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Here's what I've been eating lately:
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
Here's some food from the last month! Several repeat in similar themes: yogurt/fruit bowls, veggies + protein, noodles, snack trays. As always, click a photo to view full size/HQ.
(this first pic for sure was taken with the iPhone 11 and it is amazing)
( Moar food! )
(this first pic for sure was taken with the iPhone 11 and it is amazing)
( Moar food! )
Pics of yesterday
May. 28th, 2020 10:54 amI am still so very angry. To help soothe my rage, I took pictures of things throughout the day yesterday that gave me joy or made me smile.
To start, wanted to show you guys one of Nero's favorite spots to lay:
You can find him so often at the top of the stairs. XD
( More cat goodness and lunch stuff )
Got some yarn goodies! Happy to support these guys. <3 <3 They threw in the big tote as a gift!! I love it XD
( Lovelyyyyy )
Steve and I went for a leisurely, short walk. The city is FINALLY redoing our neighborhood roads, aafter 30 years of slapping pavement on top of the cracked stuff. The roads are getting torn up and are all hustle and bustle with big machinery, but I still got some pretty pics!
( Nature! )
Nero was very stubborn and ridiculous about being on my lap in the evening.
Bad pic but a bunny was helping out, eating dandelions in the yard:
It was Day 2 of my workout program, "Fun" day. So I did the walk and played lighter-hearted/less intensity ITG (because ITG will also be my day 3, Interval cardio) AND traded off with Steve every few songs.
Workout outfit:
( Workout! )
After showering, Steve and I got up to some fun even though we were both SO tired. I'm happy about how into me he seems lately! I'm always surprised! But omg we were both so sore. It was hot though! Then we made a pizza - it was a "croissant crust" from DiGiorno he wanted to try. He said they really lost out not calling it something like "CRUST-ssant!" XDD
After that, played a bit of Hearthstone battlegrounds together. This match here - I think this screenshot was the first time I went up against them. I was certain I'd lose - look at his board and health compared to mine! We ended up going head to head at least 6 times, tying most games and the rest I wore them down. I ended up taking first somehow!! It was awesome. My opponent also was having a silly fun time at the ridiculousness of our matchups, because it NEVER goes on that long. By our last matchup he had the one Big Boi up to over 100 attack and health!
Separately, in a meeting this morning, Mike told me that SPPS (Saint Paul) teaching staff received a gag order to not talk about the incident at all - with students or with staff. The FUCK. If they did that to us when Philando Castile was killed, I would have quit immediately.
In a meeting this morning, Mike, Jake, Alex, Sandy and I all talked about the shit going on in Minneapolis. Jake and Alex are on the up and up, Sandy's almost there, and Mike is focusing on the wrong thing ("Losing the contract with the U won't hurt the police force financially") - but Jake really nicely educated him on the "message" it sends, and Sandy pointed out that she used to work at a bank, and cutting off the relationship with the police force does hurt individual officers who used it as a part-time job.
To start, wanted to show you guys one of Nero's favorite spots to lay:
You can find him so often at the top of the stairs. XD
( More cat goodness and lunch stuff )
Got some yarn goodies! Happy to support these guys. <3 <3 They threw in the big tote as a gift!! I love it XD
( Lovelyyyyy )
Steve and I went for a leisurely, short walk. The city is FINALLY redoing our neighborhood roads, aafter 30 years of slapping pavement on top of the cracked stuff. The roads are getting torn up and are all hustle and bustle with big machinery, but I still got some pretty pics!
( Nature! )
Nero was very stubborn and ridiculous about being on my lap in the evening.
Bad pic but a bunny was helping out, eating dandelions in the yard:
It was Day 2 of my workout program, "Fun" day. So I did the walk and played lighter-hearted/less intensity ITG (because ITG will also be my day 3, Interval cardio) AND traded off with Steve every few songs.
Workout outfit:
( Workout! )
After showering, Steve and I got up to some fun even though we were both SO tired. I'm happy about how into me he seems lately! I'm always surprised! But omg we were both so sore. It was hot though! Then we made a pizza - it was a "croissant crust" from DiGiorno he wanted to try. He said they really lost out not calling it something like "CRUST-ssant!" XDD
After that, played a bit of Hearthstone battlegrounds together. This match here - I think this screenshot was the first time I went up against them. I was certain I'd lose - look at his board and health compared to mine! We ended up going head to head at least 6 times, tying most games and the rest I wore them down. I ended up taking first somehow!! It was awesome. My opponent also was having a silly fun time at the ridiculousness of our matchups, because it NEVER goes on that long. By our last matchup he had the one Big Boi up to over 100 attack and health!
Separately, in a meeting this morning, Mike told me that SPPS (Saint Paul) teaching staff received a gag order to not talk about the incident at all - with students or with staff. The FUCK. If they did that to us when Philando Castile was killed, I would have quit immediately.
In a meeting this morning, Mike, Jake, Alex, Sandy and I all talked about the shit going on in Minneapolis. Jake and Alex are on the up and up, Sandy's almost there, and Mike is focusing on the wrong thing ("Losing the contract with the U won't hurt the police force financially") - but Jake really nicely educated him on the "message" it sends, and Sandy pointed out that she used to work at a bank, and cutting off the relationship with the police force does hurt individual officers who used it as a part-time job.
Here are some of the meals I've had over the last few weeks!
We've been only eating lunch and dinner and sometimes a dessert or treat, and it's been working out great.
You'll notice a lot of repeats as we use leftovers and such. We have a ton of rice + veggies + protein dishes as well that I forget to take pics of at lunch.
*All my photos are "live" photos so I took hasty screenshots of them, ignore any weird text etc. on the photos ahah
Veggie soup with tofu and egg (I used basically all the veggies that were about to go bad)
( More! Simple but filling meals )
We've been only eating lunch and dinner and sometimes a dessert or treat, and it's been working out great.
You'll notice a lot of repeats as we use leftovers and such. We have a ton of rice + veggies + protein dishes as well that I forget to take pics of at lunch.
*All my photos are "live" photos so I took hasty screenshots of them, ignore any weird text etc. on the photos ahah
Veggie soup with tofu and egg (I used basically all the veggies that were about to go bad)
( More! Simple but filling meals )
Oh no, I’ve been falling behind! This is legit like old habits - I cycle from posting every day to posting a couple times a month. I promise I’m going to write those entries about Ben and Sean’s and Bethany’s wedding!
I’ve been really busy with preparing for work and the Florida trip. I’m in the airport right now waiting to board. We got an email notification that MSP airport is experiencing longer than normal wait times so we were encouraged to get to the airport super early, which we did. The line was long but not too long and we got lucky because they were training a bunch of new people, thus holding up the line, so a woman opened up a secret check for us to go through and we didn’t have to deal with the practice searches of the new staff. Score!
Monday was the benefits training and initial overview for ISD 622. it was a super long day but also really necessary. I’ve never been at a benefits meeting where people asked so many questions about the different insurance plans before, and have had the person try really hard to answer the questione. Some people seemed like they were getting annoyed, but then would be like “wait what??” at some of the answers. What it really boils down to is, unless you are doing the high deductible, there are two competing plans and it all depends on your organization and willingness to risk not having enough money if something big were to happen. Personally I prefer to have the comfort of paying only $23 per paycheck and $25 copay no matter what (the insurance here is good, as promised). I am really looking forward to star looking for a therapist, and there doesn’t seem to be specific restrictions on it, so I’m gonna double check with member services and get right on that. The dental and vision are good too - dental is completely free and you can get your teeth cleaned 4 times a year if you want, lol. I have annoying eyes with vastly different prescriptions so good vision insurance definitely helps. For my last pair of glasses I paid over $500.
Yesterday was a short training at Maplewood Middle, and as usual I was totally into it and excited, but Molly, my EBD counterpart, had a lot of concerns and questions (classic me, assuming everything will work out and thinks of nothing), especially regarding the people in our group completely new to teaching. A lot of her concerns I had thought will be answered next week during all-staff training. We’ll see!
Admin of course projected a super positive image of the school and talked about how most of the staff have been there more than 5 years and made me really excited and looking forward to it (and I’m still high on the fact that I have my own classroom. Guys it’s a BIG DEAL). Afterward I asked Taylor, the autism teacher, about it. She was subbing all over the place in the school starting in the winter (she was in the peace corps and got kicked out because she started dating her neighbor and got pregnant. They gave her like 3 days notice... awk) and she said it’s the same as every other school - that gen ed is a shitshow but that SpEd is really strong. Goooood. It makes me nervous about co-teaching but at worst I’ll be annoyed for awhile that I’m a glorified para and eventually I’ll take advantage of the extra time to work on paperwork and stuff.
It looks like I have a small advisory class that will be combined with someone else’s, who just happens to be a gym teacher I worked with when I was a para in the district. Cool!
My pull-out math is 7th and 8th grade only, which is good and bad. I’m glad I don’t have all 3 grades because it becomes impossible to manage all of the standards and kids get disserviced, but again my experience with algebra is zero.
My classroom is looking really good, just a few things to finish taking care of next week!
I’m super motivated to get the “go to the gym [yoga] 12 times per month for a discount” because I’ll still get 12 times in even with this 5-day vacation and going to Ben and Sean’s once this month. It’ll be super doable if I go to Brandi’s classes twice a week and a random one whenever. I went to yoga in Stephanie’s class yesterday. It’s been awhile since I’ve gone to one of her classes and I really enjoyed it. We were working on loosening the hamstrings and doing splits practice. It was awesome. She also always does a guided meditation at the end of class, and today she had us focus on the feelings we feel when we think about “our heart’s desire”. I was overwhelmed with the big full happy emotions of being grateful for my life and having Steve there and being Ben and Sean’s moai* and just being so happy with my profession and plans for the future... maybe my eyes started leaking some. But even then I was grateful for the fact that I can feel emotions so intensely now, because it signals to me that I’m keeping my walls down and being open, when I spent so long closed and hard.
After yoga, I went home and said hi to Steve and Nick and Scott. Well, I’d already kind of said hi to Scott earlier when he showed up unannounced and I was in the bathroom and didn’t know he was in the living room, which looks down the hallway to our bathroom and bedroom, and I walked out pantless because I needed to put on yoga bottoms. I was so surprised to see him standing there that i just autistically said “HI SCOTT SORRY DIDNT KNOW YOU WERE THERE” and was annoyed at how embarrassed I was because like, it’s just my ass lol. I think it was the being caught off guard. AND I was indignant that Steve didn’t like text me or knock on the door because he knew I was getting ready and Scott was seriously lucky I didn’t walk out fully naked???
Soon after I got home I mustered up the energy to okay ITG, since it will be the last time to practice for Cupcake for the next five days! After warming up and adjusting to my newly loosened hamstrings, I had a pretty good day. Kept my heart rate up and played through a ton of the songs. Ultimately I played nonstop for an hour and a half, which is usually when my shoulders start to hurt really bad and my legs get tiredness. I had a lot of fun and got a couple new scores.
( Pics for posterity )
I still haven’t been able to pass any of the 12s and I’m nervous about my ability in tournament. I’m just hoping that everyone gets nervous and chokes, lol. At the very least I just don’t want to look like a fool who is out of her league.
Okay, gonna board soon!
I’ve been really busy with preparing for work and the Florida trip. I’m in the airport right now waiting to board. We got an email notification that MSP airport is experiencing longer than normal wait times so we were encouraged to get to the airport super early, which we did. The line was long but not too long and we got lucky because they were training a bunch of new people, thus holding up the line, so a woman opened up a secret check for us to go through and we didn’t have to deal with the practice searches of the new staff. Score!
Monday was the benefits training and initial overview for ISD 622. it was a super long day but also really necessary. I’ve never been at a benefits meeting where people asked so many questions about the different insurance plans before, and have had the person try really hard to answer the questione. Some people seemed like they were getting annoyed, but then would be like “wait what??” at some of the answers. What it really boils down to is, unless you are doing the high deductible, there are two competing plans and it all depends on your organization and willingness to risk not having enough money if something big were to happen. Personally I prefer to have the comfort of paying only $23 per paycheck and $25 copay no matter what (the insurance here is good, as promised). I am really looking forward to star looking for a therapist, and there doesn’t seem to be specific restrictions on it, so I’m gonna double check with member services and get right on that. The dental and vision are good too - dental is completely free and you can get your teeth cleaned 4 times a year if you want, lol. I have annoying eyes with vastly different prescriptions so good vision insurance definitely helps. For my last pair of glasses I paid over $500.
Yesterday was a short training at Maplewood Middle, and as usual I was totally into it and excited, but Molly, my EBD counterpart, had a lot of concerns and questions (classic me, assuming everything will work out and thinks of nothing), especially regarding the people in our group completely new to teaching. A lot of her concerns I had thought will be answered next week during all-staff training. We’ll see!
Admin of course projected a super positive image of the school and talked about how most of the staff have been there more than 5 years and made me really excited and looking forward to it (and I’m still high on the fact that I have my own classroom. Guys it’s a BIG DEAL). Afterward I asked Taylor, the autism teacher, about it. She was subbing all over the place in the school starting in the winter (she was in the peace corps and got kicked out because she started dating her neighbor and got pregnant. They gave her like 3 days notice... awk) and she said it’s the same as every other school - that gen ed is a shitshow but that SpEd is really strong. Goooood. It makes me nervous about co-teaching but at worst I’ll be annoyed for awhile that I’m a glorified para and eventually I’ll take advantage of the extra time to work on paperwork and stuff.
It looks like I have a small advisory class that will be combined with someone else’s, who just happens to be a gym teacher I worked with when I was a para in the district. Cool!
My pull-out math is 7th and 8th grade only, which is good and bad. I’m glad I don’t have all 3 grades because it becomes impossible to manage all of the standards and kids get disserviced, but again my experience with algebra is zero.
My classroom is looking really good, just a few things to finish taking care of next week!
I’m super motivated to get the “go to the gym [yoga] 12 times per month for a discount” because I’ll still get 12 times in even with this 5-day vacation and going to Ben and Sean’s once this month. It’ll be super doable if I go to Brandi’s classes twice a week and a random one whenever. I went to yoga in Stephanie’s class yesterday. It’s been awhile since I’ve gone to one of her classes and I really enjoyed it. We were working on loosening the hamstrings and doing splits practice. It was awesome. She also always does a guided meditation at the end of class, and today she had us focus on the feelings we feel when we think about “our heart’s desire”. I was overwhelmed with the big full happy emotions of being grateful for my life and having Steve there and being Ben and Sean’s moai* and just being so happy with my profession and plans for the future... maybe my eyes started leaking some. But even then I was grateful for the fact that I can feel emotions so intensely now, because it signals to me that I’m keeping my walls down and being open, when I spent so long closed and hard.
