Category: A Healthy Me

Welcome to Tuesday,
Another workday at home
Same as yesterday.

From a work perspective, this was a very busy day. It was so busy that it was the type of day where you force yourself to find breaks, even if just to clear the head. The short of it: my “on” was in 9th gear (on an 8-gear box), and my “off” was comfortably numb, without the drug assist. Here’s an example of one of the “off” modes:

All fun aside, the moment to tame the wild and crazy hair came shortly after.

So that was pretty much what the whole day was like—Intense work, and silly play. A nice balance for a Tuesday.

Welcome to week six,
Working from home has its perks,
Saving the planet.

Yesterday was a well-rested day, enough so that the typical Monday blues were cancelled. It’s a chipper day indeed! No pressing tasks due this morning, no fire drills, no rushing, no stressing, no angst, just a nice relaxing morning.

While the morning was relaxed, the afternoon not so much. A trend has emerged amongst my coworkers—a trend I have noticed happening pretty much everywhere—where the “work” portion of the day is shifting later and later as time working at home ticks on. So I try to revel in the quiet mornings knowing that come 3 p.m. my email box will not stop dinging! And that’s when the stress will begin this week’s run. But I’ve started to set parameters in an effort to remain sane and even keeled: I have a deadline to be off the computer by, and that time is by 7 p.m. I find if I don’t set this limit, I’ll be working until the wee hours of the morning, and that’s no good for anyone! But even I started to shift to getting up later in the day, and now I’m making an effort to restore my pre-pandemic routine but just working from home. I hope that 6-weeks in to working from home, I can encourage, or inspire, others to do the same.

On the whole, a pretty good day!

Stay safe, stay healthy!

To work or to play,
Saturday’s indecision,
I’ll decide later.

Yay, the weekend has arrived. Applause, applaus, plaus, … moment’s over. And, literally, that’s about how long the excitement lasted before I ran a list of chores through my head, and then plotted out all the ways I could procrastinate into not doing them. The problem is then I just spend all day thinking about what needs to be done and how to not do them. But alas, I do them so that I can start to think about other things.

Stress is funny that way, and sometimes can be paralyzing. Today’s major task was writing a report, and a report that someone else should have written, so that added additional layers of anger to the whole thing! Yes, I procrastinated most of the day, choosing instead to watch a movie, play a few rounds of Uno on the xbox, but I did finally manage to begin the task, and 4 hours later (at about 11 pm) the job was done and the email sent. Stress unloaded.

Well, that consumed the entire day. Sunday should be better.

T.G.I. Friday!
Not much different than Thursday,
Tomorrow we play.

At last, it’s Friday. Although the excitement usually felt on the 5th day of the week is strangely missing. Well, not really “strangely” as we all know why Friday’s in April this year are no big deal as tomorrow the only difference is I won’t have to … err, after another reflection, I revise that to “there is no difference between Friday and Saturday this week: I’ll still get up at the same time, still face the same limited breakfast choices, will still check in on work email, will still try to get in some exercise….

Yup. Absolutely nothing different. Anything different for me these days involves “planning” with the bonus agony of not being able to set start dates, so I’m going to have to stop that depressing activity. I’m now playing around with the idea of pulling out one of those adult coloring books that has become popular over the last decade. Mindless creativity at its finest. I am inspired to do this because I saw my sister working on one with my niece the other day. Yes, my sister—the one that would not be caught dead with a crayon in her hands just two months ago is thoroughly engaged in mastering her mad adult-coloring-book skills, and enjoying every moment of it. The world has truly ended!

Joking aside, my need to be creative has been stifled lately. In part because I lack adequate space to let loose, and part because my focus has been on selling one house, buying another house, and making both my personal and work life co-exist in the same room of someone else’s house. Oye! It’s moments like these when I just want to play games on the xbox and allow the real world to just disappear for a few hours. But this, too, shall pass. I just hate the waiting.

So tomorrow is Saturday. I’m going to try and force myself out of a routine and try something different.

A working Thursday,
Shuf’ling my way to my desk,
Still in my slippers.

It’s a temporarily typical Thursday, same as other more recent Thursdays: I wake later than normal, brew coffee in a French Press, make a home-cooked breakfast that is either egg or oatmeal based, and then take a leisurely stroll over to my new workstation that happens to share space with my bedroom. While I am tempted to say “I could get used to this,” the space is really too small and cramped. I pulled a very nice, very expensive, but very small desk out of storage for the temporary fix, but this desk was never meant to be used as a workstation. It’s more of a writing desk in the true sense of writing. It may be comfortable working on a laptop from, but my work requires a full-on workstation complete with multiple large monitors and enormous RAM and memory requirements. So I squeeze myself between the desk and the bed (at least a standard office chair fits between them), with a shelving unit to the right and a bureau to the left. At least the desk is up against a wall and under a window, but my room is on the top floor so the wall is only perpendicular to the floor for about 4 feet, then slants in with the roof line. And then there is the wallpaper. Ugg the wallpaper, which was most likely put up in the 1940s!

Not much else happened today. This day felt dull compared with all the excitement and emotions from yesterday (review: final walk-through and memory reflections in the home that is being sold). But as with everything else, this balancing is a good thing.

Until tomorrow (and beyond): Stay healthy!

A trip to the past,
Last visit before the sale,
A new home awaits.

Yes, the day has arrived for me to do my very last walk-through of my very first home purchase. And even though I have not lived there in over 3 years due to a relocation, it still felt surreal saying goodbye to the place I called home for the past few decades. But now with the tenant done moving out and the sale less than a month away comes the time to do a final walk-through to make sure everything is as it should be. Happily it was, and spotless to boot (I had a very, VERY clean tenant).

