Adjusted Reality

Approximately one year ago today I was bleary eyed in a hotel lobby, on about 6 hours of sleep, stuffing my face full of an embarrassing amount of waffles and cereal and potatoes and sausage and pretty much anything else I could get my hands on for the next two days.

Eff you this day last year feature.  Don’t you know I’m on a diet?

No, I wasn’t hungover, at least in the traditional sense.  I had just, less than 12 hours before that (yep, I definitely made the most of my entry fee and took almost 16 hours) finished my first Ironman.  It was one of the most challenging, fun, difficult, memorable, and amazing days thus far.  I can barely tell you what I had for dinner two days ago, but I can remember most of April 22nd, 2017 incredibly vividly, from the long walk from T1 to the random porta potty line in the middle of nowhere to the swim start, to sprawling out on a really uncomfortable bench at about 12:30am with all the gear and two bikes while Zliten attempted to hitch a ride to his car.  And, y’know, the 140.6 miles of actual racing in between.

I’m part of the Ironman Texas 20xx group and with all the chatter there and a random email sent out to PAST participants instead of 2018 folks saying “it’s race week get pumped” it tugged at my endurance athlete heart strings.  However much I miss the experience, I’m about 20% sad to not be there and 80% relieved I’m doing the short stuff this year.  I might be able to muddle through the first two events but the run is totally a deal breaker right now.  My goal next IM race is to hit the start line with the confidence that if things go right, I could potentially run the whole/the vast majority of the thing, and that’s absolutely not where I am right now (hello, 4 mile long runs :D).

Texasman, 4 years ago.  We return this weekend.

So instead, I will focus in on the actual race I’m doing Sunday, Texasman sprint.  500m swim, 16 mile bike, 5k run.  While the last one played to all my strengths, this one does not.

It’s an open water swim with a long run to transition.  Obviously most triathlons are in a lake but I got really spoiled with the pool swim last time.  The question is, do I wear a wetsuit for a 500m swim in 72 degree water?  I did last time but that was for a mile.  Decisions decisions.  The cool thing is the entire women’s race starts at the same time, so I can actually have some idea of where I’m in it overall and how many people are in front of me.

The bike isn’t completely outside my happy place, but it isn’t pancake flat.  Most of the course is rollers – which is good because there’s not a lot of the GRIND IT OUT IN GRANNY GEAR type climbs because you have decent momentum but I really need to stay on the effort.  Instead of recovering on the flats and downhills, I need to keep a steady power and cadence and push just like I do on a pancake course (just with much more variety in speeds).

The run also has a little elevation change, but the good news is that the 5k is pretty shaded and also the hills are closer to the beginning so I have the last half to just fly to the finish line.

While the day is looking hot and sunny, our waves start close to 7am and we’ll be done, most likely, before the temperatures get too much over 60 degrees.  So, pretty much perfect for me.

If the results last year hold, on a great day, I’d be in contention for age group podium and on a unicorns and sparkles day I might be in contention for top 5 overall.  But, now that I have my Nationals qualifier knocked out, it’s really just now building speed and confidence for Cozumel.  I’m going to go race my ass off, but if it doesn’t work out *shrug*, I’ve got a lot more races this year.

Last week I actually put in a lot of hours (in comparison), but it still doesn’t feel like much because Ironman has ruined my perspective on this forever.

• Mostly fun on the bike week.  I’ve been working hard on intervals and this week I mostly took it easy and fun.  This included a 2.5 hour bike ride tooling around downtown Austin and a 90 minute commute (which was more Type 2 fun on the way home with the wind, but still…), both of which was not at all specific training for anything I’m doing but also super lots of fun so… worth it.
• A three sport brick Indoor Triathlon style: 1000yd swim in 18-ish mins -> 30 min bike with the first 10 mins easy, 18 min ON (~200W), 2 mins easy spin -> the fastest 2 miles I’ve run in ages at 8:47/mile pace.
• Two other easy 3-4 mile runs.
• Two weights sessions – one at the gym lifting semi-heavy, one kettlebells-on-the-parking-garage.
• I missed one OWS, technically, but really just pushed it a day to Monday.

8.5 hours total.

<3

The next two weeks, I really really really need to watch my give-a-shit, so my schedule is pretty light.  My legs and lungs are ready to race, I just need to keep my head and my heart in it.  So far this week, I have done:

• A kettlebells session to keep the gains alive.
• My first open water swim of the year.
• A short double brick (10 min ride/1 mile x2).  Hopefully the run legs I found on this workout will follow me to the race!

