PHYSICAL TRANSFORMATION

The mental journey is still the most important aspect of exercising for me, this is the beginning of week 9.

One thing that really inspired me was watching the “World’s Toughest Race Eco Challenge,” the Fiji version with Bear Grylls.

I liked the whole thing, but I guess my husband was always watching for the Mexican team (since he is Mexican) there was one, they didn’t finish, they were not shown much. I was watching for Japan, I’m a US citizen, but I still wanted to see how Japan did.

They did um… horrible. I was looking for a clip online, but I didn’t find it. They got jungle rot, really bad jungle rot, to the point two members of the team couldn’t walk, not even to be air lifted out. It was very hard for the team member who had the radio to call in the air lift, even though there was no way to go on, and looking at the feet of the incapacitated members, they must have suffered greatly. When they were carried to their air lift, crawling on their arms… I felt a certain pride in the stubbornness, but also a certain embarrassment.

So much about that stubborness, but without rewarding results… lives in me.

Team Mexico probably saw they couldn’t do it, and had a nice vacation during the days Team Japan was suffering in agony only to prolong failure.

The New Zealand teams pretty much dominated, they were athletic, but I don’t think they were more so than many of the other teams, they were experienced, but so too were some of the other teams, what stood out to me, and I could be wrong, is they seemed to have the most fun.

So watching these people race for four days or so with no sleep, capsize at the start of the race and still finish first (after nearly dying at the end), one lady with a baby about my son’s age on the first place New Zeland team, not just participating, but nailing it, made my everyday life a bit easier.

Somehow those racers help push me through my mundane struggles now, I guess they live in my heart and keep me imaginary company as I get through dishes, cooking, cleaning, dishes, cooking, cleaning, laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning.

I notice that the race was a conflict between hesitation to push through the pain and discomfort and knowing when to “not be an idiot,” even the best teams rested, rest is not the enemy of activity, but a team member, it’s a delicate balance to rest enough to prevent injury and go enough to carry momentum, because momentum makes exercise quite easy.

No one would exercise if the 100th day was as hard as day 1, but just like at a new job, the first day is the most daunting.

I really hope to go on an Eco Race Challenge with my two kids someday, but I don’t know when, and I’m sure I’ll be old by then and I have no idea the price, yet having that goal gives me a reason to stay in shape. I didn’t have that goal when I started, I didn’t really have a reason to not exercise and I’ve found it to be a patience boosting activity for my impatient mind, but I didn’t have a goal until today, 9 weeks in.

WEEK 4 T25: Beta Mode, now that I’m not sick the exercise feels pretty easy and enjoyable, it won’t when it’s transition time I’m sure, starting each phase is a lot harder for me than continuing. So many good things have happened since I started exercising that it’s almost like a lucky penny, I’m not so concerned with exercise, yet I’m committed to finishing the entire 3 month series for the first time. Very excited that “maybe” someone I know will try out the B25 too, but that means I should go back and record the first month videos that I haven’t covered yet. It didn’t matter to me if people followed the videos vs were inspired to do something else to exercise by the videos, but it’s very rewarding to have someone I know ask me about B25. It feels like “a real thing” now. 🍌

FINANCIAL TRANSFORMATION

• 1st Week: $107.95 I have so much money woo!
• 2nd Week: $104.78 Not as much, but I’m such a good investor still.
• 3rd Week: $93.31 Seems like I’m not really a good investor.
• 4th Week: $73.46 Rough market, but husband gaining and I’m loosing.
• 5th Week: $74.08 Recovered $0.62 between last week and this week.

The market has been so rough I got a reverse stock, something that is meant to go up when the rest of the market dips, kind of out of my depth here, yet it was only $6 (Daily S&P 500 Bear 3X).

So as of now I’ve only lost money in the stock market, but I would still describe the experience as positive, it somehow makes money seem more fun and approachable even though it hasn’t earned me anything at all thus far, there is a certain value to having a non “bill” experience with money.

FAMILY TRANSFORMATION

My daughter wasn’t the “easiest” and I’m not the “hardworking-est” or “find creative solutions-est,” but eventually I was able to set limits and boundaries and doggedly enforce them enough to create a working peace within our household.

I wasted a lot of time wanting solutions that sounded wonderful, but did not work, to work.

I wasted a lot of time wanting to be someone different than I am, wanting to already have skills I didn’t have or already be done disciplining when I wasn’t done.

It took a long, long, long time to find a discipline solution that would work, a panic attack treatment that would work, and the final challenge an OCD reduction method that would work, but all those problems and many more were possible when both we and our daughter were “really” interested in doing the work to “really change” our daily life.

I’m still impatient, but yesterday I made it to 6 PM without becoming impatient, it’s pretty much a new record.

Our life is so much better now, what changed, there is a routine in place for the week so the kids know what to expect. It sounds so simple, but it’s so hard to do when you are getting a lot of push back from the kids to implement activities.

BREAKFAST

Sometime between 8 and 9 AM I serve breakfast (it takes 6 minutes to cook oatmeal and blueberries), there is a short language Youtube video “Fun Fun Elmo” (9 minutes), or Little Pim on Amazon Video, or Rock N Learn on either, possibly one episode of Super Wings (it’s about 10 minutes also). Super Wings is about a plane named Jet, my daughter will have to find where he is going by herself on the globe to earn the exercise, pretty much just because our globe is near the breakfast table. If my daughter takes too long to get dressed or brush her hair there isn’t time for any Super Wings, so she is pretty much never late.

SCHOOL

Right at 9 AM I give my daughter the computer for Adventure Academy (An App) she plays tag with other real kids, explores science and math for about an hour. She likes it, it motivates her to use her computer skills and her reading skills, the science and math is a bit “watered down” yet it’s good for her to see it two ways (my way and their way).

After breakfast I set up a big outdoor play area (RIE inspired) so my son and daughter are there for “school” for 6 hours, from 9 AM – 3 PM. My son mostly plays, which is good, there is a dog, balls, room to run, bikes he doesn’t use, at 2 PM they tend to swim in the pool.

My daughter is on the computer the 1 hour, then I do a math lesson that varies from 10 minutes to an hour (it’s more about her understanding than the time), then she can have an hour doing paleontology games (Crazy Dino Park), she needs to exercise about an hour, sometimes it’s swimming, sometimes she teaches her little brother Alphabet Exercise.

Lunch happens outside, which is awesome for me to clean my son’s mess, he throws food, the dog eats it, this dog doesn’t steal from the table, pretty easy. I typically fill a tub with water after lunch because both kids love water play even though they are going to go swimming at 2 PM. I can finish the day with free time or story time. I can do more hands on things with them like ASL/Baby Signing Time, art stuff, or less and let them play if I need to make spaghetti (like today).

AFTER SCHOOL

3 PM I clean up everything but the gate, then move the baby, then the gate. I think we all relax, the kids free play. It’s nice to be inside after being outside most of the day. 4 PM I either serve dinner or start getting it together, much like breakfast and lunch, I give myself an hour for the meal to be postponed, served, eaten and cleaned.

MOM TIME

5 PM I spend doing something with my daughter, my son makes it easy right now, he just plays nicely happy to be in a non-focal role most of the day. 6 PM I tend to loose my patience, the kids are wound up waiting for their dad to get home and I’m frankly sick of them by this point.

DAD TIME

My husband comes home at 7 PM, kisses the kids, talks to them a bit, then goes to eat dinner alone for half an hour followed by a shower. My daughter teaches my son music time during this time she used to go crazy (I love that). Right now it’s 7:29 PM, the 4-year-old is teaching the 1-year-old music thanks to Mr. Rob on YouTube and I’m writing this (happily).

BED TIME

It’s 8 PM, my husband is tired from work, I have been tired since 6 PM… no baths (that was after swimming), no books (that was during school), instead my daughter watches Meet the Math Facts or Sight Words on red light mode and falls asleep with two kisses and two hugs and one quote:

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

– Martin Luther King Jr

We do a lot of things that other people do, but in kind of non-traditional time frames, like I read books only after lunch, not before bed, but that is what works for us. It took me a long time to adjust after having two kids, with one I just tried doing everything I needed to before or after my daughter was awake, my son takes that time, so I had to integrate what I needed or wanted into the family day at the same time my daughter’s mind was advancing, so the plate of me, the plate of her, the plate of us, that plate of school, the plate of home, many plates… and no alternative than to start spinning them at the same time. It took awhile, but it’s cool in the end.

SOUL TRANSFORMATION

Still rotating spaghetti, beef stew, curry, but hoping to add pineapple rice soon. Burned myself three times today making the spaghetti. I was using BBQ prongs to stir, it took me three burns to look for the wooden spoon. I guess it’s not just grab anything to stir… some of you knew that probably.

The first burn, I thought, oh well that happens.

The second burn, I thought, maybe I shouldn’t be in the kitchen.

The third burn, I thought, maybe I shouldn’t be alive…

I got really judgmental with myself, then I realized it, iced my arm with one hand, finished the pasta with the other and resolved to not quit that like the KFC Kernel who made 1090 attempts at selling his recipe before succeeding I will someday persevere with cooking.

MENTAL TRANSFORMATION

Looking over the last week, I’m proud of myself. Immediately I think “pride goeth before the fall” don’t know who said that, but they were a joy kill.

