As I am stepping into the 185 (Day) Insane Author Challenge for this last half of the year, I thought I would use the month of June to address the bad habits from the rest of the year, accumulated for whatever reason, and see if I could …work them out.
One of my worst ‘habits’ is … insomnia. I know, very clearly, I have such rigid insomnia…and there is actually nothing I can do by myself. It requires help…and that help I have asked for, and asked for, and asked…and explained why I need the help and how getting the help will aid in my mental heath — as well as my physical health. And, uhm, I still have insomnia. I’ll leave it at that.
So, I am trying my doctor’s ‘plan’ of “just do (it)”. As in…go to bed at X time. Get out of bed at X time.
Yeah. Easier said than done for me. I can nearly nail being in bed by a certain time…although other creatures in the house do their best to thwart me.
(By creatures, I mean the cats and the kid…and sometimes insects…but that is a different story I may share later.)
Mornings? Uhm. Yeah. My mind may be willing, but my body keeps throwing up issues. Between my back begging for twenty minutes more, just to let the meds kick in, there are also more creature issues…same ‘creatures’ as above, minus the insects.
And thus, not quite as successful as I would like in that category.
My laundry is still waiting to be put away. A lot of it wants to be folded as well. Not to mention everything in the basement waiting to be washed.
My body and the steps, those ninety degree up and down, splinter-filled, unsafe for someone like me stairs…they hate each other. I wasn’t a fan of those particular stairs before my body began to break down as much; I hate them at this point and I avoid them like the plague as much as I can. Nothing uses more spoons for me during the day (other than the heat and humidity outside if I am dumb enough to walk out there for any reason) than a trip up and down those stairs.
Let me explain it this way: if I were able (cats, dogs, kids, weather, and bugs not considered), I would prefer to walk out the front door, walk around the back of the house, go down the outside stairs to the basement door, and go into and out of the basement that way to get into and out of the basement.
Not ideal, especially if I have to carry laundry or whatever else.
Now, if I got up in the mornings, as I planned, I would then be able, after I feed the hoards in the house (cats, dogs, fish…) , I would then be able to get in my fifteen minutes (five days a week) of Yoga and breathwork.
Next should come a healthy breakfast, with at least thirty grams of protein.
A writing session of thirty to forty minutes, if not more, depending on whatever else I need to get down for beings in the house—or if I have to abandon my desk for ten or fifteen minutes in order to convince whatever cat is on my desk and rolling on my keyboard that I no longer need to be there. They then leave; I then come back…and work for the five to fifteen minutes I have before that cat or another returns to repeat this process.
Lunch? Maybe. Maybe not. But the goal is to make sure that 1. I am drinking plenty of water throughout the day and 2 I get up and move around, walk around, at least once an hour (per my physical therapist, this is what you ought to be doing, even if all you do is walk around).
Then comes dinner—or whatever our evening plans are, depending on family member activities. I also include family time in the evening. This is typically when I read or crochet.
Once my husband goes to bed, another writing period, however long I have, based on the creatures around me and their demands and my desires. Plus, this is also when I sit with my planner and fill in what happened during the day…and typically think about what needs to happen the next day.
However, I also plan to stick another fifteen minutes of movement, either stretching, wall Pilates, riding my stationary bike, in the evening. Not happening yet.
Is this how my June went?
Not particularly.
I have spent entirely too much time staring vapidly…out the window, above the television set, at my phone. Zombie mode, I call it. Nothing comes from doing it except the day disappears, I end up exhausted, and nothing gets done.
That I have been working to fix in June—and that is where I have had more success.
I have been reading more. It comes and goes, depending upon my mood, as I am a mood reader. I try not to rate books or decide anything about the books I am reading when I am in a certain mood where nothing holds my interest/everything bores me to tears.
I have been crocheting more, although most of what I have started, I have frogged. Until last night when I started working on a requested hexagon cardigan for our son’s first swim instructor (he is on his fourth semester; teachers change every semester). Working on something for someone else, that makes me happy and keeps me invested in working to finish it. (usually—more on this another time)
Exercise? Movement? Uhm. Not really. Not yet.
Drinking more water? This is where I have found success…well, some success. I want to drink five twenty-four-ounce bottles/glasses of water. I am drinking more water daily, but not that much. So, room to improve.
I have been reading daily, in one way or another. Last night, I read back and forth between two books, a paragraph here, a paragraph there, because my brain refused to focus.
I have been crocheting more, and when my brain refuses to focus on reading, crocheting saves the day, most of the time. Of course, I crochet, normally, with a sixty-pound chihuahua (actually, she’s my pocket pittie, but she is a velcro lap dog) who does not want to share me or the chair with any cat…and there is always a cat nearby. Now the cats have learned to sit on the back of the recliner…and mess with my hair.
June…prepping for July…fail.
However, I am not giving up.
I adapt. I move forward.
That’s all I can do.
Tabitha Low 