Health
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Voice
I started this site when I was in grad school as a semester-long project in learning to code HTML. I kept it, initially, because I was job searching and needed somewhere to showcase project work and also to create a separation between my future career and my current job and social media. I also wanted a little piece of the internet to myself. It’s been been ten years now and I still haven’t done much with it. I’ve had plans for board game review pages, data management annotated bibliographies, creative projects, all of which languish as random pages mostly unpublished. Some of this is because I feel that I’ve lost…
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Adjectives
I’ve been working on values and what exactly they are and what they mean to me. The guiding definition is a state of being that I am continuously working toward. Goals, by contrast, are achievements along the way. This definition is startling because it flips aspects of personal growth. I have read countless articles and media click-bait about how to achieve goals. What I’m learning is that the goals aren’t really the point. This concept made sense once I was challenged by “what happens when the goal is achieved?” The goals becomes a checkmark; that’s all. There’s no other interaction with them. I can achieve them, then what? Values are…
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Headaches
Blistering headache to end the workday. The bitter chill of the bike ride to the train station did it. I was optomistic that the sun and building body heat would keep it from happening, but no. There is a steady breeze directly into my ears and I’m done for. I’ve been doing strange stretches on the train to ease my neck. I’ve taken off my glasses because they have been pushing on my right ear and creating some pain. They are sitting on the seat next to me and I’m hoping that a sudden stop doesn’t fling them somewhere. I’m cautious about looking too far down in order to see…
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Exhaustion, stress, and headaches
Today I had definitive proof that I have a connection betwee exhaustion and headaches. I had the data last April, but today was a prime example. The past twenty-four hours have been a time of heightened vigilance regarding my son and his mental health. The start of this episode began at almost two in the morning. When I wake up that early and are ripped from the Nexus, I feel physically sick until I wake up enough to be alert. My husband and I discussed the issue and the steps we would need to take the next day for a few hours. We also discussed his reaction and how he…
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Health initiative
Last weekend I finally made it into the dietician, a task three months delayed for administrative reasons. The session was surprisingly predictable: she had my lab report, we discussed my typical diet/activity, I had a list of questions. The upshot of the visit was that my intake is too high in fat and carbs, my calorie load is too high. We discussed the changes I needed to make and the first steps I was going to have to do. We addressed my complete unwillingness to count calories, because I’ve tried and it doesn’t work and I quit. We discussed my need to have continual support for a while. There wasn’t…
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Personal data and health decisions
A few weeks ago I went to the doctor. Nothing urgent. It had been five years since I had a physical and one year since I came in for headaches and shoulder pain. I started in at the chiropractor in winter and that resolved the shoulder issue. However, as the new year started, the headaches were persistent and that’s not normal for me. I know all the usual triggers for headaches, but couldn’t tell by passive observation whether or not I was experiencing them. I also couldn’t tell if my treatment was working. So I did what any normal scientist would do, I starrted tracking it. The parameters I was…
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Health
I just took off several days from work. I spent part of it going in for a medical procedure (elective and outpatient) and then spend some recovering. I also had a regular physical to get that up do date and discuss tweaking treatment for my headaches. We reclassified them as migranes and are working with different medication. I brought the data that I had tracked. It helped define things and make decisions. I was glad I tracked it and I seemed to cover the right things. One of the interesting things uncovered was that I don’t take the medication as often as I probably should. If I am only experiencing…
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Joy and Peace
This is the non-fiction I have been reading for months. Rising Strong by Brené Brown The Sound of Paper by Julia Cameron Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequist Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert Get Some Headspace by Andy Puddicombe Savor by Shauna Niequist The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Mari Kondo Meditation is boring? Putting Life Into Your Spiritual Practice by Linda Johnsen Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor by Lynda Barry How to Be Happy, Dammit: A Cynic’s Guide to Spiritual Happiness by Karen Salmansohn The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere by Pico Iyer (recently gifted) Ashtanga Yoga: the Practice Manual by David Swenson (recently gifted) The…
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Big Magic
I received Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic when it came out last Tuesday. I had read it through by Thursday. The book was an easy read, similar in style to Eat, Pray, Love in that is was constructed by a series of connected essays. Content wise, there was much in there that I had heard in other forms, bits from her TED talks (thankfully that was not all the material she used), chunks of her personal experience, and comcepts covered by Julia Cameron. However, this is wholly in her own voice and comes together as a cohesive work that lends new insight to the creative life. I found it compelling in a way…
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Beautiful words
I have a secret wish to write beautiful words. I felt it rise up in my consciousness on my walk with the puppy last night. The walk was an impusive flight to get out of the house and capture the early fall before it becomes late fall, and then winter. The day gave way to night in the graceful way it does every day. I typically don’t notice. Yesterday, I heard the cricket chirp and the traffic people faded away. The dark deepened and left me with no distractions to focus on. I could smell dinner from the condos we passed. And I wished I could capture all that I…