Sleep: up at about 7:30am, to sleep for night before at about 9pm (was sleepy) to sleep for night tonight at about 8pm (will get up at 3am tomorrow)
Food: breakfast: bananas lunch: bananas dinner: tahini-lemon-tomato juice dip for tomatoes, celery, cuke rounds
Exercise: before breakfast: ~ 18 minutes of barefoot running on treadmill, including warm-up/cool-down walking - ran about 1.1 miles this time (still training my skin for barefoot running) and it's going well! :) Only slight hint of possible blister forming, but didn't. I stopped before it got questionable 'cause I'd already gone farther than I had planned. Nice.
I also did 20 minutes of the almost bounce sort of thing on the rebounder after that. I watched the guinea pigs and rabbit the whole time walking, running, walking and bouncing. So cute! :)
before lunch: a little over an hour of beginner Ashtanga yoga with a Richard Freedman video I have: Introduction to Ashtanga, Complete Practice Session. It worked out well 'cause we didn't do any of the headstands and stuff that we're not supposed to do when menstrating. I figured that I could skip stretching out after the running and such since I was gonna' do the yoga later. That worked out well. :)
before dinner: I did the daily calestenics I've been trying to keep up with (but haven't done every day quite yet, just some days so far). I did all of 'em except the handstands 'cause that's inverted and since you're not supposed to do them in yoga I figure I could skip 'em a few days otherwise too, just in case. So I did 60 reps on the Leg Magic, 20 pushups (full), 5 chin-ups (assisting myself - getting closer on the first one to not needing assistance though - yay!), 20 jump lunges, 20 knee-ups, and 20 jump squats.
Detox: I had some chives the other night, think it was Friday - and had a little gas with chive smell... yep, that's part of what happens with 'em... also makes my underarms a little smelly at times too.
Female: didn't take my temperature today, day 2 of my cycle, green day, no kid icons
The Rest: We were going to take a break from the farm today 'cause it was raining & my hubby needed a break, so it was a good time since the rain would water things for us. But we couldn't stay away. LOL We ended up going to water things later in the day ('cause it had stopped raining in the late morning) and I transplanted about 50 or so tomato seedlings into larger pots. We'll be able to plant 'em out not too long from now. Gotta' get that bed ready...
It was a good thing we went out 'cause we also discovered that there was a pinhole leak in one of the radiator hoses and were able to get another hose for it while out. Sooo many things going on with our car for the last several months or so. It's not all that old either... oh well, this one's not too bad, except now that we're back home it's raining again & my poor hubby has to mess with it in the rain and dark 'cause I have to use it in the morning to go to my shift at the gym...
ANYway... yesterday I had such a surprise when I was watching the guinea pigs and rabbits all of a sudden a baby pops out of the tube they like to hang out in! No wonder it's mom has been so hungry lately. LOL We knew it might happen sometime but I've been away and didn't notice she was pregnant somehow. I've never let a companion animal have babies before - always had them spayed/neutered or only same sex or only one, etc. Was doing population control and all. I had trouble finding any guinea pigs for a few years though, and they're still hard to come by here, so I figure it's okay to let them have babies a bit... they are heard animals after all...
I love to look at them while I'm running on the treadmill when I run on the treadmill at the house. So it was extra special to do my barefoot run on the treadmill this morning while watching them AND the new baby just born yesterday! :) Soooo cute! :)
Guinea pigs and rabbits make great companions for 80-10-10 people IMO. They like to eat the same sorts of things, but often different parts (especially the guinea pigs). They are small and furry and cute. Bunnies are quiet and litter trainable, but need more room than guinea pigs. Guinea pigs are sometimes litter trainable, not quiet though. LOL Cute bizarre sounds though. Both guinea pigs and bunnies like to have cages and places to hide in their cages, so it's not like keeping a bird in a cage or anything. They feel more secure in there and are happier with a cage, as long as they have enough room to move around and get out for exploring every once in a while (with access to their cage if they get frightened while out that is).
When we are able to stay at the farm we're gonna' move the guinea pigs and rabbit there with us. We're gonna' have a big fenced in compound for them with the hutches (cages) all around the outside and then we can open up the doors to their hutches most of the day and let them come and go as they please. We'll only have about 1/4 of the compound accessible at a time though, so that we can let the grass, carrots and whatnot that I grow for them in there grow up and recover from their trompling and grazing. :)
I posted some pics of them on my "30 Bananas A Day" and "Give It To Me Raw" pages. I'll have two video's up in "Facebook" once the last one finishes uploading. It's about 3 minutes long and is taking quite some time uploading... hope it makes it before I need to go to sleep!
Here's the video with a picture at the end, so you don't have to look for 'em over there:
Here's the other picture I put up:
And here's the last one...
Has music 'cause all you could hear were the neighbors anyway on this one. Watch out - bunny comin' through! LOL I can leap 2 guinea pigs in one bound! :) Pesky fly! Leave 'em alone! It left after I finished the video...
I'll tell y'all about the farm in "The Rest" section later. First, gotta' do the stats for those that are tracking things. :)These stats are from yesterday, unless otherwise noted:
Sleep: woke at 6am to get back to running before we had to leave for the day
Food: pineapple, possibly the last of the season bananas jakfruit* salad: tahini-lemon dressing with heirloom tomatoes on baby spinach, yum! :)
*I had planned to have jakfruit for dinner, and maybe a little bit of baby spinach after, but there were only a couple of pods ripe :(, so I ended up having salad later.
Exercise: I got back to running again after a month's away I believe it's been. I didn't have much time for the runs I'd been doing before I left, but figured it'd be good to ease back into it since I was practically a beginner when I left. It went well. I wanted to run at least a mile and had run out of enough time to do so at the pace I'd been doing for the longer runs, so ran faster for the mile. It felt good. :) I probably could have done 2 miles at that pace, possibly longer... not sure about the full 5K I'd been doing before at that pace though. Eventually I'll be running the 5K and farther at that pace and faster, but not for now. Will build up to it to make sure I don't overdo...
The rest of my exercise for the day involved farmwork. Oh, I also did some calestenics and the Leg Magic a tad...
The night before I'd done 20 pushups, 5 chin-ups (assisted), 10 handstands (against a wall, only counting the kick-ups that worked), 20 lunges each leg, 20 jump lunges, 20 jump squats, and 20 knee ups... I'd do as many as I could to failure, take a rest like in weights and then do more... 'till I got all of 'em done, sometimes switching to another exercise in-between. I chose to do this many of things 'cause I found some old business card sized cards I'd made for myself and my son back when I was in charge of his P.E. when homeschooling him. They have a column for exercise goals, a column for the amounts accomplished that day (it was the wider column so you can put tally marks during the day) and a place at the top to put what day it was. It was something to help make sure we got at least that much done every day, in addition to any other exercise we did. It worked pretty well for me if I remember correctly, so I think I'll do it again, but am gonna' add a few more things and more reps too, once I'm back to my full work schedule again and have adjusted back into my workouts and all.. For now I'll do 'em at least every other day. :)
Detox: I was having a bit of acne recently, since I've come home, not sure why. Perhaps it's from being off my exercise schedule, or perhaps it's 'cause it's warmer and more humid here (had been in places that get hotter, but everyone had air conditioning there), or perhaps it's from molds or mildew or something... was having a bit of trouble with it before I left, but it cleared when I was gone... strange. I was thinking that perhaps it's from the towel I like to use... it always smells bad to me when it's just been washed and after a bit it smells better. I've decided to give up on that towel and use another one as my favorite. I like ones that are small enough to fit on my towel bar without having to bunch up, and are not the plush thick kind - both criteria are so that the towel dries out well and doesn't get mold or mildew. I'd been looking for some like that at the stores, as I'd love to find a brown one like that, but haven't been able to find anything but the thick ones for some time now. My hubby found a blue one in our things last night, not sure where it came from, but it was washed recently and didn't smell, so yay! I've also got a backup white one, just in case. LOL I was using the hand towel in the meantime. Last night I noticed that my acne is clearing up noticably already and it still looks better this morning, so yay! Could 'a been the towel, the cardio, or... ? Guess I'll see over time.
Female: 3am temp today: 97.41 degrees fahrenheit, day 20 of my cycle, green day, no kid icons
The Rest: K, so onto the farm stuff! :) It was an exciting day for my hubby and I at the farm today simply 'cause we finally started planting lots of fruit in ways that sunk in that we've finally got a long-term farming situation and are working on our dreams, right now! :)
I "potted on" papayas into 101 pots, which is the point that we count as plants. When they're seedlings we don't really count them since there's more that can go wrong with 'em at that age. There were 3-5 plants in each pot I made, most of 'em had 3. We'll be thinning them to just one at some point, probably after they're in the ground, so it's like 101 trees.
We planted out 6 large coconut trees and 12 papaya trees-worth (3 plants per trees-worth, that will eventually be one per trees-worth) into the ground, where they'll be for a long, long time. Well, the papayas won't be there all that long for trees, but they'll be there for a while... We're gonna' plant more papayas near there as well, along with other longer-term trees so that the papayas will provide a nursery effect for the other trees and as the papayas are losing their productivity the longer-term ones will be starting up theirs. :)
We also planted 13 jakfruit pods, but we don't know how well they'll do since not all the pods were ripe. They're from a tree with the best jakfruit we've had. It makes consistently smaller fruits than most jakfruit (which makes it easier for one person to finish in one meal), and the pods are very evident inside, more than other jakfruit we've had. It has a better flavor to us as well. We're not completely sure if it is just a certain kind of jakfruit or a different fruit that's related to jakfruit... but we're gonna' grow it if we can. If these seeds don't take, we'll get some more and can possibly get seedlings that have sprouted from fallen ones if there are any.
My friends who have the sprout business that we get the sprout discards from also gave us a mango seedling, a dragon-fruit transplant and a green fig seedling that we'll plant out soon. :)
Let's see, what else? I know there was more... oh yeah! The banana patch! It has grown so much in the month I was gone! Most of them have doubled their height. Wow! And the first one I planted has a keiki (new shoot) of it's own! That's a good sign that it's doing well. Yay! :)
We also put some of the barely sprouted coconuts into pots to plant out later when they're older and/or we have the places for them prepped and ready. We had figured at one point that a good minimum amount of coconuts to plant would be 10/person. We now have 7 in the ground there and 6 in pots, several more still working on sprouting, so we're gettin' there! :)
The red lilikoi, jaboticaba and other seedlings are doing well too. Yay! :)
K, gotta' go now... time to go and water all those seedlings! :) I'm gonna' drop my hubby off at the farm and then go help get someone's networking set up with their new computer and router (and other computers they already had that I'd set up before). Then I'm back to the farm. Yay! :)
I'll try to take pics and/or video so you can see things too! :)
Sleep: woke at 3am for temp., but didn't take it, up at ~7:45am to sleep for night at 10:30pm again... good thing I can sleep in again on Sunday - gotta' get to sleep earlier Sunday though 'cause there's no sleeping in on Monday...
Food: breakfast: 1 medium-large pineapple (no burn today, nice) lunch: small bag lychee (~20?), 4 smallish-medium dragon fruit before dinner/after run: 15 small-ish medium apple bananas dinner (1 1/2 hrs after bananas): shredded cabbage & carrots with tahini-lemon/lime dressing & 1/2 avocado
Yeah, a bit too much overt fats for 10% today, but I've been doing the overt fats light to none lately so it's okay I think - will find out Sunday I suppose...