After yoga, I went home and said hi to Steve and Nick and Scott. Well, I’d already kind of said hi to Scott earlier when he showed up unannounced and I was in the bathroom and didn’t know he was in the living room, which looks down the hallway to our bathroom and bedroom, and I walked out pantless because I needed to put on yoga bottoms. I was so surprised to see him standing there that i just autistically said “HI SCOTT SORRY DIDNT KNOW YOU WERE THERE” and was annoyed at how embarrassed I was because like, it’s just my ass lol. I think it was the being caught off guard. AND I was indignant that Steve didn’t like text me or knock on the door because he knew I was getting ready and Scott was seriously lucky I didn’t walk out fully naked???
Soon after I got home I mustered up the energy to okay ITG, since it will be the last time to practice for Cupcake for the next five days! After warming up and adjusting to my newly loosened hamstrings, I had a pretty good day. Kept my heart rate up and played through a ton of the songs. Ultimately I played nonstop for an hour and a half, which is usually when my shoulders start to hurt really bad and my legs get tiredness. I had a lot of fun and got a couple new scores.
( Pics for posterity )
I still haven’t been able to pass any of the 12s and I’m nervous about my ability in tournament. I’m just hoping that everyone gets nervous and chokes, lol. At the very least I just don’t want to look like a fool who is out of her league.
Okay, gonna board soon!
76// Friiiidayyyy
Aug. 3rd, 2018 11:36 amEven though I was super tired and sore from ITG last night, I needed to go to yoga for sure today. So I got up and headed to yoga at 9:30. I was super crabby, as I usually am when my body is still exhausted/not recovered from the day before. There were two older ladies (like, 60s for sure) who were super good at everything. This class was with a teacher I’m not familiar with, Becka, and I think it’s the kind of class that Haley loves - constant movement and like a thousand chaturangas. I would not stop dripping waterfalls of sweat and I appeared to be the only one lol. I wasn’t the only one getting tired by any means, but god do I sweat so much. During the lame ab work that I can’t do anyway because of my spine curve, I just swayed my legs back and forth. I did appreciate the challenging poses Becka made us try, such as 8-angle pose (astavakrasana).
After yoga I went home and showered quick before heading out to meet Steve for lunch. I was super hungry from not having eaten plus the yoga, so when we got to Jamba Juice, I decided to order a smoothie bowl for more substance. While we were eating/drinking, we sat in this random courtyard at the U of MN and did a couple raids in Pokémon Go and chatting about Steve’s day. And of course, because the world is weird and small, we ran into my old coworker Janice from Nokomis, the speech pathologist. She was apparently there with her daughter. We talked awkwardly for a minute and then she sat by herself and we sat across the courtyard. lol. I was there to hang out with Steve!!!!
When Steve went back to work and I went home, I was just waiting for him to come home. I ended up napping for a couple hours until he got back, and he was self-proclaimed crabby and I was worried about him! I tried to make him feel better with low to mixed success, and he decided to play a bit of ITG while I knitted and watched Parks and Rec. He had an okay day... at the very least he got some exercise in, which was good.
Nick came over soon after he finished playing and showering, and we went to pick up Naf Naf. I had eaten my leftovers from Olive Garden so I didn’t get anything. I spent the rest of the night finishing my sock #1 with the Totoro colorway, and I’m so excited to get started on the second one. It fits perfectly and looks so cute! Pics when I finish the second one. During that time, Steve finished Yakuza Kiwami and it was amazing. A+ game. The second one comes out at the end of the month, and Steve will def get it right away.
Sleep was difficult again, tossing and turning for hours, super anxious.
After yoga I went home and showered quick before heading out to meet Steve for lunch. I was super hungry from not having eaten plus the yoga, so when we got to Jamba Juice, I decided to order a smoothie bowl for more substance. While we were eating/drinking, we sat in this random courtyard at the U of MN and did a couple raids in Pokémon Go and chatting about Steve’s day. And of course, because the world is weird and small, we ran into my old coworker Janice from Nokomis, the speech pathologist. She was apparently there with her daughter. We talked awkwardly for a minute and then she sat by herself and we sat across the courtyard. lol. I was there to hang out with Steve!!!!
When Steve went back to work and I went home, I was just waiting for him to come home. I ended up napping for a couple hours until he got back, and he was self-proclaimed crabby and I was worried about him! I tried to make him feel better with low to mixed success, and he decided to play a bit of ITG while I knitted and watched Parks and Rec. He had an okay day... at the very least he got some exercise in, which was good.
Nick came over soon after he finished playing and showering, and we went to pick up Naf Naf. I had eaten my leftovers from Olive Garden so I didn’t get anything. I spent the rest of the night finishing my sock #1 with the Totoro colorway, and I’m so excited to get started on the second one. It fits perfectly and looks so cute! Pics when I finish the second one. During that time, Steve finished Yakuza Kiwami and it was amazing. A+ game. The second one comes out at the end of the month, and Steve will def get it right away.
Sleep was difficult again, tossing and turning for hours, super anxious.
68// A day in pictures
Jul. 12th, 2018 09:04 amMy wrist has been bothering me so much this week, feeling like a tendonitis flare-up, so I didn’t write entries for the last few days and wore a brace to give my wrist some rest.
Click the pics for HQ.
( My Thursday )
Click the pics for HQ.
( My Thursday )
61//Steve lunch and grocery shopping
Jul. 3rd, 2018 12:51 amMy morning was spent much the same as yesterday morning, so I’ll skip over that, but I did need to wait for the new TV to arrive and sign for it and direct the guys to where to put it. That went off without a hitch, and then I asked Steve if he wanted me to come out for some Jamba lunch and walking, and he of course agreed enthusiastically. Before that, I RACED to the park to catch a random wild Lickitung, mwahahaha.
I started to leave, then when I was trying to take a Pokémon gym I realized it was colder than I anticipated and was threatening rain, so I went back home to get my windbreaker, and then I stopped for gas and tried to do a 3-star raid but was unsuccessful solo (I got really close though). Then! Onwards to the University. We got Jamba and I stopped to pee because I learned my lesson from last week and didn’t want to ruin my own day.
After that we started wandering around campus, and Steve asked me my plans and I told him I planned to grocery shop. He then made a comment to me about not spending a lot of money and that I purposely buy the more expensive of a product because I think money equals quality, and I interpreted the tone as attacking, so we got into a tiff about it. This looked mostly like tense silent with brief word exchanges, and after like 10 minutes of me seething in my autism and his own feelings on the matter, we were able to discuss our points - Steve doesn’t want me to spend a million dollars shopping and reminded me that we had developed a weekly budget several months ago (which I obviously forgot about). Since I do all the shopping and cooking, it’s very upsetting to feel like he genuinely believes I buy the most expensive thing on purpose, when in all honesty I don’t look at price basically ever and go off of what I want - whether that is ingredient list or the item of produce or whatever. A specific example of this is wanting 100% buckwheat soba and not flour/buckwheat soba. In the end I agreed to stick to the original budget, now that I was reminded and remember it, and he expressed his appreciating of the fact that I want us to eat good food and do the making of the things. The rest of our walk was back to normal, good and fun.
After he had to go back to work (boooo) I headed to the Wedge. I was able to find most of the things on the list that I wanted, but still needed a few things from Whole Foods. I drove to Woodbury and got the last few items I needed before heading home.
Once back home, I set about making lunches for the rest of the week, which didn’t take long as I was using a Rawvana recipes. I love her recipes because they are delicious and usually 5 ingredients or less. The food always has a lot of flavor and strikes home the beauty of using only a few ingredients. The problem I have with her recipes is that she expects you to consume 200-300 calories for a meal, which is ridiculously unhealthy. I think she tries to balance this out with salads and fruit as snacks, but it still works out to like 1100-1300 calories per day, which does not work for me and certainly doesn’t work for Steve. So I usually end up either doubling the recipe, or taking a recipe that says it serves 4 and making it serve 2. That sort of thing.
After the food was done and dinner was had (if you guessed fried egg Sammies and rice, you’d be right!), I played Hearthstone all night, finally beating the Witchwood solo adventure and playing some constructed. Steve okayed Shadow of the Colossus and Nick was playing Demon’s Souls. A good night.
I started to leave, then when I was trying to take a Pokémon gym I realized it was colder than I anticipated and was threatening rain, so I went back home to get my windbreaker, and then I stopped for gas and tried to do a 3-star raid but was unsuccessful solo (I got really close though). Then! Onwards to the University. We got Jamba and I stopped to pee because I learned my lesson from last week and didn’t want to ruin my own day.
After that we started wandering around campus, and Steve asked me my plans and I told him I planned to grocery shop. He then made a comment to me about not spending a lot of money and that I purposely buy the more expensive of a product because I think money equals quality, and I interpreted the tone as attacking, so we got into a tiff about it. This looked mostly like tense silent with brief word exchanges, and after like 10 minutes of me seething in my autism and his own feelings on the matter, we were able to discuss our points - Steve doesn’t want me to spend a million dollars shopping and reminded me that we had developed a weekly budget several months ago (which I obviously forgot about). Since I do all the shopping and cooking, it’s very upsetting to feel like he genuinely believes I buy the most expensive thing on purpose, when in all honesty I don’t look at price basically ever and go off of what I want - whether that is ingredient list or the item of produce or whatever. A specific example of this is wanting 100% buckwheat soba and not flour/buckwheat soba. In the end I agreed to stick to the original budget, now that I was reminded and remember it, and he expressed his appreciating of the fact that I want us to eat good food and do the making of the things. The rest of our walk was back to normal, good and fun.
After he had to go back to work (boooo) I headed to the Wedge. I was able to find most of the things on the list that I wanted, but still needed a few things from Whole Foods. I drove to Woodbury and got the last few items I needed before heading home.
Once back home, I set about making lunches for the rest of the week, which didn’t take long as I was using a Rawvana recipes. I love her recipes because they are delicious and usually 5 ingredients or less. The food always has a lot of flavor and strikes home the beauty of using only a few ingredients. The problem I have with her recipes is that she expects you to consume 200-300 calories for a meal, which is ridiculously unhealthy. I think she tries to balance this out with salads and fruit as snacks, but it still works out to like 1100-1300 calories per day, which does not work for me and certainly doesn’t work for Steve. So I usually end up either doubling the recipe, or taking a recipe that says it serves 4 and making it serve 2. That sort of thing.
After the food was done and dinner was had (if you guessed fried egg Sammies and rice, you’d be right!), I played Hearthstone all night, finally beating the Witchwood solo adventure and playing some constructed. Steve okayed Shadow of the Colossus and Nick was playing Demon’s Souls. A good night.
Because I went to bed so late and consumed alcohol, it was very difficult to wake up today. So instead I opted for sleeping in and recovering, with a brief wake up to watch the Catherine Babel run (god Catherine is SO GOOD). Soon after I actually woke up, Haley came over again to apply for more jobs. I felt like I couldn’t really do anything when she was here, so I just watched SGDQ. There were some pretty fun runs, such as a Mega Man 8 race, where the players ended 4 seconds apart (and it was a heartbreaker because they were neck and neck until one guy got bad luck on one boss that he could do nothing about).
I was really feeling love and affection for Steve, who I just wanted to be home so we could spend time together!! He just has been so cute lately and I love him so much!! After he got home and Haley left, we had some fun that we haven’t done in feels like forever because first my UTI stuff and then my period.
Today is Friday and that means Bring a Friend to yoga!! I couldn’t wait to take him, and even though Hannah was supposed to teach it but got sick, Stephanie was there and she made it a good class. I noticed Steve had his eyes closed most of the time, and I thought maybe because we close our eyes in the beginning to get grounded, he thought you’re supposed to do yoga the whole time with your eyes closed. So I poked him and whispered that he could keep his eyes open, and he whisper-shouted back (in a lighthearted frustrated tone), “I CANT because SWEAT keeping running in MY EYES!!”
It always makes me explode with love and appreciation when he comes to yoga with me, for his own health but also because it’s like, romantic to me that he wants to participate in a hobby I really care about even if it’s not something he’s as into as I am. I’m not like, dragging him along and he never complains. It means a lot to me <3
After yoga we stopped at Whole Foods, where we discovered that Prime members now get special deals, in the same way that co-op members get deals. I’m a Prime member, so that was nice. We picked up a few things (soba, beyond beef burgers for 4th of July, and mochi) and then headed home so I could make dinner.
Dinner was cooled soba with spice and open-faced fried egg sammies. I don’t like tracking my calories, at least not super intensely, but I do appreciate it when I’m unsure about how much I’m consuming. It helped me find out tonight that if I wanted to drink my Starbucks tea latte AND eat a whole avocado that I should cut my noodle serving in half and only use one piece of bread for my sandwich. Thanks, MyFitnessPal. You really did me a solid.
Right now MFP has me at 1959 calories, which is for when I work out a lot, but if I don’t burn more than 400 calories, I try to keep my consumption at around 1600 so that I’m just a bit under and hopefully will continue to lose vs gain or maintain.
The evening was spent relaxing with GDQ, watching some fun runs (the runs tend to get better as the week goes on). There were some pretty cool TAS runs of Celeste and Super Metroid, and there was a fun run of LoZ Wind Waker.
I was really feeling love and affection for Steve, who I just wanted to be home so we could spend time together!! He just has been so cute lately and I love him so much!! After he got home and Haley left, we had some fun that we haven’t done in feels like forever because first my UTI stuff and then my period.
Today is Friday and that means Bring a Friend to yoga!! I couldn’t wait to take him, and even though Hannah was supposed to teach it but got sick, Stephanie was there and she made it a good class. I noticed Steve had his eyes closed most of the time, and I thought maybe because we close our eyes in the beginning to get grounded, he thought you’re supposed to do yoga the whole time with your eyes closed. So I poked him and whispered that he could keep his eyes open, and he whisper-shouted back (in a lighthearted frustrated tone), “I CANT because SWEAT keeping running in MY EYES!!”
It always makes me explode with love and appreciation when he comes to yoga with me, for his own health but also because it’s like, romantic to me that he wants to participate in a hobby I really care about even if it’s not something he’s as into as I am. I’m not like, dragging him along and he never complains. It means a lot to me <3
After yoga we stopped at Whole Foods, where we discovered that Prime members now get special deals, in the same way that co-op members get deals. I’m a Prime member, so that was nice. We picked up a few things (soba, beyond beef burgers for 4th of July, and mochi) and then headed home so I could make dinner.