“It is in times of security that the spirit should be preparing itself for difficult times; while fortune is bestowing favors on it is then is the time for it to be strengthened against her rebuffs.”

– Seneca

How about I just enjoy this moment of being proud of myself for this evening? I think it’s long overdue to have a modicum of success.

ONE WEEK IN LIFE IN SUMMARY

Body – Going very well exercising.

Finances – Going reasonably well.

Family – Going so well, for once.

Soul – Going very well, except cooking, but still trying my best.

Mind – A tiny bit disorganized in creative projects, but really enjoying life and getting a decent amount done every week. Confidence back. Going well.

Kind of scary when everything is going well isn’t it?

THANK YOU READERS!

You are the best you the world will ever have. Sometimes I cheer myself up by celebrating that I’m alive, the potential in that. For example who may come up with a new theory in physics, me or Stephen Hawkins? Me, I might, maybe not, but maybe. Who is more likely to get another Nobel Prize, Einstein or me? Me, they don’t award them to the dead. Who cooks better these days, Anthony Bourdain or me? Yeah, it’s me. It may seem silly, but it works for me. Who’s better looking Marilyn Monroe or you, you are, she is desiccated. Who is stronger at arm wrestling, Abraham Lincoln or you? You are.

🧸

(Surprise the hypothetical “Teddy” bear has a wonderful poem as a gift! But what poem could it be? In what arena of poetry does the topic lay?)

The Kon Mari Point

There is a mythical point the whole time organization is going on that one day you will reach your personal level of stuff that works for you.

Let’s say with guns, some gun slingers go with two guns, some find two ridiculous and go with one, I have no idea why you may choose three or four, yet I know those people are out there, then there is the I need five or more guns crowd, and the either can’t own or consciously object to owning guns crowd, or myself not anti-gun but just don’t happen to have one right now.

All items are those guns.

There is your right level regardless of anyone else’s right level.

I think I’ve hit that level for me, it’s minimalistic by American standards, it would fit in a tiny home, yet it would be pretty cluttered compared to some tiny home owners or minimalists.

Watching Little House on the Prarie, I love that life style, high in natural beauty, high in used items, low in unused items (but not completely lacking say a wood plane that maybe isn’t always used, but may be used).

In a sense those people had the best of both worlds, they hoarded items as much as they wanted, and also had a pretty clutter free existence.

I have a catch all bucket that keeps filling up with random school supplies, my husband has his dresser drawer of junk, my daughter has a bucket to dump toys into. But it’s down to one catch all area of very reasonable size for everyone.

When I started there was too much junk, now there is still junk, but it is in a yin yang balance to the empty space now. We have 80% functional items, 10% junk and 10% free space. I’m not basing that on any “real” measurements, I’m just estimating by the feel of the space.

TODAY

Since my husband is against painting I was looking into some new wallpaper that says it’s easy and doesn’t damage the way… not sure if I can believe that after the last wall decals damaged the wall a lot after promising me they wouldn’t break my heart.

In that moment I realized that we can get wallpaper about the same price and less effort than paint, so I may try it.

It’s been about two weeks doing school outside and I love it. I want to buy an apple costume to do school, perhaps for math time at least.

I’m teaching an exercise class dressed as a banana so why not a math class dressed as an apple?

As I was looking at the wallpaper though, I noticed I’m no longer looking for anything to discard, I’m no longer trying to make more room to breathe, instead I am looking to “polish” what is left.

I think this Kon Mari journey is over. I went both further and not as far as I expected. I’m sitting under a guava tree right now.

This is our school ceiling now. I remember counting the dots of the ceiling in my public school classroom, this ceiling is much nicer, more infinite.

This one photosynthesizes, this one refracts sunlight into blue and other colors, this one provides a clock, this one goes all the way to the sun and beyond it.

It may seem unrelated that my school site changed as I decluttered, but to me it isn’t. The silly unwanted junk drained my energy, with more energy I set up the gate I need every day. I didn’t used to know the gate I had could contain the area, then I didn’t know how to adjust the hinges, it seems easy, yet between the two kids yelling, not having my schedule in working order, and being exhausted by meal planning/cooking/feeding any energy required wasn’t available.

I have a comfy nap area that no one really uses, but it’s still nice to have for story time.

Two weeks ago Friday I had a teaching class that just barely introduced me to Charlotte Mason, I had always wanted to do school outside, but I really struggled to make it happen in real life.

The summer here is super intensely hot, getting started in the fall this fall has helped make it manageable. It’s still be high 80s, but high 80s isn’t high 90s or past 100…

I don’t even know where I will be next summer, I don’t know if I’ll be in Hawaii where slugs carry parasites that literally kill children, or still here in California, or in a different place, but I think I will find a way to stay outside. I can’t see myself going back now.

I think some of the indecision of where I will be next year held me back from living well where I am now. I think some of what held me inside was shyness, being in the back yard some people see us, they hear us, we hear them, as an introvert that’s all uncomfortable, but posting my banana exercise videos publicly has made me less shy, it’s funny doing something which seems silly and embarrassing has made everything else silly and embarrassing less embarrassing and therefore easier. I guess that’s what “life begins outside of your comfort zone” leads to, not a constantly uncomfortable life, but an ability to tolerate the discomforts of transitions.

LIMITS

A lot of decluttering was trying to determine what was trash and what wasn’t trash. I have a tendency to keep lids and containers thinking I will do science projects with the kids, then we don’t, and the actually science materials become blocked by the stored trash.

It doesn’t matter what is trash for someone else in my home, but it matters what is trash trash for me. It could be a new dress that doesn’t fit and isn’t worth donating, it could be something worn to pieces, what makes it trash is if I have a current or future use for it and if I want it.

There isn’t much difference between a minimalist and hoarder except percentages.

Every minimalist probably has 1-3 items too many still, but it’s a smaller percent is my guess.

Every hoarder probably does discard something, poop, or who knows what, depending on the hoard.

I think humanity has a very similar process to possessions, joy at new possessions, a bit of loss bias and sorrow at letting go, a desire to keep things that “may be” useful, but it’s a matter of how much do we allow possession joy vs connection joy? How much so we lean into the pain of loss to move on a bit? How much do we acknowledge and allow our own sorrow at the passing of time and changes of life? How much hope do we have for the future to be beautiful? Of course we all want useful things, functional things that let us get through the day (washing machines, clean water, cups, clothes, blankets) but pretty much everything the we would need for that would be in a hotel, the hotel set of stuff, then there is the personal set, out tooth brush ext, clothes, electronics, then there is the hobby or professional equipment, for me school stuff, chalk, black board, things like that.

Thinking it like keeping my individual things I would need to travel (my “backpack” stuff, the things I would need to run a hotel for myself (my “base camp” stuff) and the things I need for my mission in life (teaching stuff right now, my “classroom stuff”) helps me mentally organize what I need or want and don’t need or want. My backpack, my base camp, my classroom.

It makes what feels like a messy life seem easier to divide what I need mentally.

If I had to guess I still have two shoe boxes full of clutter, which may surprise you, or at least surprised me, somehow it feels right to allow that much in my life. Maybe someday I’ll get beyond that too, but I think as I do life will bring in more and I will always have about two shoe boxes of clutter left. Only time will tell.

STORING ITEMS APART

In a very small house it can be easy to think there isn’t room to divide items, but I find it really important to have my own spot. I have one drawer in the bathroom, my daughter has one, her little jewelry is in her jewelry box in her drawer, not in mine. Some items like shampoo we all share, others are individual. Spaces as well, we have our small individual spaces and our shared spaces. My husband likes to go by himself to the sofa at night, that’s fine, he finds a personal space in what is at other times a shared space. I do that with writing, I write near everyone as of now, but they know I don’t want to hear about anything for that time, my private time is physically in the same place, but mentally apart. My son and daughter love having their own drawers and dishes and spaces, they may not use them as neatly as an adult but they feel and understand the essence of having something that is theirs alone and I think they enjoy it and that it’s great. My parents were very much against my sister and I having individual possessions, they thought if we shared all the toys it would be great, but we didn’t find it great at all, we fought like cats and dogs until adulthood. My kids share somethings, and not other things, they are two different people than we were, but having been through it, I think it’s a kind of crime against an individual to prevent them from having a few things to themselves.

AS I LET GO OF THE PAST

The hardest thing was still the little blue stuffed dino my daughter threw out… I don’t regret it, but it was hard. As we let go of the past, the future seems brighter, it seems to open up with possibilities. As I’ve let go of the items I had, I let go of a lot of small failures and I’m ready for new things. Letting go of the past, making room for the future and present has felt really good, we are thinking of getting a house in the next two years and it will be nice not having to pare down for the move, it will be nice to move like a hermit crab a small body into a medium shell.

Perhaps different people must have different relationships with items, some people may carry items through their life time like a turtle, but I prefer to be a hermit crab, leaving what doesn’t fit anymore and transitioning into what does.

FINDING MY TALENT

I enjoy teaching classes via video in costumes, I’m sure I’ll get better at it, but it’s something that feels “oh so right,” in a world that doesn’t often feel like that, so it’s either my talent or the path to it, it’s more than I had to go on before.

A NEW HOPE FOR THE FUTURE

Marie Kondo said there are two reasons you don’t get rid of things you don’t need or want, 1. Fear for the future or 2. Attachment to the past.

