In all of the houses in which I have lived... I've never had an enclosed garage. Carports yes. Communal underground parking yes. But never an actual enclosed, just for me, garage.
Nope, I don't feel like writing. It's been a crap day at work with all sorts of technical issues as we launch a new workshop registration campaign. People buying the registration and then the system eating it and not spitting out a Welcome Email... and unhappy people left, right and center.
And then a disturbing personal phone call and... seriously... I just don't feel like writing. What I feel like is chocolate!!! Specifically a double chocolate brownie from Starbucks. It's 3:00 pm and the window for brownie time has closed (at least for me - or I'll never get to sleep). But that doesn't mean I still don't want it.
I am feeling cranky and out of sorts. The day got off to a rocky start and I didn't get my 1 hour writing time before being tossed into the deep end of technical work issues. Which sucks. And here I am, trying to regroup and gather my thoughts and... it's hard. I'd be much happier, I think, if I just grabbed my office backpack and went to Starbucks... I'd do a better job of regrouping there. But that's probably not true.
Cause at this time of day, Starbucks is overrun with university and high school students and there's not a hope of getting a table next to an electrical outlet (and my laptop battery doesn't last long anymore). So I'd probably just sit there and spin my wheels and feel even worse than I do right now. So that's not a solution. Which is why I'm sitting here and trying the writing thing at home... just me and keyboard.
Anyhow... back to the topic at hand. I know that writing will make me feel better... but writing when I'm not already feeling good can be a challenge. And I even had a topic picked out from my morning walk at 6:00 am. But writing about that topic didn't seem feasible at this point. What really needs to get written is what's going on in me right now. So here we are.
Some people think that writing is "easy" if you're a writer. It's not. Sometimes it's like pulling teeth. It's not comfortable. It is not warm and fuzzy. It's dragging out your dirty laundry for all the world to see... and then holding each piece up to the light and studying it in detail. What is going on in my head right now... ?? What am I feeling? What is going on for me?
While I know that everyone has dirty laundry, that doesn't mean it is any easier for me to drag it out and share the nitty-gritty-ness of it. Gross. Emotions. Feelings. Grumpiness. Moodiness. Ick.
But if we all have it, surely it would be beneficial to share it... to share what is going on, so that others don't feel that they are all alone with their filthy laundry. Still doesn't make it easier to write about.
I guess the burning question is... why do I want a sugary, fatty treat that is crammed with wheat gluten (bad for my thyroid condition)? What is the brownie actually going to do? For about 1 minute, it will taste absolutely delicious and then... poof... it will be gone and I all I will taste is the bitterness of regret and the anger of failure. Which doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? And yet... that is what I am craving right now.
I wish I could figure it out. It's not like I'm craving a banana or an apple or a handful of nuts? Or a walk or a drink of water. Although I do have my water bottle close at hand and am sipping at it as I write this. Trying to distract myself from the brownie.
Maybe what I really need is a good cry. Maybe the brownie is just trying to stuff sweet on top of those uncomfortable emotions that want to be expressed? Maybe. Or maybe I need to rage and growl in anger at the situation I find myself in. Perhaps the craving for the food is the brain trying to stuff all those emotions down... "let's just force feed it some sweets". Because emotions are dangerous you know.
It's not safe to express many emotions (other than joy) out in the world. Heck, we aren't really trained in how to express our emotions. We complain about people, places and things, but we don't really get to the heart of the emotion. We swallow the angry words. We stuff down the tears. We stiffen our backs in the face of fear. Don't show it... don't feel it. Sounds like a Disney film... Frozen and the song "Let it Go"...
And the truth is, life is messy. Things aren't always smooth and calm and peaceful. It is so easy to get blown off course. To get thrown off kilter. The question is... how to get back on course. How to get back on kilter... back on track?
How to clear the space? Write about it? Express it? Connect with something that grounds us, roots us, reminds us who we are? Put things into perspective?