Dinner was cooled soba with spice and open-faced fried egg sammies. I don’t like tracking my calories, at least not super intensely, but I do appreciate it when I’m unsure about how much I’m consuming. It helped me find out tonight that if I wanted to drink my Starbucks tea latte AND eat a whole avocado that I should cut my noodle serving in half and only use one piece of bread for my sandwich. Thanks, MyFitnessPal. You really did me a solid.
Right now MFP has me at 1959 calories, which is for when I work out a lot, but if I don’t burn more than 400 calories, I try to keep my consumption at around 1600 so that I’m just a bit under and hopefully will continue to lose vs gain or maintain.
The evening was spent relaxing with GDQ, watching some fun runs (the runs tend to get better as the week goes on). There were some pretty cool TAS runs of Celeste and Super Metroid, and there was a fun run of LoZ Wind Waker.
This week is SGDQ, Summer Games Done Quick. GDQ does two charity 24/7 marathons per year, where people speed run games to earn money for Prevent Cancer Foundation (January) and Doctors Without Borders (June). SGDQ typically raises about $1 million USD, and AGDQ raises up to $2 million USD. This year they’re also going to do another one in the fall, but I haven’t researched it yet so I’m not sure what that’s for. Steve and I stared watching Games Done Quick in January 2013, and we’ve made it tradition to watch them all since.
Beginning with probably the last month of school, our house began to experience an increasing decline in its upkeep. I go through cycles of organization and slobbery, and it usually slowly builds up until it basically looks like Steve and I live in a state of squalor. Clothes end up everywhere, laundry doesnt get done, and when it DOES get done, it sits in baskets gaining wrinkles and soon it becomes impossible to remember which clothes are clean and which are dirty. Dishes begin to pile up, both in the sink and around the house (particularly our coffee and tea mugs)... my shoes end up all over the house, because usually I feel like I can’t stop on the landing, and instead wear my shoes to whichever room of the house I’m going to sit down in. It’s a terrible habit that I should fix. Mail ends up all over the place, yarn and projects are in randomly spots, cat food all over the floor........ you get the idea.
To combat this, I usually take a room at a time. When I decided to clean and organize, I CLEAN and ORGANIZE. Having grown up in Paul’s Cleaning Bootcamp TM, I tend to approach cleaning in a militant kind of way. I think this also helps explain why I avoid cleaning: when I clean, I am compelled to do it extremely thoroughly. I can’t half-ass it, or it’s not even clean and I wasted my time. So. I started with the kitchen, because a messy kitchen keeps me out of it. I deep cleaned both the coffee maker and the teapot, and now both run so smoothly. I reorganized the counters - they now have a lot of space. I moved the tea bag holders around and found new locations for the cooking utensils and noodles. I swept the kitchen, took out the trash, and did all the dishes. There honestly weren’t too many dishes, as we have a dishwasher, but many dishes failed to get clean because the wait to rinse them was too long. So I washed everything by hand and put it away. I also made some food, yay!
Noah and I have kept in touch about our food and exercise habits, as he experienced a rough week last week emotionally, which caused him to hate on himself a lot and try to sabotage, but he continues to lose weight, and has stayed under 300 pounds. I’m supporting him as best I can at jumping back on the wagon, and managing myself as well. Because of excuses and reasons, I didn’t do yoga for 2 weeks. In order to get that discount in the fall I need to attend 7 classes per month this summer, which means... I need to get in 5 classes this week. Perfect, honestly. Even though I’m cutting it down to the wire, I like the motivation to HAVE to go. To add in a layer of accountability, I signed up for classes for the first time since joining my studio. I have avoided booking classes and instead preferring to just show up, just in case I get lazy or something comes up. I’m the kind of person who typically does worse when people are watching, because the anxiety of letting people down becomes too great and I self-sabotage to the highest degree. If I outright fail people it will feel less bad than if I try and fail right???
Today’s class was Twilight flow, which is different depending on the instructor. Brandi is a woman I’ve emailed with, but never had a class with. I like Twilight class on Monday because that means I can go game shopping, and then go to class at 8pm. Steve, Nick and I went (haven’t seen Tyler in like a month, too busy being Stepdad of the Year) to LevelUp, but no games of note. We ate before we went, to hopefully allow me to digest before yoga. That was unsuccessful, and I spent the entire class feeling like my quesadilla was in my throat.
I loved Brandi’s class. She has a good energy, had really good words for us, and wasn’t as woo-woo as the other instructors. She’s still relatively new to the studio, so she was more hands-on and took the time to give little massages on our backs halfway through, and on our faces and shoulders at the end of class. Hannah used to do that, but then she stopped.
Since this is a class I’ve never been to, the people in there were all new to me. This means that I got several compliments on my hair and tattoos, both of which I am unaware of during yoga. Yoga is the only time in my life that I can tune everything else out and focus solely on my breathing and postures, so it’s really funny to remember that not only am I seeing other people, but they see me too. When I was walking out, a Mom commented on my hair and mentioned that her 10-year-old daughter asked for highlights and she was really nervous but bought her a semi-permanent dye. She relaxed into the conversation considerably when I told her I teach middle school, and I gave her some suggestions and tips (she surprisingly didn’t know that you can dye hair with kool-aid, which is the most common way I’ve seen younger kids get color in their hair), and she freaked out a little about her son turning 13 - I assured her 7th and 8th grade are so the best. So I guess I have a new Monday friend. Yay!
When I got home, Steve and Nick were watching SGDQ, and I played Hearthstone and talked to Ben Holland. Hopefully he’s coming over this weekend! I beat all of the bosses of the current solo adventure except 1, and I think I keep getting bad card choices because she is like everyone’s fave. Steve said something about how so many of our friends can’t get past early bosses, so I should be kinder to myself because I’m actually pretty decent at Hearthstone. Lol.
Beginning with probably the last month of school, our house began to experience an increasing decline in its upkeep. I go through cycles of organization and slobbery, and it usually slowly builds up until it basically looks like Steve and I live in a state of squalor. Clothes end up everywhere, laundry doesnt get done, and when it DOES get done, it sits in baskets gaining wrinkles and soon it becomes impossible to remember which clothes are clean and which are dirty. Dishes begin to pile up, both in the sink and around the house (particularly our coffee and tea mugs)... my shoes end up all over the house, because usually I feel like I can’t stop on the landing, and instead wear my shoes to whichever room of the house I’m going to sit down in. It’s a terrible habit that I should fix. Mail ends up all over the place, yarn and projects are in randomly spots, cat food all over the floor........ you get the idea.
To combat this, I usually take a room at a time. When I decided to clean and organize, I CLEAN and ORGANIZE. Having grown up in Paul’s Cleaning Bootcamp TM, I tend to approach cleaning in a militant kind of way. I think this also helps explain why I avoid cleaning: when I clean, I am compelled to do it extremely thoroughly. I can’t half-ass it, or it’s not even clean and I wasted my time. So. I started with the kitchen, because a messy kitchen keeps me out of it. I deep cleaned both the coffee maker and the teapot, and now both run so smoothly. I reorganized the counters - they now have a lot of space. I moved the tea bag holders around and found new locations for the cooking utensils and noodles. I swept the kitchen, took out the trash, and did all the dishes. There honestly weren’t too many dishes, as we have a dishwasher, but many dishes failed to get clean because the wait to rinse them was too long. So I washed everything by hand and put it away. I also made some food, yay!
Noah and I have kept in touch about our food and exercise habits, as he experienced a rough week last week emotionally, which caused him to hate on himself a lot and try to sabotage, but he continues to lose weight, and has stayed under 300 pounds. I’m supporting him as best I can at jumping back on the wagon, and managing myself as well. Because of excuses and reasons, I didn’t do yoga for 2 weeks. In order to get that discount in the fall I need to attend 7 classes per month this summer, which means... I need to get in 5 classes this week. Perfect, honestly. Even though I’m cutting it down to the wire, I like the motivation to HAVE to go. To add in a layer of accountability, I signed up for classes for the first time since joining my studio. I have avoided booking classes and instead preferring to just show up, just in case I get lazy or something comes up. I’m the kind of person who typically does worse when people are watching, because the anxiety of letting people down becomes too great and I self-sabotage to the highest degree. If I outright fail people it will feel less bad than if I try and fail right???
Today’s class was Twilight flow, which is different depending on the instructor. Brandi is a woman I’ve emailed with, but never had a class with. I like Twilight class on Monday because that means I can go game shopping, and then go to class at 8pm. Steve, Nick and I went (haven’t seen Tyler in like a month, too busy being Stepdad of the Year) to LevelUp, but no games of note. We ate before we went, to hopefully allow me to digest before yoga. That was unsuccessful, and I spent the entire class feeling like my quesadilla was in my throat.
I loved Brandi’s class. She has a good energy, had really good words for us, and wasn’t as woo-woo as the other instructors. She’s still relatively new to the studio, so she was more hands-on and took the time to give little massages on our backs halfway through, and on our faces and shoulders at the end of class. Hannah used to do that, but then she stopped.
Since this is a class I’ve never been to, the people in there were all new to me. This means that I got several compliments on my hair and tattoos, both of which I am unaware of during yoga. Yoga is the only time in my life that I can tune everything else out and focus solely on my breathing and postures, so it’s really funny to remember that not only am I seeing other people, but they see me too. When I was walking out, a Mom commented on my hair and mentioned that her 10-year-old daughter asked for highlights and she was really nervous but bought her a semi-permanent dye. She relaxed into the conversation considerably when I told her I teach middle school, and I gave her some suggestions and tips (she surprisingly didn’t know that you can dye hair with kool-aid, which is the most common way I’ve seen younger kids get color in their hair), and she freaked out a little about her son turning 13 - I assured her 7th and 8th grade are so the best. So I guess I have a new Monday friend. Yay!
When I got home, Steve and Nick were watching SGDQ, and I played Hearthstone and talked to Ben Holland. Hopefully he’s coming over this weekend! I beat all of the bosses of the current solo adventure except 1, and I think I keep getting bad card choices because she is like everyone’s fave. Steve said something about how so many of our friends can’t get past early bosses, so I should be kinder to myself because I’m actually pretty decent at Hearthstone. Lol.
33//Last classroom day with Tealie
Jun. 5th, 2018 11:02 pmTealie pointed out that today is our last ACTUAL teaching day together. When we found out two years ago that I would be with Jenny last year, we both got a bit emotional about the fact that we were breaking up as co-teachers, and now we're making it permanent! We tried, we really did!! It was actually sad to think about, because I feel like there was so much we didn’t get to do together this year because of various roadblocks, but overall the year was good. We didn’t have any real conflict that I can think, no tension between us or struggles. We got along really well and are much closer friends outside of work. She even has begun sending me more “home life” snaps that are more personal. It’s cute.
Today was another long day. At Nokomis I started going through and organizing my files intermittently, and then I went up and pulled Idrew to talk about his services for next year. Janice had caught me in the hallway and said he seemed a little less happy to see her, and she was worried he was upset about qualifying. So he and I had a really good conversation about what the services will look like for him - they won’t be much. At this point it will just be a study skills class to help him with his work. He is smart, so he’ll be in gen ed classes all the way. I gave him the rundown of the structure of the day there, how teachers will help him, how he’ll definitely make friends (and several of his peers will be attending Parkway too). At one point I asked him what his biggest fear is about going to middle school, and he gave the cutest answer: “Like I’m the new kid and everyone will be staring at me.” Awwwwwwww.
I went back to Parkway to finish testing Miracle, and that took almost 2 hours because I was giving her breaks and chatting with her and Aazariah. I hadn’t had a chance like this all year to really connect with her, and I know both of their older brothers. I never had either of them in class, but Miracle’s brother Tre was in my buddy room a lot. He seemed like a cute kid, just some difficulties with focus and I know he has an untreated hearing problem. Miracle told me he got arrested this year for breaking into someone’s house, and she went on at length about how he’s not a bad kid and he’s been mixed up with a bad crowd since going to high school and his life has been threatened as a result of the fact that he’s trying not to run around with these other boys after going to court and having house arrest. She’s really worried about him and said she’s still mad at him for behaving that way. I know she’s just really worried about him and her family means so much to her.
After testing I drove us to Dairyette. It’s like a Dairy Queen, but it’s a one-off establishment that’s been around forever on the east side. I bought them each a treat for staying so long after school with me. While there I ran into Gustavo! He goes to the high school closest to Parkway. He seemed good, he asked about anime club and the kids he was hanging out with completely reminded me of the group in Spider-Man: Homecoming - unapologetically geeky but also really funny. He seemed sad that I wasn’t gonna be at Parkway next year even though he never even visits, lol.
I walked the girls across the street to the apartments where Miracle lives. She harassed her mom about,eating us in, banging on the door and calling her several times in the span of 30 seconds, and her mom came storming to the door yelling, and the look on her face when she saw me was hilarious. She of course stopped yelling immediately and apologized to me, saying that Miracle will often call her from WITHIN the tiny apartment. I told her she didn’t need to apologize to me, and that I had told Miracle she was being annoying. Lol. We talked about Miracle for a bit, she signed the papers I needed her to, and I was on my way home.
Once I got home I realized I was so damn tired. Steve and I laid down for what we thought was only a short amount of time, but turned out it was almost 2 hours!! We must have been really tired. It felt sooo good to sleep but it meant I was too hungry and low energy for yoga, unfortunately. I fixed us up some delicious potato kale soup with leek, and it was AMAZING. I toasted some bread cubes and pumpkin seeds and that took it to a whole new level. Soon after we ate we both realized we didn’t have near enough calories for the day, so I suggested maybe we get ice cream from Dairy Queen. When we started walking, I opened Pokémon Go to find I had an EX Pass! Gasp! And it isn’t for this weekend, thank god, since we went be in town this weekend. I practice,y yelled at Steve to check his phone but didn’t want to give it away, so I got to watch his face light up at his own surprise invitation. It’s for next Tuesday to catch MewTwo and I could not be more excited.
We made the short trek to DQ, he got a seasonal fruit blizzard (small) and I got a salted caramel blizzard (mini). They were perfect to our needs and a great treat to end the day, but I was SO thirsty by the time we got home.
Today was another long day. At Nokomis I started going through and organizing my files intermittently, and then I went up and pulled Idrew to talk about his services for next year. Janice had caught me in the hallway and said he seemed a little less happy to see her, and she was worried he was upset about qualifying. So he and I had a really good conversation about what the services will look like for him - they won’t be much. At this point it will just be a study skills class to help him with his work. He is smart, so he’ll be in gen ed classes all the way. I gave him the rundown of the structure of the day there, how teachers will help him, how he’ll definitely make friends (and several of his peers will be attending Parkway too). At one point I asked him what his biggest fear is about going to middle school, and he gave the cutest answer: “Like I’m the new kid and everyone will be staring at me.” Awwwwwwww.