Probably the deepest benefits of this decluttering were gaining the hope for the future and flexibility to leave the past in the past. I also enjoy not having enough damn toys in the house to make a huge mess, so my kids can’t even put me in that situation if they wanted to. Oh sure we have toys, but not “oodles” of toys, we once had oodles of toys and the kids would make a big mess, not want to clean and I didn’t want to clean either and whoever did clean in the end hated the other one, now there is not too much for me, they clean or I clean, it doesn’t even matter, because it’s less than a minute or two. That’s nice.

MY MINDSET STARTING OUT:

FOR WEEKS:

THREE WEEKS AGO:

Love people, use things.

– Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus (The Minimalist)

NOW:

THE PRESENT

Our home isn’t perfect, doesn’t even look pinterestable, yet it feels like lighter being in there, there isn’t that tense or heavy vibe, it doesn’t seem like a bunch of “cold case” ghosts are lurking or even half finished craft projects… it’s become “good enough for me”. I don’t have myself 100% figured out, but I have myself 70% figured out and that’s enough to know I don’t like cleaning up other people junk and I don’t even like cleaning up my own junk, so therefore we should own the minimum amount of junk possible until either 1. forever (actually forever, I don’t want clutter in the after life keeping me from going to brunch with Jesus on time) or 2. someday someone joins our family who wants to do that, even then that doesn’t seem fair to them.

THE FUTURE

I’m sure I’ll be back in December for the Japanese decluttering holiday Omisoka, I’ll be interested to see if my clutter grew back or remained the same or if the last two shoe boxes became one.

THE PAST

The first step in the Kon Mari process is imagining an ideal life, then examining 👒 clothes, 📚 books, 📃 papers, 💻 everything else, and 💎 mementos. This time mementos got lumped into “everything else” as an ex-hoarder everything really is sentimental anyways from the smallest lint to the largest marble bust of Marcus Aurelius (I don’t really have any of those).

ONE PUZZLE SOLVED

I’m not living the same life I was with less junk, at the end of this clean up, I find my life radically transformed, I have a new class, live outside for 6 hours, a new school model (Charlotte Mason), new hope for our family (to live like a modern Little House on the Prairie family), I have new projects going, a novel, possibly wall paper, possibly an apple costume math class and I don’t know if those things were incidental to or due to the clean up, but I feel this project has reached an end.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

This dead horse is beaten, this rodeo is over, this parrot is dead.

🦜

“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.”

– Goethe

I got really inspired by this quote the first time I heard it…

and never stopped.

It’s almost impossible to describe how much quotes get to me. Probably as much as authors would like readers to be “gotten to”.

I remember the end of “The Lorax”

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not” 

– Dr. Seuess

MONOLOGUE OF ME TALKING TO MYSELF

Me: Maybe because I was 5 years old, maybe for other reasons, I had never thought about that.

I just assumed someone would take care of everything I needed and wanted, even though, often no one did.

It was a real wake up call.

Sometimes someone else is the someone, true, but sometimes it has to be me.

But if I am the someone, what is the what?

Hopefully what matters most is the what.

Myself: Yes, but everything matters differently to everyone.

Me: Sure, but I’ll go with what matters the most to me then.

Myself: Okay, a bit selfish, but okay, what matters most to you?

Me: I guess I don’t really know, other than the kids and if you ask me in detail what about the kids I don’t really know.

Myself: I guess it’s time to reassess your values and define your priorities clearly!

Me, Myself and I: Yay! Values revaluation. Woo!

The ones that got a gold star are what I feel I really need in my life right now to keep progressing, not what is most important to me over a life span.

MY GOLD STAR VALUES FOR RIGHT NOW

Acceptance helps me cope, I need that.

Compassion helps me approach my loved ones in a respectful manner.

Fun refills my tank to do go, as much as I kind of hate admitting I need that, I need that.

Persistence beats skill over time, I need that focus to allow myself to grow in cooking, writing, drawing and living.

Self-acceptance, to be aware of my thoughts, feelings and actions, prior to accepting them it’s sometimes hard to even notice them.

Self-control, to act in accordance with my own ideas, it makes me feel good about myself, which boosts my spirits in order to carry on day by day.

Joy. It’s not just fun, it’s the reason for helping orphans ext, it’s a good feeling, but not necessarily fun.

WHAT GOT CHOPPED?

Intimacy, kindness and love, because I picked compassion, when I have compassion I don’t have many unkind things develop, I don’t feel the need for intimacy vs compassion and although I value love, I feel the need to be whole and complete within myself without seeing love as a value right now.

Right now I’m in a less codependent season of life, I’ll still take and give love, but without it being my main focus.

Skillfulness and humility (seemingly at odds) are both going to take a back seat to persistence and acceptance. I will write as best I can, draw as best I can, exercise as best I can, live as best I can and that will be my focus rather than underplaying or touting how poorly or well it goes.

Assertiveness is chopped for now, I will be persistent about doing things myself rather than assertive about asking for help, for the most part, I’ll take the help, but asking will take a back seat to learning and doing it myself in this season of my life.

In this moment what matters most for me to focus on are:

As a girl I remember truffula trees as extremely beautiful… as an adult, I still like them, but they aren’t quite as beautiful in this moment as they were in my memory, I’m sure my mother was like that. I remember her as beautiful in the years I was a baby, average in the years I was a child and kind of gross when I was grown up, probably because I can’t separate who she and her face mentally, more than the aging process.

In medicine someone can be considered alert if they are “alert and oriented times 4”, three is also good enough, at two they are so confused that you can just take them to the hospital against their will because they may have high blood sugar or head trauma or something crazy going on – that were they less confused they would say – thank you for saving me. Even if they don’t thank you later, the law says go ahead.

The four criteria are name.

1. What’s your name? (Freebie.)

2. Where are you? (Kind of hard if you are super drunk…)

3. What date or at least time is it? (I don’t always know this.)

4. What are you doing here? (I usually know this.)

I propose a fifth criteria of what are your most important life values and focus right now?

I say this because even after I check my current values, deeply and honestly, I keep forgetting throughout the day.

So, I try to schedule reminders or times to reflect.

I like to have a theme of the day in the morning, but as my values and focuses shift I have to shift the schedule as well.

I know the values are right for me, when checking them invigorates me, I know they are wrong when I no longer get any joy from checking them.

Possible new schedule:

Self-Control Sunday?

Self-Acceptance Monday?

Persistence Tuesday?

Compassion Wednesday?

Acceptance Thursday?

Fun Friday?

Joy Saturday?

The schedule is something I have to wear in like new boots, it never feels right the first day.

Actually this post was going to be about priorities not values, but I realized I needed a refresh.

I suppose I’ll prioritize my values right now, I don’t think I’ve ever done that, I’ve picked 6 or 7 and left them as equals.

In terms of what I feel I need to learn or grow to be a more balanced person in the moment and head towards my goals this feels right:

TOP TIER

1. Persistence 2. Self-Acceptance 3. Self-Control

MID TIER IMPORTANT BUT FLEXIBLE

4. Acceptance 5. Joy 6. Fun 7. Compassion

I defiantly want joy and fun on the weekend now looking at it again. Fun Saturday and joy Sunday.

Perhaps Friday check-ins and acceptance.

Perhaps self-acceptance Thursday?

Monday self-control, Tuesday persistence, Wednesday compassion?

I’ll give it a try that way.

Had to make a Google Keep Note of that or I will for sure forget.

What’s different in 2020?

I prioritized my values for the first time:

1. Persistence 2. Self-Acceptance 3. Self-Control

So when I check in on Friday and plan for Monday I will be weighing those values higher.

What are your priorities, really, do you really know them or are you just saying family and love without thinking?

🗺️

A small special thing that happened to me today was I saw the feather in the title of an article “🗿 So, What Matters in Life Then?  🪶” (it’s at the end).

At the end of the movie “Forest Gump” a feather flies around and the question is discussed if life follows destiny or free will or both, that feather reminds me of that moment. Of questioning the wonder and complexity that is objective reality and subjective reality and the mesh-work of society that forms this world and the mesh-work of planets that lies outside of this world. My mind enjoys questioning everything all together, and though I don’t get many answers, the feather just floating along seems to say, “it’s okay for you to ask though, we all ask sometimes, it’s okay, life is okay.”

There is a lot of hope in that feather, which is a loose body part of an animal, a piece of trash actually, which just happens to be very aerodynamic. A piece of trash from a bird littering the world, but in such a pretty way. Birds are dinosaurs actually, theropod dinosaurs, proven by DNA tests, their feathers seemed to be made for insulation and identification before flight and then flight just developed as a possibility…

I wrote the article and looked for the right symbol/emoji to end with, when I found the feather I never knew for sure if it would work later on my system, it was a very, very small leap of faith to use it, but I did and today it brings me an irrationally large amount of joy to see it now.

I think it’s important to accept those moments of joy as they are, it’s easy to turn them down, thinking what makes you happy shouldn’t make you happy and something else should, but when you turn down the things that really make you happy (that are allowable by ethics) then there often isn’t something else coming that seems more PC or suitable to societal standards coming, in my experience it just leads to a self created famine of joy.

I didn’t write so much of the book, I started to get a daily habit going, then one day my daughter kept bothering me so frequently. Though I played with her already, I do a special time with her almost everyday for an hour, she wasn’t content to let me enjoy my hobby without bothering me over and over and over and over, and again.

