Month: December 2020

Yikes

Okay, I think I have finally learned my lesson on something: Trust myself.

I know enough and have done enough to handle what I am doing in photography. I am much more reliable than any automatic camera settings. Yes, it is convenient not to have to change settings constantly with changing light and angles. But having photos with the right subject in focus is significantly more important to me than having what looks like decent lighting it with a blurred subject. And the latter is what I keep getting every time I doubt myself and say that it will be safer to let the camera use its intelligent automatic setting.

So, I will trust myself to manage all photo settings from here onward. I trust myself. Not the automatic settings.

Thank you, World for this opportunity to remedy the photos that did not represent me and what I truly can create with photography. I am terrified and grateful, both in a wonderfully good way. Thank you.

Post-a-day 2020

Fitness vs Fatness

Am I at the focus, or is something else the A-liner? Fitness or Fatness? Lately, I have not been at the center – my health and well-being, this body that carries my soul, my spirit, in this lifetime. Lately, my tongue’s and memory’s desires have been the center of my food. It is no wonder I have had much more fatness than fitness in my life lately.

I have been wanting it more and more, but have yet to turn the tides fully over the past several months… I wonder what has been missing for me to do that… is it a question of self-worth in the midst of having to create self-motivation to create the time and the energy and effort for fitness all on my own? I think I have always reached out somehow when I have gotten to a point in fitness/fatness at which I do not want to be any longer. But turning to the groups is not exactly an option right now where I live, and also how I live (aka I can’t afford to spend the money on the one place where I could do the group fitness right now). But I also do not genuinely want to reach out this time. I want to resolve whatever this has been within me that I continue to have stop me from fitting myself (as I like to say in my head… or, also, fitnessing myself). And so, I will not join that gym. Right now, I’m a bit too tired to function effectively enough to work through all of this, but I intend to continue this conversation with myself tomorrow, and to search for and find those uncomfortable parts that I have allowed to run me for these past several years.

At that, goodnight! 😉

Post-a-day 2020

Huzzah!

Well, the food and the film were a total success. AND I loved them both, and also the company.

I made fried wild rice, butternut squash noodle lo mein, and orange chicken (optional) and veggies – Chinese take-out, but homemade and paleo. The fried rice could have even been enough for any of us for the whole meal, but I wanted a spread. However, I am always very delighted and even a touch proud of myself for making the eggs the right way for the fried rice. It still blows my mind whenever I think about how to do it, and I am yet again grateful for my acrobat friend for showing me how to do it back on the train that one day. **gratitude**

Anyway, the food was amazing and bourgie, and we all loved it and managed no photos, despite the fact that it all was beautiful food. Everything was colorful and lovely to see, but also delicious to smell and eat.

And then we all really enjoyed the film. Sure, there were parts all over the place that were poorly done (e.g. animation, sequencing, transitions…), but it overall was really great, the setting was bea-utiful, and the music was very nicely managed. Also, the accents were all quite reassuring – yes, the primary audience is an American English one, but that doesn’t mean the characters have to sound like they live here. I am glad they had genuine Chinese-based accents, and names were still pronounced properly, even though everyone was speaking English. Just because the language spoken is changed doesn’t mean the culture has to disappear. Good job, Disney. We all enjoyed it tonight, and we all are grateful for your efforts. Thank you.

P.S. Links to the recipes for the lo mein and the orange chicken sauces I made 😉

Post-a-day 2020

Mulan

Tomorrow night, we will be watching Mulan (the live-action, not the animated) for the first time. While we aren’t sure about dressing up – yes, we do dress to theme when we see films and shows in theatres, so we have no reason not to do it at home, too, right now – we are planning to have Chinese food for dinner. Since, however, we all prefer to follow more the paleo type of diet, I am brainstorming options of easy-to-prepare-by-myself dishes. I’ve done the chicken fried wild rice before, so that’s on the list. All I need to add are eggs* and carrots, which are easy enough to procure. I’m wondering if an egg-drop soup could be possible, or something like szechuan veggies or something… Going to check with a friend of mine who cooks bourgie stuff, too, and who happens to be Chinese. I think she might have some tried and true ideas. Fingers crossed!

*Fun fact: When I spent all that time with the acrobats, I learned on the train how to cook eggs the way Chinese people do for fried rice – never how I would have guessed, but I am super glad I learned it, because it is delicious! Also, I realize that could be referring to either how I learned to cook it or how it is actually cooked – both were never how I would have guessed, so I guess the unclear statement was, in fact, true, no matter the interpretation! 😛 (Slash, yes, hashtag nerd/dork, I know.) 😀

Post-a-day 2020

December 6th

I asked my mom the other night if she thought Heilige Nikolaus (Saint Nicholas) would leave presents in my shoes if I set them outside my bedroom/studio door in the house where I currently am living (Not a great idea to leave anything completely outside overnight in this neighborhood, you see. It could be okay, but it isn’t amazing odds.), or if he probably only visited the suburbs (where people can leave shoes outside overnight safely). She told me that he probably only uses people’s permanent addresses.