As I did the walk-through, I found myself reflecting on all the choices I made for how each room was to be decorated and let out a pleasing sigh when recalling the hours, days, even weeks it took me to make decisions on what color to paint this room or that wall, and then pulled out my phone took pictures of the tops of paint cans with the color formulas in case I want rinse and repeat at the next home. I realize now that I did not have cans for all the rooms. Three rooms in particular were missing, and those happened to be the first three I painted (small bathroom, kitchen, and family room), so I get to agonize over the color of those three rooms in the near future! Oh well. It’s still nostalgic after all.

So I stand for a moment of silence as I say good bye to the past.

Okay, moment over. The new owners will love it, same as I will love my new place. I chuckle as I give the old a one last glance and pause as I know for the first year in the new place, I will constantly compare it to the old, “This is how that was, and that was a different color,” and then adjust to things not being where they were—things like silverware drawers, linen closets, and where the hell did I put the martini glasses? Speaking of martini glasses, I expect all my good friends to come for a smashing party once the pandemic is over and we are safe to travel and visit once again! I can hardly wait.

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Day 8 stats:
Scale: ##3.3
Health: good
Steps: 9200
Mood: Upbeat

Spring rains start the day,
Those flowers better be bright,
Eager for the blooms.

It’s the beginning of a new week—week five working from home. This is beginning to feel like the norm now. I’m not complaining as I am thoroughly enjoying not having to get out of bed until 7 a.m., but I do reflect on how my daily routine has shifted. I now get up an hour and a half later than pre-pandemic, and am back to staying up past midnight on the day’s other end. Now I fear how hard it will be to shift the body clock back to a post-pandemic schedule.

No video conferences scheduled until 4 pm today, so I can hang in my jammies for the remainder of the morning. One of the benefits of working at home is the cost associated with doing laundry each week has gone way down! I do, however, dress up and do the hair and make-up thing for the conference calls as it’s something that’s still in my control.

On the activity front I’m returning to normal. Approaching 10K today earlier than typical. I think subconsciously I need to make up for the days when I was just hovering around the 5K mark. Healthier eating is back on, and while I have not gained any weight this past week, I am eager to shift back to the loosing trend.

A new week, a new effort. Join me virtually.

All egg hunts inside,
Easter spirits still run high,
Hippity hip hop.

Not the typical Easter Sunday, but we still made it work. This year all the eggs were hidden inside, but all the edible parts had to be sealed away in plastic eggs, else the dogs would have found and consumed them all long before Eleanor awoke. While at 10 years old E knows the Easter bunny doesn’t exist, she still expects an egg hunt—yes, she found out about Santa Clause and the tooth fairy this past year as well. And even if her slightly older friends didn’t “clue her in,” she had already begun to question how a life-sized bunny could hide eggs in everyone’s yard in just one night (same for Santa and presents). Ahh, welcome to the age of enlightenment!

Egg hunts weren’t the only thing that was turned upside down, however. The traditional family gathering was scrapped this year. It’s moments like these that I’m so thankful to be living at my sister’s home instead of being stuck in a house all by myself—tomorrow I may want the “house to myself” feeling, but today I want family. So we did the next best thing: a Zoom meeting. Best part is that almost all family members joined in! Only one nephew and his wife, and one niece were missing, which is a major accomplishment for my very large family. The best part is that I could see it meant the world to my Mom to see all her children attending. I think she actually teared up a few times too!

The rest of Easter was nice. Watched a little church on TV, until the power went out half way in, had a fabulous lamb dinner, even an Easter toast with a great bottle of wine. The almost perfect day!

Needless to say, however, the diet was nonexistent today, activity levels not as high (the zoom meeting lasted 2 hours), but a great day health wise all the same. I fended off all the chocolate, and only indulged in a small slice of homemade pumpkin pie, so I didn’t stray too far from plan. Tomorrow I will be back at it!

Happy Easter y’all.

A new adventure,
Inspection day excitement,
Will be moving soon.

Today’s haiku, as you may have deciphered, alludes to a new home purchase. Yes, it’s inspection day! Inspections can be very good, or they can be very bad because they bring to light issues with a home that are not typically seen. I’ve been through three inspections many years ago, with two of those three homes failing inspection due to misrepresentation (one home was in a flood zone and had major electrical issues and the other had a termite infestation). This is my first time dealing with inspections for this round of home buying. And because I am writing this a few days later, I can report that while there were some issues that need to be fixed, nothing was severe enough to walk away from the property. This is a major step forward to acquiring my next home address!

I will add that inspections during a pandemic did alter a lot about how we conduct ourself when in a seller’s home that is still fully occupied. No, the sellers were not present for the inspection, but the home is fully furnished. First, the inspector, my buyer’s agent, and myself were wearing face masks and latex gloves. Second, we did not touch any of the seller’s furniture, not even to sit on a chair after two hours of walking around the property and standing. All systems were checked as they would have been prior to this pandemic, and only the appliances that were being sold as part of the property were inspected. We still managed to get a full inspection, but it felt strange being hyper vigilant about not leaning against counters, walls, or doorways, not sitting for a moment on a stool, and most definitely not using toilets or sinks except to test if they were working and to check water pressure. On the bonus side: I was able to get in at least 5K steps toward my daily goal.

And finally, from the diet standpoint, because the inspection started early in the morning, I did stop and Dunkin’ Donuts (curbside pickup) and got a coffee and egg and cheese wraps. Not too far off diet, but off all the same. I don’t expect any weight gain from this, but from a Whole 30 standpoint, there was cheese, bread, and cream, three items that are not allowed. But then again, this is the modified version. Still, I may have to just admit that I’m not following Whole 30 until the pandemic is over and we can go back to normal food shopping routines.