Rhythm. Routine. Relax.

I am a creature of habit, absolutely and completely. I truly do function best when I can move through my day and week with a series of little rituals to mark out each part of it. When I am able to cushion change with tried-and-true routines surrounding the new events in my life, I adapt faster and more completely. But when something throws off my groove....well, it may take some serious work to get my rhythm back.

Thanksgiving was two weeks ago. The office closed early on Wednesday, so I took the opportunity to try a "YogaLates" class. I've never done any Pilates, so much of this was new to me, and it was quite a challenge. Exhausted after this new challenge, I opted out of my usual Wednesday night Anusara class. I take yoga classes pretty regularly, and find that they work well to "reset" my system when something is out of whack in a way that home practice simply can't touch. (I think it's something about releasing control to the instructor. When I do a home practice, I am completely "in charge"; in a classroom situation, the instructor chooses the sequence and that is somehow mentally freeing for me.)

Anyway, this was the start to a strange two week period of being off-beat, off-program, and just plain off.

Thanksgiving with my family is always delightful. We missed our good friends Ash & Heidi, who normally attend our Thanksgiving (as their families are out-of-town), because their daughter was ill. There were good wines, good food and good conversation. And Turtle played nice with our girls, which is always good.

Friday we began the major task of dissecting trees. We had 4 trees felled in our yard (and took down another small, dead one ourselves) and had opted to dispose of them ourselves, rather than pay the rather large removal fee. This proved to be quite a feat.

Friday was a day of "ripping up". For the majority of the lights hours, we sawed and clipped limbs from trunks, gathered material into bundles, and dragged those bundles to the front yard. Between the intensity of the work and the grade of our yard, this proved to be quite laborious. In addition, it was tricky, and I sustained many large, deep bruises.

Saturday, we prepared the rest of the material that was chipable for the chipper, then went and rented a chipper/shredder. This isn't your papa's chipper/shredder: this thing is BIG, can take out a small tree in about a minute, and self-propelled, so you have to be careful, as it could take out a human limb as easily as a tree limb. The chute has an opening of about a foot square, so anything smaller than that was to go through the chipper. For a few hours on Saturday, we chipped onto tarps, and when the pile was large enough, dragged it to the back yard. It dawned on us eventually that we could make better use of our rental time by chipping everything then moving off small piles to drag from a larger pile. We did this until it was too dark to see what we were doing.

Sunday morning, we got up and out at dawn, doing prep work and dragging all the remaining limb material to the front. At 9 am, we switched on the chipper, finished the work, and took it back to the Home Depot. Then we came back and spent the rest of the day hauling chips to the back yard, until it was so dark we couldn't see. There are still some chips on the tree lawn, but they are going to have to wait a bit.

Overall, three days full of back-breaking work. Rosa says to eat only 4 earned activity points, but I figured I earned about 26 APs each day...with a daily point goal of 22 staying OP would mean effectively consuming zero calories. I decided to write off the three days and eat until I felt satisfied. I'd get back on track Monday.

No such luck. Monday I had taken off work to recuperate, but we had an early morning phone call to let us know that Kris' grandpa had passed. It wasn't unexpected, but you can't really plan for these things in advance. Tuesday I'd go into work and get preloaded on all the things that i'd miss while out at a funeral Wednesday and Thursday (missing WI, of course). So Tuesday I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off. Wednesday I sat in a car, then ate heavy and late. And drank. Thursday, I ate heavy and greasy and then sat in a car. Going from hyperactivity to almost no activity over the course of a week, peppered with feeding frenzies was not my body's idea of a "good time" and it revolted. My arms were up an inch of solid muscle, my weight was up 5 lbs!

I tried to get back to my routine immediately, but to no avail. The weekend brought coven activities and the foods that always tempt me there. Then Monday I was asked to a business dinner at a local "hot spot". Who could say no? The food was indeed incredible, but over my point budget (and my $$ budget...good thing I wasn't paying).

Now, I'm sweating it. I was up at weigh-in (only 1.8# though, not as bad as expected), I've got three days till the party and my skirt isn't finished (or started!), I haven't gotten my Secret Santa gift... I've got so much to do....I should just skip Yoga Wednesday, right?

Wrong. That's going to reset my head. And I think it did. I feel more routinized, more relaxed today. This is my system. It's what I need. And it's how I'll succeed. My objective now is to refine my routines so that they are impervious to chaos. So that changes like those described above don't "throw off my groove" for weeks at a time. I'm looking into the David Allen methodologies and some other sources for Getting Things Done. I believe that once my life is organized, my head is organized, my waistline will simply fall into line.

Posted by foxydot at December 7, 2006 10:25 AM