Water Logged

I’ve been doing random monthly challenges for most of 2020, it’s the least I could do to stay engaged with all the crazy going on. So, for the month of September, I am going to drink ONE gallon of water every day. It will be hard, but I will do it. I’m not looking forward to all the bathroom breaks or the monotonous taste of water, but I’m hopeful there will be some good perks in exchange for those downfalls. Also, my friend Brooke is going to do the challenge too, so I’ll have a partner…and competition!

I’m giving myself a warm up day on August 31. I don’t have to drink the whole gallon, but I’m going to try just to kick things off. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Day 0 (August 31)
I did it. It took all of the time from 0900 to 2030 to get it done! I arbitrarily made the decision to be done at 2030 because I loathe getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. Honestly, I doubt it will make a difference, but at least I tried.
How do I feel? I feel like a water bed. My stomach is gurgle-y, I feel bloated, ughh. Earlier today I had a headache, because of too much water. Seriously. I think that I started to washout my electrolytes. But I was fine as soon as I ate lunch.
So, it’s not impossible, but I don’t know how I’m going to feel about this adventure. I hope it gets easier. Check back each day for updates!

Day 1
Today wasn’t bad. I did wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom…but other than that it was better than day zero. I also went to the bathroom 12 times. Just seems so excessive! I was better at drinking the water though and finished around 1930.

Day 2
No middle of the night wake up again!!! Unless you count Hastings sitting my my chest and licking my face until I woke up…but that’s a different story. Another 12 rounds in the bathroom. Ugghhh…. finish around 1900. I need to start saving just a little because I always want a drink before bed. Overall, not noticing much change except that I’m getting better at drinking water.

Day 3
So it’s Thursday. I’ve got 2 days in the bag and all I can say is, I need to stop going to the bathroom so much!!! Today, I cut back to 11 times. Yay! Drinking the gallon has gotten easier. Now I find that I’m on track to finish “early”. I don’t want to do that, because then I drink “extra” and it creates more of these bathroom problems.

Day 4
10 – still cutting back on those bathroom visits! Almost down to single digits! 😂 today was a little interesting but tomorrow will be more so. We drove out to Shenandoah National Park to camp, so my bed time routine was outside. Not really a problem, but if the numbers stay this high tomorrow….

Ooh! Also, I tried to have a little extra drink today and grabbed a PSL on our way out of town. Either they made it really strong or the water challenge has changed my taste buds because I took maybe 6 drinks from it and gave the rest to Mike. 🤷‍♀️ I could take the amount of coffee/espresso that was in it. I was getting jittery from just the little bit I had.

Day 5
Same number of breaks as yesterday: 10. All of them outside. My first was at 0230. That’s not particularly fun anytime, but definitely not when you’re camping. Thankfully, Mike was awake too because we had noisy neighbors in their car that accidentally honked their horn. Mike also had to go, so I didn’t have to venture out to the side of the road on my own!

We hiked over 15 miles today to do some back country camping. When you hike and camp like this it’s a “pack in, pack out” kind of situation. I’m not going to spell out the troubles here, but there were 2 options here the way I see it. I’ll let you guess what I did, if you’re curious ask. But just know, I’m a girl, in the woods, and I had to pee a lot.

Day 6
10 bathroom breaks again. Tried another PSL on the drive home from Shenandoah, still too much. Maybe next weekend I’ll try something else and see how I feel.

Today started off a little more challenging in regards to drinking all the water because I only had 1 liter available to start the day. I had to make that last until we got back to the car. 2.5 hours of hiking and I was definitely ready for my resupply. A second challenge was I got to the point where I had maybe a half a liter left and it was only 1800 and I wanted the water to last and not drink extra because I didn’t want to get up in the middle of the night. So I backed off, and then all of a sudden, I was trying to finish my water before bed.

Day 7
Kept the breaks at 10, I might be able to get to the single digits. This is really the only thing I track because it’s the only thing that seems to be different.

Day 8
14! I had to go to the bathroom 14 times!!! Unacceptable. Aside from that, I really haven’t noticed much change with all the water. I have a zit right now but I did just go camping…and I’ve also heard that the way your skin looks today is because of whatever you did 3 months ago…I don’t know. With the humidity around here everyone “glows” so I can’t say the water did that either. So for now, no changes.

