Step Away From the Cake

 Yesterday I ate some bread. I had a bit of a pretzel, not much, and half a hamburger on a bun. I did it after not having any for almost 2 months. It was a test. And I failed. Last night I felt so bloated and full...yuck. I had been noticing for the past week or so that my stomach did not feel like it was sitting on my lap and that I could actually pull it in a little. Not last night. It felt horrible. Then we order dinner from Rubio's, one of my favorite places, and it was crap. It was bland and tasteless, the rice was like be be shots, it was horrible. Woke up this morning and needed to poop badly. Did and feel much better now. So the moral of this story, bread is not my friend.  That was good to learn but I don't need to relearn it. I've had sugar a time or two in the past 2 months and it has not affected me like that. It definitely made me feel like crap, but not to that extent. So experiment conducted and results are in. Sugar and wheat is out, out, out.  Interesting...

 Today is my 63rd birthday. I'm not that big on birthdays, they are something I never quite understood completely. I didn't do anything but be born on this date and I managed to not die over the past 365 days. I can understand celebrating babies birthdays, for most of our history them lasting the first year was iffy. So a joyous celebration because they did last that first year makes sense. But me because I've survived 63 years? Nah, not that big a deal.  But I do like to use it, like I use the new year, to kind of reflect back a little on the past year. This year has been a good one, it really has. I feel like I have grown as a person immensely. I feel like I've grown as a teacher immensely. I feel like I'm finally getting the habit of this whole adulting thing. Still not mastered it, but getting better at it.  This past year has seen a lot of me letting go of things. Not really goals or dreams, but unrealistic expectations. For example, up until very recently (wit...

 It's been a few years since I had to consider rest days. I'm not at the level I was then, but I am working out regularly and that requires rest days. Wednesdays are typically the day I stay late at school, so I designated that my rest day. I came home, put my jammies on right away, and sat on the couch watching TV until Hubby got home. It was a nice change of pace. So, side note, when writing that last sentence I was going to write 'it was glorious' but as I was typing I realized that elevated it to a level I didn't want it to hold. Resting is nice and very needed, but it is not glorious. That work makes it have more value in my mind than I want to assign to it. I definitely want rest to have value because it has a place, but I want working out and good health to have more value.  It's interesting how impactful words can be. I've known that for a long time, but it's only in the last few years that I've really come to understand just how impactful. I...

 I have taken to weighing myself every morning. I get up, use the bathroom, weigh myself. Now I know not to invest anything in that particular number because it is influenced by all sorts of things. But it's hard not to let it affect me just a little even though I know that it is meaningless. Many other good things are happening to my body and I need to focus on those.  Energy: my energy has greatly improved. I used to start yawning around 1pm and keep yawning the rest of the day. Now I still yawn occasionally but I have energy to get through the day. I used to come home and be so exhausted that all I wanted to do was lie on the couch and doze. Now I come home and workout before settling down on the couch. I'm still tired, don't get me wrong, but it's not the complete and utter exhaustion that I used to feel.  Activity, I'm moving a whole lot more. Still not as much as I would like, but a lot more than I used to.  Mental acuity, I feel a lot sharper than I used to. ...

 Sleep is something I do well. Really. Really. Well. I can sleep almost anywhere for almost any amount of time. I have the ability to say I'm going to sleep for X minutes and I will sleep for just that amount of time. Of course, I used to have that ability, I don't use it much anymore so I'm not sure if it's still as good as it was. Anyway, I'm beginning to see a pattern in my sleep. On workdays or days when I'm doing either physical or mental work, I sleep really well. However, on days when I don't do so much, you know down days, I don't sleep as well. For example, yesterday was a down day. I walked, went to the store, did some housework, hung out in the pool, watched some TV, did a little Supernatural, and little else. And last night I had some difficulty sleeping. It was not seriously bad, I just kept finding myself awake every time I turned over and I found myself turning over sort of frequently. So yeah, not sure what to do about that. Do I stay up ...

 I came across a statement the other day that has been rolling around the back of my mind. It went something like, what if we were enough? What if what we did was enough? What if we accepted things and appreciated things that we had and that was good enough? That sort of struck a chord with me because that is something I've been working on really hard. Being present in the moment and being grateful for what I have. No chasing some elusive dreams or desires that are either unobtainable or completely worthless once I get them. Being in the now and being happy with it.  For a large part of my adult life I felt like I was chasing something. More money, more fitness, more happiness, whatever. But I felt like I was always looking for the next best thing. I felt like if I wasn't chasing something I was wasting my time. Complete and total free time made my skin crawl. I always had to be doing something. It slowly came to me that I didn't have to 'chase' anything. I had alre...