Here's a video of lunch remnants and about dragonfruit I took at the farm. It might take a bit to load 'cause it's the limit of what size Blogger will take. I'll look into other video uploading options another time:
Exercise: Pedometer wasn't working quite right for part of the day - probably about 1/4-1/3 of the walking time I'd say... so I'm not quite sure how much regular walking I did. It says 5,548 steps, which is 2.189 miles, but I'd estimate it was more like 6,935-7,398 steps or 2.736-2.919 miles. Still, it's nowhere near as much as I walk when I work at the gym. I don't wear the pedometer when formally working out, so the other stuff is extra.
I was able to get back to my running schedule today, yay! :) My foot didn't hurt this time at all. Yay! Not exactly sure why it hurt the other day, but I'm not taking chances on getting hurt, listening to my body, and that day my foot didn't want me running. Good thing it was okay with me walking fast though. I held myself back to the scheduled increase, again, in order to take it easy. I've felt cardiovascularly like I could do 30 minutes or more straight through at the slower speed I'm running/jogging, but don't want to increase things too fast so my muscles, tendons, ligaments and such have time to adjust. But I couldn't help myself go a tad longer... I was supposed to do 25 minutes, but did 27 1/2 minutes instead. That way I can get to the 30 minute goal the next run, rather than taking two runs to get there.
I did a shorter warm-up walk too, but it felt right. Instead of the 3 miles I usually do in the process of warm-up, run & cool-down, I did a bit more: 3.36 miles instead, as I was almost to 3 miles when I was done with the run even though I'm still running slow in order to get to the 30-40 minutes solid running going solid. I walk at 3.5 - 4 mph for warm-up and cool-down, and run at 5.5 - 6.2 mph, mostly 5.5 right now. To run at an 8 minute mile pace I need to run at 7.4 mph-ish, so there's a bit to go in that department. All in due time, all in due time. ;) Oh, and I also do an extra cool-down of about 1/2 minute at 3mph, followed by ~ 1 min. @ 2mph & ~1 min. @ 1 mph, then off to ~ 1 min. easy bounch on the rebounder, just so that I don't get that trippy room rushing past me sensation when getting off the treadmill and walking. LOL I start rehydrating during the 3.5-4 mph walking cool-down and stick with it 'till after my shower or when I've taken in enough to weigh what I started. I follow the running sessions with some stretching, which lasts about 20-30 minutes. Then I'm off to the shower. Ahh... nice.
Hmm... I'm finishing this post on Sunday evening & I can't remember if I did other exercise or not... thought I'd remember for sure. Oh well. Gotta' write that stuff down.
Detox: The sty thing's going away, so I suppose things are evening out. Still sweating buckets when running, however it's also been super humid and muggy here lately so it makes sense.
Female: 3am temp: ?? degrees Fahrenheit - didn't take it again but I know it was 96.something degrees 'cause of the time of month it is, day 4 of my cycle, green day, no kid icons
The Rest: I'm starting to add videos in here and there as I can. Let me know what ya' think. :)
Went to a guy's place to check out some fencing that we were going to remove and take for free - on both sides. It was on Craig's list. We thought it'd be no problem with the heavy duty jack we usually use as a post puller, but our jack had been jacked (pun intended - yeah, stolen in other words) from our farm a while back. We went to the place we got it from only to discover that not only did they not have 'em anymore, but the employees there didn't remember ever having them. LOL It was a year at most that we got it. How soon they forget... guess we're not gonna' get that free fencing. Don't wanna' use the tractor for it & don't have anywhere else to get a heavy duty jack like that here either. Oh well.
I wanted to go there anyway 'cause we're running low on the timothy hay I give to the guinea pig(s & rabbit now too!) as food and they use it for bedding too. Yes, we live with 4 guinea pigs and a bunny now. :) They're all so cute! The feed store apparently stopped carrying timothy hay recently as well, saying they didn't have enough sales to keep carrying it. Darn. Part of living on a small island and all I suppose. I don't know of anywhere else on island to get bales of timothy hay & the guinea pigs shouldn't have alfalfa. Guess that's another thing we'll hafta' grow ourselves - sooner than later it seems. I wanted to grow it eventually, but looks like we may have to push that up a bit. They eat all fresh food otherwise, but it seems they need a bit of dry stuff too, thus the timothy. I think we'll change the approach to the hutches and not use it for bedding so much anymore. We'll make hay dispenser dealies to go on the wall and let them use the fresh stuff for bedding if they want. We plan to move 'em out to the farm sometime in the nearish future too anyway and when we do we're going to have a compound for them to go out and eat the stuff growing directly.
We're thinking of setting up a worm composting system below their hutches so that the droppings and such go directly in there, and not having things in there for bedding. The bunny will have a shelf to hang out on to get away from the guinea pigs and mesh flooring if she wants and the guinea pigs have tubes they can go in for those purposes as well (but would be getting away from the bunny if they want instead of the guinea pigs). We can have the hay feeder on the side of the hutches and put their veggies and fruit in trays that clip there too. The compound would be fenced in and have 4 sections. There'd be a sort of entry hall of sorts at the base of their hutches where there'd be 4 doors, one to each section of the compound. We'd let them out into one section at a time, letting the other 3 grow back from all the grazing. I could plant carrots and other root crops in there too for the bunny to dig up and eat. She loves to dig. :) There'd be enough space for them to go in and run and munch around and visit with us if they like. I could go in there and knit, crochet and/or spin cotton while they explore and eat. :)
We'd open up the hutches and the door to the current section of the compound and let them decide when or if to come out. We'd shepherd them back in before the day's over. We were thinking that the compound wouldn't need a roof 'cause they'd only be out in the daytime when we're there too, but I might end up having a shade cloth or some other sort of moveable roof in order to let them hang out there when I'm not in there too (but still in the area). I'm fairly certain a bird wouldn't swoop down to get them when I'm sitting there with them, but it might if I leave the compound to do other farmwork... I planned to have some things for them to play in and on in the compound too, so they'll also have them to hide in if necessary. I'll be able to clean out the cages without having to grab 'em and take 'em out of there this way too. Less cleaning needed if we do it all this way too, so it'll be nicer for all of us. There are so many things to do for the farm though, I'm not sure when we'll get all of this done.
While we were at the feed store we got a hay fork, so nice to have an actual hay fork that works. Yay! We've been using our digging fork like one 'cause all we could find elsewhere were forks with way too many tines for hay. Nothing like having the right tool for the right job. Moving hay is sooo much easier now. Ahh... a pleasure actually.
We also found some clips they use for horse stuff which look like solid brass and are the right size for the homemade custom exercise resistance bands we want to make. So we got 'em. Now we have everything we need we think, except for the guava wood. We'll go hiking to an overgrown guava forest and get some sometime soon, possibly Wednesday. We would have gone this weekend, but my hubby's trying to finish a grant proposal so we'll do it another time. I think I'm really, really gonna' like these resistance bands when we finish 'em. So nifty and pretty too! :)
We're still setting up things at the farm in order to plant things. We've planted some bananas already and a mammey sapote in the rich soil in the rotted out center of an albezia tree stump, but that's all that's in the ground right now. Well, we do have some pineapples in the mud by the stream, but that's not their final place, it's just like a nursery for them 'till we can plant them along the fence. Here's a short video of our pineapple nursery area. My hubby made a nifty stepping stone path down to the stream with rocks that came out of the gardening area:
And here's the mammey sapote and bananas we have planted so far:
There were really tall albezia trees along the stream that the owners had cut down after they got the land. They're beautiful trees, but they're also quite dangerous since they grow so fast and are sort of leggy in that way, tending to break off in the wind and/or just fall down at times. One fell over on a neighbor's property when we were there a while back. It sounded like a bunch of firecrackers going off. Huge tree trunk and tree, just broke off in the middle and fell down - just beyond the property beyond the tilled area you see in the video. Didn't look dead or rotting on the outside and it wasn't even windy that day. We used the leaves in the compost and are using the logs for various things here and there - like how my hubby made the edges and steps down to the banana patch you can see in the video. The stumps will sprout back, but that's good 'cause we can coppice them and use the nitrogen rich leaves as mulch and/or compost Permaculture-style. :)
We've been planting some seeds from fruit we eat in flats and pots in the meantime too. We're expecting the rock dust and shell and other organic amendments we ordered to arrive sometime in the next week or two, so we'll work them into the soil and then will be ready to start planting. Yay! We did soil testing and analysis in order to find out the condition of the soil, what it needs to get back to what it should be from where it's been. That's why we're waiting for the amendments, so we can make sure the soil has everything it should in order to give the plants every chance to have everything they should, so that we have every chance to get everything we need from them. :) We'll probably maintain the fertility primarily with compost after this initial amending, lots and lots of compost. :)
We've been getting sprout discards from some friends of mine who run a commercial sprouting operation not far from our farm. It makes terrific compost along with the grass clippings from the land - and our own compost from eating of course. We'll probably get compost from other people as well once we start doing markets again. Compost is definitely the health food for soil and we plan to give it plenty. :) We get the sprouts in trash cans and sometimes they make castles like sand castles at the beach when we dump 'em. Nifty! :) Here's what I mean:
It's so nice to be planting fruit seeds, knowing that we'll be able to grow and take care of them through their fruiting years. :) I'm also gonna' be able to finally plant cotton there too, once we get things going on the edibles. I've got seeds not only from locally grown organic white cotton, but also heirloom cotton varieties from the Mainland that yeild naturally colored cotton: brown, rust & green are the colors I have right now. So I'm soooo looking forward to planting, harvesting, and spinning them in order to make clothes and things truly from scratch, naturally and organically. :)
We've been quite entertained by our pool-pond which is an above ground pool that we're using for ag water storage. It's got fish and plants and is basically a pond in a pool. The water gravity feeds into it from the stream, we have a filter on the intake so we don't suck up any fish from the stream. We have another filter on the intake for the pump so we don't suck up any fish from the pool-pond to water the farm as well. There are two filters in-between there to filter water before it goes through the pump as well. We don't have to use the pump for lots of things down lower as they work gravity fed. We'll be using the pump to run the sprinklers for the veggies and such at certain times of the day though. We gathered fish, clams, prawn and plants from the stream, nearby pond and local rivers to put in our pool-pond to help keep it healthy.
We also got some fish and plants from the pet store and put 'em in there for biodiversity. We weren't sure at first if we were doing the pet store fish a disservice by putting them in a pond after they've probably lived their lives (possibly generations of them have lived their lives) in sheltered aquariums. We weren't sure if they'd be able to adjust to a more natural and wild-ish sort of life. Now we're sure we made the right choice as they've all taken to it very well. We don't see them all of the time as the pool-pond is deeper than we can see and there are all the plants and things in there as well, but when we do see them they look very happy, natural and well-fed. It's fun to watch all the fish we can see and other things in the pond at the end of the day with my hubby. :)
Dragonflies like the pool pond too. I've been trying to film them for a while now. Finally I caught one just sitting on the end of a water hyacinth stem, a pretty red one. I took a few videos of it, but don't have time to upload them now, maybe I'll upload it another time. It's getting late. Here's a picture of it for now. It's wings are down: There's so many other things to tell y'all about to catch up, but I don't have time right now to tell you it all, so we'll have to catch up more later.