Day 9
15. Holy moly! This is the most bathroom breaks since the start of this challenge! I’m still not drinking much else besides the water, however, I did have a smoothie for breakfast today so that kind of adds to the liquid intake.
I have noticed that I don’t use chapstick quite as much, and when I do, it seem to be more out of habit or a mental thing than it is my lips actually feeling/being dry.

Day 10 (September 10)
13 is less than 15 I guess. I’m definitely fuller throughout the day. That’s a nice feeling, and I feel like it prevents me from over-eating. More along the lines of “hara hachi bu”, the idea of stopping eating when your 80% full. Well, if you’re 20% full of water…80% full of food is pretty full! And I’m probably more than 20% full of water at this point.

Day 11
11. Kind of funny, 11 on the 11th. Really not that funny, but I am really glad I’m trending back down! That zit I had or was getting a few days ago is gone already. That seems faster than normal, so maybe the water has something to do with that??

Day 12
Day 13
Day 14
Day 15
Day 16
Day 17
Day 18
Day 19
Day 20 (September 20)
Day 21
Day 22
Day 23
Day 24
Day 25
Day 26
Day 27
Day 28
Day 29
I stopped counting my bathroom breaks…it was a lot…every day. The bright side? I was able to wake up early (0245) this morning and blow up balloons for Mike’s birthday and cover our bedroom floor with balloons while he slept. Honestly, that’s probably the biggest win with this water challenge.
Also, I take back the chapstick stuff…I want my chapstick. The water didn’t resolve it.
Another thing, I grew up with terrible cramps…nearly every month and everyone has some kind of advice. One thing I was told, quite frequently, was to drink more water and I wouldn’t have cramps. They lied. I don’t know if I was drinking enough water then or not but I spent all month drinking 128 ounces of water a day and let me tell you, my cramps were awful. Tylenol, heating pad, and back to bed. So no, water will not solve my problem. Thanks.
The water intake also significantly hurt my Starbucks habit. Which is ok with me. I’m a little bummed that the handful of times that I’ve had a Starbucks drink (PSL, chai, or Matcha Green Tea Latte) I get jittery or a headache…but that’s also why we shouldn’t take in much caffeine overall.

I have one more day before this is over, but I promise, I’ll do it. I’m thinking I am going to continue this for another month or two. I won’t be as strict as far as I have to have a solid 128 ounces of WATER and any other beverage is extra. Also, if I have a few ounces at the end of the night, I’m not waterboarding myself to finish.

Day 30 (September 30)

Unexpected Blessings

Have you ever met someone and all these random connections pop up? It’s pretty cool at the time, and then you get to know them over whatever period of time you have together. Then life happens and you move or they move or whatever, you somehow drift apart, but they’re always around. You know that.

Well, it’s hard to believe but about 10-11 years ago, I met a couple of those gems. I moved to Chadron and on my first day there, I met a professor who spent time playing hockey in my home town as a Musketeer – it was almost like meeting a celebrity…for Sioux City anyway. I was vegetarian, he was vegan and his wife a vegan chef. Both of our birthdays were in February, mine the 13th, his the 14th. Just a lot of random things for us to talk about. His name is Jay.

His wife, Chloe, the vegan chef and massage therapist – which if her massages are half as good as her food then you’re in for a treat – was awesome. She was a great mentor for 19/20 year old me in many ways that I definitely didn’t see then. She shared some personal stories with me that still affect me today but in much different ways. She’s a person who touched my life in a way I needed before I needed it, I’m glad to have learned some of her perspective.

After not seeing these gems for about 10 years, we got to reconnect this weekend while visiting the Grand Canyon! I got to introduce them to my husband for the first time. Mike was pretty excited about that too. I’d told him enough about them that he was excited to meet them, and even happier after it happened. We got to talk pets with my mom – Chloe has a poodle, my mom has a golden doodle, and I have the meows! It was easy to jump into conversation, we had to do a little catching up but overall, it was just talking with some friends over lunch.

I don’t have a lot more to say except that these friends will always be an inspiration. Their commitment to each other, to God, to health…to life, is simply amazing and wonderful to see. I’m just very grateful to know them.

