Category: follow-up

Posted in about me, ebb & flow, follow-up, meandering

Sometimes, things work out

Posted on by heatweirdlastname

Yesterday, The Kid had his last track meet of the season.

Because it’s hot here now, the meet started at 7 instead of 8. Call time remains an hour before the meet starts. Yesterday’s meet was just over half an hour’s drive from here. I was up at 4:30.

Early morning temps were nice, but it didn’t take long before we were baking. All of the stadiums we’ve been in, the fields run north-south and the home bleachers are on the west side (facing east). Which means that even with our handy oversized umbrella, we’re in the sun for much of the morning.

Once the sun was high enough, we had shade (hooray!) but it was a little stuffy under there.

Anyway. The point is, we were up early, and it was toasty.

His events (two track and one field) were clustered, so the down time was almost all front-loaded. For the first time ever, we were done before 1:00.

Once the meet was done, we came home and had late lunch. I took a nap; The Climbing Daddy and The Kid did other things. I woke up feeling better than when I laid down but still wiped out.

This is the point in the story that connects with the second piece.

A year ago, I volunteered at a competition at my local climbing gym.

I decided that I wanted to climb in it this year. (Upcoming links are all to previous posts with more detail about this journey.)

I learned how to boulder (though I was not at all good at it).

This year’s comp, we had to do three mini-comps to be eligible.

I did two before finding out sad news, and didn’t pursue the third.

It turns out, the final competition—the main event—was yesterday. Climbers reported to the gym at 3, I think (might have been 4).

If I had decided to continue I would have had a bouldering competition late yesterday afternoon. At nap time.

So while I was really disappointed in February when I found out the comp wasn’t what I wanted, I was really happy yesterday not to have to go attempt to climb competitively.

(And the four of us ended up splashing around in the pool for an hour, then The Climbing Daddy and I went for a tired-but-necessary run, and those were better than bouldering any day.)

Oh! And the photo? A giant dust devil we saw on the way home from the track meet.

Posted in about me, ebb & flow, exercise, follow-up, food, know better do better, mental health, mindset, motivation, physical health, thoughtfulness

Update: accountability to self

Posted on by heatweirdlastname

In January, I wrote about a chart I’d made to track behaviors of health and self-care.

I had thought—or, more accurately, hoped—that seeing holes in the list would spur me to do some of the things that simply haven’t been getting done, even if the increase was to once a week, or once every other week.

It did not.

The things that were already getting done are still getting done. The things that weren’t getting done still aren’t getting done.

So now, after two-and-a-half months of using it, I need to decide: should I somehow incentivize it? (Not with things that are counterproductive!) Or let it go? Because right now, it’s not really doing anything. I mean, I’m marking things off as they get done, but I’m affirming things I already knew. No new data, no behavior change.

I haven’t decided yet. Either way, as-is, it’s not working.

Did anyone else make one? (I got a lot of messages from people who were going to.) How’s it going?

 

Posted in follow-up

Info and experimentation

Posted on by heatweirdlastname

I was exploring WordPress, trying to find a way to change the way comments work.

I’ve gotten several messages from people saying they’d like to comment but there’s no way to do it.

There is. But not from the main feed. Let me explain.

If you go to my website—heat-weirdlastname.com—the default page is the blog. The 10 most recent posts show up, with a variety of ways to get to older posts.

On that page, there’s nowhere to click to leave a comment. I have gone through every setting, and I don’t believe I can change this. (I don’t know if that is specific to this theme or if it’s a WordPress thing.)

If you click on the title of any post, it will take you to a page with that post only. At the bottom of that, you can leave a comment.

I will start putting a link at the bottom of each post to make that find-able.

I’m throwing up a few small posts today in different formats. (In my exploration, I discovered some features.)

 

Posted in audience participation, follow-up, food, physical health

Follow-up to the dinner post

Posted on by heatweirdlastname

Last week, I answered a reader question about dinner. Planning. Dealing with busy evenings. Dealing with low energy.

When I posted it to social media, I asked what others do for quick, easy meals. Here’s what people shared:

  • breakfast for dinner
  • We just had make your own taco night. Fry’s has great vegetarian already-seasoned meat crumbles you literally just put in a skillet and heat up for about 5-8 minutes. I cut up the black olives while it is heating and put out all the toppings and tacos/tortillas. The girls love this and it is so easy and quick! We also heat up black beans for those who may want them as well.
  • pizza on flour tortillas baked in the oven

Great ideas!

Posted in follow-up, food, tips

Answering follow-up—3

Posted on by heatweirdlastname

Question from a reader:

What are some of your go to meals when you don’t feel like or have time to make dinner? I assume you plan out your menu for the week in advance?

First, yes, we plan meals for the week, make a shopping list off of that plan, and shop from the list.

There are a few meals that the recipe makes way more than we’ll eat in a few days, so we’ll freeze half for later.

Others, we can double for the same purpose.

We have a few ready-made things from Trader Joe’s in the freezer for nights when it’s just not gonna happen for whatever reason, including “we tried a new recipe and it’s really not good at all.”

(New recipes are judged on the following four-point scale: Tasty! Make it again!; Don’t need to make it again, but will eat the meal and the leftovers; Don’t need to make it again, and will eat the meal but not the leftovers; What’s Plan B, ’cause we’re not eating the meal or the leftovers.)

When we plan meals, we also look at the calendar so we don’t plan something that needs to cook for an hour on a night when we have things going on until 7 and won’t get started until 7:15 or later.

Crock pot meals are good for those nights.

Meals with a lot of leftovers are better earlier in the week because: leftovers.

I’ve seen a lot of “prep 8 zillion meals in two hours!” types of pins on Pinterest, where a large grocery run, an afternoon of prep, and a box of Ziplock bags makes a couple of weeks’ worth of crock pot meals in the freezer. Most of them are meat-based which doesn’t work for me, so I haven’t tried them, but those might be worth looking at.

I started a spreadsheet of recipes we like a lot, divided by ingredients (produce, beans/nuts/grains, dairy, spices, etc.), so I can easily see what we need (instead of looking up each recipe). As time goes on, I’m adding other things to it. Streamlines the process a little. Also helps to find recipes that use up ingredients I have.

Readers, what are your go-to prep-at-home suggestions for nights that are busy, or the end of a day that’s exhausting?