K, guess I didn't make it online last weekend. My hubby's computer went down and he's been using mine a lot. With two of us using the same one when we used to just use our own I got off-schedule. We usually do the computer things at the same time as each other. He's taking the cord apart and fixing it and such as I type. (We can't just go to the store and get another here, have to find one online and it takes forever and lots 'o bucks to get one here).
Sleep We haven't been able to farm, still, due to all the rains here and how our new farm has been flooded for the last few weeks. So we've been working on things around the house and it's been great, however we've also gotten off-schedule with our sleeping. I think it's affecting our quality of sleep too. We're both starting to realize it and will be trying to ease back into something more regular again.
Female I'm on day 8 of my cycle, there's a little boy icon on there. I haven't been willing to take my temperature for a while though since the sleep is so irregular and I've been either going to sleep or getting up too near the times I can take my temperature lately. I have been putting in when my period starts, so I suppose that's where it's getting the info from. I'm thinking of changing the time I take my temperature to a different time since our schedule's all different now. That might help.
I felt a bit of PMS before this last period: sore breasts, a little headache and some constipation/bloating. I felt a little hormone emotional for a few hours as well. I haven't felt that stuff in years. It all was really slight and minor, but I noticed them 'cause I don't usually have those symptoms anymore. A sign that I need to get things more in order towards the ideal again. I think the main thing that will help my health more noticeably than the other things is getting regular aerobic exercise, so I'm gonna' work getting that back into my life again (along with the other things).
Farm We've run out of things at the old farm and can't plant more there so we're not doing farmer's markets anymore. Well, actually there are a few older things we've been harvesting for ourselves as we make trips back and forth for moving everything. It's not the quality we'd sell, but it works for personal use, for now at least. We're about out of that too... I'm thinking of planting some things at our house to bridge the gap, perhaps in pots so that they don't get flooded as well.
Food So that means I've started to buy things for my evening meals again. At first I figured I might as well get stuff I'd buy occasionally if I had to buy stuff. It's hard to buy things we usually grow - get so spoiled when you're a farmer and all... The problem with getting the things I was getting is that it's not ideal fare, not too bad in terms of that sort of thing, but not the best either. I was had some dried tomatoes that were in olive oil (and the olive oil) on some non-organic cucumber noodles a few times. I also had some Essene bread, which is considered raw (like dehydrated) but is still grains and such. Both delicious, but not ideal, oh well. Actually, the Essene bread wasn't so delicious, so I'll probably skip that kind at least in the future. I do okay with the olive oil occasionally on our fresh grown organic cukes, but I this was a bit more than occasionally since I had it 3 or 4 nights in a row...
What else am I eating these days? I'm having coconut water or OJ for breakfast and bananas for lunch. I'm eating either apple bananas, ladyfinger bananas, "cooking" bananas (raw & ripe of course), or Cavendish bananas these days. The Cavendish aren't locally grown but the rest are. I sometimes end up having to get them at the store when there aren't enough ripe local bananas. The storms have affected the banana supply here as well as slowing the ripening speed of what I find. I'm drinking more water lately - probably 'cause of the non-ideal dinner foods. I think it's mainly the incidental salt I'm getting from them that's making me more thirsty. Did I say that I wrapped some of the older stuff from the farm in dried Nori sheets a few times too? Yeah, not too great either. Not the worst, of course, but I've done better for myself and will again! :)
I keep thinking that I should just skip the dinner stuff for now and just have fruit instead, but I haven't been into having bananas or oranges for dinner right now, and haven't been getting the more expensive fruits 'cause we're budgeting everything 'till we're farming again. So I'm more on a survival raw diet than a thrival one. It's going well considering the situation and all.
Stress Speaking of going well considering the situation and all... I haven't been stressed out much at all about the lack of income thing or the farm being flooded and more storms coming thing either. We might end up doing other work in the meantime until the land dries up enough to plant or we find another place to farm, but I feel fine. Nice. It feels like it's all gonna' work out well, so I'm "going with it." :)
Exercise I'm also not getting as much exercise as usual since we're not farming. We're doing things around the house, moving things from the old farm to the new one and within the house, but it doesn't feel as good physically. Perhaps it's 'cause we're not outside all day anymore or something...
Overall Anyway, I am still doing raw vegan and getting exercise and sleep, but it's "off" a bit compared to how it usually is, so I'm not as vital as I know I can be. I really want to get these things done around the house though, so I'm willing to deal with it. I'll just have to adjust to the changes and get into the swing of getting regular quality sleep, exercise and more ideal food again the way things are right now. I'll let y'all know how it goes.
K, so I'm on-track-ish for the Blogging so far... Yay! :)
Farm It looks like we might have done our last farmers' market for a while, although we might have a bit for Wednesday. We're gonna' try...
We harvested for yesterday's market hoping it'd clear up enough, but it didn't. The bridge was closed so we couldn't do the first one. The storm let up enough to go to the second one, but not many people were going out at that point anyway. There had been a lot of thunder and lightning in addition to the wind and rain and we don't usually get lightning, and even rarer is thunder with it. It started raining again and getting windy, etc. after a bit, so we left with lots of leftovers. Unfortunately we weren't able to preserve them, so they'll be future fertilizer via compost...
Food Too bad about the salad 'cause I could use some salad right now. Oh well. I'll hafta' make do with something else. Kinda' a bummer to be combined with a shortage of ripe bananas too. My banana guy was away the week before last and it threw off the supply (in addition to the varied whether for ripening) more than I realized.
I got some carrots, broccoli and corn at the farmer's market yesterday - all of which are sort of rare for me. I was feeling like getting other veggies in me as well as the greens. I ate the corn right away - 'cause it's best eaten as soon as possible after it's been picked. I ate the carrots a little while ago and had some of the broccoli leaves as wrappers for wraps with my salad last night. The broccoli was mainly leaves. Maybe I'll dip the rest of the broccoli into some lemon-tahini dip or something tonight after lots and lots of orange juice (since I don't have salad).
I had OJ for breakfast too and a small hand of apple bananas at lunch. Now that I think about it, there's probably no way I'll not overeat the fats today. Oh well. I think I'll have several hands of bananas ready for tomorrow or the next day, so I'll be able to even it out then.
I gathered a bunch of lilikoi (passion fruit), the yellow tangy kind from our yard today & I'll probably have some of them tonight too, just after the OJ and before the dip. Hmmm... it's turning out to be a better dinner than I thought it'd be. :)
Exercise Not much official exercise... we've been doing loads of stuff at our house with the house and yard so have been getting some that way. We've cleared out room to use my son's home gym thing which is exciting so I'll probably start using that again soon. We've been moving some stuff around that hasn't been accessible for a while and the dust was getting to me so I've been not as energetic due to the sneezing increase that happens with exercise when that's happening. Too bad I wasn't full-on with the elements of health better these days - I probably wouldn't have been as bothered by the dust and all. I know it's worked that way for me in the past with 80-10-10 (where if I'm "on it" with things I don't have much if any allergy issues). Oh well. It is what it is. At least I know why.
Sleep Sleep? Er, uh.... yeah. Well... We have been getting loads and loads of stuff done that we've meant to for years - but it has also often been late at night so I haven't been getting as good of sleep as I should. I started to catch up a bit today - took a nap, but still need to do a bit more, perhaps tomorrow. We'll see.
Female I should be well into the green days, but I have been getting to sleep so close to my regular time for taking my temperature and getting up too close to it afterward that I haven't been able to take my temperature lately. I probably could have and it might have been okay, but I like to skip it if I'm in doubt about if the reading would be accurate or not, just in case...
While we wanted more children years ago, our son is 20 now and we're kinda' liking the independence and such. It's still a possibility for the future to have another child, but I'm not wanting to take the chance right now.
Crafts I think I'm gonna' join Ravelry and blog over there about some of the fiber crafts I do. I have to request an invitation, then I can join. If/when that happens I'll let y'all know so if any of you are interested in more info on that stuff you can go there. I figure I shouldn't take up too much space here on it. I might change my mind and just combine it all into this one blog, still deciding. If you have suggestions, let me know. :)
In the meantime I'll cover some things here... I love knitting and stuff like that 'cause it gives me something to do with my hands instead of figiting when I can't do anything else. I also like being able to make custom things so they're just how I want them. And it's also exciting, sort of addictive to me too... There are little bits of progress to measure and goals to reach along the way and it's so exciting to me to anticipate and reach them. Here's and example of what I mean: I finally decided to go ahead and go for knitting a sock.
I was always intimidated by having to use double-pointed needles - and not just two, but FIVE! I had been afraid I'd end up with messes of dropped stitches by the time I got back around again. LOL So I decided to face my fear and just do it. I'm sooo glad I did too! :) I knitted a nice lacy pair of cotton socks for myself and I was so amazed that I was actually doing it the whole time. It was like, "Wow, these bamboo knitting needles are working just fine, not losing stiches after all." Then, "Hey, look! The toe actually looks like a sock toe, and my toes fit in it!" (I was knitting them toe-up).
Next I was using Five needles instead of two and it was, "How cool this looks and it's not that hard after all." Then I got to the pattern and it was, "That is a nice pattern I do like it. I'm almost to the heel!" Kinda' nifty how that design had the same procedure for the heel as the toe, which really appeals to me from a practical perspective or something like that. So I thought that was way-cool too. When I was done with the heel it was, "Gosh, this really is starting to look like a real sock!" I was showing each of these steps and sharing my excitement with my family and at that point my hubby was excited/impressed too. He said something like, "It looks like a sock now already. I mean you could just end it now and it'd be a sock." (He likes to wear footy types of short socks with his running shoes and all).
I agreed that I could, but was gonna' finish the pattern and make more of a leg on it. I'm glad I did. They came out so much cuter than I thought they would. They're almost like little boots or something. The same look/feel to me as the little boots I used to love to wear in college and when I met my hubby. Sweet! :) I'll hafta' take a picture of 'em and show y'all. I'll try to take pics of the other two projects I've done recently as well - and maybe some older ones too while I'm at it... Maybe I'll have that done for next week's posting.
I was gonna' get back to spinning again today and was all ready to sit down and spin when I realized that my container of unspun de-seeded cotton had been moved during all the stuff we're doing at the house and I have no idea where it is right now. Oh well. Probably a good thing anyway. I might not have gotten to doing this blog on time otherwise.
A lot of the things we're doing around the house and farm are sort of like craft projects on a larger scale. I hadn't really thought of it that way before, but that's what building stuff is really. Not sure why it didn't occur to me before...
Other Well, I should go now. My hubby's back from the new farm, it's dark and that means it's time to work on the garage some more... It feels so great to finally get these things done! :)
About Blogging K, so you wonder, what happened? Janie was on a roll again...
Yeah, well, um... lots of stuff, actually. Sorry. I haven't been online much most of the time so it's been harder to do the blogging because of that. I'm thinking of doing audio or video blogging instead or in addition, alternating or something. Podcasts of sorts and all. My camera takes short videos fairly well and I might be able to find my son's digital audio recorder - both portable. I could do the blogs in-between stuff informally on the go... Hmmm... I think it has potential.
I think I'll be able to do some of the FAQs with audio or video stuff too. That might get them to happen quicker than they've been happening.