“The Movies”

In my quest to get a college degree I have to take one more class to meet my English general education requirements. Normally, classes are eight weeks, this one is six weeks. In six weeks they are going to teach me to have a better understanding of what goes into movies and some of the more subtle techniques used to pull in the audience. I will try to keep you updated on the movies I watch and any take-aways.

The Fountain
First movie in the queue is The Fountain. I found it ironic this movie came up for the second time in a week. Tim Ferris recommended it on his Five Bullet Friday newsletter, and then it showed up as one of the movies to watch this week. It was a fun movie since it jumped between three plot lines with a common theme. I recommend The Fountain if you want a movie that makes you think and pulls you in.

Bowfinger
Starring Eddie Murphy and Steve Martin Bowfinger made me laugh all the way through it. This is not a brain teaser movie; it is a late 90’s comedy with over acting, cheap punch lines, and a few jokes that are no longer allowed in today’s culture. The genius of the movie to me was how well Steve Martin portrayed his character as a lovable scam artist.

The Shining
It is probably a tragedy for not seeing this until the ripe age of 36, but I don’t think I missed anything. Jack Nicholson is the only redeeming character in the movie. Halfway through the movie, Kandace paused it and commented, “I think he would make a great Joker.” You don’t say!!! She honestly did not know about his stellar performance in Batman as the Joker! Besides the average acting from everyone else, my other issue was the story line. Either something went missing when they took Stephen King’s story and put it on the screen, or Stephen King left holes in his story… It wouldn’t surprise me if it was both (I imagine I have to read the book to understand why the man bear pig was having relations with a woman…).

Thoughts…To Kill A Mockingbird

I recently finished listening to “To Kill A Mockingbird” on audiobook (thank you public libraries!!). I read it in high school, but to be honest, I wasn’t reading and digesting, I was just reading to get the answers for the teacher. I’ve wanted to re-read (or listen) to it for quite some time, but it was alway unavailable from the library, until about a month ago.

I did not purposefully listen to this book at this time, good or bad, I don’t know, just honest. I listened to it, NOW, because it was available. Honestly, I wouldn’t have picked it up for understanding of what’s going on right now anyway, all I remembered from high school was that it was a book about how racism is stupid and you shouldn’t kill a mockingbird, or an innocent black man. Don’t kill innocence.

Kill isn’t just to take someone’s life in this instance, however that’s true too, it’s about destroying something beautiful. In my opinion there are three instances that this is portrayed in the book. The obvious, convicting Tom Robinson; as well as his death. The less obvious, adults teaching children to judge people based on color and social class.

At the end of the day I think it’s ok to say the adults in this book taught prejudice against anything or anyone, but to be specific they taught against race and social class. Aunt Alexandra is a prime example of this when she informs Scout of the social hierarchy and resorts to calling another CHILD “trash”. So very much not ok. Then there’s the whole community, and still Aunt Alexandra, teaching Jem and Scout to be racist. Pushing the idea that there is a difference between them and the “black folk”. Thank God for Atticus and his ability to be a strong pillar of equal justice.

It’s worth noting that this book was published in 1960. We haven’t improved much. I’m not basing this on the BLM movement, but on the last few years of my life living in different places, reading more books, listening to podcasts. Racism is very real. I didn’t see it in Iowa. Not saying it’s not there, just saying I didn’t see it either because it wasn’t in front of me or I wasn’t paying attending. I do see it here in Washington, D.C. There is a crazy mix of people here, but everyone stays with who they’re comfortable and familiar with and seem to fear other races just because they’re unknown. The work place consistently displays a divide in race. Small example, the two places I’ve worked here? Both primarily white therapists, both have only black front desk personnel. While the front desk is EXTREMELY important, these situations create a (not so) subtle divide between races and economic class further perpetuating the issue. It’s the same problem now as it was in 1960.

Read the book. Listen to the book. Maybe watch the movie, I haven’t seen it. TRY to set your opinions aside and allow yourself to absorb the injustice and understand how it is still a problem today. I’m not going to even try to offer a solution, I don’t know what it is because I don’t believe it is any one thing. Reflect on yourself, consider what’s available to you and what’s in front of you, and just work on being a better human every day.

Thoughts…11/22/63

I finally picked up my first Stephen King book. Thanks to a friend for the recommendation, I read 11/22/63.