And so, when I arrived to my mom’s house this morning – in the suburbs and the location of my permanent address – I was delighted to find atop her new blanket my croc-like shoes that always remain at her house, filled with delights. There also was a pair of traditional Dutch wooden clogs, also filled with goodies.

Note: When I first arrived, I set a few things on the sofa, plugged in a camera charger for the photo session I would do shortly for someone, and wandered to the kitchen for something or other. As I did all this, my mom asked me if I saw her new table. I turned back and looked toward the fireplace, opposite the sofa, and saw a small table decorated with a new winter blanket and covered with the shoes etc.

I’ve been clear to my mom several times over recent months that I would like, at last, to have a sewing machine of my own. I do not often have gift requests or wishes for my birthday or for Christmas, but a sewing machine and all of its necessities is something that I really need help managing – I do not know enough about brands or specifics or technologies even to guess appropriately what machine to get myself, or in what price range, let alone all the pins and wheels of everything one uses with sewing machines. I think it can all be in the mid-hundreds of dollars for a decent quality everything, but I am not one to know which ones are the decent ones yet. Thus the request for a Christmas present from my mother, a woman who has made clothes (and more) her entire life.

When I got looking at the shoes and goodies, I was tickled that, aside from the delicious-looking babyfood snack packs – yes, they are amazing, if you get the right ones – there happened to be obvious sewing machine supplies: thread, bobbins, pins, machine sewing needles, etc. “Hmm! Clearly Heilige Nikolaus has a hint of what I’ll be getting!” I laughed, and my mom laughed with me. I went through all the items, delighted that they were here, essentially solidifying the fact that I would be getting a sewing machine of my own at the end of the month. Whether it would be new or just my mom’s (and she would get an upgrade for herself) was still to be determined, but one of my own I very likely would have by the end of the month! (At least, it was more likely this time than any other that I’ve asked for one.)

Just as I was about to leave for the photos, I began to pack up. “But you still haven’t finished,” said my mom. “You didn’t see it all yet.” She wanted me to see it all before I left, I knew, but I hadn’t realized that I’d missed something. I went back to the large clogs in the center, and pulled the bits and pieces of sewing materials out of them, looking for what I had missed up in the toes of the shoes.

But there didn’t seem to be anything else. ‘Is it under?’ I ask. And my mom replies in the affirmative. I pick up the clogs, find nothing, and set them back down. I check the wreaths next to them, and it is the same story. I look over the back of the table and ask if it is the cute new-to-me nativity scene just behind everything. No, it is not.

Without thinking much of it, nor expecting much out of it, I flip up the blanket to see under the table.

And it isn’t a table after all.

It is one of the big cardboard fold-outs for laying out sewing patterns and measuring, and it is sitting perpendicular atop another box. It takes a moment to process that the box is a brand new sewing machine.

Even thinking about it, my eyes are welling up now. It was so unexpected, and so amazing, I started crying when I realized what it all meant. Not only did my mom really find me a sewing machine of my own, but the found me a new one. This is something I have wanted for years, but hadn’t figured out how to make happen yet. I felt that I really was ready for it this year, and my mom showed me today that she agreed.

“I figured you could get started on some of the things you’ve been wanting to do lately, instead of waiting,” she said. 🙂

It is time, my dear. It is time. Sew on, love.

Danke, Heilige Nikolaus, Saint Nicholas!!

And thank you, Mom.

And thank you, God, for all this love and joy today and always.

Post-a-day 2020

Sometimes, life becomes very predictable. And some things never seem to change.

And sometimes, you end up on a Zoom call happy hour unexpectedly with a group of guys who are at various levels of their happy hour (which has clearly not just begun). And sometimes you may or may not unintentionally flash the camera, because you just took a shower and were getting ready for bed when you clicked on the unexpected link without really thinking about what joining a Zoom call meant…, and you are extremely grateful for the people’s being drunk, because such a quick flash goes utterly unnoticed with so much alcohol between brains and eyes.

Phew!

Or, perhaps that’s just something that happens for me. 😂

Apparently there are situations in which I prefer drunk people to sober people.🤣🤦🏼‍♂️🤣

Post-a-day 2020

Bedsheets

It’s really cold getting into bed right now. Not like we have a long and cold winter here in Houston, but, when we have warm or hot and humid most of the year, the cold really gets to us, whenever it is cold. So, my feet have been struggling with the whole bedtime routine. My hands have, too. I slide into bed to go to sleep, and end up shivering a while, fighting the desire to curl up in a ball (because it would leave me super sore in the morning to sleep that way) due to the cold.

