What a wild ride, Mr. Toad. What a wild, wild ride this year has been. IT's been a hot minute since my last post - well over a month. Just haven't had much that I wanted to say out loud, but here we have the obligatory looking back/seeing forward post for the end of the year and just before we start it all over again.
I have zero relationship with time anymore. Some days, I feel MUCH older than I am, and other days, I wonder how the hell I made it this far, or how come I don't FEEL my age. (I think it's 56, but I'd have to do maths, and I don't wanna).
This year, and slightly before it, we have lost family, we have lost beloved fur family members, we have lost jobs. We have gained jobs. We have gained raises. We have gained improvements to the homestead. We have come farther than ever before, and yet backtracked, but at least not as much as we gained. We have seen new sides of ourselfs (we being me, and sometimes my Beloved), and revisited past selfs that we didn't WANT to see again. And we have gained new family members, such as this:
At once, it seems like the longest, and yet the shortest stretch of 365 days ever.
I don't have a timeline because I don't journal, so I won't light you up with a bunch of memories. Just suffice it to say that it's been all over the fucking place and back!
I got sick earlier this year (probably late fall) before Captain Terror Toes (up there) arrived. That was a doozy. The test said it wasn't COVID, so maybe I'll believe that or maybe I won't, or maybe my body has just changed its approach to fighting off hellacious colds. Who knows? I really just think we're part of a giant petri dish and The Theys are testing a new strain on all of us, but just not telling us as much, as they did with The COVID years. It's just an experiment with many facets. If we don't know, and we just think we have colds, does it impact the global economy as much? HELL NO it doesn't Check that one off the list! Probably not as good for Big Pharma if we think it's all just a cold, but also something to note, and check off the list. Enough of that tangent. Just felt the need to share my true thoughts on the matter. :)
I had a cold. So bad that my beloved took me to the clinic. I had drugs. I had breathing treatments. I'd say all in all, it took up a good 3-4 weeks of productive living. That all being said, what I learned was I have to get my shit in order. I could not continue living and eating the way I was and expect different results.
I was Queen o' Carbs there for a minute, and it showed. My sugars were ASTRONOMICAL, if not from the meds, from the constant intake of junk stuffs. I was miserable on all fronts. So, I went back to keto. I think I mentioned it back in November, but I'm still at it. Sugar is substantially lower, mostly in the pre-diabetic range, with some days even being non-diabetic, and THAT is what counts because I do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT wish to be a slave to insulin, Metformin, etc. I just don't want it, and the only way to not get it is to get a grip.
I'm in a much better position today than I was when I started. The weight is not leaving as fast as I'd hoped but I'm closer to the other side of 200s than the 220s, so there is that. I don't know what I'll do in the coming year. All I know is that I have to remain focused on the long-term, rather than the instant gratification and bury-my-feels-in-FastBreak-bars urges. That way lies stupidity and suffering, and it's just not worth it anymore.
One day, I just woke up and decided no more. The all-out binges are gone. Yes, it sucks having to sit with your feels, but it's better than having to go to the doctor head held low in shame, and being prescribed 10-20 different meds all designed to combat and counteract the symptoms of the other ones, or combat the symptoms of shitty food choices.
One thing I do know, though - I am done being hyperfocused on it. I can eat a salad and chicken at pretty much any restaurant. I can cook, so I can make my own food at home, and not have to worry about eating what he eats. I have complete control over what goes in the chewhole. Period.
Enough about food. On to movement. I am in the process of finishing up Home Gym 2024. We've got a new treadmill, the rowing machine, a bench, some free weights, and my newest addition, a rebounder, which I have to first construct. Also, since we got the new television, and a new stand, the old relics will be moving out here, along with the archaic DVD player so I can do DVDs, or workouts from the Tube of Yous very readily.
I'll be creating some format of a schedule today and tomorrow, and setting things up to get movement in. My boss started moving, back when it was deadly hot in Phoenix, earlier this year, and has lost 20 pounds just by going swimming every day. While he travels a magical metric fuckton more than I, we have the same remote-work-at-home surrounds, and if he can do it just because he felt like doing something, I would imagine I can, as well. I am not chained to my desk chair, except by choice.
To sum up 2023, it was as terrifying as this video and all its acidesque components:
Yet, still, it was a pretty good year.
Now, on to what's next:
1. No resolutions. I don't resolve to do shit!
That was easy.
As for what's REALLY going to happen, I know of a few things already:
1. Going to Phoenix to see my best friend, have dinner with the bosses, and take a much needed break from the normal routine in less than two weeks so I can reset my brain and my soul.
I need the AZ air and sunshine for a minute.
2. New systems of organization as far as work goes.
I've been studying Notion, the productivity platform that we use for work, and learning what I can so that I can get my own workload organized, and not get so far behind as the right-now things pile up on top of the already long list.
Well, I did say "a few things ..."
That's about all I know for 100% sure.
The rest is what I make of it.
The year will be filled with a growing, learning puppy that, at some point, will turn nearly full grown, keeping Nettie healthy and living her best life in her high senior years, and figuring out just what cat food Bean actually DOES like. He's been rebelling since Jezebel passed, and refuses to eat the food he so readily hogged so she wouldn't have any when she was here.
There may be a revamp of the living room. There's a new rug, but we need some new furniture, some blinds, and new paint on the walls to go along with it. I think it's time. We've had the same baby-poop brown on the walls since 2008. It's time.
Other than that, I don't know, and I'm not a five-year-plan kind of person. I like to see where the wind takes me. I've learned that it's much easier to just go with the flow than try to plan anything, so that's what I'm going with. The flow.
I hope all of you who read this have an excellent new year full of all the things you wanted and none to very few of the things you did not want!
Happy 2024!