She probably does want more time with me (we are always at home together… more attention I guess). But I don’t want more time with her at all. Not at ‘tal… so what can we do? I don’t know yet. I’m not playing kids games for more than an hour, I hate that so much it’s barely possible to justify to myself doing it for the one hour as it is. She wants more, I want less, what will we do?

I’m better thus far at being interrupted for articles and going back to them, it’s very difficult for me to go back to the novel writing for some reason.

I absolutely hate that I’ve had such a bad time with my daughter’s disobedience and interrupting that I’ve quit after three days, but that is what happened. I tired, it was going well, it was hard, but it was going well, then it got unfesable to continue. Perhaps if I just pretend to write for a week? Simply strike the keyboard… then I won’t be as annoyed when my daughter tries to stop me.

I changed my life for her, left work to take her to activities we couldn’t go to when we got off work at 6 PM, I try to arrange the experiments she wants to do, the activities she wants to do, try to involve her in her learning so she can choose what topic, book, or subject she wants to pursue, and when something is important to me and appropriate in how long it takes (I was only trying to write for 30 minutes) she absolutely does not care at all about me following my dreams or just being fair that I help her do the things she wants to and it would be reciprocity to help me have a moment as well. My daughter is 4, my son is 1. My son plays by himself or with me, he claps for me when I try to do something good, he says things like “thank you” even though he can barely talk at all. My daughter would crush every single dream I have if she could just so I wouldn’t offend her sense of ownership of me by ever being unavailable to get her “ice cold water” when it isn’t even hot. I don’t remember spoiling my daughter, but she is so spoiled. It was as if she didn’t need to be spoiled to become spoiled, but that her natural expectations from the world were that everyone in it would give her the best of everything with no work on her part ever. It annoys me to almost no end. Sometimes I feel guilty about not loving the entitlement that makes up a huge part of my daughter. But it’s only human to find some traits that are largely normal for some people are a yuck for others.

We just spent 30 minutes discussing what my daughter wants for her birthday coming up soon, if I felt at all guilty for calling her entitled before that conversation I don’t after it.

When I grew up our parents did get us gifts, but for some reason they almost always got us something we didn’t want that was more or less the same price as what we wanted. I’ll never forget the first time I got what I wanted, I wanted a soccer ball, not a team brand, just a normal soccer ball, a family friend got me one. I was so happy, my parents had never thought it was right to get me what I wanted, they wanted it to be a surprise, but without taking the time or expending the effort to come remotely close to what I liked. The strange thing in hindsight was that they could have spent the same or less to get me something I liked. As a child I thought it was about money, but it was more about not believing it was right to let us have what we asked for. There was a stigma that buying us what we asked for would spoil us, yet buying heaps of other things wouldn’t… I don’t think I’ll ever understand my parents, if I don’t understand them now as a parent myself, I don’t know what would happen to give me insight on their world so far removed from what seems like reason to me. Becoming a parent helped me forgive my parents, it didn’t help me understand them much at all though.

So, since my husband will get my daughter what she wants for her birthday anyways I leveraged the negotiation that she will not bother me when I write if she wants her birthday presents. Terrorism? I don’t know. Effective? I don’t know. But I’m often just grasping at straws in family life.

Another thing that happened as I was writing along is that I started not liking some of what I was writing a few days in, so I switched to trying the snowflake method as an outline.

Hopefully I’ll spend 25 minutes working on it later today. I’m trying to build a habit of having time for the book writing, it may be hard to get started, but if I can just get started I feel like it will feel easier a week from now.

Snowflake Method Introduction by Randy Ingermanson.

❄️

PHYSICAL TRANSFORMATION

The mental journey is still the most important aspect of exercising (to me):

So, I’ve been making banana exercise videos for a week already, it’s been getting better as far as finding some kind of angle that will cover all the motion, lighting, those kinds of things, still not calling all the cues, not sure if I want to dub over vs try to do it during active exercise, either one would work better than indecision, but… indecision it is for now.

I don’t exactly know where this is going and I don’t exactly know why I’m doing it, but it’s healthy and it feels right and it doesn’t cost much time since I was doing the same exercise anyways.

WEEK 3 T25: Beta Mode, it’s strange to me that it’s only been a week since I started the banana exercise, because it feels like forever now. I drew that banana icon by the way, and added it with Autodesk SketchBook. I used to use Sketch.io, but it started crashing so much, then I used something new and found it to be much better for me. I guess that’s the opportunity in difficulty, without problems it’s so appealing to never change from something that is fine to something great.

FINANCIAL TRANSFORMATION

Doing fairly bad if by good you mean making money… but I’m learning about things and the overall market, especially in the tech sector took a loss of value, my husband said analyst adjusted the market to lower the value of stocks, I didn’t check that, I don’t care enough to check that.

It was nice making money at first, then it was painful loosing money, then it stopped being painful loosing money, at this point I am still loosing, but since it wasn’t important money I was investing (it was like spending money) it’s cool. I’ve learned a few things, one is that I don’t check more than twice a day the stock values because I refuse to push aside the kids for that and I have needy kids. So I can’t really be at good as buying low as someone who keeps watching throughout the day. Another thing is that my husband is a better investor than me… I was hoping to beat him easily, for no real reason, but I didn’t (at least I won push ups).

Another thing I learned was that when you don’t have a lot to invest and also are not a good investor, it’s much easier to make more money by just going to work. Passive income sounds really fun, but if it was very easy there may not be enough work getting done. It’s possible, many talented people start with little capital and many people with a lot are able to make something decent, yet without either the investment skill set, which isn’t universal, or a large initial investment, regular work still makes a lot more money.

FAMILY TRANSFORMATION

Each day I start out with an imaginary wheel barrel of love for both of my kids, and my daughter wants more than that, but I have only what I have… my son has so much left over, because he wants so much less.

As I made peace with the way my daughter is, needy, dramatic, unsatisfied, but also sweet, hard working, and ambitious, I made peace with my inability to meet all her needs. I do what I can and try to allow her a lot of other people, family and friends in her lives to try to add to her support and world view, yet I think she will only ever have enough love when she learns to bake her own love cookies.

She struggles to be less neurotic, we had to stop her from washing her hands 100s of times a day over the past two days, it was a bit ugly. She thought that if she washed her hands she wouldn’t get sick and actually she did get sick, with what seems like a normal runny nose. She was really afraid of getting sick due to the panic that the news has spread. No matter how much we explained that young people were doing really well with recovery, she was afraid to get sick and she is sick, so she is kind of terrified. We are trying to help her know real facts about microbiology, virus, bacteria, physiology ext, but it’s hard when conflicting information tells her that if she washes her hands she won’t get sick (which is unfortunately not true for airborne particles). I don’t know how many people this year have gotten sick and worried about it being worse than data indicated it should be, it must be truly scary for the elderly who are at real risk, but it’s interesting how easy it is to dismiss the mistake in panic legitimacy in children and honor the feeling in adults. It’s stupid in both or valid in both and I don’t even know for sure which one, but I do know if it’s valid for one it’s valid for both children and adults to be panicked. Children are seen as a nuisance when they freak out and adults are seen as completely in the right due to these “unusual circumstances”.

Each day I keep failing to be as patient with my kids as I’d like to be, but I’ve accepted that that will probably be the outcome of the day and as long as I do the best I can I keep hoping that someday my patience will exceed their ability to annoy me greatly.

SOUL TRANSFORMATION

I haven’t made as much progress here as I would have liked, but since I’ve leveled up in physical and family sectors, I can accept that pretty gracefully.

I recently read about a speech Winston Churchill gave where he said “never, ever, ever, ever, give up,” or something like that. That’s me in the kitchen, trying, hoping, doing something, but it’s not exactly a victory yet.

I have a meal plan, I deviated this week because I found out about Charlotte Mason’s school ideas last Friday, thus I adapted our life style to be outdoors for 6 hours a day this week. Which is great and crazy to me. I thought it would be harder, but since I, my daughter, and my son all love being outside, it’s not too hard at all. We have breakfast, I set up a fence, we go out, have lunch out there, and come back in at 3PM. It’s only been two days, but it feels like a glove that fits for us. The kids do not get board of 6 hours outside, I think we could probably just live outside all the time… my daughter gardens and plays, does more art, does some experiments, plays ball. It’s not the same life as indoors transferred outdoors, it’s a different life. My son crawled under a golf cart to get a ball today, he was figuring out so much of problems solving, cause and effect, spacial awareness. Us three are all better people outside. I’m more patient, because I enjoy the blue sky, the trees in the view. It would be wonderful if we had grass, we have concrete, but at least the kids enjoy drawing on the concrete. At one point in my life I realized I would never be happy if I didn’t learn how to McGuyver happiness with the (sometimes ghetto) stuff available in the current moment. So, although it doesn’t look very much like Waldorf, at least we are finally outside.

Last year my dad left to go to help care for his dad for about a week, he was the chef in the house. I had a bunch of ground beef, so I learned to grill hamburgers. Tomorrow I think I’ll grill our lunch or at least grill the meat I was “supposed to” make into a stew today. It will be easy to grill since the grill is right where I will be with the kids for 6 hours… perhaps I can roast tomatoes on the grill too? We have a grill pan kind of thing maybe I can try.