I went back to Parkway to finish testing Miracle, and that took almost 2 hours because I was giving her breaks and chatting with her and Aazariah. I hadn’t had a chance like this all year to really connect with her, and I know both of their older brothers. I never had either of them in class, but Miracle’s brother Tre was in my buddy room a lot. He seemed like a cute kid, just some difficulties with focus and I know he has an untreated hearing problem. Miracle told me he got arrested this year for breaking into someone’s house, and she went on at length about how he’s not a bad kid and he’s been mixed up with a bad crowd since going to high school and his life has been threatened as a result of the fact that he’s trying not to run around with these other boys after going to court and having house arrest. She’s really worried about him and said she’s still mad at him for behaving that way. I know she’s just really worried about him and her family means so much to her.
After testing I drove us to Dairyette. It’s like a Dairy Queen, but it’s a one-off establishment that’s been around forever on the east side. I bought them each a treat for staying so long after school with me. While there I ran into Gustavo! He goes to the high school closest to Parkway. He seemed good, he asked about anime club and the kids he was hanging out with completely reminded me of the group in Spider-Man: Homecoming - unapologetically geeky but also really funny. He seemed sad that I wasn’t gonna be at Parkway next year even though he never even visits, lol.
I walked the girls across the street to the apartments where Miracle lives. She harassed her mom about,eating us in, banging on the door and calling her several times in the span of 30 seconds, and her mom came storming to the door yelling, and the look on her face when she saw me was hilarious. She of course stopped yelling immediately and apologized to me, saying that Miracle will often call her from WITHIN the tiny apartment. I told her she didn’t need to apologize to me, and that I had told Miracle she was being annoying. Lol. We talked about Miracle for a bit, she signed the papers I needed her to, and I was on my way home.
Once I got home I realized I was so damn tired. Steve and I laid down for what we thought was only a short amount of time, but turned out it was almost 2 hours!! We must have been really tired. It felt sooo good to sleep but it meant I was too hungry and low energy for yoga, unfortunately. I fixed us up some delicious potato kale soup with leek, and it was AMAZING. I toasted some bread cubes and pumpkin seeds and that took it to a whole new level. Soon after we ate we both realized we didn’t have near enough calories for the day, so I suggested maybe we get ice cream from Dairy Queen. When we started walking, I opened Pokémon Go to find I had an EX Pass! Gasp! And it isn’t for this weekend, thank god, since we went be in town this weekend. I practice,y yelled at Steve to check his phone but didn’t want to give it away, so I got to watch his face light up at his own surprise invitation. It’s for next Tuesday to catch MewTwo and I could not be more excited.
We made the short trek to DQ, he got a seasonal fruit blizzard (small) and I got a salted caramel blizzard (mini). They were perfect to our needs and a great treat to end the day, but I was SO thirsty by the time we got home.
Today was the last Sunday Sads day I will have until the end of August! Woooo! But it's a pretty intense SS day, because I just have soooo much to do, and so much I WANT to do. I was definitely worried today that I would spend the day in the same paralyzed limbo and I COULDN'T!!!
I got going a bit late today even though I woke up around 9. I read PostSecret and read texts from Bethany and Haley, and then Steve got the coffee ready while I planned out our meals for the week. It's going to be a very yummy week! We had green smoothies last week for breakfast, so I'm mixing it up with peach and banana smoothies with oats this week. Lunches are a play off of Naf Naf, since we've both been really into hummus and pitas. Dinner is a soup and tacos. I like to have two different things for each meal to keep it interesting - the worst is when I make one things for the whole week and get bored of it and end up eating out. Even though we bought an insane amount of produce last week, I think we managed to use almost all of it, and I'm using things that are left for this week! The only thing we might not use all of the leftovers from are the roma tomatoes; I ended up not making a double batch of one of the soups like I thought I'd need to.
I feel like week one of being consistently healthy was a success, both food-wise and exercise-wise. We only ate out yesterday, and I think eating out only one time hasn't happened for us in YEARS, because we almost always eat out on Mondays and Sundays for sure. When we weighed in, I was 0.2 pounds less than a week ago, but we took body measurements a month ago and I'm down on my waist and hips, so that's encouraging. I can see significantly less bloat in my face and belly; my pants already fit noticeably better. Steve also has experienced progress, but he's belligerent with me about measuring even though weight is no better a measure!! Lol.
Shopping was done at The Wedge, and that was pretty uneventful and quick, and it ended up being pretty cheap for a week's worth of food (for us). It helps that I use my aunt's member discount too ;D After a little bit of traffic due to construction on the way back, we were able to get home in a timely fashion. I put away the groceries and made the first round of lunches, and debated on the breakfasts, but they don't take long to prepare, and we won't need dinner until Tuesday. I've found that doing all the meal prep on Sunday annoys me more right now than preparing a couple days at a time, and I'm more likely to eat something I've recently interacted with than something that's been out of sight for several days.
Steve and I scrounged for some snacks, and then he suggested we go for a walk. Awesome, I'd been lamenting to myself about not being able to go outside. We walked to the park and played Pokemon Go, and then I suggested we continue the walk, initially thinking of going the shortest of the three routes, but then we took the long way, woo! It was chilly at first and windy the entire way. My hat blew off my head several times, and it was knocked off my head by Steve once. I was wearing a hoodie so I warmed up quickly. A good time was had, and I may have seen one a favorite student from the year I student taught - Duane - that group is graduating high school this year! If I'd just been in a T-shirt he might have recognized me because of my tattoo, but I was wearing a hat, my glasses were tinted, a hoodie, and my hair at the time of student teaching was in a pixie cut and is now past my shoulders. I don't mind extremely awkwardly chatting if a student recognizes me, even if I'm sweaty and red the entire time.
The walk took about an hour and 45 minutes, and then it was time to actually eat something substantial for dinner. I bought some vegan pulled pork the other day and have been really enjoying eating it wrapped in lettuce with avocado. FINALLY, time to work. I sat down and spent a good chunk of time finishing up Idrew's evaluation pieces that I was responsible for. I got everything done except his background info and a parent interview, which are arguably not significant compared to the testing and checklists. While I did that, Steve played Hearthstone and we had The Office on.
I have more to do but I just couldn't bring myself to do anymore work tonight! I continued watching the Office and missed Steve from across the room.
I got going a bit late today even though I woke up around 9. I read PostSecret and read texts from Bethany and Haley, and then Steve got the coffee ready while I planned out our meals for the week. It's going to be a very yummy week! We had green smoothies last week for breakfast, so I'm mixing it up with peach and banana smoothies with oats this week. Lunches are a play off of Naf Naf, since we've both been really into hummus and pitas. Dinner is a soup and tacos. I like to have two different things for each meal to keep it interesting - the worst is when I make one things for the whole week and get bored of it and end up eating out. Even though we bought an insane amount of produce last week, I think we managed to use almost all of it, and I'm using things that are left for this week! The only thing we might not use all of the leftovers from are the roma tomatoes; I ended up not making a double batch of one of the soups like I thought I'd need to.
I feel like week one of being consistently healthy was a success, both food-wise and exercise-wise. We only ate out yesterday, and I think eating out only one time hasn't happened for us in YEARS, because we almost always eat out on Mondays and Sundays for sure. When we weighed in, I was 0.2 pounds less than a week ago, but we took body measurements a month ago and I'm down on my waist and hips, so that's encouraging. I can see significantly less bloat in my face and belly; my pants already fit noticeably better. Steve also has experienced progress, but he's belligerent with me about measuring even though weight is no better a measure!! Lol.
Shopping was done at The Wedge, and that was pretty uneventful and quick, and it ended up being pretty cheap for a week's worth of food (for us). It helps that I use my aunt's member discount too ;D After a little bit of traffic due to construction on the way back, we were able to get home in a timely fashion. I put away the groceries and made the first round of lunches, and debated on the breakfasts, but they don't take long to prepare, and we won't need dinner until Tuesday. I've found that doing all the meal prep on Sunday annoys me more right now than preparing a couple days at a time, and I'm more likely to eat something I've recently interacted with than something that's been out of sight for several days.
Steve and I scrounged for some snacks, and then he suggested we go for a walk. Awesome, I'd been lamenting to myself about not being able to go outside. We walked to the park and played Pokemon Go, and then I suggested we continue the walk, initially thinking of going the shortest of the three routes, but then we took the long way, woo! It was chilly at first and windy the entire way. My hat blew off my head several times, and it was knocked off my head by Steve once. I was wearing a hoodie so I warmed up quickly. A good time was had, and I may have seen one a favorite student from the year I student taught - Duane - that group is graduating high school this year! If I'd just been in a T-shirt he might have recognized me because of my tattoo, but I was wearing a hat, my glasses were tinted, a hoodie, and my hair at the time of student teaching was in a pixie cut and is now past my shoulders. I don't mind extremely awkwardly chatting if a student recognizes me, even if I'm sweaty and red the entire time.
The walk took about an hour and 45 minutes, and then it was time to actually eat something substantial for dinner. I bought some vegan pulled pork the other day and have been really enjoying eating it wrapped in lettuce with avocado. FINALLY, time to work. I sat down and spent a good chunk of time finishing up Idrew's evaluation pieces that I was responsible for. I got everything done except his background info and a parent interview, which are arguably not significant compared to the testing and checklists. While I did that, Steve played Hearthstone and we had The Office on.
I have more to do but I just couldn't bring myself to do anymore work tonight! I continued watching the Office and missed Steve from across the room.
28//Teaching, yoga, and dance games
May. 31st, 2018 07:12 amFinally I was able to get up and wake Steve up in time for morning coffee! Yay! It’s sooo hard to wake up when the snuggles and sleep are so good. Also I realized I wrote day 14 twice, whoops, gotta fix those lol.
Tealie told me last night that she was calling in because she’s trying to sell her house and needed to schedule several appointments, which intellectually I was totally fine with and support her, but also it’s so annoying and stressful (at least until first block gets going). For some reason every time she’s gone I am max annoyed for foundations and the beginning of first block, but then I remember everything is fine. It’s not like the kids only behave for Tealie, but they ARE rude to subs usually. Thankfully (tbh) she didn’t appear to have one, so I got to spend the first half of first hour with Nicki covering for Tealie. I liked having nicki in the room, because she has a loud voice and at the beginning when I couldn’t find the math review she gave them a stern speech about when they go to 7th grade and the expected noise level. After math review, things went smoothly. We were doing an activity that measures and compares the hand span of everyone in the room, and the way I structured it really worked for them. When we were finished, we went outside for like a half hour (our classes are 80 minutes). Malik of course fell down immediately and bloodied his leg up somehow, but he was back eventually. The rest of the kids organized a couple of games of tag or did little competitive things on the swings. It was relaxing and fun.
Even though I get kind of annoyed, and I’m sure she does too when I’m gone (and I had a lot of paperwork days this year), we never are snippy with each other about it because we’re always being supportive. She texted me halfway through the day checking in, because Kristin made sure to text her and let her know no sub showed up for her, stressing her out, but I just reassured her and she cheered up.
Second block was good, I spent the time running between each kid basically in the first group, and it was uneventful and nice. Second group Dyshawn asked if he could be reading his book for English in the pod, and he sat right outside the door and did read for a decent amount of time.
I had to be at Nokomis at the right time today because my replacement was shadowing me today, and st first I was a little stressed, but since she’s been in the district and has already done split schools, it was wayyy more relaxed than I thought it would be. It ended up being an easy day other than talking a lot about students we’re finishing up, including talking to Brian and Todd over the phone about kids at parkway.
I came home and tried to nap because I was sooo tired, but first I got distracted with Steve, which we both weren’t even expecting and was a nice way to spend my getting home. Lol. THEN I tried to nap, and I think I dozed a little right at the beginning but after like 10 minutes or so I just couldn’t sleep. I only had like a half hour until I was supposed to go to yoga, and when it was time to go I felt so tired it was like I was sick, but I need to stop being reluctant to go to yoga when I love it when I’m there. And I’m so out of practice it’s absurd and frankly makes me sad. So I got up and changed and headed out. It was easier to motivate myself because Hannah was teaching the class tonight, and she’s still by far my favorite instructor. She was subbing for Brittany, and Brittany loves handstands and other inversions, so we spent the hour working on shoulders, core, and legs. I like Hannah’s way of doing core, which is insanely hard but atypical. She has us use our blankets to go from plank to pulling our legs in, in various ways. Vs several others who like to basically do sit-ups and other lame things. The last time I was working on handstand I was able to do L pose pretty good, but today my back was not having it. Which was okay. I felt so good just doing yoga again. When I looked at the schedule, I saw Hannah’s back to doing hot yoga on Saturday mornings, and I just have to go. My favorite time period of doing yoga was when I was consistently able to go to Hannah’s hot yoga class, which at the time was on Monday. I just love how long you hold each pose for, and that it’s the same poses and yet they never get old, and you can really monitor your flexibility and accuracy in the pose.
This was something Steve and I talked about later, about how I was happiest and felt the strongest and healthiest when I was going to yoga almost every day. I asked him to encourage me to go to yoga when I’m being lazy, and he reminded me that people (me) can get belligerent when asked to get active when they’re (I’m) not feeling like it for whatever reason (usually because I’m tired). So we talked about and agreed upon a silly and horrible “code phrase” that he gets to use if I refuse.
I was feeling pumped up still after getting home, so I decided to play some ITG after Steve was done. By the time I got home he’d basically completed his sit and was tired, so I hopped on while he played Owlboy. Shoe-wise it was a bad day, my feet were extra slippery in the shoes (whereas last time I thought I was getting used to to them). However, even with the mild tantruming I did, I did improve a few scores. Most notably I finally got a 98% on Cryosleep, which was one of my oldest scores, from October of last year. Lately my TimeHop has been showing me when I got old scores over the last 5 years, and even from two years ago it’s crazy to see how much I’ve improved. It’s nice to see that progress!
I’ve continued to chat with and encourage Noah on mfp and he and Steve and I have been a good mfp team!
Tealie told me last night that she was calling in because she’s trying to sell her house and needed to schedule several appointments, which intellectually I was totally fine with and support her, but also it’s so annoying and stressful (at least until first block gets going). For some reason every time she’s gone I am max annoyed for foundations and the beginning of first block, but then I remember everything is fine. It’s not like the kids only behave for Tealie, but they ARE rude to subs usually. Thankfully (tbh) she didn’t appear to have one, so I got to spend the first half of first hour with Nicki covering for Tealie. I liked having nicki in the room, because she has a loud voice and at the beginning when I couldn’t find the math review she gave them a stern speech about when they go to 7th grade and the expected noise level. After math review, things went smoothly. We were doing an activity that measures and compares the hand span of everyone in the room, and the way I structured it really worked for them. When we were finished, we went outside for like a half hour (our classes are 80 minutes). Malik of course fell down immediately and bloodied his leg up somehow, but he was back eventually. The rest of the kids organized a couple of games of tag or did little competitive things on the swings. It was relaxing and fun.