I have been pretty obsessed with knitting lately - been knitting pretty much every bit of spare time I have with my hands. I have also gotten into listening to Podcasts about crafts in addition to news and such as well. I just realized today that my son hasn't been using the digital audio recorder we got him to use for taking notes or making compositions in school. It's one that would interface with voice recognition software and type things out for him, which is a challenge due to his dyslexia. He's gotten fairly proficient with typing and spell check though and doesn't need it for his life right now. So.... I'm hoping he knows where it is still (Mr. Gagethead, he is indeedy) and it's not buried in some pile of electronic stuff somewhere not to be found for years. LOL
I've also decided that rather than try to post daily and feel badly about getting so far behind, I'll try to post weekly instead - either typed, audio or video. We'll see how that works. I'm not sure what day I'll post them, probably over the weekend, but I'll figure it out once our schedules settle again.
The Farm We were doing quite well with the farm for a while there, had worked up to 7 farmers' markets a week (over 6 days - there were 2 on one of the days), and had other wholesale customers as well. We were lovingly pumping out the organic veggies and loving it. :)
We knew that we'd probably have to move the veggies to another place once the papayas get to a certain age as they'd shade out the veggies and would get so large that the roots would overlap so we wouldn't want to disturb them. So we were able to get a lease on some other land that we planned to move onto when the time came. We planned to overlap things and transition from one to the other fairly seamlessly.
Well, there were complications with that plan - mainly getting the land at the new farm prepared for planting. We had a hard time finding someone who had the equipment and know-how to do what we needed here - and then had a hard time finding time they were available. It took several months to get them out there to begin with, but it worked quite well. Well, sort of... He wouldn't do both parts we wanted to do, claiming that we needed to mow, then wait and mow again before doing the rest. That's how most of them do it here. So try as we did, we could not get him to stay and finish the second part that day. He said he'd be back in a week or two though, so we figured we could wait. Well, wait we did... and we're still waiting! It not only has been over a week or two - it's been over a month or two at this point. Ug!
The problem is, we cannot wait any longer. The time to move is now - for many reasons: we were subleasing through someone else and the landlord changed the locks on the gates but would not issue more than one key for our group (even though there were several subleasing the piece). This is after the security guards had been hassling people who came there to help us farm. It got worse after the key change - they said that only my husband could go there (not even me) and that we had to have the key (which they would not give enough copies of for my hubby to have his own) and that we could not use a hide-a-key and all. It'd become totally unworkable. Evenso, my hubby plodded along and worked out something so that he can bring me in and we have access to the shared key.
The security people got all weird over time and the landlord's office claimed that they were having problems out there (there are many acres of leased land over there beyond the gates and many people leasing various parts of it). We weren't able to get in for a few days when they changed the locks because the security people told us we couldn't go in without the key - but they hadn't issued the new key yet. Doi. We ended up having to miss a few markets and weren't able to go in daily to water, weed, plant and tend to the farm either. In addition to that, there had been a few storms and such that made it more challenging to grow things consistently and some farmer's markets that were completely rained out. It had become questionable about whether the people we were subleasing from actually had a lease for the term we were supposed to have as well as other issues with them that had become apparent. We had been having less and less planting space due to the papayas as well, so we realized the time to relocate had come, ready or not. We've reduced down to two days of farmer's markets a week, have stopped planting and stopped weeding at the old farm in order to get this done.
So we have been working on relocating our farm, even though we are still waiting for the equipment to come and prepare it for us to plant... because we have no other choice at this point. My hubby and I have been trying to figure out ways to get some things planted ASAP without waiting for the equipment as we cannot even raise the guy on the phone these days anymore. (He may be off-island for the holidays and such). Heh, the ironic thing about the security and all over at our old farm is that after we reduced the farmer's markets and stopped going there daily, someone stole some of our tools. We'd never had any theft problems before - and they were supposed to be making things more secure by making it so hard for people who belong there to get in. LOL We weren't able to do anything about it the day we discovered the thefts 'cause we were rushed to get the harvest done and to market, but we moved out everything we could over the next couple of days, leaving things to do harvest with since we'd still need it there for now. We got a storage shed and assembled it and all, after my hubby cleared some of the land with his high wheel weed wacker and regular heavy duty weed wacker.
We need to set up the irrigation and all over at the new place too - but need the land prepped first... We're trying to figure out how to get it done anyway. It'll work out in some manner or another though.
It's nice to not have that long commute daily anymore and I'm looking forward to the short commute in the near future. So it'll be much better once it's done. We'll just end up having a gap in our production it seems, which we'll deal with in some manner or another as well.
Oh yeah, we've also been looking for acreage and at acreage within the price range of the person who's gonna' get land that we'll then be able to use long-term. We've been looking at auctions, listings and word of mouth stuff too. We haven't found anything that will work in that price range yet, but we feel we're getting close! :)
House Given that we couldn't farm and haven't been able to do things as much in relation to that lately we've been taking the opportunity to get things done around the house that were overdue and needed. It feels so nice to get some of this done - finally. We've been able to get rid of some of the clutter inside much better than ever before and we've started to do some repairs here and there (like the wooden fence that we put up about 10 years ago that needs new supports 'cause we didn't want to use treated lumber at the time and it's rotten now). We've also decided to take out the garden fencing in our yard, figuring that we'll do the trellis gardening at the farm instead. That will give us more room to get to the fruit trees and harvest them when they're producing. We're going to move the plants in the garden area to the new farm. Most of them are Permaculture-ish type of plants that grow on their own here once established, so we can plant them there even before the land is prepped. We decided to not have a compost pile at the house since the new farm is in town and we can bring things there instead, so we're clearing out the compost piles from the yard. Nice.
It feels terrific to make some tangible progress in this area. There's much more we want to accomplish (including new flooring at some point - hopefully soon), so we may not finish it before we get things going at the farm but we're getting loads of it done now. Speaking of the flooring... it's currently what was a white plush carpet (came with the house, unfortunately) that has majorly suffered from little boys trekking in and out of the yard from the pool to my son's room and all, not to mention us coming from the garden in the yard or the farm. We all tried to take off our shoes at the door, but sometimes when in a hurry that fell by the wayside... And then there were the occasional spills and such, and rain coming in from the window when we didn't realize it, stuff leaking under boxes stored there, etc. It's amazing that it doesn't smell. Thank GOODness! :) It's not white anymore, needless to say, heh. And it's needed replacing due to all the stains and such for a while. Now that we've cleared out a lot of the boxes and such that were stored in there it's more of a possibility. Yay! :)
We want to have something that will be more well suited to our lifestyle than a white carpet. LOL I suppose almost anything would be more well suited to our lifestyle than a white carpet. :) We'd been eyeing bamboo flooring that's surprisingly inexpensive for some time now, but as it got closer I started thinking that tile was better. We'd been eyeing tiles too, but were leaning towards the bamboo previously. I went on the Internet to find out pros and cons of things and discovered that we might want to do a cement stain instead, and then seal it. The foundation is a cement slab and the garage has it bare with just a seal, which works quite well. It looks like the cement stains are quite versatile and can be quite beautiful as well. So that's what I'm leaning towards right now. My hubby's not so sure. Actually he's not so sure about thinking about changing the flooring right now either. We have so much else to deal with right now, it's understandable. Whatever we choose we'd have to take the current carpet out, so I figure that we'll see if cement staining is even an option at that point. (The cement slab has to be in good condition to do it apparently).
So ANYway... lots of stuff going on at the house-front as well, suffice it to say. I'll move on to other stuff now...
Food I'm still doing all raw, like usual, however not as well as usual for the time being at least. We're budgeting our funds and have not had as many veggies for ourselves to eat or to trade for other things, so things have been a bit scarce at times. This has resulted in me eating a bit too much fat (probably more like 20%-25% ish) and some of my rarely occasionally things more frequently. It's temporary though, so I'm feeling okay about it. Of course I'm noticing the corresponding changes in my vitality but at least I know what's causing it and how to change it to what I want.
Exercise That's been going really well at times and not so good at other times while I was away. I finally was able to make it to one of the classes at the gym where I work. It was really fun! :) I was going to the gym and rowing every other day and doing some free weights again too for a while there. Then it became obvious that I wasn't able to keep doing the work schedule I'd been doing - and get enough sleep. I was getting too tired and was taking the time to sleep instead of working out 'cause I just wasn't getting enough sleep otherwise. Between getting up at 3 in the morning for the job at the gym and doing harvests and farmer's markets for the rest of the day, sometimes into the night, I was only getting about 3-5 hours of sleep most days. I was having trouble staying awake when driving to the farmer's market that was the farthest from the farm (about an hour and a half) so my hubby had to do that one. Just so I could sleep. He needed to be farming though. It didn't make sense to hire temporary help at the farm to cover my hours either 'cause we pay people more than I was getting paid at the gym. LOL So I told them I couldn't work that day anymore. They said that the other person who was working mornings was going to be switching jobs there and they wanted me to just switch that day for another instead of working one less day. I figured out what day was the least worst day and exchanged it for that one. The thing is, it conflicted with the class I took there. Bummer. I thought that I might be able to take the yoga class that conflicted with my previous shift though, but now I'm realizing that it's probably not gonna' happen. Now that we're moving our farm, we won't be down that way as much so I'll probably not make it.
I'm thinking that I may have to quit that job completely, or at least drop the day I switched for. That day's not gonna' work out very well once we're back to our usual schedule since that night's the night we stay very late harvesting (with headlamps) for the early morning market the "next" day. I will probably not go there much 'cause it's an hour away, and it doesn't make sense to drive that far for the amount of pay I get and a membership I'll probably not be using much if at all... But I'm not gonna' drop things just yet. I will wait and see what happens. I may be able to work out after my shifts and after markets we have in that area if I'm getting enough sleep otherwise. Since we wouldn't have to commute for two hours a day just to get to the farm it's possible that I would get enough sleep anyway... We'll see...
In the meantime I'm doing other exercise here and there. We cleared out enough room in the living room to be able to use some of the exercise things I had in there and have enough floor room to do things in. Yay! My hubby pulled out the two rebounders we have when it was raining and we rebounded together. It was so fun! I just love rebounding! It's so joyful! :) It's also kinda' funny to try to coordinate our bouncing together too. :)
Sleep Well, I sort of covered that in other areas here - it's been variable, but I was falling quite behind for a while too. I discovered that I needed to temper my knitting obsession too 'cause I was staying up too late doing that as well as the other challenges. So I'm still challenged in that area and working on it... Yeah, tonight it's the blogging, heh. Oh well...
Female I haven't been taking my temperature as regularly lately 'cause of the irregular sleep, but the BabyComp still works anyway. So cool. I'm soooo glad I got it. I can just take may temperature around ovulation and menstration and that does it.
Other Stuff My relationship with my hubby's going fabulously well, as is my relationship with my son. I am so grateful for my life with them, every moment.
When we cleared out the living room that also made room for my spinning wheel again. Yay! I haven't gotten back to it yet, mainly 'cause I've been distracted with my knitting obsession, but I'm planning on starting back on it next week.
I was playing the banjo ukulele every day - in my spare time, on the way to/from the farm and all, but then the battery in the tuner I used to keep it tuned ran out... And I took too long to get it replaced. It's been a while now and I've gotten out of practice. I have the batteries now, but haven't started back yet. I'll be starting off close to the beginning. That's okay. It's for fun anyway. The knitting has sort of taken it's place to/from the farm so I'll have to alternate them once I get going again.