For the rest of the week I will do:

• Probably an easy trainer ride to keep the legs loose.
• One more open water swim and a quick spin around the park as a shakeout the day before.
• ALL the stretching and rolling and shoulder/ankle exercises.

Next week will probably be fairly similar since we do it all again next Sunday.  Maybe even less, if that’s possible.

My one splurge this week.  Desanos Pizza, I love you.

Speaking off less, sadly, I’m not weighing much more of it (less, that is).  I like being a girl and all, but I don’t like that once a month, no matter HOW healthy and good and nice I am to my body, it rebels by gaining weight for a week.  Let’s not fail to mention the stabbing me in the lower abs with pins and needles and making me super exhausted for a day for no reason whatsoever except for the fact that I’m rejecting procreation at the moment.  However, I understand.  Tit for tat.  But the weight gaining thing REAAAAAAALLY sucks.

The weird and frustrating thing is that doesn’t even coincide with the actual event.  Check below.  I initially have a way up weigh in the first day (understood), then it goes away DURING the crimson wave aptly pictured below (yay), but then after that’s done, I tend to have a few days to a week of mild bloat.  The punishment continues.  So very much TMI but it’s frustrating and this is my little soapbox to whine about shit so… deal with it.

The good news is that high outlier is 183 at the tippy top, which is something a month ago I would have been really really excited to weigh, so it’s not all doom and gloom.

• Last week’s average calories: 1607
• Last week’s average daily burn: 2336
• Average deficit: -729
• Average diet quality: 21.3
• Average weight: 180.3 (+0.7 gain)

I really need to watch my protein, it’s been kind crappy last week (I only hit my 100g on 3 of 7 days, hence the diet quality dip from 22.8), but otherwise, everything else but the weight was going in the right direction and in the range of acceptable.  So, I just have to let my body sort itself out and just hang on and keep going.  From the swingy ends of the scale, I’ve gone from 188 on March 19th to 177 last weekend, so there is progress being made, for sure.  I’ve got about four weeks until vacation, so if I can make as much progress as I did in the first four weeks, I’ll be very happy.

Good food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants.  Carrying on.

Good news: it’s official!  Bad news: bikes on planes are a PAIN!!!

I had a very stressful moment where I felt like a complete dumbass on Monday.  We’re traveling with our bikes twice this year and needed to purchase bike bags.  I read over the airline guidelines at least TWENTY times and understood that anything under 62 inches was good to go.  We ordered our bike bags last week after much deliberation on the type and the price.  I read through that text a billion times but didn’t make sense of it until I saw the bags and thought, “Man, those are really big, am I SURE that’s checked luggage size?”  It’s not.   Sure enough, I go to the United site and clear as day, see that 62 LINEAR inches means the sum of all the dimensions, not the largest side.  To get to Cozumel in those bags its 200$ per bike per way instead of the 25$ I had thought.  Big difference.

Between that and actually pricing out going to Cleveland for Nationals, I was having some major overwhelms and actually had to just shut all sorts of things down and say that I’d start dealing with all that stuff later.  We are looking into some (more expensive but) smaller bike bags that are much more likely to look like regular checkable baggage.  Even if they cost more, they’ll pay for themselves in fees in a few trips.  Once we get that settled, I’ll figure out Cleveland.  But the first priority these next two weeks is keep the cup-of-give-a-crap overflowing for racing, which means doing the bare minimum at adulting to keep my life from ruin, and everything else can suck it.

Other things I have decided to give less craps about until at least the end of the month:

• No house projects and I will be doing the minimum amount of cleaning possible.  If it can wait without being gross and/or killing me, it will wait.
• My book.  I need to let it marinate and I’m putting it on hold until after vacation.  I’m reading my book about publishing a book, and then want to let it all soak in a bit, and then attack it after vacation.
• Selling my photos.  I’m not sure how many things I can undertake this year that put my little creative vulnerable self up for judgement on it’s worth, but apparently I’m seeking out ever single one of them.  I decided I’m going to start fresh from my new camera and after vacation, I’ll take a handful of my favorites and pick a site and submit them and see what happens.

I am happy to report I have recorded a new video (post and debrief coming soon).  Also, I have started the background of my next painting.  So, that’s something.

It’s hard to remember how different season is from offseason in the aspect of free time and the cup of f*cks that does NOT runneth over. I know I can make progress and be productive.  I just have to pick my battles carefully and have my hand on the eject button on other things when I need to jettison them to keep my give-a-crap from running on empty.