Even though I get kind of annoyed, and I’m sure she does too when I’m gone (and I had a lot of paperwork days this year), we never are snippy with each other about it because we’re always being supportive. She texted me halfway through the day checking in, because Kristin made sure to text her and let her know no sub showed up for her, stressing her out, but I just reassured her and she cheered up.
Second block was good, I spent the time running between each kid basically in the first group, and it was uneventful and nice. Second group Dyshawn asked if he could be reading his book for English in the pod, and he sat right outside the door and did read for a decent amount of time.
I had to be at Nokomis at the right time today because my replacement was shadowing me today, and st first I was a little stressed, but since she’s been in the district and has already done split schools, it was wayyy more relaxed than I thought it would be. It ended up being an easy day other than talking a lot about students we’re finishing up, including talking to Brian and Todd over the phone about kids at parkway.
I came home and tried to nap because I was sooo tired, but first I got distracted with Steve, which we both weren’t even expecting and was a nice way to spend my getting home. Lol. THEN I tried to nap, and I think I dozed a little right at the beginning but after like 10 minutes or so I just couldn’t sleep. I only had like a half hour until I was supposed to go to yoga, and when it was time to go I felt so tired it was like I was sick, but I need to stop being reluctant to go to yoga when I love it when I’m there. And I’m so out of practice it’s absurd and frankly makes me sad. So I got up and changed and headed out. It was easier to motivate myself because Hannah was teaching the class tonight, and she’s still by far my favorite instructor. She was subbing for Brittany, and Brittany loves handstands and other inversions, so we spent the hour working on shoulders, core, and legs. I like Hannah’s way of doing core, which is insanely hard but atypical. She has us use our blankets to go from plank to pulling our legs in, in various ways. Vs several others who like to basically do sit-ups and other lame things. The last time I was working on handstand I was able to do L pose pretty good, but today my back was not having it. Which was okay. I felt so good just doing yoga again. When I looked at the schedule, I saw Hannah’s back to doing hot yoga on Saturday mornings, and I just have to go. My favorite time period of doing yoga was when I was consistently able to go to Hannah’s hot yoga class, which at the time was on Monday. I just love how long you hold each pose for, and that it’s the same poses and yet they never get old, and you can really monitor your flexibility and accuracy in the pose.
This was something Steve and I talked about later, about how I was happiest and felt the strongest and healthiest when I was going to yoga almost every day. I asked him to encourage me to go to yoga when I’m being lazy, and he reminded me that people (me) can get belligerent when asked to get active when they’re (I’m) not feeling like it for whatever reason (usually because I’m tired). So we talked about and agreed upon a silly and horrible “code phrase” that he gets to use if I refuse.
I was feeling pumped up still after getting home, so I decided to play some ITG after Steve was done. By the time I got home he’d basically completed his sit and was tired, so I hopped on while he played Owlboy. Shoe-wise it was a bad day, my feet were extra slippery in the shoes (whereas last time I thought I was getting used to to them). However, even with the mild tantruming I did, I did improve a few scores. Most notably I finally got a 98% on Cryosleep, which was one of my oldest scores, from October of last year. Lately my TimeHop has been showing me when I got old scores over the last 5 years, and even from two years ago it’s crazy to see how much I’ve improved. It’s nice to see that progress!
I’ve continued to chat with and encourage Noah on mfp and he and Steve and I have been a good mfp team!
Wait, it’s already halfway through the week?? That’s both exciting and terrifying. We only have one more real week left of school and I have so much to do, including a lot of things that require me to test students - not just paperwork typing. I’m definitely fucked again this year with regards to filing... getting access to our special ed files is so much hassle and I hate it! I was also quite terrible with progress reports, though I believe I’m not the only one by far so phew. It just means I’ll have a long Monday the 11th getting everything finished. Lucky for me though, since I only have 6th graders I don’t need to freak out as much as other years, since none of my kids’ files are getting sent along to high schools. That was my big issue in previous years, especially my first one (where I had 10 8th graders omg).
My day was spent feverishly trying to test and get emails sent out, and by the end of the day I had a pretty bad headache, so I came home to a waiting Steve and tried to nap away my headache in the dark. The nap was unsuccessful because I realized I wasn’t tired, just low energy and kind of emotional. Eventually I sat back up and did some scrolling until Steve was kind enough to heat us up some dinner, more potato soup. Yummm. When he was gone I started thinking about how grateful I am that Steve has stuck with me, and how strong he is, and how much I love our life and how much I appreciate him. I mean I think that stuff all the time, but seeing Pat and Aimee for some reason really launched my head into a tailspin about how even though it was just 3 months ago, that all that feels like a completely different life, and I feel so divorced from that behavior, and a life without Steve is such a sad, empty, pathetic version of a life that is so pale and colorless. He makes my life so full of happiness and love, and I don’t want a life where he’s not in it. So all of that has been swirling in my head and he brought me down heated up soup and bread and I just started crying. He asked me what was going on and I tried to tell him, I hope I did an okay job. It’s hard to articulate all of my feelings on the matter and they just get so intense that apparently what I do now is cry. Lol.
After I calmed down and we talked about it, we ate our soup and enjoyed Kripp playing some Hearthstone, exactly what I want to be doing with my life, and precisely who I want to be spending that time with. Soon after, Nick came over. We chatted for awhile about this and that, and then put on The Office while Nick continued Uncharted and I got scolded for continuing to scroll and not knit, which was so valid. I really would rather be knitting, I think it’s just that I love the iPad so much, it’s hard to transition away. I knit a good chunk more rows on my LYS shawl. I’m about 1 and a half repeats from doing my first color change. The Hedgehog fibers yarn is GORGEOUS and soft and I love working with it. I continue to encourage everyone to take up knitting, it is such a fine hobby AND YOU GET TO USE WHAT YOU MAKE (or gift it, whichever). Like you make an actual textile and it is amazing, and super impressive to non-knitters. To be fair, a lot of it IS impressive. But still. ;)
YarnHarlot posted an entry recently where she was able to take horrible, cheap dishcloth yarn and weave two very nice scarves out of it, and it has made me even MORE excited to learn weaving with Sean next weekend at Sow’s Ear. Another fantastic use of yarn, can’t wait.
Noah and I texted a bit about our food consumption and MyFitnessPal. Noah is realizing that MFP underestimates calories and overestimates exercise. I explained that with my Apple Watch , my scores get wonky as the watch actually tracks my true activity, which can lower (or raise) my total amount of food to consume for the day. It’s kinda cool but also kinda confusing. I’m just aiming for a specific range at this point until I get a better grasp of my activity levels. But Noah sent me a super cute text that ended with, “thanks for excitedly doing this with me, it’s keeping me motivated to become a thinner dood.” Awwww. It was so sweet, but more starkly put into perspective how he lives in the middle of nowhere with only white racists and teenagers as company, and I want to be a good friend! And you KNOW how much I love a good motivational health regimen. What better way than with friends who need support?!
I forgot to mention yesterday that Steve and I went to Stephanie’s Yoga Flow class for anniversary and that was super good and fun. She moved a bit too fast for my liking, and she was as dopey as ever. I prefer classes with slightly less poses in favor of holding to get a deeper stretch. If you’ve ever tried to hold a pose for even 45 seconds, you know that *less* poses does NOT equal *easier* poses. Moving too fast just means that you can’t settle in, make sure you’re doing the pose correctly, with all its micro adjustments and muscle fatigue. But it was good to go for anniversary, and I really want to find a class that works for Steve. Maybe I’ll take him to hot yoga, since that’s the same poses every time and they are slow and drawn out. But still the opposite of easy.
Now I’m about to head to bed. Nick is still here but I think he def needs to head home relatively soon because he has to work, and Steve will probably stay up playing Owl Boy on the Switch, which we just got in the mail yesterday. Looks good so far!
My day was spent feverishly trying to test and get emails sent out, and by the end of the day I had a pretty bad headache, so I came home to a waiting Steve and tried to nap away my headache in the dark. The nap was unsuccessful because I realized I wasn’t tired, just low energy and kind of emotional. Eventually I sat back up and did some scrolling until Steve was kind enough to heat us up some dinner, more potato soup. Yummm. When he was gone I started thinking about how grateful I am that Steve has stuck with me, and how strong he is, and how much I love our life and how much I appreciate him. I mean I think that stuff all the time, but seeing Pat and Aimee for some reason really launched my head into a tailspin about how even though it was just 3 months ago, that all that feels like a completely different life, and I feel so divorced from that behavior, and a life without Steve is such a sad, empty, pathetic version of a life that is so pale and colorless. He makes my life so full of happiness and love, and I don’t want a life where he’s not in it. So all of that has been swirling in my head and he brought me down heated up soup and bread and I just started crying. He asked me what was going on and I tried to tell him, I hope I did an okay job. It’s hard to articulate all of my feelings on the matter and they just get so intense that apparently what I do now is cry. Lol.
After I calmed down and we talked about it, we ate our soup and enjoyed Kripp playing some Hearthstone, exactly what I want to be doing with my life, and precisely who I want to be spending that time with. Soon after, Nick came over. We chatted for awhile about this and that, and then put on The Office while Nick continued Uncharted and I got scolded for continuing to scroll and not knit, which was so valid. I really would rather be knitting, I think it’s just that I love the iPad so much, it’s hard to transition away. I knit a good chunk more rows on my LYS shawl. I’m about 1 and a half repeats from doing my first color change. The Hedgehog fibers yarn is GORGEOUS and soft and I love working with it. I continue to encourage everyone to take up knitting, it is such a fine hobby AND YOU GET TO USE WHAT YOU MAKE (or gift it, whichever). Like you make an actual textile and it is amazing, and super impressive to non-knitters. To be fair, a lot of it IS impressive. But still. ;)
YarnHarlot posted an entry recently where she was able to take horrible, cheap dishcloth yarn and weave two very nice scarves out of it, and it has made me even MORE excited to learn weaving with Sean next weekend at Sow’s Ear. Another fantastic use of yarn, can’t wait.
Noah and I texted a bit about our food consumption and MyFitnessPal. Noah is realizing that MFP underestimates calories and overestimates exercise. I explained that with my Apple Watch , my scores get wonky as the watch actually tracks my true activity, which can lower (or raise) my total amount of food to consume for the day. It’s kinda cool but also kinda confusing. I’m just aiming for a specific range at this point until I get a better grasp of my activity levels. But Noah sent me a super cute text that ended with, “thanks for excitedly doing this with me, it’s keeping me motivated to become a thinner dood.” Awwww. It was so sweet, but more starkly put into perspective how he lives in the middle of nowhere with only white racists and teenagers as company, and I want to be a good friend! And you KNOW how much I love a good motivational health regimen. What better way than with friends who need support?!
I forgot to mention yesterday that Steve and I went to Stephanie’s Yoga Flow class for anniversary and that was super good and fun. She moved a bit too fast for my liking, and she was as dopey as ever. I prefer classes with slightly less poses in favor of holding to get a deeper stretch. If you’ve ever tried to hold a pose for even 45 seconds, you know that *less* poses does NOT equal *easier* poses. Moving too fast just means that you can’t settle in, make sure you’re doing the pose correctly, with all its micro adjustments and muscle fatigue. But it was good to go for anniversary, and I really want to find a class that works for Steve. Maybe I’ll take him to hot yoga, since that’s the same poses every time and they are slow and drawn out. But still the opposite of easy.
Now I’m about to head to bed. Nick is still here but I think he def needs to head home relatively soon because he has to work, and Steve will probably stay up playing Owl Boy on the Switch, which we just got in the mail yesterday. Looks good so far!
Tags:
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- couple chronicles,
- deep thought,
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- noah,
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Sunday part deux. Got up a little later than I would have liked, a bit after 10. Other than the fact that I should be going to bed in 12 hours, I was mostly okay with it because I woke up SO MANY times with terrible heartburn. Damn you eating slightly before bed! When did I get so old that I legit get heartburn from so many things and from not following these damn food rules, like when you’re not supposed to eat within a certain range of your bedtime?! Hate it!
I made us morning smoothies again, but this time I used a bit less water, and that made the smoothies more manageable. I didn’t have to cut down on the other ingredients so that was good. One side effect of the whole more vegan lifestyle* is the pooping. I already poop more often than the average person - you can guarantee that if I have time, I will poop twice before I leave for work, once at mid day, once when I get home from work, and once probably around dinner time. And that’s at a minimum. You might be able to say that my two morning poops are part of the same poop, and I’d allow it; I don’t have time to sit on the toilet for 45 minutes while my body remembers to move the next bit along. The good news is, I don’t have anything blocking me up, but it’s time consuming and like CALM DOWN BODY. I have never really been the kind of person who gets either diarrhea or constipated. Only when really sick or traveling. But with going ham on the fresh produce, I feel like I can poop every single time I go to the bathroom! This is really getting out of hand. XD I think i would be far less happy withy situation if I didn’t have a bidet. Seriously, if you don’t have one, look into one, get one immediately. No more insane, inefficient wiping! Just a few seconds of water and pat to dry and you’re good to go. Ahhhh.
Uh, so where was I? Oh yes, after breakfast. Steve and I wrote our respective entries for yesterday, which was a good lead-in for the real part of the day: anniversary. We showered and decided we were gonna go mini golfing at Can Can Wonderland. Yay! At the gas station I decided to double check the directions, and I noticed Google say that they are closed. Whaaaat? Go to the website and sure enough: Monday through Wednesday there is no wonderland to be had. Damn! Steve and I looked into a couple other places, but they wouldn’t be opening until 3. In the meantime, we wanted to get that ice cream we were craving. And by ice cream I meant soy ice cream. So we headed over to J. Selby’s. Steve rightly suggested we actually eat there since I was bound to hangry if we didn’t. Being mindful of our goals, I ordered the house salad and Steve ordered the vegan fried rice. Now, when I said “house salad,” did you picture iceberg lettuce, a couple tomato wedges and cucumber slices, a little red onion, croutons and ranch? Well, that just means you’ve never gone to J Selbys. Please behold the J House salad in all its glory:
Not only could this salad legitimately feed a family grazing before a holiday meal, but it was so rich with yummy ingredients that I could not have been happier. The dressing I got was a house-made lemon garlic tahini, and the croutons for the salad were also housemade. I ate probably slightly less than half. I did this by literally making my own mini salads using the plate that the condiments had come on, so that I could appropriately distribute each individual ingredient to my liking. I was very pleased with the result and the leftovers.