The vog has come by once or twice since I last posted I believe. The last one was a few days ago and was getting to me. It lasted a bit longer than the vog though and I realized that it was a bit different afterwards - it turned out that I had another one of those little eyelashes growing astray - and into my eye. It was a bit hard to figure it out 'cause my eyes are often sensitive to wind after the vog exposure even after it's gone and it often feels like something's in it or irritating it. Was nice to have an instant solution to that irritation though - just pluck the eyelash and it's over. Definitely nice.
I don't know if I mentioned it before, but I only have one guinea pig now. The other one died. She was quite old, for a guinea pig that is, so it wasn't completely unexpected. It looked like she was peaceful and she'd been eating and drinking and acting fine so I think she was happy too. Same thing happened with my dog too - she died peacefully and was old as well. We miss them both daily, and we're grateful to have been able to share our lives with them for as long as we did. :) So now we're sharing our house and lives with only one guinea pig and a cat... along with all the unofficial companions like geckos and other lizards, birds and everything outside and all...
Let's see, what else... hmm... don't know right now. Guess it'll come out eventually as I blog more.
K, gonna' go now. Need to relax and go to sleep... getting up early tomorrow again and stayed up too late last night finishing a shirt I was knitting... (insert embarrassed smiley here).
I'm writing this a few days later, so don't remember some of the specifics. I'm gonna' override the date so it shows up like I posted this on the 26th.
I have pics of the food though, so can at least post about that ('cause the pics jog my memory)...
Food: Breakfast was melon (including the ones not cut yet too):
Lunch was bananas (pic taken in the car, had already eaten 3 not pictured):
Dinner was spinach salad with tomatoes (2 or 3 large) and tahini-lemon dressing:
Exercise: This was my last day to go to the gym while on vacation so I decided to just do some of my favorite things. I rowed for about 40 minutes or so, and basically did the same routine as Wednesday. I meant to also do the speed bag, but ended up not having enough time left for it. I thought that if I had time the next day I'd just go in and do it, but didn't end up having time on Saturday so didn't.
My dad and I went on a walk by the waterfront in the evening and I did some of the par course things. Fun! :)
Detox: Yeppers. Mainly cloudy BMs...
Female: day 17 of my cycle, ?? day, ?? kid icons
The Rest: It was my last day away and I spent most of the day w/my dad. We went to get some brown jeans I found (not an easy thing to find, especially in my size); played the drums, ukulele and harmonica; played around with his laptop and a program he got to be able to record stuff from the TV and VHS, etc. (so he can convert his VHS tapes to DVD); talked and all. It was nice. Now that I'm writing this, it reminds me that we did much of that the day before as well (mainly the talking & music stuff).
I had messed up when reading my itinerary at one point and thought I was leaving on Saturday at 4:40, and discovered on this night that it was actually 12:10 instead. Ooops! That meant no way I'd get back to the gym... and we wouldn't have time for the other things we had planned either. :( Oh well. At least I discovered it the day before, rather than after it was too late...
Sleep: woke at 7am-ish, up at 8-ish to sleep last night around 10:30-ish, didn't sleep very well
Food: Breakfast was melons: I constructed a little thing for fun with the rinds: If I had some little squat candles or tall skinny ones they might look good in there too (inside the top one). :) As it was I just composted 'em.
Lunch was some bananas, sorry didn't get a pic...
Dinner was celery & tomatoes with tahini-lemon dip (all organic):
Exercise: I made it to the Pilates class! Yay! It was nifty and fun! :) We did Pilates Tower stuff, so didn't use the sliding seat but did use the springs, handles, bar and such on the riser. I have an area of my lower back that's always been sort of flat when I'm trying to ball up and roll. The rest of me does fine it's just that part - been that way since I can remember. I remember when I was a kid I couldn't do somersaults very well 'cause I'd roll up to it, then my back would slam down ('cause it was flat there) and it'd stop my momentum (unless I got up enough speed to go past it fast enough, which is what I used to do). ANYway... I could feel it sort of curling a bit at a certain point toward the end of the class. Nice. I had a nice talk with the instructor after and she showed me another machine, MVp, that was more portable and compact and a book that showed all the things you could do with it. Perhaps I can get them to use that at my gym since we could move 'em out of the way (space is limited there). It wasn't an aerobic sort of workout, or bodybuilding sort of thing, but it did challenge my muscles in certain spots and was good for muscle tone and flexibility and balance. Cool. :)
I decided to leave it at that exercise-wise at the gym today. I was still a bit constipated feeling from the stuff I ate yesterday. *insert embarrassed smiley here* LOL That's why I didn't sleep so well too. Oh well. At least I didn't have the bad breath thing going too. My dad and I might go for a walk later on and I might try out whatever par course stations are still in good enough shape, so I'll get other exercise later.
Detox: Not as much as I expected - at least so far... I was definitely thirsty during and after yesterday's digestively challenging meals, and it seemed to sort of sit like a lump in my intestines overnight and this morning so I felt constipated, but did have a BM so wasn't really I suppose. I got quite hot last night (in relation to how I usually feel) and didn't want the covers I usually bundle up in and felt that it was stuffy inside so opened a window that I haven't needed open before. I don't know if that's from the meals or from ovulation, both or neither. LOL No BO so far or bad breath either. It's about noon right now, so we'll see when I finish this later if there are any other things.
Yeah, there were... some cloudy BMs started in that evening.
Female: day 16 of my cycle, probably a red day, probably both kid icons... I think I might have ovulated yesterday evening, but don't know 'cause I haven't been doing my temperature and all 'cause I left my BabyComp at home. I sometimes have a feeling in my cervix area when I'm ovulating & I felt that yesterday evening. I was also hotter last night than I've been, possibly from the degree of body temperature increase that happens at ovulation and last 'till menstruation. But then that temperature thing could have just been an increase from my body to deal with the food I ate yesterday...
The Rest: It's the 28th now, when I've gotten back to updating this post. I have pics of my food, but don't remember the specifics of the rest, so I'll just leave it as-is.
Sleep: been catching up on my sleep, more gradually than before, didn't sleep very well on Sunday night - the shitake breath was bothering me, but I don't know if that was the only reason... Good sleep otherwise though
Food: Monday Breakfast was 'half' a watermelon (organic this time, yay), actually it was probably more than half in reality:
Lunch was organic bananas again. So simple, no brainer, nice. I ate 3 less than pictured:
Dinner was organic salad again. Yummy! I'm lovin' this salad lately: baby spinach and tomatoes (this time it was 3 heirloom roma tomatoes) with tahini-lemon dressing:
Tuesday (this day, the 23rd, but I'm writing it on Wed. morning) Breakfast was the other 'half' of watermelon from yesterday, so it was probably less than half that watermelon:
Lunch was the regular for now, organic bananas. I ate 3 less than pictured again:
Dinner was the same as last night, still organic spinach & tomatoes with tahini-lemon dressing, except the tomatoes were a different kind (beefsteak large and medium instead of heirloom roma):
We went to the farmer's market in Berkeley today, different one than the one we went to before. It was nice. I'd been there last year too. I don't remember it being there when I lived in this area before though. I remember the other two markets and used to go to them in Berkeley when I lived in that area. ANYway...
I got a bit over 12 pounds of melons for my breakfasts the rest of my time here, some dirty girl early girl tomatoes and some beefsteak tomatoes, all organic. I wanted lemons and salad mix too, but didn't find any. Good thing we were going to the Berkeley Bowl later so I didn't have to re-figure out what to eat.
I got a pleasant surprise at market. Someone who knows me from my website here and I've emailed with a couple of times saw me there. We talked a bit and it was really nice to catch up a little and see each other face to face. I took a pic of us, holding the camera myself. That's such a fun way to take pictures. I have a friend, who also eats 80-10-10 and visited Kauai for a few months, who is a master at taking pictures of herself this way (holding the camera out in front of her). She has even taken nice profiles and silhouettes at sunset and such. After seeing her pictures I got inspired to take pictures that way too. It's such fun to do when taking a pic with someone else too 'cause it's sort of a grab bag to find out how it turned out. I'm getting better at aiming though, but I still need to get my shoulder to look more natural and stop opening up my mouth weird when I'm aiming it. LOL I usually have to take a few pics just 'cause of my mouth. Luckily digital cameras are like Polariods in that way & you know right away whether you got the pic enough. So here's the pic we liked the best:
We had planned to go eat at Cafe Gratitude in Berkeley after the farmer's market to check it out. I've never been there and my dad and his wife wanted to take me out somewhere. I've been curious about tasting the food there 'cause I've heard other people talking about it. I can't remember what they said in particular, but know that it's not the optimum food, like all the 'raw' restaurants, and that it sort of stretches the 80-10-10 thing and even the raw thing a bit IMO, but it's close enough to try out on vacation as a splurge. All the menu items are named like affirmations and all, things like "I am happy" and "I am feeling warm", so it would be sort of fun in that way too. We didn't end up doing it because when we got there it was closed 'till Thursday (supposedly) for repairs or remodeling or upgrading or something. I thought, "Bummer, we came here mainly for that & now my dad & wife are gonna' be hungry and all". I also was a bit disappointed 'cause I was 'up' for trying some of their stuff and had sort of planned out what I got at the farmer's market and what I was gonna' eat according to having eaten stuff I'd have to recover from today. LOL Then I thought that it was probably a blessing 'cause I wouldn't have to recover after all.
At the Berkeley Bowl my dad said that I was having an effect on them 'cause they were getting excited about buying veggies and fruits and stuff. It's pretty easy to get excited about that at the Berkeley Bowl too 'cause they have so much of a variety, and a variety of the variety. LOL I got baby spinach instead of salad mix 'cause it cost the same (all organic of course). I also got another large tomato 'cause I realized that I needed to account for an additional dinner since we weren't eating out after all. I got lemons to last for the dinners 'till I go too. I was done, but they were just starting. I then got to thinking about how I had planned to splurge and remembered a thing I'd been wanting to try out at some point. I decided to get the supplies as my substitute splurge, so I did. I had thought about making sandwiches with the sprouted and dehydrated breads you can get here, using avocado instead of mayonnaise and putting thick slices of tomato and lots of lettuce and/or salad mix/spinach on it. I got one that didn't have fruit in it so it'd be less of a digestive challenge and all. I don't know what temperature they dehydrate those breads at and all, but I'm not too concerned about it for a splurge. To me, dehydrated is dehydrated and it's not really raw; it's not necessarily exactly cooked either, so it's okay enough for a splurge. I don't eat grains otherwise so it's sort of a double-splurge, but still a lot less of a health challenge than what I'd probably have eaten at the restaurant.
It turned out that the bread was frozen. Guess they don't get it regularly enough to keep it just refrigerated. I got it anyway, which makes it a triple-splurge 'cause I don't eat frozen stuff otherwise either. LOL Oh well. I noticed my old favorite mix of it (one with dates and cinnamon) and then remembered that I could probably take that on the plane with me but not fresh produce... and got it too. Doi. Guess I'm doing the vacation eating thing after all. Good thing I'm not here much longer in that regard. LOL I know that I'd have been fine just eating my lunch early before my flight and having my dinner late after the flight, like I usually do. Oh well. Now I'll have a dessert thingy to munch on instead...