MENTAL TRANSFORMATION

The more I have going on in my life, the more easily I seem to be able to forgive. I guess I don’t want to be bogged down with the past when I have a present I enjoy?

For whatever reason forgiveness is coming easier. I think I’ve been laughing everyday since I started dressing up in the banana costume.

Laughing at the absurdity of life that is always there, but that is usually invisible. When I can laugh at myself, laugh at life, then I can laugh at the mistakes of myself and others and that paves a pretty good pathway for forgiveness to follow.

I’ve been doing things without fear that I used to be to afraid to do, draw, write, try to write a book, then I have fun, then I forgive others because I don’t want old conflicts cluttering up my mental space that I want to use for the projects I’m enjoying. I never felt fear held me back in major ways, but it’s almost impossible to deny that. It’s weird that I only feel the fear as it leaves, I’m only conscious of it in hindsight. It’s not something I lie to others about, but I’m finding it was something I deeply lied to myself about. I don’t really know why so much fear has left me and so suddenly, but it seems like it has.

I think in part, I was always afraid to ever seem silly, and to be a beginner, which I am in many ways (as an artist, as a writer, as a teacher, as a wife, as a parent) is to make silly mistakes often, such that I wasn’t comfortable being myself until I got comfortable with the silliness that I have. My shadow side was not violence or lust, but mere silliness that I wasn’t owning. I was very afraid to put myself in a position to be laughed at, but I think as humans we are almost constantly in a position to be laughed at… once I stopped trying to not be silly I had so much more energy for the rest of life.

ONE WEEK IN LIFE IN SUMMARY

Body – Can’t explain exactly why, but banana costume exercise is really deeply correct for me, it’s a good core to my preferred lifestyle.

Finances – The stock market isn’t great, but I didn’t depend on it for food or rent, so that’s fine, things are great right now, perhaps nothing is not a good retirement savings, but why dampen the abundance of the moment worrying about tomorrow? It’s not the same as actually saving to worry about savings.

Family – It could be better, but it’s so much better than before that it’s almost blissful. My daughter is volatile, but wants to work with us, that’s major, she still throws huge fits, but it’s 2% as often, which is amazing.

Soul – I’m starting to live outside of my comfort zone often and it’s weird how much more alive I feel, I’m only a tiny bit out of my comfort zone, but life feels amazingly different.

Mind – I’m starting to get a lot of confidence back in my ability to keep going. I may not have completed anything major like a book, but I’m trusting myself to at least consistently take steps towards my goals and I think I will finish those big dreams in a time that works with reality.

THANK YOU READERS!

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.‎

– Oscar Wilde

You are the best you the world will ever have. We are all depending on you to be you. Thank you, for being you. There is a lot of happiness in accepting who you are and owning it, it’s not that easy, but you have to carry who you are, either as debt or profit, you can’t get rid of you, no matter how hard you try. I thank you for being you, and remind you, you are the best you ever, really. No one can ever take that from you.

🐔🌈🌞

(Chicken Art – Life Balance – Things to Be Happy About)

I started the day wanting Allie Brosh’s new book to be out, it isn’t still (not until the 22nd of this month). So I compulsively checked her blog again to make sure there wasn’t anything new, there wasn’t. Then I reread some older posts to try to get by until Tuesday when the new book comes out.

She had a post with a better pain scale, I laughed until I cried just a little bit, then I ruminated on the post trying to chew all the flavor out of it.

I reflected on my own physical pain in life.

I probably had kidney pain, but when I went to the doctors they didn’t find anything, that mystery pain was the worst of my life, and I’ll never really know what was going on with it now. I had both my children without any pain meds, so for the pain to be so far past those times made me seek medical help, unfortunately when you seek medical help, diagnosis doesn’t always like you back… So I say kidney pain, but my doctor points out I don’t really know what exactly was hurting, that’s true, thanks for that I guess? So *kidney = *flank, deep abdominal area under ribs.

What I like about physical pain is that even if you don’t know when it will end (or if it ever will), it usually does.

What I hate most about mental pain is that even if you die you aren’t 100% sure it will be over, if there are ghosts or an afterlife, will we carry all that emotional baggage to the new world? That seems horrible, being with your spouse in the afterlife hearing about that time you didn’t do that thing they wanted you to do, but you didn’t do, forever, and ever, and ever, and another time. Some people did a “to death do us part” clause, we didn’t do that, so if there is an afterlife we are possible still going to be married or facing an afterlife divorce.

Comparing mental and physical pain is interesting, hearing about “what if the Russians influenced the elections” somehow scores the same as having a baby, but, the thing about having a baby was that, when it was over, it was over forever. Done. who knows how many stray people will bring up Russia’s theoretical involvement in an election from the past (that I didn’t care about then) in the present (that I so don’t care about currently) or further into the future (where I will have not cared about it even more) or even in the afterlife (where it will be really ridiculous to bring up, but perhaps some individuals will still bring it up, as if it was ever interesting to anyone who’s job wasn’t to seriously look into it, as many times as something can be seriously looked into).

Comparing the most pain I’ve had physically to the most pain I’ve had mentally, the mystery pain, to being married, there are definitely times that I would go back to the marriage, rather than the pain, if I had to chose, but also a few times I would take the *kidney* pain over returning to a point in our marriage.

Comparing the level 10s, there isn’t any physical pain I have been through that corresponds to growing up with my parents, gratitude for what they provided me, but it was, for sure, a difficult family dynamic for every member involved. Even if I’m not sure if I would enjoy eternity with my spouse, I know at any time, I prefer my marriage to returning to my parents (as their child).

Having sifted over the pain of my life time, I’m surprised I don’t have more insight into myself or my life, I suppose though I’ve had pain, like everyone, it hasn’t driven my decisions are much as other things, such as the desire to be loved or the desire to speak my mind.

I’m surprised that it hasn’t mattered more over all and it makes me wonder what does matter deeply in my life over the duration (rather than just in this moment)?

1. Why write?

To figure out life, make some sense of it, see the connections that are true, find the meaning behind the fireworks of the show, see what my face looks like under the mask of life.

2. Why figure out life?

To try to live in a more peaceful way, with life balance.

3. Why? Not only because I could do more, but also so I could help my loved ones reach for their dreams too. We are here for a brief moment in time, then gone, there is so much here we will not have time to see and do, I want to do a lot of it at least, see some of the beautiful peaks. This world is wonderful and beautiful like a carnival, trivial, dirty, unsafe, fun, silly, enjoyable. I can’t find it in me to live for an after life I don’t believe in, if I ever come to that, I’ll have to come to that when it happens, I can’t live a lie. I think my limited mind will do more if I can create “schema” to this information that is largely a pile of experiences. If I can Kon Mari my mind.

4. Why? It just feels right to be learning and in a way sorting experiences is a learning process.

5. Why? I suppose that’s just who I am, what my soul needs to do to my mind to feel at peace. I need to find or ascribe meaning to life to make it seem worth it to do all those dishes and laundry continuously. The meaning lightens the load of the graph.

Reading “Mud, Sweat, and Tears,” Bear Grylls had to stand and be bitten by mosquitoes without swatting them, and run thought mud and wade swampy water to get a special forces membership, without that meaning, I don’t think anyone would have finished that training, it wasn’t the type of thing anyone would accidentally do or do to relax. The meaning can push you through almost anything, but without meaning the easiest most pampered life can become hellish. I don’t know if it is all people or some people, but I know it me, I must eat meaning often or something in me starves. I need meaning more than food, though obviously I do need food. But if I had to eat only every other day, but it was to do something amazing like end world hunger, I could do that easily. When we think of our needs, we miss a lot.

I attended a presentation with Lei Wang, grand slam adventurer, it was cool (in and of itself) but also comparing her to Bear Grylls. Both have summited Everest. Both started as nonathletic people, average (to small) sized people, I think they did the things they did for different reasons. Slightly different reasons, like the difference between strawberry and raspberry, not hugely different reasons like chocolate and plutonium, yet different.

Lei did it for excitement, not in a completely hedonistic way, yet the excitement kept her going through struggle.

Bear however was often scared, he was often crying, often not excited, he seemed to push himself to and past his limit as a hobby.

Lei seemed to want to be herself and the only way to be fully herself was to adventure.

Bear seemed to find himself, connect something within himself that he had difficulty connecting to in “everyday life”.

Lei wanted to be herself, Bear wanted to find himself.

Lei was weak to the outside observer and strong as steel inside, Bear was the ultimate adventurer to the outside observer and a humble fun loving average kind of guy on the inside.

They have some similarities that stand out, a deep humility that anyone could do what they do if they did the neccisary work (and conditions were right), a beaming smile of infectious joy, a good sense of humor, an awareness that life is temporary (yet it’s not a depressing gloom).