At some point during the meal it began to rain a decent amount, and Steve made a comment about maybe it wasn’t a mini golf day. Not to be deterred, I suggested we simply go to Mall of America to play at their okay course and walk around. Thankfully, he was agreeable to this and we headed out. The mall wasn’t super packed, and that was nice. It’s SO MUCH more tolerable on weekdays than weekends. We had a couple of false starts with the golf course but would circle away when we’d see like, a family of four just buying their game or a huge line forming. There were not enough people at the mall or playing the course to justify waiting behind people the whole time. That just allowed for some decent Pokémon Go (of course) and just general meandering around the mall.
Finally we got to play mini golf and I slowly and steadily kept falling further and further behind. At least for the first half. I was surprised to find at the end that I was only two strokes behind Steve (three if you don’t count a silly TERRIBLE mulligan attempt), who was still several over par. Not our best day, score-wise, but definitely top two experiences playing the course. The pars for each hole have clearly not been updated as the course has, because there are some ridiculous par 2’s that I would love to see someone get.
After mini golf, more Pokémon Go. I was able to secure a Latias this time, though it was still super close - I had been down to my second to last Pokéball. Phew. I did it! Lol.
Home was dinner - potato soup for me, relaxing with Steve reading more of Ben’s book out loud while I knit or comforted Grim. Ever since the tree fell on our house in 2015, Grim has been terrified of loud noises, and is the saddest most miserable cat in storms. When his anxiety gets too bad he usually will go downstairs and hide in the bathroom, but today he laid stiffly against me, pressing into my hand and being curled up so tight. No shaking this time though and he’s still on the bed. Noah and I texted a bit today about MyFitnessPal, eating and exercise, because being healthier is way more fun with friends.
Made a little progress on Steve’s sock. I thought I was closer to the heel than I was, but I was glad that I could just knit round and round still. His feet are so much bigger than mine, I constantly think I’m making them too big around, and then I put them on his foot:
All in all, I’d say a super solid anniversary. Definitely grateful to have Steve in my life and him to let me be a part of his. What a good life.
*most things I cook are vegan, or barely not-vegan. I don’t use eggs in my cooking and I rarely use cheese. If I do, it’s small-farm and not-cow if possible. When I get coffee though, 99% of the time I’ll just get half and half cream, because most nondairy dreamers are flavored and gross. The brand I buy for home is NOT heavily flavored and is delicious.
I made us morning smoothies again, but this time I used a bit less water, and that made the smoothies more manageable. I didn’t have to cut down on the other ingredients so that was good. One side effect of the whole more vegan lifestyle* is the pooping. I already poop more often than the average person - you can guarantee that if I have time, I will poop twice before I leave for work, once at mid day, once when I get home from work, and once probably around dinner time. And that’s at a minimum. You might be able to say that my two morning poops are part of the same poop, and I’d allow it; I don’t have time to sit on the toilet for 45 minutes while my body remembers to move the next bit along. The good news is, I don’t have anything blocking me up, but it’s time consuming and like CALM DOWN BODY. I have never really been the kind of person who gets either diarrhea or constipated. Only when really sick or traveling. But with going ham on the fresh produce, I feel like I can poop every single time I go to the bathroom! This is really getting out of hand. XD I think i would be far less happy withy situation if I didn’t have a bidet. Seriously, if you don’t have one, look into one, get one immediately. No more insane, inefficient wiping! Just a few seconds of water and pat to dry and you’re good to go. Ahhhh.
Uh, so where was I? Oh yes, after breakfast. Steve and I wrote our respective entries for yesterday, which was a good lead-in for the real part of the day: anniversary. We showered and decided we were gonna go mini golfing at Can Can Wonderland. Yay! At the gas station I decided to double check the directions, and I noticed Google say that they are closed. Whaaaat? Go to the website and sure enough: Monday through Wednesday there is no wonderland to be had. Damn! Steve and I looked into a couple other places, but they wouldn’t be opening until 3. In the meantime, we wanted to get that ice cream we were craving. And by ice cream I meant soy ice cream. So we headed over to J. Selby’s. Steve rightly suggested we actually eat there since I was bound to hangry if we didn’t. Being mindful of our goals, I ordered the house salad and Steve ordered the vegan fried rice. Now, when I said “house salad,” did you picture iceberg lettuce, a couple tomato wedges and cucumber slices, a little red onion, croutons and ranch? Well, that just means you’ve never gone to J Selbys. Please behold the J House salad in all its glory:
Not only could this salad legitimately feed a family grazing before a holiday meal, but it was so rich with yummy ingredients that I could not have been happier. The dressing I got was a house-made lemon garlic tahini, and the croutons for the salad were also housemade. I ate probably slightly less than half. I did this by literally making my own mini salads using the plate that the condiments had come on, so that I could appropriately distribute each individual ingredient to my liking. I was very pleased with the result and the leftovers.
At some point during the meal it began to rain a decent amount, and Steve made a comment about maybe it wasn’t a mini golf day. Not to be deterred, I suggested we simply go to Mall of America to play at their okay course and walk around. Thankfully, he was agreeable to this and we headed out. The mall wasn’t super packed, and that was nice. It’s SO MUCH more tolerable on weekdays than weekends. We had a couple of false starts with the golf course but would circle away when we’d see like, a family of four just buying their game or a huge line forming. There were not enough people at the mall or playing the course to justify waiting behind people the whole time. That just allowed for some decent Pokémon Go (of course) and just general meandering around the mall.
Finally we got to play mini golf and I slowly and steadily kept falling further and further behind. At least for the first half. I was surprised to find at the end that I was only two strokes behind Steve (three if you don’t count a silly TERRIBLE mulligan attempt), who was still several over par. Not our best day, score-wise, but definitely top two experiences playing the course. The pars for each hole have clearly not been updated as the course has, because there are some ridiculous par 2’s that I would love to see someone get.
After mini golf, more Pokémon Go. I was able to secure a Latias this time, though it was still super close - I had been down to my second to last Pokéball. Phew. I did it! Lol.
Home was dinner - potato soup for me, relaxing with Steve reading more of Ben’s book out loud while I knit or comforted Grim. Ever since the tree fell on our house in 2015, Grim has been terrified of loud noises, and is the saddest most miserable cat in storms. When his anxiety gets too bad he usually will go downstairs and hide in the bathroom, but today he laid stiffly against me, pressing into my hand and being curled up so tight. No shaking this time though and he’s still on the bed. Noah and I texted a bit today about MyFitnessPal, eating and exercise, because being healthier is way more fun with friends.
Made a little progress on Steve’s sock. I thought I was closer to the heel than I was, but I was glad that I could just knit round and round still. His feet are so much bigger than mine, I constantly think I’m making them too big around, and then I put them on his foot:
All in all, I’d say a super solid anniversary. Definitely grateful to have Steve in my life and him to let me be a part of his. What a good life.
*most things I cook are vegan, or barely not-vegan. I don’t use eggs in my cooking and I rarely use cheese. If I do, it’s small-farm and not-cow if possible. When I get coffee though, 99% of the time I’ll just get half and half cream, because most nondairy dreamers are flavored and gross. The brand I buy for home is NOT heavily flavored and is delicious.
Today was the beginning of Second Weekend, yay! Steve has the week off and I have Monday off, but I’m also taking tomorrow off - I’d like to say it was pre-planning for our anniversary, but I didn’t actually look at the date before I decided I was going to take it off. Just luck!
We took our time waking up, and then I made us some smoothies following Rawvana’s 5-day plan. The smoothies are mostly “green” and I know Steve likes fruit smoothies, but I thought it would be fun if we followed the plan together for the week to jumpstart our health process. Guys, the smoothies are hilarious. They make 60 ounces of liquid. Howwww are we expected to drink that much at one time?? I hate consuming a lot of liquids at once, and if you take too long with smoothies, they get frothy and thick, almost chunky. Steve was able to get his down and then decided to go mow the lawn. I decided to get going on lunch and try to finish my smoothie. Lunch is a Mexican salad, and it’s really good when you actually measure the ingredients right. I had a mishap where I actually used way too much cumin for one set of the salads and it made for sooo much intense salty flavor. But it was all right. Even though Steve took over an hour on the lawn, I still wasn’t finished with my smoothie by the time he came in. He stood over me while I finished it (lol) and then we ate our salads. Other than the extreme saltiness, it was good!!
Next on our agenda was to go to Steven Be yarns, because they were having a 25% off everything sale. Steven himself was there, along with his mom, and she is a very old first-generation German immigrant. She even referred to her marriage as “I married an American”. She told a slightly awkward but funny story about how her friend or sister had encouraged her to buy Steven a Barbie doll, and she refused and bought him a truck that he never played with, so for his next holiday the friend bought him a Barbie, which he loved and played with and made clothes for. His mom had her own yarn shop and obviously passed all that down to him. They made a book together and it was really cute, but the items in there are too intense for me - extremely textured, chunky yarns, flamboyant colors and combinations. But the stories in there were pretty neat.
The thing that is just a little too much about Steven Be isn’t that the store is overwhelming with choices - because even though that’s true, I love seeing so many options and samples, it’s that everyone is trying to be so helpful that it feels like when you’re at a garage sale and the sellers are eyeballing you hard while you look at stuff and you feel a huge pressure, like they’re gonna take it personally if you don’t like everything. I ended up only buying one skein of yarn, a beautiful gradient that I wanted last time but was too expensive for a single skein at $61. With 25% off plus 2 more percent bonus, it was far more reasonable.
It was hot as as balls out, my car sitting at 103*, but we really wanted to do some Pokémon Go. This week’s Advneture Week, where you get crazy experience for spinning stops you’ve never visited, so we drove around that area of Minneapolis for quite some time to find stops. Oddly, we found a cemetery that was just FILLED with stops. Feeling a little weird, I drove in there and we slowly drove past the stops we could, but eventually we got out and walked around to get the rest. We marveled at some of the massive headstones, sculptures, and crypts that were there, noting that as people stopped being able to afford the luxury of headstones (or as cultural views of grave sites shifted), many more recent sites only have the small flat slab. It was an interesting way to spend a half hour! There’s even a gym in the cemetery?? Just seems a little inappropriate, but I’m not complaining too much, we got so much experience from that one area.
After that, we drove around a bit more, stopping at random place for more pokestops and debating whether or not to get ice cream. Initially we totally were going to and even came across a random ice cream shop, but literally when we were going that way, the weather changed to be ominous, windy and dark, and threaten rain.
So we finished the raid we were doing in Pokémon go and decided to head to The Wedge for a couple of things. As I was turning the car around, I saw a couple people walking down the street. My head thought, “oh, that looks like Aimee!” And it took a few seconds for me to realize Oh wait, that’s Pat with her! And THEN my brain started to panic, because we were turning around right in front of them and ohmygodwhatiftheylookintothecarwhatdowedothen?! Steve didn’t look up or over to see them, and they didn’t look into the car. We drove for a few blocks while my brain screamed with anxiety and adrenaline, and I debated whether to tell Steve. I made a basic pros and cons list, because I was the only one of the four of us who knew this happened, and what a crazy near-miss it was. We had JUST been on that street, and if we were 20 seconds later getting into the car or they were 20 seconds earlier, we would have walked right into each other. And it would have been the worst. I never want to run into either of them, anywhere. Too scary, too awkward, too terrible. In the end I decided to tell Steve, because I didn’t want him to think I was keeping something from and I also wanted someone to share in the “what are the odds”?!?! Because we were in the most random of areas, AND make a joke that the universe turned the weather so that we would leave the area before disaster struck.
After a bit of conversation and talking it through, I think Steve and I got to an okay place (it of course brought up a lot of thoughts and feelings for Steve), we got to the wedge. We picked up a few things, like half and half, sprouted bread, tea and crackers. After that we decided to head home.
Home was cooking dinner, which was a potato soup. For this soup I ended up using all of the remaining red bell peppers (pretty sure we bought 12), a bunch of potatoes and sooo many Roma tomatoes. While that cooked, Steve and I watched Hearthstone and played a game of rummikub, which I narrowly won after an entire game’s worth of being crazy behind.
We took the soup downstairs for more Hearthstone, and it was so hot for so long, lol. Finally we got to eat it and it was delicious, but a lot. It’s crazy how full liquids can make you. I bullied Steve into drinking all of his broth, to encourage water intake and flushing out his system. When he let his food settle enough he decided to play ITG. I think he had a decent day, he was playing some challenging songs the whole time, and some new ones we’d never seen before that seemed pretty neat.
I was working on knitting, but for some reason when I wound the ball I was using, there must have been a tangle that happened deep within the ball, because my yarn kept catching on itself and getting twisted. Instead of dealing with it and being more and more annoyed, I went to get to the root of the issue. Turns out something just went horribly horribly wrong, because I never did pinpoint on specific thing, and I ended up needing to cut the yarn because I needed to weave the yarn in and out of itself - it had just gotten so insanely twisted up! It took an hour and a half (aka the rest of my night) to resolve, but NOW the yarn is ready to be used nicely.
Also during the evening, after dinner, I gave Steve his anniversary gifts. As always, I had so much fun getting gifts for him. I like to vary it up between gifts on his Amazon or backloggery, unique gifts and gifts that are practical. For him this year, I got:
-tickets to a Final Fantasy music show that we’ve seen before, because it’s local and intimate
-new wallet, handmade from Etsy and Splatoon themed
-a new mug for his new job, with an Undertale theme
-a KitKat sampler from Japan, with really fun flavors
-the newest Kirby plush, ice Kirby (he’s trying to collect them all)
-a Hollow Knight figurine, super gorgeous and neat, also from Etsy
-a complete in box copy of Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones for GameBoy Advance. I was so damn excited for it because the box is like MINT, and I knew how much he’s been wanting this game.
-a card I ordered from Catana comics with a heartfelt message inside
He of course loved the gifts and was so happy about the card. We love giving gifts to each other and I’d been waiting SO long to give them! My big gift this year of course was this iPad I’m typing on, and I love it, but I know he was feeling a little weird about getting one big thing (he did the same thing at my birthday when he gave me my Apple Watch) because we’re so into these many thoughtful gift situations, but I am eternally happy about having both and it has just as much sentiment as the other ones. So much loooove.
We took our time waking up, and then I made us some smoothies following Rawvana’s 5-day plan. The smoothies are mostly “green” and I know Steve likes fruit smoothies, but I thought it would be fun if we followed the plan together for the week to jumpstart our health process. Guys, the smoothies are hilarious. They make 60 ounces of liquid. Howwww are we expected to drink that much at one time?? I hate consuming a lot of liquids at once, and if you take too long with smoothies, they get frothy and thick, almost chunky. Steve was able to get his down and then decided to go mow the lawn. I decided to get going on lunch and try to finish my smoothie. Lunch is a Mexican salad, and it’s really good when you actually measure the ingredients right. I had a mishap where I actually used way too much cumin for one set of the salads and it made for sooo much intense salty flavor. But it was all right. Even though Steve took over an hour on the lawn, I still wasn’t finished with my smoothie by the time he came in. He stood over me while I finished it (lol) and then we ate our salads. Other than the extreme saltiness, it was good!!