Now I'm wondering how much I'll be temporarily set back from all this 'cause on our way to my dad's house after leaving the grocery store my dad said something about going to the restaurant another day before I left. We thought that maybe Friday night, and his wife said it could be a farewell dinner. He usually wants to avoid a possible lunch or dinner rush so I guess that's why he later suggested we go on Wednesday instead. The Berkeley one is still closed on Wednesday, but we could go to one at a different location.
So I'm gonna' be splurging left and right here. Ooops. Oh well. It's still all under the general category of organic raw vegan, even if it skirts the line of raw a bit IMO. I'll survive... and then thrive later on when my body's dealt with it all. LOL I'll make a point of enjoying it all as much as possible too, so it's worth it. :) I'm wondering how to space it all out now though, not sure if I can do it well. The frozen thing was too frozen to have the sandwiches last night and I'll probably not want to eat anything else in the day after we've been to the restaurant. I had already taken the bread out to defrost before my dad suggested going to the restaurant the next day, so I should eat it fairly soon... I'll just see how I feel and either have it later that day or the next day. Perhaps the bread will last 'till the day after, which would be nice... We'll see. I'll probably have some detoxing things to tell y'all about in the near future, heh.
Exercise: Monday I pretty much did my usual thing lately at the gym: rowing and weights. I had noticed that the TVs in the cardio room had a number displayed below them that looked like a radio station and wondered if they were doing local broadcasts of the TV channel sound so you could tune in and listen to it while working out (and other people wouldn't have to listen, and you didn't have a lot of competing channel sounds going all over the place). I asked 'em at one point and they said it was just that. Cool! I thought about how they had loaner gloves and speed bags and all and wondered if they had loaner radio tuners and earphones too, so I asked this day. They did! Yay! I got them and enjoyed watching TV that I wouldn't usually watch while rowing. It was sort of educational for me, LOL, really. I don't usually shop in regular stores and haven't seen The Price is Right since I was in Elementary School probably (I know at least since before college). I watched that while rowing and enjoyed people watching on the TV as well as seeing how much stuff costs and all. Interesting enough to supplementally entertain me while rowing for a bit over a half hour. It's a good thing too 'cause I was feeling a bit low energy-wise that morning due to not sleeping so well the night before. Once I got going though I felt great, like I could row forever, as long as I had something mildly interesting enough to watch as well. LOL I figured I shouldn't go much beyond a half hour though 'cause I didn't want to overdo it and get set back from my back thing and all.
After the rowing I went and did the shoulder dumbbell routine: 3 sets of reps to 'failure' of: lateral raises; compound lateral up to front and down; compound biceps up to overhead and back; reverse fly. Then I went and used some machines for more of the same: chin ups & bench press. I had noticed that my usual bench press weight seemed a little light before, but didn't see any 5 lb adders. This day I decided to try it with 10 lbs more. It worked just fine, so now I'm doing 10 lbs more for them in the bench press machine. I don't know if I'd be able to do that same weight with a barbell as well or not, but don't want to try it without a spotter. Perhaps when I'm home again I can try it with my hubby spotting me. He's a terrific spotter for me 'cause he's so careful that I don't get hurt. LOL
I thought about maybe doing some of the speed bag too, but then decided to just end it there as I remembered how I was a bit low energy to start with.
Tuesday I basically did the same routine as the day before, but felt that I'd recovered enough to try out adding in the adductor/abductor weight machine, so I did 3 sets at weights low enough for high reps (12) with that machine in-between the dumbbells and the chin-up machine. I watched the Today Show instead of the Price is Right this time though. I like the Today Show and I'd already gotten what I was gonna' get from the Price is Right the day before. When I started my rowing session I decided to try out the Games option they had on there. There was a fishing game that was sort of fun, but didn't seem to be good for exercise 'cause I had to slow down or speed up in order to play the game and found that slowing down worked better for scoring and the way the fish were arranged which meant I wasn't really rowing as much as usual and it was sort of a jerky thing. The game was cute, sort of a PacMan dealy where you ate smaller fish or the larger fish would eat you and you'd move up and down the screen according to how fast and hard you stroke. The fish would move across the screen horizontally, moving up and down a little. So after I messed with that a bit, I did about 35 minutes or so of regular rowing before going on to the weights.
When I went to turn in my locker key I saw the gal that was rowing with me after class last week and she asked me if I rowed. I said I had and we had a discussion about where I was from and such. She had been talking to the Pilates instructor I'd talked to the other day. I told her that it didn't look like I'd be able to take her class after all, that it wasn't working out timing-wise. She made a pouting look and asked, "you can't make 9:30 on Thursday?" I said that I could make that class, but it didn't look like I was gonna' be able to make it to a Pilates Mat class beforehand like she'd recommended. She said that if I was there on Thursday that I could take the class anyway since she was the instructor. She said it'd be challenging, but that she thought I'd do fine. Yay! That sounds great! I have been curious about the Pilates with the equipment and all. After I went home I looked at the schedule and realized that I had spaced out on a Pilates Mat class that was actually happening as I was talking to her at the gym. Doi. It had started a half hour before that so I totally could have gone to it... if I hadn't spaced on what day it was. Vacation spaciness, forget exactly what day it is and all. LOL Oh well. I'm gonna' try to make sure not to miss the thing on Thursday. It's not gonna' do all the equipment, but I'm hoping that she might show me the other stuff afterward just for fun...
Detox: A touch of BO under one arm after working out on one of these days - a rinse with water took care of it.
My skin is always so much drier when I travel than usual, so I realized that since I don't really have BO that I could just skip the shower after my workouts since I like to shower before them. That allows my skin to not get as dried out and has been working fairly well for the last few days.
Female: days 13 & 14 of my cycle, red days I'm sure, probably some sort of kid icons (if I had the BabyComp with me, that is)
The Rest: I think I covered most of it already in the rest of this post... Oh yeah! Instruments!
On Tuesday morning my dad found his harmonica and the instructional book that came with it so I took out my new harmonica and started to do some stuff on it with the book. He did some of it with me too. Fun! :)
On Tuesday night my dad and I watched an ukulele video he'd gotten from the library. I had the uke and tried out some of the things that he introduced us to on the video. It was pretty cool, but I had a hard time figuring out when to change cords and what cords to change to by just watching him and he wasn't calling them out or anything. Later in the video we found out that there was a booklet that came with it (that wasn't with it anymore) that probably would have done the trick for me. It was fun anyway though and I learned some stuff. He had 3 guest ukulele professionals towards the end of the tape that had some pretty nifty strums going. Inspiring. I have no idea if I'd ever get to the point of doing anything like that, but it's nice to know I could if I spent the time. :)
Sleep: woke at 7 or 7:30am and layed around/went back to sleep for a bit up at 8:30-ish
Food: Breakfast was a cantaloupe-y melon, a musk melon of sorts. The first pic's before I opened it, the second's after opening and scooping out the seeds. It wasn't as orange inside as I expected, but it was ripe:
Lunch was bananas:
Dinner was salad: baby spinach & mixed baby lettuces & 2 heirloom roma tomatoes with dressing: juice of 2 lemons and ~2 Tbsp tahini. I put the rest of the button shitake mushrooms on top & ate 'em first, by themselves, like an appetizer. I'm kinda' glad to be rid of them, even though I like the taste and texture of them. They're not ideal and my breath bothers me overnight and the next morning after having them. Here's the pic:
Exercise: I did 3 each of the beginning of the Primary Series warmups for Ashtanga (Sun Salutations) and the next one after that, then a few of the sitting poses (the ones to lean forward and the ones to twist). Then I rolled on the wooden roller a bit, not as much to get now. Yay! I then took my shower and went off to the gym! :)
I did a bit of rowing today again. Nice to be back. :) I took it easy on that, just in case and did the 2000m thingy on the one downstairs. It didn't tell me my expected finish, which was probably good for today so I didn't decide to challenge myself and all. LOL I just stayed around 30 strokes a minute, give or take a stroke or two, most of the time. I do have to confess, I did go a bit faster towards the end, but that was sort of a reflex/habit... I slowed down after the 2000m for a few minutes to cool down and all so I think it was fine.
After that I went and got the gloves and speed bag and had a fairly quick, fun workout with that. I think it was about 15 or 20 minutes. I discovered that part of the trick of keeping it going well was to hit it fairly hard and sharply, and try to do it the same way all the time. Fun! :) It's pretty loud though, so I'm not sure if I'll have one at home or not. It's tempting though...
Then I went to the free weights again and did the shoulder things I've been doing. 3 sets each of: lateral raises (I think that's the name of the ones you bring your arms up on each side), using 3 weight amounts and going down on the weight in the set in order to keep going; the raise up to the front, then out to the side and down on the sides, then back up on the sides and to the front and down again - for one rep; hammer curl up to overhead raise (with dumbbells) and back down again - for one rep; and another I forgot to mention yesterday that I added yesterday: rear delt flys that I do on a bench with my legs forward and leaning all the way over into them so that my arms go under the bench for full range of motion.
I then went up to the youth circuit room and tried out the jump rope they had there. Yep. Not ready for the jump rope quite yet. But I was surprised to find that I actually was able to "get" the single hop/fast rope turn thingy you see people doing for workouts all the time. Yay! I'd never "gotten" that down before! :)
Since I couldn't do the rope I decided to do 3 sets each on their machines for chin-ups and bench press there in that room. After that I figured it was enough for today and left.
Detox: Had a hint of BO after doing the yoga this morning before my shower, that went away before I actually got in the shower.
Female: day 12 of my cycle, red day, ?? kid icons
The Rest: The rest is yet to see... I'll add to this post later. :)
update: Couldn't post this - problems with Blogger... So it's a few days later (the 23rd) now and I still can't post. :( I figured that since I can make the entries still (off and on) that I'll try to catch up... wonder if I'll remember everything...
Hmmm.... you know, I can't remember what else I did on Sunday by now. Sorry. At least I took some pics to help me remember my meals...
Sleep: been catching up well, sleeping extra to recover from back thingy too
Food: I took pics of most of it...
Thursday's Breakfast: 1/2 a watermelon, non-organic
Thursday's Lunch: more bananas, didn't take a pic of them
Thursday's Dinner: basically the same as Wednesday's, except I skipped the oranges
Yesterday's Breakfast: It was basically the same as the day before (the other half of the watermelon), so I took a pic of myself with it for y'all so it was a bit different looking. I was also experimenting with the new camera and taking pics of myself while holding it and all. That's why my shoulder looks a bit strange - I was trying to hold it as far away from me as possible. LOL
Yesterday's Lunch: Just bananas...
Yesterday's Dinner: Salad of lettuce mix I got from Berkeley Bowl, heirloom tomatoes from the local grocery store and dressing of tahini and lemon juice (like before)... with some button shitake mushrooms & olives on top. It was all organic, but not all optimal... the mushrooms and olives, mainly - they were a splurge. I don't have access to an olive bar with organic olives in water or organic button shitakes, so I splurged. They were raw and organic plants, fresh and all though. The olives were from an olive bar at the Berkeley Bowl, organic in water with salt. I got a variety of them to try, one of them also had lemon juice, some pitted, some not. I rinsed them several times beforehand and soaked them in water a while to get most of the salt out (but they were still a bit salty). I mixed it all up and ate 3 of the mushrooms before remembering to take the pic. oops! Oh well...