Maybe step away from the computer and the phone and reconnect with the analogue world. Go for a walk... do something physical and with my hands. Declutter some more? Something... and the only way to know what is going to help is to try a few things... and see what sticks and what doesn't. See what helps and what throws me further off course. I'm pretty sure a brownie, delicious as it is, would throw me further off course! Sad to say... but it is truth! Ugh!
Have you seen the price of groceries?? They say prices have gone up 10% over the last year. Huh. I don't know what grocery store items they are looking at but... I can tell you right now, some things have gone up waaayyyy more!
And let's not even talk about meat... a package of 3 top sirloin steaks was $70 in Costco the other day. That's over $20 for one steak. ONE steak! OMG! It's a good thing we don't eat beef... or pork... or chicken. We do eat salmon though and that is not cheap either. A serving of salmon is $10... still cheaper than beef.
I am a Master Procrastinator. There are so many tasks that I procrastinate on. "I'll do it later." Later might be in a few hours, a few days or even a few months and... dare I say it... a few years! But whyyyyy???!!!!
When I look at these tasks... the common denominator seems to be uncertainty which makes me uncomfortable. Maybe I'm not sure how to do it. Or I need to phone someone (I hate talking to people on the phone). Maybe I need more information... or think I need more information. Sometimes I just don't "feel" like it and will choose something "easier". Because some tasks are just "hard"... or rather... I think they are hard - which is an entirely different kettle of fish.
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| Photo by Dayne Topkin on Unsplash |
But I digress...
NB: I initially wrote this in the middle of the pandemic but it somehow never got published... so I've edited it a bit and republished. It still speaks to me today.
Let's be honest here. After three years of living in a pandemic, we've let things slide a little bit. Or maybe it's just me.
The house is not getting dusted. The floors are not getting vacuumed. And the toilets are only getting cleaned once a week. And let's not even talk about showering... I got out of the habit of showering every day. The only time I'm showering now is when I have a massage or a doctor's appointment or a chiro appointment. Which isn't all that often! I actually lose track of when I last showered or had a bath. It's amazing how a habit can disintegrate so quickly.
The sad thing is... when my Dad was living downstairs (he struggled with dementia), I eventually noticed that he wasn't changing his clothes or showering for weeks at a time. "Dad!! You can't do that!" I didn't understand it at the time... now I totally get it.
One day blends into the next and I think... "I'll [fill in the blank] tomorrow/later/this evening." And somehow it never happens. I can wear the same at-home-t-shirt for a week or more! During the pandemic we just stayed home all the time. We wore the same clothes all the time. We ended up only doing laundry when one of us ran out of underwear, which could take almost two weeks.
I'm going to guess that we weren't the only household who experienced that. I saw a Hedger Humour cartoon go by during the pandemic and... well... it speaks for itself.
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| Hedger Humor Cartoon |
During the pandemic, I read a survey from CTV Edmonton which said that people were showering 10% less. I think we showered 50% less and even now... we still aren't back into a daily (or every second day) shower routine. I'm not sure what that says about people... or about us. Sigh...
On the bright side, while some areas of the house were looking decidedly sloppy... er... relaxed... during the pandemic, we did manage to keep up with other things. Dishes still got done, healthy meals got cooked and we still put on deodorant and brushed our teeth twice a day. Oh, and the cat litter box got cleaned out once a day... so we didn't completely lose it. And we went through hand soap at a ridiculous pace! So while the rest of our bodies weren't squeaky clean... our hands definitely were!
Should I mention hair?? And the Covid hair-cuts? My partner gave me 3 or 4 haircuts during the pandemic... some better than others. It got to the point, where I'd not even brush my hair in the morning. I'd just have several days worth of toque-head, ballcap-head and headphone-head. There were even days where I'd do a quick run down to the local grocery store to pick up supplies and... I would do nothing to fix my hair!! But wearing a mask... no one really knew who I was. Right?
I read an article during the pandemic which said, "life is messy right now, and it would make sense that our homes and lives are rather chaotic and messy right now". But that was small comfort to a hausfrau who has always had it together. I remember the first lock down in the spring of 2020. I got a tonne of shit done around the house during that one. I was on a roll. I was checking things off on my to-do list like nobody's business. Handling small maintenance issues, repainting baseboards, etc. But the lockdown the following year... not so much. By then, pandemic fatigue had kicked in and I just gave up on keeping the house together. I could barely keep myself together!
