Random Notes
So far, counting calories and working out slowly is going well. After realizing I was weaker than I expected, I began this fourteen day bodyweight primer routine which has been quite helpful. I’ve learned in the past that doing too much at one time will burn me out, so I’m taking things slowly, but I’m feeling good how this is progressing.
I’m working hard at organizing my sleep schedule for the first time ever. I’ve always been a night owl, and still, sometimes my only alone time is after my wife goes to bed. But instead of being hyped up on caffeine till 3 AM, I’m trying to get to bed sooner. I go to bed around 10 PM on weeknights, and now I’m trying for no later than midnight on weekends. I’m hoping that by trying to maintain a good sleep schedule I can be a bit more healthy and suffer less fatigue.
I’ve also stopped drinking caffeine after lunch at 12:30 PM, which is a huge deal for me. I drink a lot of diet soda (something I’m working on) and switching to caffeine free after lunch and drinking more water has been helping my sleep quite a bit.
I’ve been experimenting with overnight oats the last couple of weeks, you may have seen some of the posts on my fitness blog I linked last week. I started off with some homemade recipes, then tried MUSH which I liked, and then worked on copycat MUSH recipes. It’s been nice, cause oats are cheap and healthy and better than the various bars I usually eat in the morning. The problem has always been that I hate oatmeal when it’s not in a cookie. Luckily, I think I’ve found a solution with these copycat MUSH recipes. My wife is still tweaking them, but I’m hopeful I can get used to eating them each morning.
I’ve been focusing on letting things go that I don’t truly enjoy anymore. I talked about this in my first post on this blog, and once the health scare went away, I fell back into old habits. I need to reframe my perspective and truly focus on maximizing my time and focusing on what is important in my life.
Recently, I ran across a blog that listed how many weeks the person had left to live under each post. I know it was taken from an average and I’m assuming it was inspired by Four Thousand Weeks book by Oliver Burkeman, but I didn’t look that far into it.
I do think a reminder that time is ticking is helpful. The whole memento mori deal.
My second therapy session was this week, and it went well. Next week, we are doing some EDMR, something I knew little about and was a bit skeptical of. I’m curious to see how it works.
I re-subscribed to Scrib, one of my favorite services no one seems to talk about. Scrib has audio books, ebooks, and magazines you can enjoy. When I have time to listen to audio books, I always resubscribe. I’m still working my way through the Joe Pickett series on there.
Thanks to a conversation with my friend Jimmy and watching Peacemaker a month ago, I’ve fallen into a rabbit hole of modern and Scandinavian glam rock. In high school, I was a huge fan of 80’s metal/glam rock. I should note, I was in high school in 1999-2002, and it wasn’t exactly in style at the time. It’s been great discovering new bands with familiar sounds and just when I think I’ve exhausted everything on Spotify, I find something new.
As much as I like dog technology, it is very nice to be able to discover bands with a niche sound so easily. In the late 90’s, when I started getting into 80’s music, I relied on VH-1 to guide me and then I’d just stumble into a used CD store and buy anything that looked 80’s rock. I was able to discover bands like Tesla, but I also wasted a lot of money on stuff I didn’t enjoy.
I ran across an article about some of the deception that happens with recycling (which I can’t find) and it reminded me of a story. While working for Regal Cinemas, Coca-Cola gave us these snazzy Coke bottle shaped recycling bins. We placed them in the hallways and customers went out of their way to put their 20 oz bottles in there. The problem was, Coke wasn’t going to pay for us to have recycling picked up and Regal was never going to pay for that. I asked about it several times, but the answer was always no.
So, whenever the recycling bins filled up with bottles, an usher would bag up all the bottles and throw them in the dumpster. Coke and Regal looked like good guys who cared about the environment, but ultimately didn’t care at all.
Interesting Links
The Right to Disconnect
An interesting article that discusses some of the Right to Disconnect laws around the world, and ties into the Christian faith as well.
RSS Excerpts
I couldn’t agree with Manuel more. RSS Excerpts are a complete waste. Nothing irritates me more than finding a site I like only to discover they only offer excerpts. Sometimes it’s a total site dealbreaker for me.
Let People Contact You
Another great post by Manuel regarding web design. Recently, I’ve been discovering some weight loss blogs with folks who haven’t posted in a few months. I decided to reach out and see how their progress was or maybe offer some encouragement. Every single time I’ve been forced to just leave a comment and hope they see it. It seems like contact forms, emails, and what not are left off by so many people these days. Or worse, they box themselves into social media. You can only contact them though Facebook, Twitter, or even the Fediverse. Ugh….
Song of the Week
Redemption by Jonathan Goldsmith
Book of the Week
Winter kill by CJ Box
Site News
- N/A
I have it right here under a “to-do” item to comment on this post!
You’re doing something similar to what I call “elements,” which is what I call the four things I try to do every day: meditate, sleep right, eat right, and exercise. I used to journal these elements (how I did the previous day) but recently stopped because they are pretty much constant, which is a good thing.
I also find it hard to give up coffee after 15:00, so I replace it with a good cup of Earl Gray. It still has caffeine in it, but not as much, and the tea itself is very good (I get it from a tea and coffee shop downtown, beans & loose leaves). I also have some green tea if I want to sip s something after 19:00 or so. These two make it easier to give up the coffee habit…
Thanks to this post, I tried “overnight oats” – simply poured muesli into a small jar of almond milk and let it sit overnight. It mostly worked! need to work on the ratio some more but hey, thanks for the suggestion!
As for therapy, if you’re anything like me (it sounds like you are) you might have some built-in resistance to it. I found that if I accepted it as a “mental workout,” it helped me to look at it more as something that I develop, not a problem I’m trying to fix. I go over my notes each session, and I write notes during the session itself at times. This way I get good points down, but it also shows me the progress I’m making. It’s just like physical exercise, it takes time, but you look back half a year later and read some of your old journal entries, and you realize your ability to understand your feelings has improved. It’s hard to explain, but if you experience it, I’m sure you’ll know. Maybe this helps you; maybe it doesn’t. If you ever want to talk about any of the more personal stuff, you know where to find me (I can also use GPG encryption with you if you’d like); really, feel free. I’m much better at email and long-form writing than other stuff.
About the recycling — yep, same here, we have this issue you had at the cinema with the building’s super. At the end of the day it all ends in black bags anyway which means it goes to the dumpster.
I’ve also read some of the URLs you mentioned and will read the others… but this is getting too long already. I’ll finish here. I enjoy reading these weekly summaries!
I really like the idea of labeling your four groups as elements. They are key to positive everyday living and the name elements seems to fit. I can picture an app with multiple colors to fill in as you feed data about your daily elements. It’s kinda like the stats bar in The Sims lol!
I’m glad you liked the overnight oats. It’s taken two weeks of experimenting but I think I’ve finally got down a mix I like. Healthy and cheap!
Thank you for the offer to talk. I really appreciate it and even more so the offer of privacy. I’ll let ya know if I need to. Right now things are going quite well, but I definitely view it as a stat to level up.