Hello, world.  Nice to meet you.  I like riding bikes, if you didn’t know that already.

Bluebonnets and cheese…

However, I like riding bikes a lot less when it’s really cold and windy.  I’ve done plenty of that riding training for Ironman Texas, and I have no issues heading out on my bike into the cold, or into the wind, but both at the same time kind of sucks.

Last year, hardening the eff up was kind of a point of pride and helped me make the jump to the Ironman distance on the bike (which was the discipline I needed the most work on, endurance-wise).  Honestly, it also helped me when Ironman day came and we had 20-30 mph winds on an exposed toll road.  However, this year, I’m training for sprint triathlons, which translates to racing for approximately 40 minutes (vs 7 hours) on my time trial bike.  Then, later this year, I will be training for an approximately 3 hour ride in hot and humid conditions.

So, there was nothing that riding 43 miles in the feels-like-30s and super windy conditions would benefit me, besides the excuse to eat some junk food along the way at aid stations and after (which would probably sabotage my weight loss efforts – I can negate that calorie burn in one aid station full of cookies and PB pretzels).  So, instead of doing any of that, we stayed home.  This is my third DNS over the last 9 years, and the other two were because my knee was so injured I could barely walk.  There was no choice in the matter for the previous two.  On first blush, I figured I should woman the eff up and go.

However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized I should probably miss the start line for things more often than I have.  In this case, for very little gain, I would be subjecting myself to illness (cold and windy riding for hours) and injury (always the risk of it riding outside, but in a group of thousands of other riders it amplifies).  When I signed up, I was super looking forward to it IN SPITE of it not being specific training, and was ok taking a break from hammering the bike to go have a beautiful morning riding outside and supporting the Rosedale school.  When the enjoyment part was removed with the crappy weather, I realized I was still supporting the school with my entry fee and decided that a trainer ride in my living room would be a much better idea.  And that was that.

We don’t want to get here.  We want to keep a reserve of give-a-crap.

I hate giving up, but I had to put it in perspective.  Seven days previous to that would-be ride, my body and mind produced a PR and a first place.  Four days after that, my body and mind ran 8:58 pace (30 seconds better than I raced at) off a challenging bike.  These breakthroughs are coming around for a few reasons, I believe:

1.  My body (and mind) are strong enough, finally.  Those two months of weighted squats and throwing kettlebells and working the posterior chain and my upper body finally feeling stable enough to be comfortable in aero position and my arms and hips gaining enough flexibility to start approximating a runners stride instead of the marathon shuffle -these things are starting to pay off.  And, I’ll give credit to a little bit of mental work as well.  Figuring out how to get out of my own way and let my body do what it can do without judgement or limitations has been a 2018 focus.
2. My body (and mind) are RESTED enough to do this kind of thing.  I have learned in life that for me to be successful, I have to walk the line between “we are what we repeatedly do” and “I have a finite-amount-of-give-a-crap”.  If I ask myself to HTFU constantly, and for things that don’t matter, I end up becoming the girl who cried wolf and I won’t show up when the chips are down.  If I give myself a pass on the things that don’t matter, I’m more likely to show up to the things that are more important.  Then again, if I shy away from HTFU moments entirely, I tend to continue to avoid them.  Like I said, it’s about walking that line.

Go ahead and pretend this is a selfie of me in the cold and wind riding outside.  I won’t tell anyone if you won’t.

So, I skipped a charity ride (apparently a lot of other folks went outside at 7am, said NOPE, and did the same as well) and life went on.  I had a nice relaxing weekend at home and then in my sleep on Sunday morning, I decided to shove one side of my ribs two inches higher and spent the day spasming in pain.  That was super fun.

I’m all fixed now (chiro put me back the next morning and now I’m feeling reasonably fine), but that was the universe shouting to BACK THE EFF OFF for a day.  I couldn’t run or bike or swim (was actually planning on doing a short session of each that day).  I could barely help with chores – which sounds conveeeeeenient, but I set off a spasm attack by putting a sweatshirt on. 😛 Yeah, it sucked. But, I watched about eight movies this weekend and got reacquainted with my couch and feel like I had some nice, lazy downtime and I’m ready to attack this week.