They have some differences, obviously the gender (I don’t really know how much that matters to be honest… as another woman, I’ve never felt “weaker” I know I am actually slower though due to being really short 5’0″ 152.4 cm). We have been conditioned to celebrate when females do something new, but honestly, I think it was easier for Lei and harder for Bear at times. We all have weakness, but some of us have more strength. We can all build strength, but in the present moment some of us have more or less to draw on and I don’t think gender has much to do with it if anything. Without getting into gory detail, I’ll say I’ve climbed mountains and hiked and did pretty demanding martial arts or exercise when I’m menstruating, which is not to shame anyone feels like or cares to rest at those times, it’s just saying our moments of weakness as humans don’t come at a set time. I was very weak during pregnancy, as a sickly child, in many arenas of life still, but there was nothing particularly tied to my gender that made me feel weak ever. When I was pregnant I couldn’t hold down food, it was that lack of nourishment that made me weak, I’ve witnessed three really strong women who were pregnant, I hoped to be that way, but I wasn’t. Just like some people can sail everyday no problem, others can barely survive sailing and most people lie in between, every pregnancy is a very different journey. I don’t think having a baby suddenly made me into a different person, I don’t think I ever fully became a mom, because in my mind I was never dominated by the relationship that I do cherish. I was never a mom to me, more than a person. I never saw a huge difference between my sister who doesn’t have kids (and probably won’t) and myself (who does have two kids). I know the world does, but I never did. The real difference between us in my mind is my irrepressible optimism and her crushing depression.

So who I am has very little to do with being a woman, a wife, a mother, a parent, so little to me.

It does matter to me that I’m someone who tries to do the right thing, a learner, a loyal friend, a closet silly goose, someone who deeply appreciates the little things, such as a sun rise almost each morning.

I’m able to be thrilled with the same sun, the same coffee, the same horse print blanket, over and over and over, the things I like may shift, like drawing on paper to drawing on a tablet, reading on a wooden deck from a paper book to reading inside on a computer, yet when they do shift they shift slowly like molasses.

Thank you for reading, do you have anything in your life that you never get tired of?

🦋

It’s the second day of writing the novel… I wrote 682 words today from 10:30 AM to 11 AM.

It feels different that writing an article or morning pages, it feels like the difference between exercising alone this past month and two weeks vs making exercise videos of exercising at home the past two days.

I posted the draft publicly on a very low traffic website, but I don’t think it’s whether or not it actually IS PUBLIC that matters compared to my internal perception of whether or not it IS PUBLIC. Meaning, somehow I’m expecting to publish or self publish the book I’m writing, vs the articles I write probably will be seen or read by a lot more people, yet they don’t have to be, they are intended for self growth and I publish them in case somehow they are interesting or helpful to others, they fulfill their purpose as they are, they are seeds of thought meant to be seeds, when they do blossom in someone’s mind, it is nice, it’s nicer, yet there is a lot of satisfaction in the simple process of the farming of these words irrespective of the yeild.

I suppose I have very little to no expectations for this writing, and high to impossible expectations for “a book”.

If this writing does no harm, and perhaps amuses someone or helps someone, that’s fantastic, because I already enjoyed writing it and learned a bit from the activity.

Whereas the book… it’s a different beast entirely.

Not that it has to be, no disrespect to authors who publish what is on their blogs like Allie Brosh, Rachel Stafford, Nomzamo Madide, that’s fine and I enjoy reading those books and blogs.

But I’m trying to fulfill a promice I made to my younger self to finish a particular kind of book, scifi that isn’t what I write.

I don’t know how far to take it, if this childish project in my adult life is worth the time it costs? But lately I seem to be ticking off the bucket list of my youth… is it a mid life crisis or just living with integrity to chase down the whales of the past and hunt them to extinction?

I’ve writen 369 words in about 20 minutes, 18 WPM of this kind of self reflection article vs 22 WPM of rough draft scifi. Which is interesting because the scifi felt much harder and this feels easier, but I’m not actually doing better at this, it isn’t actually easier.

I tell myself my life, my self, my writing is as good as it can be in the moment and I’ll move on from here, hand and hand with reality. About articles I tell myself that.

About books… it’s more emotional. I have a writers group, but I don’t want to show them the writing, I don’t want to do anything to stop my progress in this seedling phase. Maybe I don’t ever want to know if they like or don’t like it, because I don’t know that it’s for them, only 1/4 of them reads scifi, I doubt it’s for them, I think there is some reader out there that it is for… an intermediate level reader who likes mostly simple words with just a few fancy ones… someone who wants to get lost in the story, who has a whole summer to imagine the scenes I paint and color them their own way in their mind. I have an ideal reader out there somewhere. It’s not me, but it’s not my readers group either, it’s someone I don’t know, who wants to find a little bit of shelter in an imaginary world before carrying on in this one, someone who wants an emotional resting place from whatever their world is like.

Kind of like Stephen King I carry a lot of the characters and story line in my head and I feel like I’m letting it out more than choosing it.

I know it’s fiction, I know it’s a story, but I don’t know why it’s already formed in my mind when I write it, is that a trick of the brain? An illusion?

Did the third B25 Banana exercise video, this one is a 25 minute stretch day.

It’s interesting to me I’ve been drawing more, exercising the same (but in a banana and posting it), cooking more and writing more than ever before…

I was laughing in the second day of the exercise video, because there were a lot of kicks and punches, it looked like I was a banana in prison trying to train for an escape and fight a revolution or something… the banana costume exercise publicly posted videos have become my new normal. I guess I’m trying to lighten the mood a bit and also my sister in law missed having people to compete against while working out, so she “kind of” asked me to start B25 the banana costume T25 clone.

I don’t know if these activities will build my skills for something else, or just keep me sane and entertained, but I guess that’s enough anyways? Isn’t it? I think so.

My dad has been staying very busy, that inspired me a little bit. He lost dad, he could be lying in a puddle on the floor, but he isn’t and if I wanted to be I would, but I don’t really want to right now, maybe someday.

We are kind of type A at the core.

It doesn’t even feel good to go to a spa, if they were even open.

I went to a fancy spa once, because the boys at the dojo were sending the other girl for her birthday and no one else could go with her, so I went… semi-forced, and hated it. It was like being quarantined, but with steam.

Not to say I have my dad’s energy level… I don’t. He is “high gear,” “I’m more mid range.” My sister is “low gear,” I think my dad looks down on that, I don’t. I think it’s much more genetics than choice, though I could be wrong.

I don’t know if I’m crazier now or before.

During the world’s toughest race show one family was saying “Only the crazy ones are sane.”

In a mad world, only the mad are sane.

– Akira Kurosawa

I’ve been though my own Phase A of the pandemic (comic version will be released Sunday), now I’m in my Phase B and I don’t know which one was more ridiculous, but it’s almost as if I’ve gotten used to the flavor of crazy.

So, just to clarify with myself, I’m working on my novel, posting exercise videos (that are very basic, but possibly will improve with time) and drawing with the tablet I said I would to make comics I said I would.

I have to agree with Ghandi that:

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”

– Mahatma Gandhi

I think it’s the first time in my life my ambitious (simple as they are) could match up with my abilities, and it feels good. It feels good to be alright with myself as an ordinary woman, even as I seek my own special talent.

That duality of being unique, but also ordinary is tricky, yet to accept yourself as just a basic b*tch rather than a super one… is kind of amazing. Just to be comfortable in your skin, eating your own poorly cooked (but not poisonous) spaghetti with no shame, it’s kind of empowering, more than winning the nation championship, or getting some job, or being employee of the month, self acceptance is actually the most satisfying acceptance (that I’ve ever had).

So if you don’t have any stretches or yoga in your life maybe check out mine at the gym… because flexibility is something that can improve during a life span and why not?

But either way, I like you the way you are reader (very reading this post-y, that’s my favorite kind of person usually).

🦝

As a writer, I am at 138 1000+ word articles, I’ve been intending to write a book for a long time, and declutter the house and get a six pack… the cleaning and exercise has actually happened maybe because of the plague (or maybe not, who knows?) so that it’s starting to come to my attention that I could probably be starting to write a book by now.

I really put it on a pedestal as a child, authors were really big deals, from the moment they mentioned the author and the illustrator, to teach me what they were, I was fixated on the author.

I want to be that guy, the authour, the one who calls the story line shots, not the crumy illustrator (joking, I actually want to do that someday too).

I started being afraid and moving one step away from everything I wanted to do, maybe I’ll illustrate a book, maybe I’ll make illustrations for a book, maybe I’ll eat a cheesecake and read a book with illustrations, maybe I’ll listen to a book on Audibles in the car on the way to a dead end job until I retire? Each step created an inner anger and felt bad, but each step away was easy to take and not scary.

I built up walls of excuses that I believed that allowed me to have my beautiful dream, without approaching it. I could mentally circle it, without stepping towards it like watching a tiger behind a fence at the zoo.

The first excuse, I “couldn’t” write everyday:

To kill that I wrote morning pages for about two years and that dashed the idea that I can’t write daily, I can definitely write daily, though I prefer to post 30 times a season rather than 30 times a month.

That second excuse, I “couldn’t” write something “good” everyday:

I knew I could pump out some venting everyday, but could I write something worth publishing? It felt like a huge difference between my private thoughts and struggles and writing something I could share with the world that would be worth reading. Actually the space between was tiny, but still scary. Like a crack in a glacier. I just started sharing my private thoughts and struggles, I didn’t give away passwords or write overly about my loved ones (in my opinion) but I think I did a good job. My thinking was, the largest struggles of life are common, they are mundane, yet we don’t often speak about them, by speaking about them I open that possibility for others, to be able to write or speak of common things and to know they are not the only one struggling, we all struggle. Kind of like an anti-Facebook glamorizing, a WordPress unmasking of truth. Not everyone will like my writing, but I actually like it and more than enough readers have thanked me that I feel like I gave a small bit of good into the world while I was here, my own metric of good has been fulfilled and that one is the most significant one to meet (I feel).

