Tag: goals

Testing, testing

Another test tomorrow for karate. This one is the first official one for the black belt status, and it is the most elusive, I suppose I can say. All we know is that, “it is really hard,” it is a kicking test, and it includes holding up the leg for a long time. Beyond that, we haven’t a clue. People keep asking me if I’m ready for it. Heck if I know! I’ll find out Saturday morning, though!

I did speak to the man giving the test, though, and he said not to be worried. So, I choose to believe him and to trust my physical fitness level. Just need to roll out my legs and warm them up on the morning, I think, and I should be good to do my best.

Deer God, please, help me to perform my best tomorrow. Help me to show that I am both capable and worthy of this goal. Help me to be a force for good, and to inspire good in others. Please, accept my boldness in asking for these things. Please, heal my man and me, that we be our best selves through you. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2022

Nutso

Some people are just too into things…

Eight years? Really?!?! I mean, I’ve been using Duolingo that long, but not every single day before midnight(!!!). Talk about nerd alert, I guess.

Granted, I’m at over 900 days in a row right now. That’s over two and two-thirds years right there of doing this thing daily. I already know I’m a nerd, though. But eight years??? Just, man… wow. That’s a lot.

Haha

Post-a-day 2022

Gas

Well, looks like the gas’s being out will be another few days at the least, and will cost use a minimum of a thousand dollars. Ugh. God, please, give us the strength to handle all of this with grace and ease. Thank you for my successful adapted shower tonight. Help us to eat healthily, even without our normal means of cooking. Help me to find fulfilling and paying work. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2022

Advent-agious

And thus begins Advent, a season of preparation for the coming of Christ Jesus (also known worldwide in English-speaking communities as “baby Jesus”). May we all find beauty in the struggles of our preparations for welcoming God into our lives wholly and newly this Christmas season. May God’s will be done among us all, and May we be our best selves. May our Advent be very advent-agious both to ourselves and to the world at large. Amen.

Post-a-day 2022

Challenges

Perhaps the Universe is just always ready with the next challenge, demanding and standing for our own improvement, our own development into the people we not only can be but were made to be.

…….

Well, we made it. And it was rough when we first arrived… That’s for sure. It took a lot for my man and me to stay present to what was needed versus what was freaking us out and stressing us and all the negative and not-helpful stuff of the situation. We’re staying in an AirBnB, and, put simply, it was not clean when we arrived. And it kept getting worse, the more we ventured into more of the house. As a reminder, I have OCD, making dirty particularly difficult for me. Separately, I care about justice and integrity – charging $405 a night (which also happens to be $100 more than most dates for this place) for a man older place with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a loft seems to me to be a price that would include cleanliness of the space. Period. So, we had a lot with which we had to deal for all of that. My man had to miss the lunch for my grandma’s birthday, but he still came and said hi to her at the start, before going back to the place to meet the cleaner. (Suffice it to say that the place has now been cleaned, and there was just a massive failure on the owner/manager’s part of not verifying that it was ever cleaned, despite having hired someone to do so.)

All that to say that life really does demand we become better versions of ourselves, whether we like it or not. Today has been one of those days for me. And, unfortunately, I’m also feeling sick in the throat… :/

Dear God, please, heal me with this rest I am allowing for myself tonight (in bed before nine!). Grant me beautiful health and well-being this week, that I might spend the week lovingly with my beloved family, your blessings to me. In your name and with gratitude, I pray. Amen.

P.S. Oh, and, to top it all off, I started menstruating almost a week earlier than expected today. Talk about having to gtf over it and make it work. This has been a day, for sure!

Post-a-day 2022

Ouch, but yay!

Well, I still feel a bit like I have the incomings of a cold, and my muscles are still achey all over, but we got our shopping all handled this afternoon and I passed my test with flying colors this morning. We started at eight and finished almost exactly at noon. Some stuff was a touch harder than I’d anticipated, just for my tiredness and soreness here and there differently so than usual, and other things went much more smoothly than I’d anticipated. For my katas, our instructed regularly shared how she “doesn’t give twenties” on the scoring of them (points are between five, ten, fifteen, and twenty, and she always writes in an eighteen of you do a really good job, which I usually do for my katas). And yet, somehow, today, I got not one but three twenties out of my six katas (the other three were 18s, as usual, of course). Now that was cool and unexpected. Thank you, God, for my effective performance there this morning.

Post-a-day 2022

Body

Still not feeling great tonight. I slept around eight and a half hours last night, before the squirrels woke me*. I awoke feeling much improved, but it still wasn’t enough. I had soup today, and other healthy food, with only a few bites of not-super-healthy stuff. I exercised at midday, then attempted my 1.5-mile run for the karate test this Saturday, which I failed. It had to be under 13 minutes, and I did it in 13:15, and felt like I might actually throw up the cheese stick I’d just eaten. It was so cold when I started, I felt I’d get such without and outer layer of good warmth. That flannel shirt and scarf and gloves proved to be my downfall (on top of the cheese, that is), making me too hot with it on normally, and then being heavy and still-hot when I’d taken them off and just tied them around my waist. I was also still tired as a whole, but extra worn down from the workout at midday (which, by the way, was practically the Murph workout, with a mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 air squats, and another mile run. We only did 800m runs, instead of the mile on each end, but we added a 400m in the middle, and split the three movements in half on either side of it, doing 50 pull-ups, 100 push-ups, and 150 air squats twice, once on either side of the 400m run. Not an easy workout, even with modifications.). So, it makes sense. I’ll just do it again tomorrow, but normally and much better than today’s run. I don’t typically feel like vomiting when I run, yet I felt that way most of the run this afternoon, and I just felt heavy.

And, tonight, I still feel a bit sick. I was coughing up the occasional bits of icky bogey-like saliva earlier, which supports the ill feelings. So, at that, I go to sleep now. Thank you, and goodnight.

* You see, we have this wooden picnic table squirrel feeder that my man keeps moving around. The past couple days, it has happened to be atop this metal shelf thing outside. So, of course, as the squirrels climb the thing, the bars all jiggle against one another, making the sound of metal pipes bumping each other. Then, once the guys are on top, they then messily spill corn etc. all onto the metal shelf thing, and the lands not just the once on top, but regularly tumbles down to the bottom level or the ground, tinkling all the way on the metal… over and over and over again. Not the greatest to have next to one’s window at six in the morning, I tell you.