I think the lesson in all of this was for me to let go of the "shoulds" around all of this. I kept thinking that I used to be able to handle everything "before"... but we were not living in "before" times. We were living through a pandemic. Not just any pandemic... a global pandemic... Very few people in living memory (over 104) have lived through a pandemic. And even the oldest person on the earth (118 years old) would have been only 14 at the time of the Spanish flu. This was unprecedented.
And perhaps we needed the lesson. Perhaps we needed to learn that it is OK to cut ourselves some slack. Perhaps a tidy/clean house is not the most important thing in the world. Unless of course, someone in the family got a positive covid test back... in which case, housecleaning shot to the top of the list! But other than that... perhaps we all needed to learn that there are more important things to do than taking care of the house. Perhaps we needed to learn how to take care of ourselves first.
And not by showering regularly. Perhaps rather than dusting and cleaning toilets... we'd do better to meditate and exercise. To get out into nature where our souls derive nourishment. In unprecedented times... perhaps it's time to go back to the basics. What do we need to do to take care of our souls, our spirits, our emotions. Because after three years of this... the evidence is clear... our mental health took a nose dive during all of those lockdowns.
As we come out of it (and I am hoping that finally... we are coming out of it)... we can look around us and choose what is really important. Friends, family, health, well-being, exercise... things that nourish us. The dusting and the toilets can fit into the small little corners our life.
As 2023 began, I made a choice to focus on me... rebuilding a regular exercise routine, reintroducing daily meditation, connecting with friends and family, drinking enough water, eating well. And cutting myself some slack when it comes to the house cleaning.
These are all small things... and yet they aren't. Every drink of water is a small thing... but drinking enough water every day is a huge thing. Every step and walk is a small thing and yet... by the end of the day, 15,000 steps and 8 km of walking is a big thing. Every choice to eat an apple instead of a piece of chocolate is a small thing and yet... at the end of the day, 3 apples and 0 chocolate is a big thing... and at the end of the week... those small steps add up to one huge thing!
I am a bit of a mad puzzler. I love doing jigsaw puzzles, as anyone who has read some of my previous posts will know! I recently did a post about how puzzling is full of life lessons - get organized, one small step at a time, it's OK to say "No", etc.
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| Charles Wysocki - 2000 piece puzzle |
Well... let me tell you... the stack of pieces at the beginning was a bit overwhelming! And sorting them took a lonnnngggg time.
But... one group of pieces at a time and it got done. As I was sorting, I noticed a few slightly chewed puzzle pieces go by (perhaps a cat or a dog). I always find this annoying. I bought the puzzle at Value Village for $10 and had hoped to do it and resell it for $20 or $15 (the going rate for a 2000 piece puzzle). But... with slightly chewed pieces, it loses quite a bit of its value. Why not just say that on the box! Ugh. Anyhow... side rant over.
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| The starting pile of unsorted pieces |
There were so many pieces, that some of my sort piles ended up being quite large. I put all houses together, for example. And all greenery. Just to start. Otherwise, I would have had two dozen piles and nowhere to work!
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| Half of the sorted piles |
Soooo... I started working on the sky and then the river... then started the various houses by resorting the big house pile. Ya gotta start with what looks doable! But as all of these pieces started to come together, it quickly became apparent that the table was not going to be big enough. At least not big enough for me to work on it easily. It would have fit width-wise in the middle of the table, but that makes it really hard to reach over and access it.
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| Halfway done? |
Soooo... this was our round oak table with one leaf in it. Time for the second leaf. When we bought this table (second-hand), it came with two leaves... and I never really thought we'd have any use for the second one. Over the years, we have schlepped the second leaf along with us and stored it under beds, in a corner. It's never really been a contender for a declutter list... cause what if we need it "some day"! Well... that "some day" finally came!