Today's Breakfast: An organic French melon that I don't remember the name of. Nice though. Very aromatic and tasty. :) I ate the ones that weren't cut up too BTW
Today's Lunch: It was a late lunch 'cause I lost track of time when working on someone else's website before we went to the craft fair today and didn't bring food with me either. I ended up having lunch around when I should have had dinner. Oh well.
I ate the 3 "Hawaiian plantains" - a favorite kind of banana for me - and then had the other bananas about a half hour later. I didn't end up eating 3 of the bananas pictured in the second picture.
Today's Dinner: I started making dinner about an hour or so after I finished my late lunch. I forgot to take pics of the stuff before I put it together again. Oops. It was just baby spinach with lemon juice (from 2 lemons) and one large heirloom tomato - and the rest of the olives from yesterday on top (after they were rinsed, soaked and rinsed again in water to get salt out). It's all organic.
Yesterday we went to the Berkeley Bowl to get me more food and my dad took a picture of me in the produce area. It's much bigger than you can see there. Soooo much variety. Wow!
Exercise: I took it easy on Thursday 'cause of the thing with my back. After some experimenting and pondering I figured out that it was probably from trying to sleep on the plane in weird positions during the red-eye flights I had from home to Washington which put my back out of line to begin with. I usually am quite active and get realigned in the process of my life and physical activities, but wasn't as physically active for about a week and a half after that. I figure it had kinda' gotten stuck that way since I wasn't moving it around as much and all. Now that I started using it again more it was trying to unstick itself, which hurt 'cause my muscles were a bit tweaked about it all. So I worked on moving the back vertebrae with the wooden roller my dad has that's like the one I have at home and keeping mobile, but not challenging my muscles much 'till they were ready for it. I got extra sleep and all too. That meant that I didn't go to the gym on Thursday.
I was feeling a bit better by the end of Thursday and changed positions fairly frequently when sleeping that night so that I felt like I could try out some things at the gym on Friday morning. I woke a bit stiff and used the roller again, followed by some Ashtanga (Sun Salutations & some of the sitting poses that twist), which got me less stiff and unstuck enough. I heard some things unsticking, but not quite all of it.
I decided to skip classes 'cause I didn't know what they'd have me do and just do workouts that didn't challenge the muscles in ways that made them tweak out. It went well. I tried out the step machine they had there that we don't have at the gym at home. It's like an endless set of stairs - actual stair-type of stairs. Nifty. I did it for 20 or so minutes. It said I did loads of floors worth of stairs. LOL I guess you'd travel a lot of floors if you were spending that amount of time climbing stairs without landings and all. After that I went and did some free weight dumbbell work for my shoulders: 3 sets each of: side arm raises (can't remember their official name); compound up to the front and out to the side and down then up to the side and to the front and down as one rep; bicep curl up to overhead press and back as one rep. I left after that. I figured that was good enough for getting back to things. I also had slept in a bit and got a late start with all the yoga before showering and leaving, so needed to get back and all. I wasn't sure if I'd played it safe well enough or if I'd figured out what was going on well enough that I wouldn't "feel it" later or not, but it worked out well. I felt even better by the end of the day.
This morning I was a bit stiff again, but not as much as yesterday and I didn't move around as much during the night 'cause I didn't feel I needed to. Yay! I went to the gym earlier and stayed a tad longer. I decided to try out the heavy bags if they had 'em (and if they had gloves for me to use too). They did, but the gloves weren't really heavy bag gloves 'cause they were sort of the gel type, but the padding wasn't at the main knuckle area - more towards the finger knuckles instead. I'm not sure what they're for, perhaps speed bag or something. I had a great workout with the heavy bag though - until it became evident that these gloves weren't gonna' cut it - or my knuckles would (cut), heh. So I stopped the heavy bag after about 10 minutes or so. Too bad, 'cause it was looking like a great workout. But not too bad for other reasons. :)
I noticed that they had a paper on the wall that told you how to use the speed bag and they had speed bags you could get from the desk and use. Cool! I'd never used one before and wanted to try it out. No time like the present, right? Right! :) So I went back to the desk and told them that I wanted to try out the speed bag 'cause I'd never done it before and saw the instructions on the wall. She said that I'd probably wanna' start with the larger of the 3 they had, unless I wanted the smaller ones. I said I'd go with her recommendation and took the large one and went back there. The stands were adjustable and I put it to the lowest setting (of course 'cause I'm short). It's supposed to be set so that the bag's bottom is at the level of the bottom of your chin. It was a bit higher than the bottom of my chin, but it still worked anyway. Guess the bigger one's best for shorties too. ;):D
Apparently the way you do it is hit it and let it hit the back, front and back again before hitting it again - with your other hand. It makes a nifty rhythmic sound and the stand squeaked a little in there too so it was very percussionistic and I found myself sort of mini-dancing to the beat. Nice. Fun! I thoroughly enjoyed it. It didn't seem to be much of a physical workout, but it was a good neuro sort of thing. After about 20 minutes or so of it I decided that I should do some weights and turned in the speed bag and gloves.
I did 3 sets each of the shoulder things I did yesterday and looked for a machine for aductors and abductors, but couldn't find one in that room. When I did find one my body was sort of telling me that I probably should wait a bit more on that one, even though I didn't actually even sit down at it. LOL Gotta' listen to those things, so I did. I did chin-ups with the nifty chin-up thing and explored some other machines too.
My back's still getting better all the time, so I figure I'm treating it how it needs. Yay! :)
Detox: Been having a tad of gas here and there again. I'm not sure what it is specifically. Perhaps it's still some of the stuff I did before. Since I splurged yesterday and today it would be hard to say if it's new or older stuff, but I was having it before the newer splurges so who knows... maybe it's the traveling and all. Whatever.
I do know that the shitakes were on my breath this morning when I awoke, to my displeasure. I keep learning that about them. It's why they are less than optimal to me, perhaps it's part of why they are less than optimal for Natural Hygiene too. I only ate half of them yesterday so I'll eat the others at some point before I go, but I wanted to space it out a bit.
Female: day 11 of my cycle, red day, ?? kid icons
The Rest: Yesterday my dad got an ukulele for himself and I'm gonna' practice on it while here. He got me a clip on tuner that I can take back with me for mine too. Yay! That's gonna' make a big difference in my playing or not. He also got me a harmonica that I was gonna' get for myself. Thanks Dad! :) I'll try to take pics of them for y'all at some point and post 'em here.
On Thursday I went and saw Momma Mia with my dad's wife. She'd seen it before and loves it. I liked it too. :) It was quite well done for a musical. The actors did a good job of acting while singing (even though they weren't really singers) and the story did a good job of working in all those ABBA songs and all. It was a cute story too.
Today I went to a craft fair with my dad's wife and her mom. It was fun. I got a couple of green glass vases that look like flowers themselves, sort of. My dad has a print of a Diego Rivera painting of a woman with her back to you that's probably Frida Kahlo. She's embracing the kind of flowers these vases remind me of, so I took a picture with the print behind the vases and put them on a wicker thing that reminds me of the one in the painting. :) Fun. Here it is: It was hard to get the right angle on it all in order to get the pic without rearranging my dad's whole living room. LOL So I just got what I could to capture the likenesses. :) Here's a pic of them alone so you can see their shape better: They were pretty inexpensive and I only have one vase at home so I got 'em, not sure how I'm gonna' get 'em home safely though... Sometimes I get flower left-overs from the flower farmers at the farmer's markets and I'm planning on growing flowers at the new farm.
Did I tell you? My hubby told me that the tractor guy finally contacted him and has now mowed the entire 3 acres for us! Yay! He wasn't able to do the discing yet, but should be doing that in about a week or two. Yay!!! Our expansion is in-progress. Whew! I was wondering if it was ever gonna' happen...
Today we looked for some brown jeans for me. I'd love some for home - great for farming and farmer's markets, but I'm having a hard time finding any that are my size. It's hard to find actual brown denim jeans to begin with and then they've all been in larger sizes than fit me. :( Perhaps some time I'll find some. The guy at the Army/Navy surplus store said that we might be able to find some at a kid's store that had work clothes for kids. We're gonna' call 'em Monday and see.
Let's see, what else has happened? Hmmm... can't remember right now. I'm pretty tired. Guess I'll just go to sleep and post about anything I forgot about another day.
Nightie Night! :)
update: it wouldn't post correctly last night, so I'm posting it on Sunday morning, not sure if it will say Saturday or Sunday at the top....
Sleep: woke at 7am, up at 7:30am to sleep for night last night at 11-ish
Food: I'm gonna' try to take pictures of all my food now that I've got a camera I can take with me... Here are the first ones:
Breakfast: 1/2 watermelon ("something grey" was the name - can't remember the first word) - I ate some before the pic :)
Lunch (all organic): bananas and dates - most into smoothie for dipping the rest into (pic 1 is before smoothie, pic 2 is after)
Dinner (all organic): 3 oranges (quartered & eaten off the rind - well, except one quarter that was squeezed into the dressing); salad: baby spinach (~5/8 pound), 2 heirloom tomatoes with dressing: ~2 Tbsp of tahini and juice of 2 lemons Here's a pic of the ingredients (I couldn't fit all the spinach into the largest bowl I have here, so it was less than that - and I only had a little of the tahini)
Exercise: went to the gym again today - took the yoga class & intended to do the power pump one after it, but the yoga class went overtime so it was too late to start in on the other one. So I did a circuit in the youth circuit room ('cause I'm short and the machines are supposedly more fitted to shorter people there). The machines were nifty in that the seats would often move with your movement so I think you're moving some of your own bodyweight along with the weights you pick (but I'm not sure of that 'cause I was lifting basically the same weights as with other machines that didn't do that). The chin-up one was nice in that way 'cause the seat would tilt as you go up in a similar manner as your body does when doing them straight up. Nice.
After I finished exploring and using the weight machines in the youth circuit room I went into the adult circuit room and used one of the rowing machines in there. They were a slightly different design than the one at home and the ones they had in their cardio room. I think I like the foot things best on the ones they have in the cardio room. The ones in the cardio room had curved heel rests that worked better IMO than the flatter, more squared off ones here in this room. Both of them work better than the wooden one that is at my gym at home though so it's all good.
I decided to check out more about them this time. You apparently can adjust the drag on the wheel and they suggested a range of drag for training. It was already set on the high end of drag for that so I left it there. I then explored the workouts and decided on the 2000m one for today. It was fun to feel like I was racing more. It had what my expected finish was based on my stroke rate I suppose - don't know if they also figured in the drag and tork (sp?) or anything else. I was doing my regular 30-35 strokes a minute rate and noticed the expected finish changing a lot. At some point it seemed to even out at around 11:30 (minutes: seconds) or just over. I decided that I'd try for just under and raced for that. I did it! Yay! I finished at 11:29:02 with an ending stroke rate of 36 per minute (I think - that's the stroke rate that displayed at the end and I'm supposing that's not my average rate).
I've been having a little back issue here and there since I've been here and was hoping the yoga class would help it out. I know that I had gotten that sort of back (actually more like a hip/pelvis thing) when doing Ashtanga and when I'd get to a certain point of the routine it'd go 'pop' and resolve itself. This class was not as organized and progressive so unfortunately it didn't resolve. I've tried stretching and stuff today and so far it hasn't resolved. It's not a big thing - just affects me when I bend over a certain way, sometimes.