Workouts last week:

• ~1 hour lifting Monday/Friday
• 90 min bike commute Tuesday
• 1k swim and 60 min team BSS brick Wednesday
• planned day off Thursday
• 1 hour trainer ride with 3×5 min race power and 3×1 min 200+ power Saturday
• Trying not to anger the rib dieties by looking at anything funny (off) Sunday

And that’s it. 6 hours of training (I missed a short run, bike, and swim, 1.5 hours total).  I’m aiming to do a little this week and the week after (but not too too much) and then a rest week to prepare for Texasman.  This week’s plan:

• 3 runs: two speedy (2-3 miles) off the bike (Wed/Sat) and one easier 4 miler (done!)
• 3 bikes: 40 min trainer ride- 3x (5 min hill (~200W at low cadence)/2 min easy) (done!), two 45-60 min brick rides (Wed/Sat) with some spice as well.
• 2 swims: probably both in the pool, around 1k meters, maybe up to 1.5k if I get enough time one morning… (Wed/Fri)
• 2 weights sessions: kettlebells (done!), lifting (Thurs), maybe a bonus core session (Sat) if I can.

Looks like a lot, but it comes out to around 7 hours, give or take, because a lot of these sessions are 20-30 minutes.  I also slacked a little last week, so I’m recommitting to hit my shoulder and ankle exercises AT LEAST 5x this week and either a stretch or roll every day if not both.

I run (and bike and swim) on chicken and potatoes.

On the body composition facet of project #getfaster – I’m actually seeing some results on the scale, and weirdly enough, without affecting my training efforts.  Unicorn status: reached.  I know this is ONLY the case because I am not training all that much, this dive would be a much harder degree of difficulty if I was attempting this while training for something longer, but it’s… like… working!  I’m doing the things I am supposed to do and my body is responding.  This is revolutionary, y’all!

• Last week’s average calories: 1659
• Last week’s average daily burn: 2214
• Average deficit: 555
• Average diet quality: 21
• Average weight: 181.8

My weight graph is going the right way as well.  This week officially gets me back to the weight I raced Austin 70.3 at in October 2016.  Referencing my progress HERE, its nice to note that I have lost 4 lbs in two weeks.  I’ve also dipped into the 170s a few times in the last week, which happened last in October 2016 (and like, twice before I ate my way through the holidays/offseason and gained almost 10 lbs).

If I can keep with the rate of loss here, I may be able to be in the low 170s, maybe even high 160s by vacation… and that’s a place I haven’t been in many, many years.  So, I just need to keep doing what I’m doing.  Can do.  It’s challenging but not impossible.  Progress breeds inspiration for me, so it’s been a little easier to keep going this time.

Things get created here.  And not just dust.

In other news, I have a hit another huge milestone – I have officially, as of Saturday, April 7th, finished the first draft of my book.  Now it’s done and ready to publish, right?

Totally kidding.  I know I’ve got a long way to go.

My next steps are:

1. Take a first editing pass on each chapter to clean it up a little so it doesn’t hurt the eyeballs to read.  However, I know I’ll want to canoodle with this forever if I don’t set a time limit, so I will start with that in mind.  I’m not sure what that is yet, but I don’t want to still be doing a first pass on this in December.

2. Read it myself.  Like, laying in bed, on my kindle, like I read other books.  Trying to distance myself from the fact that *I* actually wrote the thing and see how it reads overall.

3.  Read The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published.  And maybe do some internet research and poking some of my author friends as well on learning all the things about getting published.

I’m hoping to complete all these steps within the next month or so.  Then… my first beta reader (my husband).  Eeep!

I have lots of other video and painting plans to tackle later this month, but I’m happy to have knocked out my April writing goal on the 7th.  Take that, procrastination!

I love March – Spring finally springs, the trees get green, things actually seem to start for the year (January and February are warmups, really), and there’s a lot to celebrate.

Celebrating another strength workout down with Black Betty.

If only just the fact that I tend to, this month, get older than I have ever been.

Lifting heavy has been fun, but my body decided about a week earlier than planned to be done with it.  I’m hoping to be a little more successful at it next go around, if I maintain my once-a-week work in the weightroom with the same lifts, but my body just did not appreciate lifting heavy things at low reps that many weeks in a row.  OR it might be that I didn’t take the rest week as prescribed.  Nah, can’t be that.  I’ll heed that advice next time I go into a lift-all-the-things block.

I hit 100# on my bench press, 90# on my incline bench, 145# on my squat, and 155# on my deadlifts successfully at 3×4 reps.  I now own a 40# kettlebell that I can do swings with, and if I can borrow the 55# one from a coworker, I can squat and deadlift that no problem.  I am both rowing and overhead pressing 60# for 3×8 right now.