A brief synopsis. It’s a book that uses the assassination of JFK as a motive to go back in time to make a change. It explores the human need for relationships while imagining the effect of the, seemingly small, changes on the way life plays out.

On principal, I do not like time travel. I don’t believe in it. If you want to discuss this further, please, let’s chat! That being said, I really enjoyed this book. At the end of the day, Stephen King simply uses time travel as means of setting up a scenario. The majority of the book was more about the experience of the life lived out than on time travel, most of the time you could forget that time travel even happened. I appreciated that. He makes sure to sandwich the story nicely by ending with an opinion of how time travel could effect the future and suggests a lesson on what kind of impact would be made if we could change the past.

I would recommend this book for a fun read. It’s fairly easy with some vocabulary I had to look up (obdurate) but there aren’t many unfamiliar words and they’re all introduced in the beginning. The beauty of the simple life of the past was probably the most appealing thing to me, along with the random insane crime that seems unreasonable but makes sense. And, without giving up Stephen King’s take on time travel, I actually liked where he went with it!

Cooking 101

I think I’ve mentioned before that Mike and I schedule a monthly date night. This month it was my turn again. And of course, I didn’t realize it until the week of…probably only 3 days before hand. I should really create alerts at least 2 weeks in advance.
Regardless, I think I was able to pull of a pretty nice time. It wasn’t all one day, but rather a little bit over three days, but who would complain about that?

Day 1, Friday. I scheduled us a couples massage at 2030. It was the last appointment today, and I felt like this would be awesome because then we’d be super relaxed and ready for bed. It may seem ridiculous to plan on going to bed around 2230 on a Friday night, or it might seem simply splendid. The couples massage was at Unwind in the Adams Morgan neighborhood. The only thing I thought, when I thought was that there was no way Mike’s massage was going as well as mine. Apparently he was thinking the same thing. The massage therapists were excellent. Speaking for myself, my therapist used the perfect amount of pressure, it hurt so good. He didn’t rush through any areas and doubled down when he found trouble spots. He seemed better trained than some of my previous experiences as he manipulated my arms in ways to better expose certain muscles that definitely needed attention. I could go on. Notable areas though – my upper back. He attacked my upper trapezius, levator scapula, paraspinals, and most significantly my subscapularis. This is when he moved my arm in a certain way to get better access to my subscapularis (the muscle under your shoulder blade) and he killed it. With all the push ups, pull ups, press ups, etc I’ve been doing, this needed a lot of love. Second notable area – hamstrings. this may just be perfect timing, but earlier that day I did 100 single leg deadlifts. So that’ll kill your hamstrings, but so did this guy (I really wish I knew his name).

Day 2, Saturday. So this really wasn’t part of date night. We went to Lake Anna again and did some paddle boarding. It was a great day, the clouds were nice and fluffy, the water was really warm (warmer than our shower), and the boat traffic was low.

Day 3, Sunday. I booked us a cooking class. I’ll start off by saying as far as date night goes it was a win, as far as cooking classes go…it was ok. So I’ll just tell you about the experience. Firstly, the class is held at the “chef’s” home, in this case, his apartment. So I’ll likely never do this by myself. His kitchen provided a walking space of no more than 5’x5’ (smaller than the bathroom I have at work). It was a little crowded for 3 people, and he sometimes hosts classes with 6 people! I can’t imagine. It was a vegetarian Indian food themed night, right up my alley. It started with us just watching him make a few things – the chutney and the lassi, much of which he had pre-prepped. He finally engaged us by having us cut up some vegetables. Carrots and onions. He showed me a new way to cut the onion but didn’t really watch me do it, so who knows if I did it right. Then I “minced” some garlic, peeled the skin off some cooked sweet potatoes, and it was time to move to the stove. We sautéed the vegetables, he added some spices, he made the paneer…it really just didn’t feel like we were learning or doing the important things. When we started to make the naan, he had the ingredients already mixed together, he eyeballed the yogurt and had Mike fold it together. My shining moment was rolling out the naan, thanks to my experience with pie crusts. Then it was time to eat.

So what did I learn? That Indian food isn’t that scary to make. And that this guy had no clue how to make spicy Indian food. I’d do a cooking class again, but read a little deeper into the reviews.