The third excuse, I can write articles, but not “books”, “books are a higher level of writing and tricky and beyond my capacities”.

I haven’t overcome this one, yet. But today I’m thinking about it. I was cleaning up pages on WordPress, gathering words from the “Inner Citadel” the old home page before “World of Bubble Gum Monkey” became the home page and was renamed “My Day” (a tribute to Eleanor Roosevelt) and “My Day: I woke up (a tribute to Lovie Price), alive (a tribute to Bear Grylls).” I noticed I had about 8,000 words and though my normal post run from 1,000-2,000 I didn’t know really what that was and how long a book was. Books can be any length for sure, the shortest novel I know:

For sale, baby shoes, never used.

–  Ernest Hemingway

It’s a six word story, now known as flash fiction.

It really works to me, and no offense, but this is my blog… so that the thing defining a book is the essence, structurally there is a beginning, middle, end, but there is an invisible essence like a m&m shell coating a chocolate center. My writing has been all chocolate and no m&m shell thus far.

It’s not that I’m uneducated in how normal writing or literature works, I’m just unconcerned with it. I’ve always been more interested in what could be that what is. I don’t mind all tradition, but I’m more creative and inventive than backwards glancing.

I went to school, learned what should be done, threw that out upon leaving and stood at the door step to another school of thought. I’m standing there still a bit afraid to go inside, but I’m standing at the door of the right building for me.

Thinking of writing a book again… I don’t know what’s holding me back at this point.

I write daily or almost daily, I have the stamina, I have the skills I would need to form a rough draft at an average level, I have ideas non-stop against my will as a inborn character trait… perhaps it’s the over abundance of ideas?

I’ve been telling myself it’s the lack of having a clear winner between ideas. but I wonder if I’m hiding the truth from myself?

I told myself I would probably be able to finish a book this year, and I still think I could, but I can’t if I never get started.

It’s not the most important thing to me, but the other important things are not holding me back, I have the time, I already spend the time writing, but why then don’t I?

I don’t know.

Those shoes are not for sale, though they were never used, they will stay in our home always.

– Bubble Gum Monkey

I like it. It’s a follow up to Ernest Hemingway, as if the husband tried to sell the shoes of a miscarried baby and when a buyer came the wife declined the sale proposition.

Perhaps there is no real difference between a book and an article and a story?

What makes the Calvin and Hobs comic collection book a book? It’s a series of ideas, joined together.

A normal book is also a series of ideas, joined together, perhaps sifted by a filter that requires a common theme, a certain prose, “acceptable” language.

I guess I don’t fundamentally understand the idea of a book. I understand that it is a series of ideas, with a common underlying thread, but if feels like I’m missing some point.

I don’t like the ideas of having conventional 1 = introduction, 2 = middle, 3 = copy of introduction reversed as an ending. What if I had two introductions? What if I went right to the middle like Dean Koontz? I wouldn’t go to the end first, I didn’t like that Pulp Fiction…

What if I changed perspectives (the Crystal Shard does that) like moving a talking stick around to various characters? What if I switched protagonists like Dark Sun Rising?

What if I wrote with my sister and gave her the chapters I didn’t want to write and the voice of the author was shifted, would people even notice (many Scifi books are group or partner written)?

I suppose it’s the possibility for invention within a theme that attracts me at all to writing, so to eliminate it would remove all or most of the excitement for me.

For me it’s not about income, fame, accolades, it’s about experimentation, freedom, creativity.

It’s not about pushing the limits, maybe I won’t push them at all, but it is about being able to push them.

It’s about being free somewhere in life, in a life that is so very limiting in so many domains. It’s about total freedom of thought, of process, of prose. But that total freedom is a bit mentally taxing compared to having a “set format”.

I guess I’m not copy pasting a format, american, Japanese or otherwise, I’m not copy pasting an author, a favorite book, a story, I’m not scraping a block of marble to release something inside, but gluing together twigs into a tree house castle, there is nothing to start with, except the first two twigs and some glue.

I guess I’ll start here:

The tree house was on fire, she didn’t want it to be, but yet it was.

– Bubble Gum Monkey

And I’ll leave myself an unfinished sentence to start with tomorrow:

“It burned blue…”

PHYSICAL TRANSFORMATION

So, I’ve been sharing my exercise videos with some family and friends for some time, but in case I ever want to do that on a smaller scale (larger size is actually smaller scale, it’s counter intuitive because it gets used wrong often, but think about it a map with a 100 mile scale shows a large area in little detail and a map with a 1 mile scale shows a small area in detail… Professor Mendoza explained it to me, and I can’t go back now) I will have to make my own videos, because other wise the copy right police (the FBI I think) will hunt me down for sharing videos too much.

It feels crazy to say I think God wants me to make exercise videos in a banana costume, but I do have that feeling that it’s the right step for me in this moment. I see a lot of bloggers own their feelings of what they feel God wants them to do, I never fully realized how much courage that takes until now that I’m going through it. I don’t know if it takes me more, because I think is my path doesn’t sound as expected or if it is just always difficult.

I’ve got to be authentically homosexual.

I’ve got to serve the lord unabashedly.

I’ve got to teach exercise in a banana costume. ✅

Funny which are weird and which aren’t. In my opinion they should all be okay, whatever you are, you are, whatever you feel, you feel.

Anyways, my next step in exercise is to become an instructor and leader. I’m already in shape, I’ve already taught martial arts and Qi Gong, but those were easier, because I had certificates, I had training, this time there is no permission, no blessing, but it is more exciting to me to try to do something in my own way.

The mental journey is still the most important aspect of exercising (to me):

WEEK 2 T25: Beta Mode, I’m digging deeper into myself, for no reason other than that it feels right. I don’t care about looking better, I’m pretty healthy, I have energy, I’m pushing myself to see how far I can push myself to my limit (not past my limit).

I did a push up contest with my husband, how many can we do in 1 minute, in a month we are doing a retake and the difference between us and us will be the count. I set the rules like that because I thought I would loose in a straight count… I got 34. But I know I could have done 35. There was a few seconds of hesitation, not fatigue. Fatigue would have been fine, but it wasn’t fatigue, it was self doubt, it was something else. So I set the bar pretty high for myself the first time, but I think I can improve by at least 1 the second time. My husband held back a lot only doing 30 because he just wanted to do more than me and he didn’t think I would even do 30… so he will probably be able to do 5 or more, more, but I don’t really care about beating him, as long as I beat “me”.

Exercise is my strongest area in life, that’s why I feel the need to find myself as a leader there, where I am strong. If I can’t find courage there, it will be hard to find it in parenting, in marriage, where I am weak.

My goal is to help people push past excuses about why they “can’t exercise” more than to be the best or have perfect videos, it’s about bringing fun to what doesn’t need to be a boring activity, it’s about trying to help those who don’t feel they already have a good fit somewhere else to get in shape that suits them… the Jim Gaffigans. My metric of success is quite specific, I want to help Jim Gaffigan get in better shape for health, I don’t know him, I’m not sure that I’ll be able to achieve that goal, but:

A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.

– Bruce Lee

Jim said in a comedy special, that he knows it only takes 20 minutes a day, but it’s hard to find time to exercise when, “you don’t want to exercise”. I take it as a personal challenge to try to make it more enjoyable, if not for him, hopefully for someone? Even myself? But since my journey of Mark Manson’s 100 blog post challenge is already over I find myself needing something new. I think 100 video exercise journals will be my second challenge to myself. I guess I am competitive, but only with myself.

FINANCIAL TRANSFORMATION

I’m $3.95 down from my previous high, but I did make $4.78 that I didn’t have prior to investing… which hour by hour is the lowest paying job I’ve ever had… I worked at a doughnut store for $5 an hour, but I never worked 3 weeks for $4.78 before. Perhaps investing isn’t the best job for me? I think I would have done better envelope stuffing or doing data entry.

But it has changed my relationship with money, I like money more now. I no longer demonize it, I no longer blame it for things it didn’t do.

I had NIO for awhile, but I bought high (at $19) so when I did sell at $20 I made about $4… which is what it is… but I could have bought in at $18 if I checked in all day waiting for a low, but it’s not worth it for me personally.

I didn’t like the ride I had with NIO so I traded when it was a gain and not a loss and grabbed Color Star again, which is more my style. It was at $0.78 and I was able to get 100 shares, it typically goes to $1.50 at least, so I think it will head back up and I’ll sell it if it gets to $1.50 and rethink what I want then. The market is so shaky and I’m risk adverse so I’d rather sell when I can then hold and risk loosing all the gains (small that they are).

My husband is a better investor than I am, but I find a certain satisfaction to picking my own stocks, I’ll add his recommendations to my watch list, but I have more fun learning and choosing on my own than doing a micro copy of what he has. Plus since he has more money he chooses Tesla when I don’t have that option.

Having stocks can be a lot of fun, I don’t consider it gambling, the money helps the companies to run. The possible loss is like gambling, but it’s different, the process allows companies doing a good job to keep growing. I’m not the hugest fan of capitalism, but to me the stock market is the upside of capitalism, if I have to live with the down side of capitalism against my will, why not enjoy the upside as well?

I could probably help our family’s finances more by reviewing our budget or lack of one… than with my stocks, but at least stocks are healing some negativity I had for a long long time about money.

