Tag: love

Stress and Presence

My mom and I had some stuff go rather poorly yesterday. I was extremely tired, both physically and emotionally, and she was rather tired and stressed, so it wasn’t a good start for entering into somewhat stressful territory for us together. Nonetheless, it happened, and it didn’t go very well, and we both were left, at the end of the day, dissatisfied with parts of our interactions throughout the day. This morning, we started to talk about it all, and that went even worse. Would you guess it? We were both even more exhausted and stressed than yesterday. So, no shocker at how that all went this morning.

After a morning of delight and an afternoon and evening filled with stress and a lack of logic/sense/consciousness from others, I was really working to get off it and to forgive and be okay. Once I was in the midst of all of that, rather than cry my heart and exhaustion out and still have to work, I set myself to mental work to see what I could resolve. I couldn’t alter my surroundings, but I could reconsider my stance within them, and I could use that time, rather than to be stressed, to re-evaluate what really would make the difference for my mom and me and our joint stress regarding our interactions lately and, especially, yesterday and this morning.

By the end of work time, I had it all figured out. I hopped into the car with my mom to go look at Christmas lights together in the area, and we talked through everything over the first 15-20 minutes. We both got heard and clear, and we established actions to take in the future whenever certain scenarios arise (the ones that have been sorts of trigger situations lately). It makes a world of a difference when neither of us is in the middle of doing something, and we are in the same place as one another. It also helped that I was reminded of how stressed life can be when I live it on other people’s levels instead of my own.

So, life is a whole lot better having things clear between my mom and me. That was a huge layer of stress today that feels amazing to have removed at last (though it was only about 20 hours in existence).

And, all I care to say how about all the other nonsense I experienced today with work is: Please, be present in life, and pay attention – it really sucks for the people around you whenever you don’t, whether you notice it or not.

At that, I bid you a good night and restful, refreshing sleep tonight. 🙂

P.S. Happy my brother’s birthday to you, and happy winter solstice! This has been the shortest day of the year, signing off!

Post-a-day 2020

Rest and Weather

I feel like the weather is kind of really getting to me lately. You see, I can handle cold weather and hot weather both, just so long as I can be in charge of my indoor temperatures. Lately, the weather has been going back and forth between warm-ish and really cold (in the twenties Celsius to just above freezing). Unfortunately, between work and my mom’s house, I have not had reliable temperatures indoors anywhere. No matter how I have approached it, I never seem to predict appropriately what the indoor temperatures will be, and so end up slightly miserable while at either location for longer periods of time. In my own home, I hav even fine. But I haven’t spent the bulk of my waking hours in my own home lately.

And so, with that physical semi-misery comes a certain level of both conscious and subconscious stress. And, with that stress and the unexpected cold indoor temperatures, I feel like I am getting sick. And it sucks. All I want to do is take a super fast shower and then curl up in bed and sleep for ten hours. But I have to be up to work in about nine hours from now, so I likely won’t get more than eight to sleep. And only that much if I somehow manage to go back to sleep when I inevitably wake up around 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning, as almost always now. (Another factor in my feeling terrible, as I haven’t gotten enough sleep lately, especially due to the fact that I can’t stay asleep during the time I have available for sleeping.)

Anyway, lots of frustration and stress lately and right now, and all I want to do, I can’t really do. But we shall see how quickly I can get myself to bed right now, and then how I feel in the morning. I really hope I crash asleep tonight, and then wake refreshed and well tomorrow morning. I and the world around me need it(!). I actually broke down in miserable crying tonight before driving home from my mom’s, I was so tired and stressed.

But, starting after tomorrow, the days will be increasing in length again, and I am grateful for that.

Post-a-day 2020

Fantasyland Visas and Green Cards

Do you ever find yourself fantasizing about something, and realize that you do not necessarily want that actual something to happen, but that you are really just enjoying the fantasy in and of itself – in a way, you are fantasizing for the sake of fantasizing, and that is completely satisfying for you?

You see, I met these young guys recently, and one in particular has stuck out to me. He is adorable in many ways. He is also very likely several years younger than I am. And I’m not so sure he knows that. At the most, he might think I’m a year or two older than he is. I have a feeling that I am several more years older than that age difference.

That being said, I have nonetheless been very much enjoying the idea of some sort of relationship developing between the two of us, in a dating/partnership capacity. It took quite a while for me to develop an understanding of my own age prejudices, and to clear them up for myself. However, where I stand now, I have no personal qualms with great age differences in either direction for a couple. (I have almost always been completely okay with friendship age differences, as I have always had friends who are very different ages than I am, both older and younger.) And so, I find myself wondering and imagining how it might be to pursue one of those traditionally odd age differences with this guy. And, I am not having this imagination adventure simply for the age aspect – he is also adorable, remember.

Usually, when I find someone cute, it is in a rather disinterested, ‘I don’t actually see a future for us, and I won’t worry about it,’ kind of way. And whenever I think someone is cute, I won’t think almost anything more than that. If I do, those thoughts won’t last beyond a day or a few. With this guy, however, these thoughts have lasted a couple weeks now. And this is surprising to me. I don’t see myself as truly interested in him. He’s just that casual situation of ‘What an adorable guy.’ But that is why I am beginning to believe that this whole imagination adventure is just for the sake of having an adventure in my life right now, and in an area of my life where I have not really had much adventure before.

