Changing rhythm

The weekend was good. The apartment definitely has the feel of bailing out the ocean with a teaspoon, but I cleared out some paperwork on Sunday, tossed old bills into the filing cabinet, and shredded a serious pile of paper. Since the shredder hit the recycle bin a while back after the motor burned out, this meant doing it by hand. Monotonous, but needed to be done...Lil Sis has had her identity stolen more than once, so I'm careful. I skimmed library books and started a hat that I'm pretty sure is going to be too small, but I'm too stubborn to frog it just yet.

The pre-xmas rhythm to my days had taken on a heavy dose of slackerism, as I've suggested in earlier posts (yes, i forgive myself for some of it, because my rhythm was off from Mom's surgery, but still...). Go to work, get home, jump on home computer, goof off for several hours, get off computer and switch to TV. Both computer and TV performed in semi-brown stare. The curse of not being responsible to anything much but yourself. Definitely could use the growth of a small human or another animal in the house, to get the damn hedonism outta our philosophy.

In the new year, I'm making the effort to keep that garbage from happening (the hedonism, not the small human growth). I need to get to the Y more; I'm still not quite back up to good with that. And there's SO much to do with the apartment, that I really shouldn't only work it on the weekends...I should be doing little things in the evenings in my so-called wind-down time.

I'll be making fresh lists for myself this week, and continuing to forgive myself. Example: I got up on Sunday with every intention of cleaning off the bathroom sink area; it's a serious clutterpile, especially on my side. I got going on other things instead, and it still hasn't been touched. Perhaps tonight. But in the meantime, I've been keeping a clean kitchen, I'm eating better, and my home computer time has dropped. All very good things.

Eating better...they've been replaying Food Inc. on the PBS channels here. A good reminder for me as I change my eating habits for the better. I'm hoping for a shot at grass-fed stew meat on sale at Native Sun this week, so I can make a crock pot stew. I'm eating more salads and beans, and trying some more Larabars (yes, Lil Sis, the fat grams are high, but you can't knock the ingredients). I'm having to integrate these changes carefully, as our budget doesn't allow for all the changes I'd like to make. I did a nice shop at the evil big box store last night, and was blown away by the prices. You have to resist grabbing stuff to stock up, because the damn prices are so good. It so pisses me off to have to engage in a buying practice that's only serving to feed the worst philosophies of the food industry, but with our budget, it just can't be helped yet. Baby steps. I don't live in an area yet where it's all that viable to be eating only locally anyway, so you do the best with what you've got. In the meantime, I make small changes, read labels and price tags, and it's becoming automatic, knowing what foods are NG.

Sidebar: I should really dig out Kingsolver's Animal Vegetable Miracle again for a refresher course on seasonal eating. The landmines in the organic industry are just as hard to navigate as the regular food industry. Trying to eat more fresh fruit, in part because the frozen stuff seemed expensive, and found blueberries on sale at Native Sun, so I grabbed them for my oatmeal and cereal breakfasts. Only to figure out at home that they weren't hothoused in Naples, FL, but rather distributed from there after being shipped from Chile. Which only makes sense, since blueberries are a May to June fruit. Grr...!

And I'm still not going to worry about losing weight. The first 6 months of my Y time, I didn't lose a pound, but I gained muscle. This was because I wasn't eating properly at all, so only the exercise was doing its job. I'm going to continue to eat good food, recognize my emotional eating and portion sizes, get back to the Y at least 5 days a week, and the weight loss will take care of itself.

Image from here.