Five On Friday

Because these things are irrisistible to me:

Five in a Row
1. Name one thing you do everyday: Read

2. Name two things you wish you could learn: Speak Spanish, windsurf

3. Name three things that remind you of your childhood: Chickens, certain books, camping

4. Name four things you love to eat but rarely do: Biscuits, my special peanut-butter cookies, scalloped potatoes, really good croissants

5. Name five things that make you feel good: Hiking, reading a great book while in bed, taking a hot shower, laughing, and making someone ELSE feel good!

and one more because these are fun:

1. What did you eat yesterday? Let's see. Oatmeal with brown sugar, a large piece of applesauce spice bread, a Thai noodle bowl, green tea, peppermint tea, and some pretzels with hummus. That's all I can remember.

2. Are you more likely to yell or give the silent treatment? Silent treatment, until it doesn't work. Then I might start yelling.

3. Who did you last grieve? My grandfather Hans.

4. What feels good today? Eating a piece of dark chocolate in the sun.

5. Friday fill in: Thank you Terri for your terrific sense of humor, even when things suck.

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So, I tried a whole month of taking very good care of myself. I found out that what I actually did was not force myself to do a lot of things. This is a good lesson. When I'm not forcing myself to do all these things I think I should do, I'm actually doing a fairly good job of taking good care of myself. For instance, instead of forcing myself to clean the house when it's not really all that messy, and instead, just reading a good book, I became happier and less stressed out. Self-induced stress. What's the point? Or, instead of trying to 'be creative' and productive when all I really wanted to do was watch some movies, I actually came out at the end of the month feeling much more inspired. I think I just needed a break from myself, rather ironically (instead of really focusing on myself, I really just needed to ignore certain parts!)

Lessons Learned:

1. Sometimes doing less is a really good thing
2. The world really does not stop if the junk doesn't get cleared off the table
3. A hot shower at the end of the day is a blessing
4. I like to watch about 30-45 minutes of TV when I come home from work, then I feel pretty done with TV (unless it involves Criminal Minds or Desperate Housewives... we love Bree!)
5. I need a better work area for making jewelry, more light
6. I need to watch more dorky documentaries

That's enough. You get the point.

This next month is another experiment. I'm going to follow my happy-tummy diet really strictly for a month (as best I can). The parameters: low-fat everything, vegetarian, no dairy, plenty of starches (white breads, potatoes, rice, certain veggies, oatmeal), lots of veggies and grains (combined with enough starches). It won't be too difficult, the hard parts will be being aware of the fat content of everything, and avoiding dairy. I have to make sure before I eat anything like salad or raw veggies, I have to eat some bread or something starchy to settle my tummy first. Etc.

I've made a big list of all kinds of things I can eat, posted it at my desk. I need to stock up on my peppermint tea. I'm going to figure out this tummy thing once and for all!

Stay tuned for progress notes. I promise, nothing graphic.