I was just thinking about whether I would want to spend the money on another set of those amazing flannel sheets I’d gotten for Japan (but while on a quick visit home to the US for a wedding), when it occurred to me that, despite the fact that they are for a Queen (possibly full) mattress, they are just sitting st my mom’s house, being not used ever, and there could be some way to have them fit my twin bed here and be used.

I’ll have to look up dimensions, of course, but the thought occurred to me first to turn the fitted sheet perpendicular, and see if the width of a Queen fit the length of my twin, and then just loop the sheet all the way under the bed, and hook it to the same two corners from underneath as the first two corners were fitted… it should be long enough for that, but would it be too long? Then, I wondered about whether the width would be over double my mattress, at which point, I could wrap the fitted sheet around both sides of my mattress (much the same way as the first idea, but not turned perpendicular to the bed first), and hook both fitted top corners to the same corner of my bed from both above and below the mattress. I would have then to tuck in the bottom of the sheet under the mattress, which may or may not stay and which may or may not affect the comfort of the bed.

I shall look this up and see if I can save money and heat and energy by using those sheets that I picked out and that are just sitting at my mom’s house in a box.

P.S. Wow. I looked it up. The queen sheet is not even half as much more width as a twin size. That means that two twin beds pushed together is actually wider than any other bed, including the California King by about five inches. And it is only four inches shorter than a queen mattress (still nine inches shorter than a California King). That means it almost has as much surface area as a California King, despite its being nine inches shorter in length. So, basically, if a twin is not big enough for someone to sleep in terms of width, that person is likely to have trouble ever sharing any bed with another person… man…

Post-a-day 2020

But, what about…?

Must we always feel that sense of doubt after doing something atypical yet important? We consider it in depth, and determine that action is appropriate and necessary. We determine carefully what action is best. We prepare ourselves, and we take that action, checking two and three times that everything is accurate and in place and appropriate and most likely to be effective in the intended and desired ways.

And then we are giddy with anticipation at the accomplishment.

And then we begin to question…, Did I really consider everything? Did I really check it over enough and say the right things, do the right things?

I think that sense of questioning and doubt comes not from a doubt of one’s own competency, but from one’s desire truly to make a positive impact through and by one’s actions. In other words, we doubt and question our decisions and actions directly afterwards, because we care, because we want to do what truly makes a difference.

Though knowing that doesn’t exactly remove the doubt and questioning, I suppose it makes them a bit easier to bear and accept and, thereby, release.

😉

Post-a-day 2020

Meditation

I started on this 28-day meditation thing through work. I specifically selected the five minutes a day version (versus the 15 minutes a day one), because I knew I could maintain five minutes going forward, at least for the 28 days, if not 40 or semi-indefinitely going forward.

The first day’s recording, which involves some prompting at the beginning and end, and casual flowy sounds for the duration, was just over five minutes in total. Okay, no big deal. It’s an approximate five-minute meditation. Totally okay.

The next day was roughly the same for the same timing. Each subsequent day or two, however, seemed to be longer and longer, to the point that, by day 18, I was listening to a more-than-15-minute recording for the meditation. It was still the same sort of prompting at the very beginning and end, with just the flowy sounds in the middle, but it was almost sixteen minutes long now. On the 21st day, I was so utterly wiped and aching for rest and sleep, I could not fathom staying upright and awake for an additional sixteen plus minutes. I left out the official meditation with ease and no regret that night.

I have yet to return to it. I agreed to a five-minute meditation, and that was not what I was given. Frankly put, it had no integrity in its design, based on how it was advertised. And a lack of integrity is a real turn-off for meditation.

Yes, I still want to do a meditation for the 28 days. No, I do not think I will do that one. I do the meditations during my process of getting ready for bed – they are a conclusion to my day. I can give five minutes reasonably and responsibly. Any more than that would be out of integrity for me and for what I need to do in order to take care of myself. The meditations had become a stressful endeavour for me the last several days of it, because it was too much time for me when I was already so tired. So, I’d spend the whole first part of the meditation letting go of my annoyance at the meditation itself. On the last few nights, I even got annoyed again near the end, because it was taking so long, and my body was done with sitting in its position. Not exactly the most productive use of time.

So, yeah, that wasn’t the best experience in giving it a go with a new approach to meditation and meditation styles. I wanted to test it out and see how it went, and that is just what I did. I have it space to grow on me, and it did. And then it overgrew on me and I let it go. Now, it is time to move forward with my learnings from it, and create something that can bring effective value to me and my life as a whole (effecting thereby those around me in life, too, in a positive way).

Post-a-day 2020