My dad and I walked a bit along the water this evening and then some more along a nice trail by a different water & nature area. It was nice.
Detox: Yesterday I realized that I'd forgotten to mention how I was getting a sty from about the time I got to my dad's at first. It is still there a bit, but it never became a full-on sty, just a reddish spot that was a bit tender. It seems to be going away. I know that I sometimes get them when I increase my physical activity and then stop a bit, accompanied with a bit of dehydration. So if I start to get one I make sure to keep up with my exercise (especially bouncing sorts of things and/or aerobics to keep the lymph moving) and make sure I'm well hydrated. It's worked well so far.
Female: day 8 of my cycle, red day, ?? kid icons
The Rest: I'll finish this later. I'm off to a farmer's market to see what it's like. :)
LOL It's later now & the farmer's market wasn't there. Apparently they only have it on this day there during July and August. It's fine, we had a good time anyway. We went to the library and I got a book on learning to play the ukulele. I've been feeling like practicing since I have some time and I started to learn it at that party the other night. My dad said I could use his (once he gets one LOL) while I'm here so I might be practicing it with the book next week. :) The book doesn't look all that great, but it's what they had and it might turn out to be terrific anyway, so I'll see. After that we went for a walk on the waterfront walk by the harbor and watched the sailboats sailing out in races for fun. After that we were driving home and I asked my dad if he ever walks along a trail we were passing. He said he did and asked if I wanted to go there then. I thought that would be nice so we did. It had a par course along it too - it wasn't well maintained but it was there. It looks like fun. I love par courses, so I want to go there again when I'm not taking it easy on my back/hips. They felt pretty good during the walk, but they usually do once warmed up and I'm not bending over and all. It's strange 'cause I haven't had that problem (with my back/hips) in years. Oh well. At least I know how to deal with it better now - and I recover faster too. :)
At dinner time I took out the orange fleshed honeydew rind I had carved yesterday morning for ambiance. I planned to put some votive candles in it to show the carving but found that there was a lamp above right were I wanted to put it so I didn't need the candle after all. I took some pics of it. It was not one of my best 'cause I was going to eat that for breakfast after my workout. I was a bit impatient 'cause I wanted to get the glucose into my system before my window of faster recovery time was over. So I did it quick and then ate the stuff out of it before finishing it (not a good idea 'cause it was too thin and floppy). So it wasn't suitable as a container like ones that I carve completely when whole and scoop out less. It still works for decoration and candle-holder cover though. The leaf tops were a bit curled over from being in the refrigerator since yesterday morning, but it still works okay enough for my dad's. Good thing I didn't do them that way at H&F Week. LOL I always did them early in the morning there before I was hungry or exercised yet, which works much better. :) ANYway, here's a couple of pics of it (1st is with flash so you can see the outside, 2nd is without so you can see the glow):
I'll try to post some pics from H&F Week of some of the carvings and stuff when I have them. I didn't take pictures there, but there was a photographer there and I'll be getting copies.
Sleep: woke at 7:30am, up at 7:45am to sleep for night last night at 11pm I'm still needing to catch up on my sleep, but we watched a movie that turned out to be longer than we thought last night, so I'll have to catch up more with a nap today or tonight
Food: Let's see... yesterday... hmmm... having a hard time remembering specifically... oh yeah! I remember (at least some of it) breakfast: 5 small french melons lunch: bananas that were ripe enough - think it was around 8 or 9 dinner: a couple of asian apple pears then slowly went about gathering and preparing the salad and such of: about 3/4 pound salad mix with all sorts of greens and edible flowers, and a few herbs in there here and there (got it at the farmer's market Saturday); a very large heirloom tomato; small avocado; lemon-tahini dressing (yep, shouldn't mix the avo & tahini and was probably over 10% fat for today, but I went over fat-free the other day so it'll be okay for now)
today: breakfast: large orange fleshed honeydew melon followed by about 7 bananas about a half hour or hour later ('cause I had breakfast a bit later - around 11:30-ish) lunch: I think I'm gonna' have more bananas and possibly asian apple pears dinner: will probably start with oranges, then have a salad with tahini-lemon or tahini-orange dressing
update: I did have the apple pears and then bananas for lunch and salad for dinner, but I didn't have the oranges and had a small avocado in the salad - my last one. The salad was from Safeway - organic. My dad and I went out and on the way home we stopped there so I could get more food. I needed to get more bananas so they could ripen in time and was low on salad, tomatoes, lemons and breakfast stuff. I got bananas, heirloom tomatoes, salad mix, baby spinach, and lemons - all organic. I also got a watermelon that wasn't organic 'cause they didn't have any organic and they have been agreeing with me better than the other options like pears, apples, plums, grapes and such ('cause I don't usually eat 'em 'cause they don't grow on Kauai).
Exercise: Yesterday I went to my dad's wife's gym and did a Balletone class while she did an exercise class in the pool. It was fun but not enough of a workout alone for me on a regular basis. That gym also had the rowing machines. Cool! :) I didn't want her to have to wait for me and they were gonna' get me a membership to the other gym in my dad's town that has all sorts of equipment. I figured it was a good way back into things and that I'd just start working out more the next day.
We signed me up at the other gym later in the day and today I went there and worked out. It was fun! :) I went to a Zumba class for the first time - fun! :) I didn't get the Rumba step quite down so I'm looking forward to the next one so I can get better at things. :) After that there was a body sculpt class that used a yoga mat, stability ball and weights. That was fun too! :) I couldn't leave without at least using the rowing machine for at least 20 minutes, 'cause I wanted to try out this new one so badly. It was waay fun! Yay!
I discovered that they must have put the seat on the machine at home on backwards or something 'cause the seats on this machine were much better situated. I had a problem with getting a bit of a blister in-between my butt cheeks at home. LOL Kinda' embarrassing when it's popped during a workout and you're changing in the dressing room, not to mention painful when showering afterward. I had worked out a way to not get them most of the time by folding an extra towel a bunch of times and put it on the seat so that I could sit on it and have a gap at the back. The seats here on these newer ones were built with a gap there - and the form rise on the seat in in the front (rather than the back where they have it on the one at home). I'm hoping I'll be able to simply turn the seat around on the one at my gym at home and it'll work just as well. In the meantime I'm really enjoying the rowing - in fact I may only take one class tomorrow and row more. :)
There are a couple of things about the new rower that I don't like as much as the older one: the fan is more enclosed, which is good for liability I'm sure, but not so good for getting that terrific air flow in your face when rowing. You still get some air, but it's not like the other one that only has a cage around it. The other thing is that it rows so smoothly that I don't feel as much resistance. The smoothness is good for it being quieter 'cause it's very quiet and the other one makes more noise. I'm thinking that there would be a way to make resistance and all, so I'll fiddle around with it more tomorrow. I just wanted to row for a while so I put the setting on just rowing and rowed away at about 30 or so a minute - just for fun. I also did a few minutes really slowly (at about 15 or 20 strokes a minute) as a cool down after.
So I guess I had about two and a half hours of official exercise today so far. I don't know what my dad & I will end up doing, but I'm fairly certain it would mainly involve walking at most. I may stretch a little this evening before going to sleep too. I like to stretch before bed while reading or something.
Detox: There is something about my dad's house or the area or something that makes me have a tendency to wake with puffy eyes. They drain out into my nose once I'm up for a while and it makes me sneeze and have to blow my nose sometimes. I've been having that while here so far.
I don't have much else to report. Yesterday after eating my bananas I had a bit of loud digestion that sounded like a cat or something. LOL I don't usually have that, not sure why I got it then either, but it wasn't accompanied with gas or anything so who knows... I smelled a tad of ketones in the shower at the gym after my workouts today and had a tad of underarm BO for a few minutes when driving back to my dad's but it had gone before I got there and hasn't come back since.
Female: It's day 7 of my cycle, most likely a red day, probably no kid icons
The Rest: Yesterday we went shopping a bit. They want to get some window coverings in their kitchen and so we went to a window covering place to figure out what kind of style they want and all. Then we went to Fry's and I looked at cameras to see if I could find a tiny one to wear and take more pictures for y'all and all. I wanted to try and find a keychain one that had some sort of Megapixel thing going so it'd be better than my cell phone's camera. My cell phone's camera take pictures that look almost like they're black and white or something. The colors are all grayed out. I'd found a 3 megapixel keychain one on Hammacker Schleckter (sp?) for $70 but it was out of stock and I couldn't find it anywhere else - even on the manufacturer's website. So I started thinking of buying a 8 megapixel Elph instead. It's smaller and more lightweight than my phone and takes better pictures. It turns out that my dad was looking for one for his wife too and that the exact one that I was thinking of getting (color and everything) is the one she ended up getting. LOL So now I'm testing it out to see if it will work for what I want and if so, I'll get one too. I'll probably get it through Amazon instead though 'cause it's cheaper that way. Guess I should call and see if they're gonna' have that 3 megapixel one any time soon first as well. My son has a 12.1 megapixel camera that's about the same size as my phone and about the same weight and it takes great pictures so I'm not sure if I should get another one around that size or just borrow his. The idea was to have one with me all the time though, so I suppose I should get some sort of one... Ug! Decisions can be difficult sometimes - especially when you found what you want and it's not available anymore...
I got some RAM for my laptop. I'd been meaning to get more RAM for it since I got it. It had the minimum RAM practical for Vista so it's been a bit slow on some things. Now it's doing much better. Yay! :) The RAM is much cheaper now too, so that's nice.
Not much else to tell y'all right now in terms of yesterday and today so far. Perhaps I'll have time to add more stuff to the website today too. :) I'll let y'all know later.
update: I decided to get the camera my dad's wife got yesterday and ordered it today online. It cost less today than yesterday - cool! So I got a spare rechargable battery for it too - all for less than I was gonna' pay before. Nice. I'm gonna' use her camera while here so I went shopping for a case for it so that I can carry it on my purse or belt loop to have it with me. This means that y'all should see new pics soon! :) Yay! :) K, gonna' go now. Type to ya' later.
Yep. I haven't kept up with this as much as I planned, but I'm still working on it. I'm on vacation now, so I'll be able to post more at least for a few weeks...
I'm visiting a friend that lives in the general area that Health and Fitness Week is held right now. H&F Week was last week and I had fun making things pretty and doing fruit and veggie carvings, garnishes, etc. as the ambiance fairy there. Met lots of nifty new people and had a chance to reconnect with friends too. :)
I didn't have a chance to take pictures though :( so I don't have any to show you right now. One of the nifty new people I met was a woman there to take photos though, so I'll be getting pics from her at some point that I'll be able to share with y'all. My camera's gotten quite lonely over the months I haven't been using it. I loaned it to my son who used it for a long time & then never got back into the habit of taking pics again...yet. ;) I brought it with me and I'm gonna' take it out, charge the batteries and start using it again. At least that's the plan...
I also plan to work on my website some more during this time too. Should have brought my external hard drive though; didn't think I'd need it; oh well. I'll have to post the pics I'd taken and not posted in the past later when I'm back. I'm hoping that they'll have figured out a way to get things done at the farm enough while I'm gone that I'll have a bit of time to keep blogging and updating my site when I get back (as well as do things for my fitness goals too).
K, so that's it for this post for now. I'll be back later today to do things on my site and blog again.