Next on our agenda was to go to Steven Be yarns, because they were having a 25% off everything sale. Steven himself was there, along with his mom, and she is a very old first-generation German immigrant. She even referred to her marriage as “I married an American”. She told a slightly awkward but funny story about how her friend or sister had encouraged her to buy Steven a Barbie doll, and she refused and bought him a truck that he never played with, so for his next holiday the friend bought him a Barbie, which he loved and played with and made clothes for. His mom had her own yarn shop and obviously passed all that down to him. They made a book together and it was really cute, but the items in there are too intense for me - extremely textured, chunky yarns, flamboyant colors and combinations. But the stories in there were pretty neat.
The thing that is just a little too much about Steven Be isn’t that the store is overwhelming with choices - because even though that’s true, I love seeing so many options and samples, it’s that everyone is trying to be so helpful that it feels like when you’re at a garage sale and the sellers are eyeballing you hard while you look at stuff and you feel a huge pressure, like they’re gonna take it personally if you don’t like everything. I ended up only buying one skein of yarn, a beautiful gradient that I wanted last time but was too expensive for a single skein at $61. With 25% off plus 2 more percent bonus, it was far more reasonable.
It was hot as as balls out, my car sitting at 103*, but we really wanted to do some Pokémon Go. This week’s Advneture Week, where you get crazy experience for spinning stops you’ve never visited, so we drove around that area of Minneapolis for quite some time to find stops. Oddly, we found a cemetery that was just FILLED with stops. Feeling a little weird, I drove in there and we slowly drove past the stops we could, but eventually we got out and walked around to get the rest. We marveled at some of the massive headstones, sculptures, and crypts that were there, noting that as people stopped being able to afford the luxury of headstones (or as cultural views of grave sites shifted), many more recent sites only have the small flat slab. It was an interesting way to spend a half hour! There’s even a gym in the cemetery?? Just seems a little inappropriate, but I’m not complaining too much, we got so much experience from that one area.
After that, we drove around a bit more, stopping at random place for more pokestops and debating whether or not to get ice cream. Initially we totally were going to and even came across a random ice cream shop, but literally when we were going that way, the weather changed to be ominous, windy and dark, and threaten rain.
So we finished the raid we were doing in Pokémon go and decided to head to The Wedge for a couple of things. As I was turning the car around, I saw a couple people walking down the street. My head thought, “oh, that looks like Aimee!” And it took a few seconds for me to realize Oh wait, that’s Pat with her! And THEN my brain started to panic, because we were turning around right in front of them and ohmygodwhatiftheylookintothecarwhatdowedothen?! Steve didn’t look up or over to see them, and they didn’t look into the car. We drove for a few blocks while my brain screamed with anxiety and adrenaline, and I debated whether to tell Steve. I made a basic pros and cons list, because I was the only one of the four of us who knew this happened, and what a crazy near-miss it was. We had JUST been on that street, and if we were 20 seconds later getting into the car or they were 20 seconds earlier, we would have walked right into each other. And it would have been the worst. I never want to run into either of them, anywhere. Too scary, too awkward, too terrible. In the end I decided to tell Steve, because I didn’t want him to think I was keeping something from and I also wanted someone to share in the “what are the odds”?!?! Because we were in the most random of areas, AND make a joke that the universe turned the weather so that we would leave the area before disaster struck.
After a bit of conversation and talking it through, I think Steve and I got to an okay place (it of course brought up a lot of thoughts and feelings for Steve), we got to the wedge. We picked up a few things, like half and half, sprouted bread, tea and crackers. After that we decided to head home.
Home was cooking dinner, which was a potato soup. For this soup I ended up using all of the remaining red bell peppers (pretty sure we bought 12), a bunch of potatoes and sooo many Roma tomatoes. While that cooked, Steve and I watched Hearthstone and played a game of rummikub, which I narrowly won after an entire game’s worth of being crazy behind.
We took the soup downstairs for more Hearthstone, and it was so hot for so long, lol. Finally we got to eat it and it was delicious, but a lot. It’s crazy how full liquids can make you. I bullied Steve into drinking all of his broth, to encourage water intake and flushing out his system. When he let his food settle enough he decided to play ITG. I think he had a decent day, he was playing some challenging songs the whole time, and some new ones we’d never seen before that seemed pretty neat.
I was working on knitting, but for some reason when I wound the ball I was using, there must have been a tangle that happened deep within the ball, because my yarn kept catching on itself and getting twisted. Instead of dealing with it and being more and more annoyed, I went to get to the root of the issue. Turns out something just went horribly horribly wrong, because I never did pinpoint on specific thing, and I ended up needing to cut the yarn because I needed to weave the yarn in and out of itself - it had just gotten so insanely twisted up! It took an hour and a half (aka the rest of my night) to resolve, but NOW the yarn is ready to be used nicely.
Also during the evening, after dinner, I gave Steve his anniversary gifts. As always, I had so much fun getting gifts for him. I like to vary it up between gifts on his Amazon or backloggery, unique gifts and gifts that are practical. For him this year, I got:
-tickets to a Final Fantasy music show that we’ve seen before, because it’s local and intimate
-new wallet, handmade from Etsy and Splatoon themed
-a new mug for his new job, with an Undertale theme
-a KitKat sampler from Japan, with really fun flavors
-the newest Kirby plush, ice Kirby (he’s trying to collect them all)
-a Hollow Knight figurine, super gorgeous and neat, also from Etsy
-a complete in box copy of Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones for GameBoy Advance. I was so damn excited for it because the box is like MINT, and I knew how much he’s been wanting this game.
-a card I ordered from Catana comics with a heartfelt message inside
He of course loved the gifts and was so happy about the card. We love giving gifts to each other and I’d been waiting SO long to give them! My big gift this year of course was this iPad I’m typing on, and I love it, but I know he was feeling a little weird about getting one big thing (he did the same thing at my birthday when he gave me my Apple Watch) because we’re so into these many thoughtful gift situations, but I am eternally happy about having both and it has just as much sentiment as the other ones. So much loooove.
It was a bit of a lazier day, getting up later but not too late, still before 11. Noah wanted to maximize his game time and probably ease the strain on his budget, so he requested a quick breakfast. They went out and got BK, and brought me home a bagel from Caribou. I really took my time easing into the day, reading PostSecret and journals/blogs, and getting my list for meal prep for this week. We agreed that beginning tomorrow we’re gonna tackle the correct eating HARD and I like to support us by finding delicious and not-too-complicated of recipes, though I’m still struggling to find enough food in a day to support a grown man vs an average-sized woman.
After I caught up on my entries, I went downstairs and joined the boys in the rest of the day of gaming. Steve continued to play random games, Noah continued to play Dragon Warrior 3, and I continued in Persona 5. Noah got to the almost end of his game, and I beat the second dungeon in Persona 5. We ordered a pizza a few hours before Noah had to go home, and Steve and I went to pick it up together. We of course then played a little Pokémon Go on the way. I kept my pizza consumption relatively low, 2 pieces of pizza and like 4 pieces of the breadsticks (they’re smaller). I always think about when I was growing up and we basically rationed our food - a Jack’s pizza with the fluffier crust would feed me, my mom and sister. Bethany and I would each get two pieces of pizza, and Mom would get 3, and if one of us was still hungry MAYBE they’d get the last piece, but we’d often either split it or Paul would eat it along with whatever he ended up eating. I think about how Mom was always only eating the 3 pieces and how I should also be fine with that many, not more, when eating pizza. Lol.
Eventually Noah randomly announced that it was time to go. He packed up his stuff, put the couch back where it goes, and we headed out. We stopped at Starbucks for some iced drinks (green tea lattes for me and Noah and an Americano for Steve) and hit the road. I finished the thumb on one of Mom’s gloves and spent the rest of the time telling the boys about memes and other things on my Facebook page.
We went to find a couple stops and a gym after dropping Noah off, because Steve had a Pokémon Go quest to spin stops he hadn’t before. That was fun. Oh hey, do you notice when my entries have the accent in the word Pokémon and when they don’t? That’s how you can tell whether I’m typing the entry up on my iPad or my work laptop - iPad autocorrects and the laptop doesn’t. :P
Steve and I talked a bit on the way home about how we’re feeling about the relationship, when Pat’s name comes up in conversation with friends and how it makes us feel, and what direction we feel like we are moving. It was a good conversation... we talked about striking the balance between moving on and not pretending like it didn’t happen, and how we are making the relationship stronger and some things we have noticed in the positive. I apologized again and tried to impress upon Steve just how much he means to me. We talked a little about how the other day he made some comments that I felt blindsided by and I had gotten really upset, and how we can handle the situation better moving forward.
Steve just notified me that he makes fun of me in his entry about being so hype for grocery shopping, so that’s cool, lol.
So after we got home Steve put on some Hearthstone and I entered in the recipes into MyFitnessPal. I also had been entering the food eaten this weekend and came up with 2400 calories per day for myself. Whoops. I should definitely be consuming between 1700 and 1900 per day, depending on if I’ve exercised. I KNOW I’ve been consuming at least this much on average, which would easily explain my weight gain. Not that I’m surprised in any way, and I’m sure there are plenty of days it gets even higher than that!
Seeing that info really helped me feel like it would be good to go for a walk. We didn’t take our whole route because Steve was getting some chafey legs, but we did about 3.5 miles. The local middle school just got a new playground installed at the end of last summer, and I’d only been there once with Haley and Steve hadn’t seen it at all, so we climbed the high tower and went down the slide, I pushed him in the fun slidey swing and we took turns on the rope swing. It was sooo fun. Then when we got to the field path, we saw the first fireflies of the season!!! Fireflies are so hype. They’re romantic and pretty and make it feel like you’re somewhere magical. In the peak of their season, the completely dark field (there are NO lights on in that area) is just lit up with sparkles. Steve showing me his firefly field is one of my most favorite memories of our relationship. Today it was like 10 fireflies, but they’ll get there.
I was more tired than I thought I would be once we got home, so we settled into bed after putting the groceries away, and watched Kripp play Hearthstone. All in all I’d say it was a solid day!
After I caught up on my entries, I went downstairs and joined the boys in the rest of the day of gaming. Steve continued to play random games, Noah continued to play Dragon Warrior 3, and I continued in Persona 5. Noah got to the almost end of his game, and I beat the second dungeon in Persona 5. We ordered a pizza a few hours before Noah had to go home, and Steve and I went to pick it up together. We of course then played a little Pokémon Go on the way. I kept my pizza consumption relatively low, 2 pieces of pizza and like 4 pieces of the breadsticks (they’re smaller). I always think about when I was growing up and we basically rationed our food - a Jack’s pizza with the fluffier crust would feed me, my mom and sister. Bethany and I would each get two pieces of pizza, and Mom would get 3, and if one of us was still hungry MAYBE they’d get the last piece, but we’d often either split it or Paul would eat it along with whatever he ended up eating. I think about how Mom was always only eating the 3 pieces and how I should also be fine with that many, not more, when eating pizza. Lol.
Eventually Noah randomly announced that it was time to go. He packed up his stuff, put the couch back where it goes, and we headed out. We stopped at Starbucks for some iced drinks (green tea lattes for me and Noah and an Americano for Steve) and hit the road. I finished the thumb on one of Mom’s gloves and spent the rest of the time telling the boys about memes and other things on my Facebook page.
We went to find a couple stops and a gym after dropping Noah off, because Steve had a Pokémon Go quest to spin stops he hadn’t before. That was fun. Oh hey, do you notice when my entries have the accent in the word Pokémon and when they don’t? That’s how you can tell whether I’m typing the entry up on my iPad or my work laptop - iPad autocorrects and the laptop doesn’t. :P
Steve and I talked a bit on the way home about how we’re feeling about the relationship, when Pat’s name comes up in conversation with friends and how it makes us feel, and what direction we feel like we are moving. It was a good conversation... we talked about striking the balance between moving on and not pretending like it didn’t happen, and how we are making the relationship stronger and some things we have noticed in the positive. I apologized again and tried to impress upon Steve just how much he means to me. We talked a little about how the other day he made some comments that I felt blindsided by and I had gotten really upset, and how we can handle the situation better moving forward.
Steve just notified me that he makes fun of me in his entry about being so hype for grocery shopping, so that’s cool, lol.
So after we got home Steve put on some Hearthstone and I entered in the recipes into MyFitnessPal. I also had been entering the food eaten this weekend and came up with 2400 calories per day for myself. Whoops. I should definitely be consuming between 1700 and 1900 per day, depending on if I’ve exercised. I KNOW I’ve been consuming at least this much on average, which would easily explain my weight gain. Not that I’m surprised in any way, and I’m sure there are plenty of days it gets even higher than that!
Seeing that info really helped me feel like it would be good to go for a walk. We didn’t take our whole route because Steve was getting some chafey legs, but we did about 3.5 miles. The local middle school just got a new playground installed at the end of last summer, and I’d only been there once with Haley and Steve hadn’t seen it at all, so we climbed the high tower and went down the slide, I pushed him in the fun slidey swing and we took turns on the rope swing. It was sooo fun. Then when we got to the field path, we saw the first fireflies of the season!!! Fireflies are so hype. They’re romantic and pretty and make it feel like you’re somewhere magical. In the peak of their season, the completely dark field (there are NO lights on in that area) is just lit up with sparkles. Steve showing me his firefly field is one of my most favorite memories of our relationship. Today it was like 10 fireflies, but they’ll get there.
I was more tired than I thought I would be once we got home, so we settled into bed after putting the groceries away, and watched Kripp play Hearthstone. All in all I’d say it was a solid day!
I write so slowly, lol. An entry takes me anywhere from a half hour to almost two hours, depending on the entry. I take my time really thinking through the day, my thoughts, conversations and interactions I had, what I want to write about and what I'm okay forgetting. It's like I relive the day as I write it, and that takes time!! But in that way then it's like everything is in limbo or pause, because Steve can bang out an entry SO FAST and then he's just kind of waiting around for me. He's not TRYING to pressure me but it totally does because I feel stressed that I'm taking too long and wasting time!!!!