It makes sense in hindsight, because every other sport I have done required daily strength work, but it took a long time for me to connect the dots that lifting heavy things + actually getting to a RESTED state for one = being a better triathlete.  I have seen the payoff with an increased ability to produce watts on the bike and leg strength and proper stride on my run.  I’m just starting to test the waters now, and I look forward to digging into the pain cave this spring, because I like what I see so far.  Swimming, like the poor red-headed stepchild it is right now, is what it is.  We’ll get there now that 70-80 degree days are more of a thing and I’m actually trying to triathlete again.

But, I got to stand on top of a podium, so there is that. 🙂

April will be a fairly balanced month.  Training SOLELY for sprints (not sprints and a half marathon or sprints and a century ride or sprints AND anything) affords me the opportunity to stick with the weights, and keep all the runs, bikes, and swims short for the most part.  If I’m not killing myself with volume, I can do that hurt-so-good speedwork and concentrate on drills and form and pre-hab and stretching and for the love of god actually get back to run warmups if I’m not running directly off the bike.

Work, yes, but obviously there will still be some time for playing bikes on beautiful days chasing sunsets and twinning our #wattagecottage socks because that is necessary for survival.

What it will look like, for the most part:

Swimming: twice a week. If I want my swim to stop sucking, I need to do it, even if it’s the least convenient sport on the planet.

• 20-30 min swim focusing on drills and form and longer efforts (300-500m at race pace, etc).
• 20-30 min swim focusing on speedwork (25-100m repeats).

When it stops being super chilly, I will try to take one of these per week into the lake.

Biking: three times a week.  I really want to PLAY bikes right now, but I need to limit that and actually WORK on building watts and stuff with harder, more focused, melt your face off rides.  But not too many, I want to still love bikes and also not get burnt out. So, I’ll split it up as such each week.

• One happy fun longer play bikes with the group with the group type ride.
• One brick workout with the speed circles in the middle (or similar if we don’t make the team brick).
• Split the difference on the third ride – maybe a commute with some harder intervals on the way to work, or a trainer ride with some spicy stuff in it, or maybe even endurance cycle class.

Also, I must be on my tri bike once a week, preferably outside if at all possible.

Running: two to three per week.

• Brick workout – typically a few miles all out off the bike.
• Longer and easier (maybe work up to an hour or so…)
• Then if I get a chance to do the third one… it will probably vary by week depending on whatever else is on the docket.  I’d love to work some track work back into my life but due to convenience it will probably be more running off the bike.

Weights: hoping to keep the three sessions per week but shorten them.

• One medium-heavy session in the gym with the typical lifts I’ve been doing (squats, deadlifts, bench, rows, presses, woodchoppers, etc, at the weight I can do 8-10 reps).  The priority here are lifts I can’t do elsewhere.
• Lunchtime kettlebell routine/core workout I’ve done twice and liked (kb squats, swings, deadlifts, side rocks, pushups, planks, etc) OR another gym session if I can make it.
• The Oiselle Dozen or something similar, very short, mainly focused on core and another excuse to stretch after.

It sounds like a lot but each session is actually pretty short, and I want to combine them when possible.  If I’m going to the gym for lifting, I’ll can warm up with some running or cool down with a swim if I have time.  I can probably do a short run at lunch AND that kettlebell workout in an hour if I hustle.  Bricks are great efficient workouts that knock out two sports and I run best off the bike because I’m already warmed up.  And it creates less laundry.  Win, win, win.

Yes, this is all super healthy food (almond crusted chicken and turnip mash with collard greens).  I love me the heck out of some Snap Kitchen.

I’ve talked a ton and a half already about nutrition, so let me just say that the scale is going the correct way, and I think I’ll probably continue with these goals through April:

• 1500 calories, good diet quality.  In that order.
• Batch cook 1-2 meals that are approximately 300-400 calories per serving, and supplement the rest of the week with Snap Kitchen foods.  I was balking at the cost and then I realized I’ve not gone out to eat except grabbing a turkey sandwich on the way to the race and splitting a chopped beef sandwich on the way back (under 25$) and on a good week before I’d spend at least 100$ (if not more) on takeout or restaurant food.
• I’m just not doing desserts except on extreme special occasions (read: family member made it and maybe a few times on vacation).  Once I detox my food intake a little, I find I don’t really need to be eating cake or cookies or sugary crap.  I do not gain anything but a headache and regret when I eat a slice of cake.  However, most every evening, I do have dark chocolate, either via split a piece of Sees Candy with my husband or a square from a good chocolate bar.  I will cut you if you get between me and my half piece of chocolate. ><
• Really, what I need to do is limit my indulgences to my two nights a week where I get to drink some whiskey.  I’ve learned that at the bottom of it all, I can totally cut out everything else and this is the last thing to go.

