The main reason I am pulling back on posting is to make the blog and myself better. After all, the stated goal of this blog is to mark my own progress. Creating content is time consuming for me and I was putting together blog posts of a couple of thousand words. As much as I enjoy writing, and I would not blog if I didn’t, there are other things I need and just want to do. What are those things, you ask? Well, let me tell you!
There are the things I absolutely need to do. Exercise. My #morningwalks, #morningmeanders save my sanity. Every weekday I walk the city for an hour and I looooooooooooooove it. Being outside in the parks, on the streets, by the sea, calms my mind, soothes my spirit, and every other greeting card inspirational slogan that you can think of. It is not something I am willing to give up.
Obviously my family, particularly my daughter, are a priority. Taking care of us, from the basic fifties housewifery to doing the things that make me a happy and contributing member of society, are incredibly important to me. That basic fifties housewifery? It takes time. Also taking just thirty minutes a day for keeping it together takes, well, thirty minutes a day.
Then there is yoga and Pilates, both of which I would like to reintroduce into me morning ritual. One of my aunts cannot stand up straight due not to osteoporosis but because the muscles in her back are weak. I didn’t even know this was a thing. Here I am getting my calcium in only to find out that I can be undone by a lack of pushups. In the meantime, I have dropped somewhere between ten to fifteen pounds so far and gone down a whole size. I’m still fat, just less so. But I don’t feel like I look better* and I think it’s because of the lack of strength straining. My toddler arm gets quite the workout but I’ve been lax about the rest of me. Pilates is especially helpful with belly bulge and both yoga and Pilates are great for strength training. Plus, I actually like Pilates.
Both the walk and the yoga are forms of meditation for me but to get to affirmations and visualization, both of which I think are invaluable, I need to take a different path. When people say something only takes _ minutes a day we are usually only telling part of the story. Like working out, even in your living room, sill takes a few minutes of preparation, requires loose clothes that even if you aren’t getting anything special are clothes you probably don’t want to wear for the rest of the day after getting them all sweaty, which therefore adds to your laundry pile up… You get the picture.
I’m not saying don’t do it, it’s just we have to be realistic about it- something that I think Americans in particular are particularly bad at. Add in taking a few moments to calm yourself to be in the right mental space for visualization or just doing the repetition necessary for affirmations to have an impact what I thought would take thirty minutes takes easily twice as long and I still have to shower, sweep, mop, dust (theoretically), clean the kitchen at least once a day, meal plan, get groceries, take out the recycling and the garbage,** wash and fold the clothes, et cetera et cetera et cetera. No wonder chore lists are so popular on Pinterest!
I also need to figure out the back end of this blog business. Even the most basic tutorials seem to be aimed at millennials who grew up with the internet. I’m looking up terms from the first sentence on. This means I need to spend a lot of time on YouTube, Lynda, and other platforms just trying to figure my shit out since I do, eventually, want to make money off of all this effort.
Last, well not really last but I have to leave to get LB and don’t think I am going to expand much more on this post before publication tomorrow morning, being a contributing member of society means, for me, getting more involved in that society. Not just here, but back home in the US. I want a country that my daughter can feel both safe in and valued by. Progress is being made but there is always work to be done.
So that’s the deal folks. Have a good one.
*There is nothing “wrong” with being fat. Despite the messages of modern (American) society it is a physical descriptor not a moral failing. And I am down for body positivity but for me, personally, I feel like my body is in the way. Like I have to get around it to do the things I want to do. That’s not good and something I am working to change.
**Okay. The weather SUCKED today (29/11) but, worse, it wasn’t great yesterday. I say worse because it was supposed to be partly sunny and instead it RAINED. Maybe it’s just my apps but the weather people here seem awfully optimistic and instead being all half full about it I am CRUSHED when the weather forecast changes to the more realistic reality of grey skies and the occasional downpour. Just, ugh.
Anyway, during a brief clearing of the skies, not sunny but not rainy, I decide to take out the very full garbage and food garbage. Thanks to a recent rearrangement the waste is on the far side of the courtyard. While this is a bit of a pain in the ass at least the view from my balcony doesn’t include stinky trashcans full of ick. Anyway, I’m trekking out there in the cold – Did I mention it’s cold? Like, freezing? Literally freezing? Or, again worse, it only feels like it’s freezing so instead of pretty, tolerable, snow you get icy, wet, wet, wet, drizzle. Like, today, it’s actually four degrees Celsius but feels like minus eight. Seriously. Fuck that. Anyway, the garbage and food garbage sheds are right next to each other. I set down the trash and go to put the food garbage in the bin when THE. BAG. BREAKS. This couldn’t have happened, like, thirty bloody seconds later? No? Alright. Well. Fuck. So I throw away the trash and go get some rubber gloves to clean up the rancid, rank, revolting history of meals past rotting right in front of the container it should bloody well be in. There I am. Squatting in the damp cold with putrid strings of spaghetti stretching from my fingers when some idiot, I mean one of my neighbors, starts yelling at me. She thought I was trespassing to rummage through the garbage.
Okay. This is a thing here. Our courtyard is enclosed but the gate is left unlocked a lot during the day. There are people here that supplement their incomes by getting bottles and cans from the trash. These are often people who fall through the cracks of care due to their immigration status or their addiction. BUT. I am obviously cleaning up a mess. Only the most desperately starving, so basically no one in Denmark, would be in a situation in which the foul, offensive, and just downright nasty pile of decomposing former food would be at all appealing. This is where English language privilege and passport privilege come in handy. Though the neighbor did not apologize as soon as I opened my mouth and spouted flawless US accented English she instantly realized that I was not what she was expecting. So I slapped the last handful of God awful mess into the bin, chucked the gloves in the trash, and walked away. Wednesday. Ugh.