In the morning we took our time waking up. Steve and I were gonna go shower but first we got distracted, and that was amazing. But then! Shower. The three of us went to Ward 6. It wasn't quite as hot as it would be, so we sat outside, and that was perfect. Our server was kind of weird, like he gave me spastic energy vibes, and he was barely outside. I was super thirsty for water because of the alcohol consumption the night before combined with the fact that it was hot out, so I didn't drink a lot of my coffee during the meal, but that didn't mean I didn't want it! I ordered the belgian waffle per usual, and for the second time in a row of waffle-ordering, I got a crispy waffle :/ I want FLUFFY and SOFT waffles, not burnt hard waffles that chafe my gums. Ward 6 always has a fresh fruit compote that changes with what's in season, and this week it was apricots and cherries I think. That was the best part of my waffle. At some point during the meal, Steve went to tell me something and addressed me as "Nero." Pronounced Narrow. The short version of Habanero. NERO, OUR CAT'S NAME. It was so goddamn funny. Thank god for something funny during the meal because when Steve went to pay the check the waiter TOOK my FOOD AND MY COFFEE! I wasn't finished!!!!! But it was like, my mouth was full, the waffle was lame, and the coffee was hot and I didn't wanna make a scene. It was way more entertaining to be indignant and mournful than to fight for two more bites of waffle.
Yesterday Noah talked about how he's working on getting healthier, but that he knows gamer weekend isn't the best time for that, and commented that he's on MyFitnessPal. Steve suggested we all get on it and start using it again. it was fun when we were using it with Nick and I think we should definitely do that kind of thing with our friends. Noah is a big guy and has lost a decent amount of weight already, but he's still got a way to go for his goal weight. Steve and I also would like to lose a significant amount. What better way than to support each other on MFP?? And Steve really wants me to be happy with how I look, and find the best way to encourage me to exercise, especially with going to yoga, which makes me feel strong and happy in addition to nourishing my body and soul.
After Ward 6 we dropped my car off at the nearby car place and walked home, playing Pokemon Go. It's rock-type weekend so we've been into hurrying up on our evolutions in that area. Also adding some walking calories to our MFPs ;)
After we got home I played ITG for a couple hours. It was my second time playing using the FitKicks, and this time I started with two pairs of socks right away, and for the most part that worked well. I didn't feel the need to adjust as much, just kind of tapped my heels occasionally to shift my foot further back in the shoes. I noticed more soreness or tension in my shins than in a very long time, and it's probably because with shoes I need to actually pick up my damn feet instead of sliding them. I think overall I did better than last time, not as much sticking to the pad because I dragged my feet, but it is weird how such a thing can make a huge difference in performance. It was clear that I'm worse right now than I was because I'm adjusting to a completely new style - my feet hit the arrows at different times, and those milliseconds MATTER. I did improve my Disconnected score, which was nice, and AGAIN I KNOW can get a really solid score on Kagami, but little dumb things keep getting in the way. I'm also reading at faster and faster speeds... It just FEELS much better. I was trying to explain to Steve how it's just a feeling, a thing I can sense, when the speed is right. It just "clicks" in my head when reading it and it seems so clear. Right now I'm reading between 1005bpm and 1012bpm.*
Overall it was a really fun day, playing mostly randoms with Officials mixed in. I basically quit because I got too hot and my shoulders hurt and I spent a long time laying on the floor cooling down and drinking water. Since then my left elbow has been giving me twinges of pain, and that sucks, but hopefully it resolves itself soon.
After that I had to shower and do Cafetalk with Riria and Shinpei, my two cutie regular kiddos. That was good. I made the mistake of letting Riria choose our next book since we finished Charlotte's Web, and she chose Hachiko. We read chapter 2 today and they are definitely building up to ruining my life. Shinpei showed me his most recent programming skills on his robots, and we practiced his reading. I've been throwing in math puzzles, some with words and some without, because I think his stamina for reading is lower and I can keep him in good spirits if I give him some math inbetween. This child just turned 10 and can QUICKLY do things like 2-digit by 4-digit long division. I think because he's so smart, English being a real challenge for him to read is frustrating. So I try to keep his spirits up.
After that I caught up on LJ and blogs and joined Noah and Steve downstairs and *gasp* picked up Persona 5 again. Hence where the title of this entry comes from. Noah was like OH MY GOD NOW WE'RE ALL PLAYING GAMES. And he really wanted the three of us to play RPGs this weekend, and he REALLY wanted me to play Persona 5. It took a bit for me to remember what I was doing and get the hang of the play again, but now it's good and god is it a pretty game and I'm happy I was pushed into playing it again. I'm working my way through the second dungeon and working on my social links!
*I have talked a bit with Ben about reading speed, and he mentioned recently how he's slowed down his reading speed I think to the 800s? Low 900s? I simply don't understand how to do that. When I try to slow things down, the arrows jumble together and I can't read them! On HIS machine I read more slowly, because it's farther away and the SM5 plays slightly differently than SM3.9, but it's still in the 900s. DDR players seem to read in the 600s, and Dmac and Dave read pretty slowly too.
In the morning we took our time waking up. Steve and I were gonna go shower but first we got distracted, and that was amazing. But then! Shower. The three of us went to Ward 6. It wasn't quite as hot as it would be, so we sat outside, and that was perfect. Our server was kind of weird, like he gave me spastic energy vibes, and he was barely outside. I was super thirsty for water because of the alcohol consumption the night before combined with the fact that it was hot out, so I didn't drink a lot of my coffee during the meal, but that didn't mean I didn't want it! I ordered the belgian waffle per usual, and for the second time in a row of waffle-ordering, I got a crispy waffle :/ I want FLUFFY and SOFT waffles, not burnt hard waffles that chafe my gums. Ward 6 always has a fresh fruit compote that changes with what's in season, and this week it was apricots and cherries I think. That was the best part of my waffle. At some point during the meal, Steve went to tell me something and addressed me as "Nero." Pronounced Narrow. The short version of Habanero. NERO, OUR CAT'S NAME. It was so goddamn funny. Thank god for something funny during the meal because when Steve went to pay the check the waiter TOOK my FOOD AND MY COFFEE! I wasn't finished!!!!! But it was like, my mouth was full, the waffle was lame, and the coffee was hot and I didn't wanna make a scene. It was way more entertaining to be indignant and mournful than to fight for two more bites of waffle.
Yesterday Noah talked about how he's working on getting healthier, but that he knows gamer weekend isn't the best time for that, and commented that he's on MyFitnessPal. Steve suggested we all get on it and start using it again. it was fun when we were using it with Nick and I think we should definitely do that kind of thing with our friends. Noah is a big guy and has lost a decent amount of weight already, but he's still got a way to go for his goal weight. Steve and I also would like to lose a significant amount. What better way than to support each other on MFP?? And Steve really wants me to be happy with how I look, and find the best way to encourage me to exercise, especially with going to yoga, which makes me feel strong and happy in addition to nourishing my body and soul.
After Ward 6 we dropped my car off at the nearby car place and walked home, playing Pokemon Go. It's rock-type weekend so we've been into hurrying up on our evolutions in that area. Also adding some walking calories to our MFPs ;)
After we got home I played ITG for a couple hours. It was my second time playing using the FitKicks, and this time I started with two pairs of socks right away, and for the most part that worked well. I didn't feel the need to adjust as much, just kind of tapped my heels occasionally to shift my foot further back in the shoes. I noticed more soreness or tension in my shins than in a very long time, and it's probably because with shoes I need to actually pick up my damn feet instead of sliding them. I think overall I did better than last time, not as much sticking to the pad because I dragged my feet, but it is weird how such a thing can make a huge difference in performance. It was clear that I'm worse right now than I was because I'm adjusting to a completely new style - my feet hit the arrows at different times, and those milliseconds MATTER. I did improve my Disconnected score, which was nice, and AGAIN I KNOW can get a really solid score on Kagami, but little dumb things keep getting in the way. I'm also reading at faster and faster speeds... It just FEELS much better. I was trying to explain to Steve how it's just a feeling, a thing I can sense, when the speed is right. It just "clicks" in my head when reading it and it seems so clear. Right now I'm reading between 1005bpm and 1012bpm.*
Overall it was a really fun day, playing mostly randoms with Officials mixed in. I basically quit because I got too hot and my shoulders hurt and I spent a long time laying on the floor cooling down and drinking water. Since then my left elbow has been giving me twinges of pain, and that sucks, but hopefully it resolves itself soon.
After that I had to shower and do Cafetalk with Riria and Shinpei, my two cutie regular kiddos. That was good. I made the mistake of letting Riria choose our next book since we finished Charlotte's Web, and she chose Hachiko. We read chapter 2 today and they are definitely building up to ruining my life. Shinpei showed me his most recent programming skills on his robots, and we practiced his reading. I've been throwing in math puzzles, some with words and some without, because I think his stamina for reading is lower and I can keep him in good spirits if I give him some math inbetween. This child just turned 10 and can QUICKLY do things like 2-digit by 4-digit long division. I think because he's so smart, English being a real challenge for him to read is frustrating. So I try to keep his spirits up.
After that I caught up on LJ and blogs and joined Noah and Steve downstairs and *gasp* picked up Persona 5 again. Hence where the title of this entry comes from. Noah was like OH MY GOD NOW WE'RE ALL PLAYING GAMES. And he really wanted the three of us to play RPGs this weekend, and he REALLY wanted me to play Persona 5. It took a bit for me to remember what I was doing and get the hang of the play again, but now it's good and god is it a pretty game and I'm happy I was pushed into playing it again. I'm working my way through the second dungeon and working on my social links!
*I have talked a bit with Ben about reading speed, and he mentioned recently how he's slowed down his reading speed I think to the 800s? Low 900s? I simply don't understand how to do that. When I try to slow things down, the arrows jumble together and I can't read them! On HIS machine I read more slowly, because it's farther away and the SM5 plays slightly differently than SM3.9, but it's still in the 900s. DDR players seem to read in the 600s, and Dmac and Dave read pretty slowly too.
19//An off kind of day
May. 22nd, 2018 11:01 pmThe weather was cooler again today, but with the sun it ended up warming up and I was fine in a 3/4 sleeve. Steve and I did the thing where we let the laundry get all over the place and barely had any clothes that we could wear to work... whoops! The morning was off to a lame start when I realized that I forgot my coffee at home and didn’t prepare anything for breakfast! I was able to make some muesli cereal and that was good at least.
First block was spent getting everyone organized again and talking about how we wanted to organize the rest of the year, and I think we came up with a good plan. 2nd block was fine. Nokomis is doing field days and concerts and other things this week, so my schedule there is a little wonky. I ended up spending a lot of time looking for pics of the students graduating from 8th grade from the past few years. That was fun!
When I got home, I was super tired and decided to nap. I’m struggling with sleeping still, constantly dozing in and out and feeling like I’m never really sleeping. It leaves me feeling so damn tired by the end of the work day. I slept more than I anticipated, getting up at 5:15 after having fallen asleep probably around 3. It felt good though, and when I woke up, I found Steve downstairs and we decided to get some food. It was Naf Naf again. Steve, being sweet, offered to pick it up for us, but I was thinking it would be nice to eat outside! On the way, we stopped at a gym in Pokémon go, and Steve mailed a package. We had a really funny moment when I told Steve I was gonna get my excellent curveball throw on this random wheedle (for my Mew quest), and I TOTALLY did. It was hilarious and also I’m a bamf.
Naf Naf was good, but since I’ve continued to feel gross about myself and STILL keep eating out and not making my own food and exercising not that often. I know part of it is my energy struggles, especially when I’m sleeping worse at night, I end up using so much of my available free time then catching up. Ugh. Haley was just chastising me and Bethany and most people yesterday how we don’t have as “intense” of personalities or extreme willpower to follow through but she does. I declined to point out that Haley literally has no other hobbies other than laying in bed and watching YouTube videos (no, really) so of course she doesn’t feel like she’s giving up one enjoyable thing for the cooking or working out or whatever. It’s annoying that there’s so little time in the day to split things up, but I really, REALLY want to get going. I know summer break is coming and I’ll have more time available to get it together, but I don’t understand how other years I made time for yoga or ITG and it’s so much harder now. Part of it is probably how into knitting I’ve gotten into and how much time it takes, but still. Sucks!
Speaking of knitting, I started the Local Yarn Shawl tonight. It is really amazing so far. The yarn from my last post is super pretty, and feels light and easy to knit with. I completed one round of the repeats and can’t wait to do more.
Tomorrow Steve’s company is doing a happy hour for him at 4:30 and I’m meeting them there! Now that he’s leaving I’m gonna meet his coworkers :P
First block was spent getting everyone organized again and talking about how we wanted to organize the rest of the year, and I think we came up with a good plan. 2nd block was fine. Nokomis is doing field days and concerts and other things this week, so my schedule there is a little wonky. I ended up spending a lot of time looking for pics of the students graduating from 8th grade from the past few years. That was fun!
When I got home, I was super tired and decided to nap. I’m struggling with sleeping still, constantly dozing in and out and feeling like I’m never really sleeping. It leaves me feeling so damn tired by the end of the work day. I slept more than I anticipated, getting up at 5:15 after having fallen asleep probably around 3. It felt good though, and when I woke up, I found Steve downstairs and we decided to get some food. It was Naf Naf again. Steve, being sweet, offered to pick it up for us, but I was thinking it would be nice to eat outside! On the way, we stopped at a gym in Pokémon go, and Steve mailed a package. We had a really funny moment when I told Steve I was gonna get my excellent curveball throw on this random wheedle (for my Mew quest), and I TOTALLY did. It was hilarious and also I’m a bamf.
Naf Naf was good, but since I’ve continued to feel gross about myself and STILL keep eating out and not making my own food and exercising not that often. I know part of it is my energy struggles, especially when I’m sleeping worse at night, I end up using so much of my available free time then catching up. Ugh. Haley was just chastising me and Bethany and most people yesterday how we don’t have as “intense” of personalities or extreme willpower to follow through but she does. I declined to point out that Haley literally has no other hobbies other than laying in bed and watching YouTube videos (no, really) so of course she doesn’t feel like she’s giving up one enjoyable thing for the cooking or working out or whatever. It’s annoying that there’s so little time in the day to split things up, but I really, REALLY want to get going. I know summer break is coming and I’ll have more time available to get it together, but I don’t understand how other years I made time for yoga or ITG and it’s so much harder now. Part of it is probably how into knitting I’ve gotten into and how much time it takes, but still. Sucks!
Speaking of knitting, I started the Local Yarn Shawl tonight. It is really amazing so far. The yarn from my last post is super pretty, and feels light and easy to knit with. I completed one round of the repeats and can’t wait to do more.
Tomorrow Steve’s company is doing a happy hour for him at 4:30 and I’m meeting them there! Now that he’s leaving I’m gonna meet his coworkers :P