I had to break apart bits of the puzzle, and clear a space for the table to be split open but... once we had the leaf in and securely in place... what a difference! Finally, I could finish the bottom edge and start to place things where they belonged in the bottom half! That second leaf makes it soooo much easier to do a puzzle like this. I also have some space to spread out my remaining piles.
Soooo... sometimes those "I might need this some day" items actually do get to be used "some day". Which doesn't meant that a few "some day" items can be let go of safely. But I guess I wonder... how do I know which can be safely let go of? And which can't?
Well... a table leaf is a pretty unique item and kind of hard to replace. It's not like I could have popped onto Marketplace or Amazon and found a leaf that would have fit. Whereas... with that Camino book... if I let that go... it would be super easy to just pop on Amazon and order another one for a minimal amount of money. Sooo... that might be the key... how hard (and expensive) would it be to replace the "some day" item.
As for the puzzle... I did get it finished in a timely fashion!
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| Completed puzzle (sans a few pieces) |
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| The missing piece |
This may seem totally obvious once you read the results of the latest Stanford study but you might also wonder why it took so long!
The reason you are not losing weight while dieting is because... your gut microbiome has a say in the matter. And everyone's biome is different so... the diet that works for one person might be completely useless for the next person. Mind blowing, yes?! Yep. My mind was blown.
They put some people on low-fat diets and some people on low-carb diets. People who strictly followed either diet lost weight during the short-term (first 6 months). OK. Fine. But here's the kicker... The people who maintained the weight loss for a year ate the SAME number of calories as those who regained weight or who didn't lose weight during the second six months. Well, that sucks. Can you imagine watching your friend eat the same amount of calories as you and they are losing weight while you are gaining weight or plateauing?
That's because some people lost weight better on low-fat diets while others lost weight better on low-carb diets. Why the difference? Why do some people lose weight while others gain weight? Well... turns out it depends on several biomarkers: gut microbiome, proteins made by the body and the levels of exhaled carbon dioxide (CO2). Using those biomarkers, researchers could actually predict, at the start of the study, how successful someone would be at losing weight and keeping it off long-term.
The researchers tracked 609 people over a year. How much they ate, what they ate (mostly healthy minimally processed foods) and how much they exercised. What they found was this... just cutting calories or exercising more was NOT enough to sustain weight loss over a year.
Which makes zero sense... because for years we've been told that weight loss is 80/20 - 80% has to do with what you eat and 20% has to do with exercise. Nope, that little rule of thumb is out the window.
One of the key pieces of the puzzle was the level of exhaled carbon dioxide. The researchers measured the ratio of how much oxygen is inhaled to how much carbon dioxide is exhaled. They used this as a proxy to determine if the body's primary fuel was carbs or fats. A lower ratio means the body burns fat better... while a higher ratio means it burns carbs better. So people who started the study with a higher ratio lost more weight on a low-carb diet because their body burns carbs better.
Think about it... there you are... munching away on your Keto diet because that's what your workout coach recommended. And he's ripped with muscles everywhere and not an ounce of fat on him. You go to town with the Keto, eating all sorts of high fat foods - bacon, cheese, beef, coconut fat, etc. And you avoid carbs like the plague - no potatoes, no noodles, no beans, no pizza. Let's do it!!!
And yet... after a year of eating on Keto you haven't lost the weight... in fact you've put on MORE weight. Why?? It's because your body burns carbs better. And you've been feeding your body the wrong fuel. It's not a lack of willpower. It's the wrong fuel.
If your body prefers carbs, and you're feeding it fats (or vice versa)... your body is not going to be able to metabolize those calories very well... or burn them off. Makes sense. So much sense.
And it all comes down to the your gut microbiome. Do they like to eat carbs? Or do they prefer fats? Can you just imagine a future in which you go to your doctor, they do some tests and hand you a personalized weight-loss or healthy eating plan? Whoa...
Sooooo... in the meantime... this is what the researchers recommend:
CTV News - Stanford study identifies what influences weight loss the most
Cell Reports Medicine - the full Stanford report
Intake Health - info on the Respiratory Quotient (ratio of inhaled oxygen to exhaled carbon dioxide)