This month, I will need to navigate:

• Two game days (bringing a veggie tray. and trying not to cry too loudly in front of any potato chips that may or may not be there that I WILL NOT EAT)
• Not eating like a complete asshole after a 40 mile bike ride + brick (planning an acceptable amount of calories for lunch and probably Snap Kitchen for dinner).
• A birthday/Easter family celebration (though *we* are cooking this one so I will have lots of lean protein and veggies available and I’ll probably just cook myself a healthy dessert so I can have something to do with my hands while the rest of the family goes into sugar overload)
• Another race camping trip (with the same issue of finishing a sprint at 9am and then not just commencing with the eating junk food and drinking beer until I pass out)
• Possibly another birthday shindig, monthly cake day and cheese day at work, and whatever else life wants to throw at me.

So, I just need to remember all the reasons I’d like to take some weight off and that if I really focus for a few months it will save me years of half assing it and being disappointed with my results.  That’s worth ten orders of fries and an ice cream sundae.

On the general life stuff front – I’ll give myself an A+ on the fun stuff, D on the adulting.  That’s about par for the course.

Creative/fun/learny stuff –

Reference here.   Also, it’s incredibly hard to photograph canvas well.

I painted a thing, see?  I’m actually super happy with it, which is an outcome I didn’t expect when I started.  My art-ing muscle is a little weak and atrophied, but I’m looking forward to flexing it a little more to strengthen it.  The process is fun!

To keep from freezing up choosing a subject, my husband is picking them.  So, next up, I have a snorkeling picture from Roatan featuring some very curious Sergeant Majors.  I’d love to do one painting a month, so that’s my goal for April.

I read two books, Angel and You Do You.

Angel gave me a really great insight into Angel investing, which is something I either would love to do or might be on the receiving end of someday.  While I feel like I learned a lot, I probably need to focus my attention elsewhere because I am neither rich enough to really jump in with both feet (minimum requirement to be accredited is 200k annual salary) nor ready to launch anything that would need Angel investors for a minute.

You Do You was a really fun anti-self help book that had me nodding my head with it and laughing.  She talks about how to take risks, stop worrying about what Judgy Mcjudgersons are thinking or saying about you, and basically own your own quirks and let your freak flag fly.  I wouldn’t say it’s life changing for me, but I’m the kid that roller skated down the block with a refrigerator box on my head pretending to be a robot who really never gave that kind of shit up.

In April, I have Operation Ironman and The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published on the docket.  I might have already finished the first one but I’ll save my discussion for later.

I wrote a chapter (chapter 10).  I’m growing increasingly unhappy with my writing, which means I’m probably on the right track and getting close to wrapping things up.  I’m torn.  I really am super excited that April will see my last book chapter done and I’ll have, for the first time in my life, completed a book, all 80k or so words of it.  However, then, holy shit, it’s real, and I need to actually do something with it and, ulp, maybe someday someone will actually read the thing?  Why didn’t I go into writing pulpy sci fi instead of non-fiction about myself?  Ack!

I made three more videos!  I’ve been having a lot of fun with it, and I’ve been learning a lot about the process.  For some reason, I have to constantly remind myself that I don’t need to be AWESOME at it right now, because again, like the painting, I’m having fun working on getting better by practicing. 🙂

I have notes written out for at least two more (part 1 and part 2), and I’ll make it a goal to do at least one additional video by the end of April on *something*.

Adulting –

We need some bodies to help us with the cabinet (we will have a captive audience on April 14 and will do it then), and then the garage will be done in a few minutes after that.  I’m ignoring that corner of the world until then.

My pantry will survive in it’s current state until I actually give a fig about doing it, which is obviously not any time soon.  I think I have to face facts that I used up about two years of give-a-shit doing my kitchen and there’s no way I’m going to be able to bring myself to be on a diet and in training and also domestic AF and I’m okay with that.

I’ll just continue to revel in the fact that I have a renovated kitchen and ignore all the other crap outside of it for another few years.  I think that’s a sound plan.

I feel slightly bad that I’m doing a fairly craptastic job at the adulting list, but it seems that 2018 has been about flexing my creative muscles again, and manifesting some progress on some long time goals I’ve wanted to achieve.  I’ll give up all the organized spaces in my house to make that happen.