So, rather than be carried away with this mental adventure, and falsely believe that it is something I really want, just because I’m having fun with it in my head, I am letting myself do just that: have fun with it. I am enjoying it. I am clear it is not something I want actively to pursue, and so I will not be pursuing it. If it were something I truly wanted, I would pursue it. But all it is is some thing fun inside my head, and so I will have fun with it inside my head. And, I think, knowing that it is only something in my head somehow makes it all the more ridiculous and, therefore, fun to enjoy.

Just my thoughts on the matter tonight. 😉 Kind of ridiculous, right? 😂

Sweet dreams, folks! You know line will be! 😀

Post-a-day 2020

Yess!

I have made it back to an approximate 20% body fat measurement. That is a huge celebration of satisfaction for me. I have been without a gym, essentially, for half a year now. Going from an average of four or five days a week of intense workouts and weight training at the gym to home workouts with almost no weights, and then to no gym to give workouts and support at all has been a lot this year for me. I definitely did not maintain my same fitness level from before the changes, and I had still been in a sort of recovery period from the adventures of traveling in culture and foods and not-much-exercise in Japan and The Philippines. So, I wasn’t even in my best condition when everything started closing. I was probably around 18% or 19% body fat then.

I have always struggled with doing things on my own – thus the gym membership, and the workout buddy who signed up with me, at my behest. So, the workout situation has been nowhere near where I have wanted it to be in the past six months, during which time I have had to manage it all on my own, alone. I have been slowly working toward following the diet I truly want to follow and being as active and as fit as I truly want to be. Part of those have been working toward being autonomous in, well, all of them. Interesting how I hadn’t quite ever put words and solid thoughts to that idea until just now, but those words ring as true. So, I have been focusing on a very slow process of adjusting my daily life to be closer and closer to that life I want to be leading. I have no one other than myself for leaning, so balance and thought and true consideration and evaluation are all key in this.

I had worked my way down to an approximate 16% body fat, back a year ago in October/November. Keep in mind that, though this is a rather low number for the average woman, for my body’s makeup, it is actually still an entirely safe and healthy percentage. Much lower would be unnecessary, though. However, even at that 16% body fat, I still had areas of gathered fat on which I was working to release, mostly in my hips and legs. Also, to get myself even to that point was a very, very intense yet extremely gratifying journey, for which I am entirely grateful. I had never really believed that I could be at that level of fitness in my life, and definitely not at this age. Now that I have been there, I have experienced the real ness of such a possibility for me. And I want to have myself back in that space and living. However, this time will be through the breakthrough of autonomy for my own exercise and fitness. That way, I am ready and able to maintain it going forward, no matter if a gym closes or I move houses or towns or countries – I can always be at the level of fitness that I and my body want me to be, such that I can best serve the world while I am in it in this body and life.

Post-a-day 2020

Colder season

Okay, so we have officially reached the cold season, now, right? So, I’m being conscientious about lotioning my hands whenever I notice that they are dry during the day, and I have begun sleeping in gloves to give them a deeper treatment of moisture for at least a while overnight. I rub the good stuff lotion into them just before getting in bed for the night, then I slide them into gloves and then get into bed. The gloves keep the lotion on my hands instead of its rubbing off onto the sheets or my legs or pants or whatever during the night. They don’t always stay on all night, but always for at least a few hours – you know, sleep activities and all, pulling off odd items of clothing, socks and gloves in particular.

But it is also cold out now…. which means it is also cold in now. I live in a house built in the 1930s, almost a hundred years ago. It does not have real heating or cooling: window units for cooling, a gas heater on the first floor in the living room, and a plug-in localized heater in my room. I keep the heater st the head of my bed, so it can help warm my face and head, the one part of me not covered up at night.

Put simply, though, it is cold in this house. So, it is entirely normal for me to go to bed within a pair of sweatpants on, instead of just a t-shirt and underwear. If it isn’t all that cold out, the sweatpants find their way off during the night. As it gets colder, I add a pull-over sweatshirt to the mix. Same story as the pants, but the pants come off before the sweatshirt. However, when it is really cold, I also put on socks. The clothing-removal progression then goes socks, pants, sweatshirt. When it is cold like now, of course, they all stay on.

But, remember how I have begun wearing gloves for the sale of moisturizing my hands?

That means that I am now going to bed in a shit and underwear, sweatpants, a sweatshirt (with the hood up), socks, and gloves. In other words, I look more like I’m dressed to go out somewhere than simply go to bed.

And that just really tickles me. 😛 And I love it.

Oh, the simple joys of the cold season… hot beverages, hats, scarves, jackets, boots, and going to bed fully dressed. ;D

Post-a-day 2020

Body versus Brain

I swear: My menstrual cycle makes me feel like it is made to point out to me that I am single in this world designed for my species to partner up. At certain specific points throughout my cycle, my body very clearly reminds me of how desperately it wants me to have a partner already, as though my brain weren’t already on the lookout for that partner all day, every day. 😛

Actually, I don’t actively think about finding a partner most of the time. In a way, I trust God and Fate and the Universe that things will be sorted beautifully in my life, including my partner-in-life situation, and so don’t really spend much time or effort on the matter directly. The other end of that, though, is that I believe everything will work perfectly when I am working perfectly – when I am ready within myself and no longer need but want that partner, he will show up. I am designed to be self-sufficient, but to work perfectly with another, producing more love and beauty in the world than I ever could have produced on my own. I look forward to that with pitter-patters in my heart anticipation. But I no longer spend much time focusing on the finding him portion of that. Instead, I focus most of my attention on improving myself, such that I soon will be ready for him to arrive and for us to work together and create some new magic.

Until that time, however, I think I am stuck with these physical reminders of goosebumps and inner tingles every 14-ish days. 😛

Post-a-day 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

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