Thursday, September 23, 2010

Ups and Downs

It's been two days since I've written anything here. Whether or not I find the time in the morning...or anytime during the day or night...to write is not something I've been tracking on my health and happiness log. But it does seem highly correlated with my happiness. It also seems correlated with my compliance to the healthy behavior plan. Tuesday was bad and Wednesday was worse. Last night I could barely bring myself to care whether or not I washed my face. I finally did, but it just as easily could have gone the other way.

The real question is: did I feel so lousy the last two days because I didn't adher to the plan, or did I just feel too lousy to care about sticking too it? I don't know that it really matters. I don't know that one causes the other any more than the left side of a rail road track causes the right side.

But they do seem to be inextricably related. And since there is only one of them I can control, I might as well think of that one as "causing" the changes in the other one.

Of course, that control is not perfect. If it was, I'd have a score of %100 every day, never a paltry 36, like yesterday.

I practically leaped out of bed this morning when the alarm clock rang at 5:30. I would have liked to sleep longer. I still feel sleepy, and wish I could put my head back on the pillow for another two hours. But I feel like the connection between getting up early and starting on the routine are so critical to my mood for the rest of the day, that I'd just as soon go stick my foot in the hornets' nest down the street as stay in bed another minute. Who in their right mind would take a couple hours of sleep over a whole day's happiness?

Another thing the last two days have in common is our social supper activities. Tuesday night we had supper at a neighbors house. Last night we had supper here, with neighbors from the other side. We adore all these people. We miss them when we don't see them and look forward to spending time with them. But, when it comes down to it, I think I just really don't like eating as a social activity. I'd rather go on a hike together, or help someone clean out their garage. I need to craft a social life that does not revolve around sit-down suppers.

Thank goodness we don't have any plans tonight, or tomorrow night. I think maybe we don't have any plans all weekend, but that seems to good to be true.

If it is true I'm going to look for some kind of interesting art event, and invite my cousin to go with me. And I'm going to work on the Excel spreadsheet tutorial I've been studying so I can learn how to keep track of my data from this experiment, and even produce my own line graphs. (The charts and graphs available on those websites have too many restrictions and glitches.)

Another thing that's been messing up my schedule, my compliance, and my happiness the last few days, ironically, is rowing. I used to love to go out to the local reservoir early in the morning and get a work-out on an 8 person sweep boat. I still love it, but I can't figure out how to fit it into my schedule. It takes up the whole morning. I don't get home until 7:45, usually. And then I don't find time to write, do yoga, or to take the dog for a walk...and I feel guilty about that all day.

But I do love rowing. I want to keep it. Maybe I will try and keep it up two days a week. I could do Saturdays, since Sweetie sleeps in. I might still be able to get my writing for the day done while the house is still quiet. We could still do yoga together, we'd just do it a little bit later. And we could both take the dog for a hike later in the day.

I think they are starting Sunday rowing too. This seems like a good solution, weekend rows. But somehow, it doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel like the right solution. Maybe Sunday just needs to be a day off. That's how it feels...like I do need just one day when it is okay to sleep in and not write and let Sweetie worry about the dog altogether. I think it would be better to pick a weekday...maybe Wednesday...for going out in a sculling single. Maybe I could go later, like around 7:00, which would still give me time to do my writing. That feels better.

Well, blah blah blah. That's all I have to write about for now. I'm really feeling hopeful about having a good day today. Sorry I didn't have anything more interesting to write about. Maybe tomorrow I'll start with recipes.

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