FAMILY TRANSFORMATION

My aunt believes it’s impossible to love unconditionally, that only Jesus was capable of that.

I don’t believe that for me…

I’ve felt a lot of what I consider to be unconditional love for my children and even for my husband during our first two years.

I do know it’s not possible for me to feel like that all the time, but I believe it’s possible and a lot more simple than people make it.

I feel a bit bad for my aunt, because I think she really believes it isn’t possible for anyone minus Jesus, and I think her children have all never felt it from her.

I never felt it from either parent as well.

But I think my children have felt it from me.

I don’t know if I need to put an asterisk on it: unconditional love* (*as provided from a non-Jesus source)… I don’t think so.

My mom’s family and my dad’s family were both very different, but the lack of a feeling of unconditional love was similar.

Which is sad, because I think it’s what kids want more than anything else in the world (perhaps what adults want most also?).

I’ve done a lot of things wrong as a parent, but love is one thing I don’t think was wrong. Also not being able to love.

It seems that you can only give as much love as you have and you can’t be in debt for owing love you don’t have in the moment, yet it seems like a gift to a child that never fails to nourish their soul.

I’m not from a wealthy background, we most likely won’t be paying for our kids college or cars, but I think the effect of that will be very little on their overall sense of well being and even success compared to the lack or presence of love.

I see many parents that struggle to love their children (especially older children) I think it is because we don’t give ourselves permission to love “as much as we can” and “imperfectly”. It’s as if we don’t want to download the file, because we don’t have enough mental memory available to love infinatly.

Unconditionally doesn’t have to be infinitely, a moment of unconditional love is better than no moments of it.

It may be that we have to learn to love ourselves first, I hated myself when my daughter was born for failing to do the things I said I would. I wasn’t able to love her the way I am able to love my son now. But I don’t think it was about her vs him. I think it is about me now vs me then.

When I forgave myself for not being the perfect person ie failing to go to medical school, not having the perfect life before kids ie not having the beautiful house with a garden in the country side, it was only then that I could love anyone at all. I don’t know if it is like that for everyone, but it was like that for me.

If you have trouble loving unconditionally, perhaps you need to give yourself room to make mistakes trying it?

I never fought with my aunt about it. I don’t want to be like “na na na na na” I love my children unconditionally and it’s not that hard! I don’t know how to bring it up “tactfully” with her at this point.

But it was a really valuable thing for her to write to me in a letter, because my dad is very much like her and he would never vocalize it as clearly as to why he never loved me that way. I guess in his family they were taught it’s impossible, and how many of us try the impossible we are taught not to try?

There is a story about tying a rope to a baby elephant, that it will pull and pull to get away, but if the rope holds, the tiny rope will hold the adult elephant, because they will not test it again.

I think it’s true (but I have no actually elephant experience).

I would then challenge you, if you want to be smarter than an elephant don’t forget to challenge the rope sometimes.

Sometimes the things your families teach you in love, mistakenly hold you back much more than the government, the economy, the status quo, racism or sexism, most often it’s the ropes our families put on us that tether us where we don’t want to be anymore, but that isn’t spoken about on the news much (family crushes artistic dream with silent criticisms, culinary school dreams crushed by laughter, dreams of getting in shape undermined by constant doubt and ridicule of family members).

SOUL TRANSFORMATION

I had a baby and a strong willed child and I knew it wasn’t time to learn to cook at the same time. But now my baby is a toddler and my strong willed child has become medium willed so I think it’s time now.

I think in terms of 25 minute blocks since I am in love with my 25 minute exercise videos. So I’ll call it C25, cooking for 25 minutes… but I think that’s where I need to hit next in life.

1. Choose the area that causes the most chaos.
2. Brainstorm solutions and try them on.
3. Journal or talk out what’s going on.
4. Go with your temperament.
_
1. We need even BETTER meal planning and meal prep habits.
2. We need to take even BETTER care of ourselves.
3. We need to get rid of a bunch of junk instead of letting it all pile up.

– Rachel Norman (Stress and Overwhelm Breakthroughs Class) Her Blog

Meals actually don’t cause me the most chaos, but I probably hate them the most… maybe she doesn’t use the word hate as freely as me, but either way I’ll choose meals.

1. Meals.
2. Cook stuff in large batches, stew, curry, whatever… just keep trying to cook something either I or the kids like. Spaghetti.
3. I want to have a cooler meal selection than stew, curry, spaghetti, but I think that’s almost all I can cook and I don’t feel like chili right now… so maybe I should just go with what I can do and add more things when it’s possible? (I can also make Miso soup!) Maybe miso soup tofu lunches? And stew, curry, spaghetti dinners?
4. I’m a calm person, but sensitive to my husband complaining about my cooking, I don’t know what to do about that yet. But I can work on cooking for myself and the kids, try to reward myself when I cook the whole week with a dessert on Saturday.

1. Meal plan: BREAKFAST Oatmeal, blueberries. LUNCH Tofu, Miso. DINNER Stew > Curry > Spaghetti.
2. Take better care of myself (Google that later).
3. Declutter, yay! I do this on Monday, it gets done already.

There was a time I liked my own cooking, a long time ago, a lot of trauma between my husband and I not having the same culinary preferences has kind of put a wet blanket on that, I want to shake it off, I can’t not let it get to me, it did get to me, so I suppose I’ll have to heal from it and rehab my confidence about cooking, but I don’t want to let him be right that I can’t cook, it’s not fair to the kids and myself, he can eat those words, but I won’t make the kids suffer because he likes to be hateful and I am sensitive. I’ll pick myself up and get back in the kitchen to spite him.

MENTAL TRANSFORMATION

Just finished the book “Beyond Boundaries” it says I don’t have to be openhearted and forgiving when people refuse to honor my boundaries or when they are not seeking forgiveness, that it’s right to be protective about myself when others are hurtful.

It’s good to feel like that it’s okay to be hurt. I thought I had to forgive every mean things as they happened, but I don’t.

I can forgive whenever I choose to, whatever I choose to forgive.

Not that I don’t want to, but it doesn’t make sense to forgive something ongoing, it makes sense to forgive something over.

So until my husband stops being retardedly mean and critical I’m not going to shame myself for being hurt, for not forgiving, I’ll forgive him when and if he stops that. My kids and my husband have pushed past what is fair and decent very often because I’m so calm, they go as far as they can and at a point it becomes my fault for not stopping them. I thought I wouldn’t have to stop someone I loved from disrespecting my feelings pretty clearly, but I pretty clearly have to if I want it to stop, because my family is full of line crossers. These sheep won’t go back into the pen without some shepherding.

So I’m a bit bitter about all the cooking related verbal abuse over the years, but I’m not willing to take the mental energy to deal with it today. I’ve got a lot on my plate already. So I acknowledge it, and I’ll get to that repair work when I have a bit less on my plate, but I’m choosing to table it for today.

ONE WEEK IN LIFE IN SUMMARY

Body – Looking to take it to the next level and start B25 Banana Exercise 25.

Finances – It’s nice to be recovering, I don’t think I’ll become a very serious investor, but I want to keep experimenting and learning without abandoning it from the beginning.

Family – When family runs well it’s both gratifying and also scary, because it gives me space to turn to my own goals and identity and that’s more threatening than when I have to constantly attend to a diaper change ext. My son seems to be nearly ready to wean and that is very emotional, my daughter was semi-forced off at 4-years-old, but my son seems like he will be naturally done about 2 (coming soon), so that my time with babies is coming to a close (my son will be our last) so that is a bittersweet event on the horizon. As the kids put away baby activities they have outgrown I see their confidence and individuality grow, nothing wrong with baby things, but I see they naturally reach a graduation point and a progression of self growth that they are internally excited about with or without us pushing them towards.

Soul – I’m starting to open myself up to whatever life brings me, I’m not saying I don’t have preferences of what I would like to happen, but I’m more open minded about taking what does come now more than ever.

Mind – Interestingly as I love more sincerely, and unabashedly I also set boundaries easier, and as I set boundaries I love more. That was counter intuitive for me. Perhaps my husband’s criticism does only hurt when I mirror the dark unaccepted side of my own soul in my own mind and therefore cause my own hurt, but also “stop that”. New family policy: if you don’t like my food, don’t eat it, and if you do eat it, don’t complain to me. No thank you constant complaining about me doing my best, thank you keep your criticism to yourself, when I didn’t ask, this isn’t Chopped, there is only one wife in this family, I’ve already won (kind of… depending on what your view of marriage is).

THANK YOU READERS

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.‎

– Oscar Wilde

For better or worse, you are the best you the world will ever have. We are all depending on you to be you. Thank you, for being you. There is a lot of happiness in accepting who you are and owning it, it’s not that easy, but you have to carry who you are either as debt or profit, you can’t get rid of you, no matter how hard you try. Today, I thank you for being you, and remind you, you are the best you ever, really. No one can ever take that from you (but also you can never escape from it either).

Thank you so much for being you, I think you are a person who likes to strive to be better, I’m guessing that because that’s what I write about a lot, so that’s what you are mostly reading here, but just because you like to strive to be better doesn’t mean you aren’t also good enough in the moment, I think you are great, just as you are, your presence here has always been kind and encouraging to me and I’m guessing you are another kind soul at the core, but if not, that’s fine too, it takes all of us to make this world what it is and what it could be.

🍌