Saturday, December 31, 2016

December Review

Man, I feel pretty good. December was kind of a mess by my usual standards, but I'm also relooking at those standards. Maybe things don't have to be so structured, you know? I've been so strict since my stroke, before that even, about only being able to do so much, but my therapist and I talk a lot about how energy can be illusory. Especially when you're depressed, everything seems like so much work. My strategy for years really has been to carefully husband my resources, but lately we are looking at maybe I have more resources than I think. Without, of course, pathologically doing All The Things. It's a little hard to explain, it has something to do with being aware of your quality of energy at given moments: closing off the bad energy spigots, and opening up the good spigots.

December picks:

I didn't pick any specifics for December, just roll the dice and see what comes up.

HOME: Make a better place to live in

1. Pick anything.

The two main things I did in this area was my monthly volunteering for the foot clinic, and decorating my house for the holidays:

home for the holidays #winterval

A photo posted by Pauline Pang (@allapoppy) on

In addition to providing a nice mise-en-scene for Winterval, this was good because the top of that bookcase was getting cluttered and crazymaking; when I move things back after the holidays, it will be calmer there whilst still functional.

Also, der schweetums put up my new shelf!

OMG, it's so good. It has taken up a good part of the clutter and turned it into visual interest. More solutions TK!

There was also a pretty consistent amount of writing to my representatives this month, I suppose now that this inauguration is actually happening I will refocus my efforts where they will be best used.

SYSTEMS: Sharpen the saw

2. Pick anything.

LOTS of saw-sharpening this month: therapy, a Forrest Yoga workshop with Box, a Defence Lab taster with Brawla, holiday stuff like gift wrapping and gift delivering, people stuff like coffee with Painbows, breakfast with Sparty and Maggie, tea with Nina, and coffee with Sparty again, oh and King Spa with JJ:

spa date! #yangmeori #jjimjilbang

A photo posted by Pauline Pang (@allapoppy) on

I guess last but not least, I completed a little running challenge this month. Super-pleased with how that went:

PLAY: Study movement and muscles

3. Keep watching Functional Patterns videos?

Just a tiny bit of this, watched a couple videos on the suboccipital and the illiacus.

PASTIME: Write alla Poppy

4. Figure out what this blog is for.

Nnnn, idk. The only thing I really feel like writing these days are these reviews, just for my own edification. I have more of an idea about not really feeling like flash-freezing my thoughts, I've noticed that I just let them sit at room temperature as it were, they ferment and transform. I'm liking that, it seems really productive in addition to being a lot less work. Well, we'll see.

Going out

It's been an uber-social month, besides the stuff that I've already mentioned under self-care: December is my niece's Christmas concert, we went to that and out to dinner with my family after; I ran into Pom and B at the yoga workshop and we went out after for brunch:

yoga franns

A photo posted by Pauline Pang (@allapoppy) on

There was prime rib at the Aloha Palace, and also UFC 207 there. And me and der schweetums went out to see Rogue One, we were supposed to go Xmas Day but that day he said it was supposed to rain and not the next day, and the next day turned out to be this one warm, sunny, blue sky day that was beautiful to be out walking, boy when he's right he's right.

Staying in

I feel like I did a fair amount of staying in, too—except I don't think I did, but anyway. Actually this month I've been doing a thing that I haven't done in forever: making stuff—i.e., knitting hats for the PUSSYHAT PROJECT, or well, I knitted a pussyhat for Riley and then I sort of couldn't stop making pussyhats:

just making a collage for my blog, nothing to see here...

A photo posted by Pauline Pang (@allapoppy) on

Now I'm obsessed with making hats, I'm almost done with a hat for myself, it's head-shaped and everything. TK!

Knitting means you can't do anything else with your hands, which means watching a lot of TV. Meh, I usually list all the TV I've watched, but no me importa. We're watching the second season of Lucifer, which we really like, and also the second season of The Man In The High Castle, and on Xmas Day I watched The OA in its entirety while knitting and vacating my mind. Okay fine, movie-wise we watched Suicide Squad, which was not good; 2 Guns, which I fell dead asleep in the middle of, and The Magnificent Seven, which I liked all right. And a bunch of other junk.

Woosh, what a year. Much work to do ahead. Happy new year, all!