's been great about listening to the little snippets of personal stuff that come out when we are working out together. She's great at correcting my form so I do the work correctly, and at encouraging me gently.

I have hope of gently reshaping this body and coming into pride in self that I haven't had in nearly 20 years.
For the right reasons, this time, not for fitting into a wedding dress.

I'm doing it for ME this time.