It's My Life

Pain and Healing

I went to see my doctor today about my sore shoulder - the catching when I move it certain ways is getting old and not getting any better. It hurts, pinches. Isn't getting in the way of working a shield, just when I raise my arm to scratch my head or pull the shower curtain shut. So I finally went to talk to her about it. She's suspecting an inflamation of the ligaments of the biceps so I'm on icing it and anti-inflamatory 3 times a day. No weights for a week but I can keep walking. And she told me to get back out there fighting as soon as I can. Coolest Doc Ever cause she remembered I fought in the SCA. She even asked where and how often we fought and teased me about my sports-related injury.

I'm going to have a pink house pretty soon. Maybe tomorrow. Van set into motion getting the house resided and new windows put in the picture window up front, and a cut out of the back tiny window so I can see my back yard. I'm pleased. It's much better than repainting this thing. The huge windows in the front will be nice for airflow, too.

One of my favorite people at SELCO is leaving. His moral compass is leading him onto new paths, starting a new journey. I'm OK with it but am really going to miss him.

Got to pull the stuff together for Business meeting tomorrow and then fighting on Thursday but I just want to veg. Humm..maybe I'll naalbind while watching Eureka. 

Back from walk

Just took a short walk today to stretch out and think. It was good; nothing much happening at 5:15 in the morning though. Didn't even find another walker out there.

Why do I push myself so hard? Physically, mentally, socially. I spent most of the walk listing all the things I gotta remember to do. Both at work and at home and for Society. Oh well. Choices, right?? And if one of the consequences is that I'm busy all the time, so be it. And that little whine is over now, lol.

The mead is totally covered in goo. Yeastie-beasties have created that scum that is supposed to keep the wort fairly sterile and protected from evil bacteria. Since i've no airlock on this potato salad container turned primary fermentation chamber, that's good. OK, time to start the day!

Watch "Hairspray"

If you will, go see Hairspray. It was very funny - laugh out loud funny. Watching the enthusiasm of these dancers, including Tracy's parents, was great - I wanted to join them but lol, they were on the screen and it was a pretty full theatre. I'd not ever seen the play so this was a treat. Went with Mel, Julie and Anna, who can sit pretty good for a four year old.

The day was good. I had a workout, did some paperwork for the house and for the SCA, chatted a lot with Liz about a variety of things while doing said paperwork, met some of the heavy fighters at the park as a couple were interested in fighting but I decided to honor my commitment to go to a movie.

Got an annoying headache right now. I think I'll just go to bed. Night!

Closing down yesterday and starting today

Wine is evil. Even supper wine drunk to support the yummy pork roast. My head hurts.

Van got home about 4 to find me playing with the new weed wacker and cooking pork roast. We pulled up a lot of overgrown plants, like the catnip that had gone to seed and the raspberry canes from this season. Ended up with a whole car full of that junk - it's at the dump now, too. He finished the weed-eating while I went to the city compost and then also cleaned and foiled corn. That corn was tough. Too old!

Yeah, I'm feeling old today. Head is not happy. So I'm going to go walking and then beat on the pell for a bit before cleaning up and going to a movie. I'm going to do the work w/o gauntlet just to determine where I need to have more movement. A leather cuff is restricting my wrist. And that can be fixed!

Oh, and the mead is cooking. Yeah! Live yeastie-beasties rule! This one ferments until the 15th and then is drinkable after the 29th. So I'll have to go down to Autumn Rose and share some on the 31st. Can't fight it, since I'm on call, but I can go down in the evenings.

1:30!

I met an old friend on the way back from the dump with the first load. Maureen is an angel of a woman and it was good to catch up. She's not into the SCA at all but likes that I do. And she works just a couple blocks from me so we are going to start carpooling. On those rare days when we are both not scheduled to be elsewhere after work!

Bought a cheap weed-eater - not the cheapest though. This one does not need to be bumped and, after talking to the store managers, is the one that they have used for two years.

Dumped the good yeast into the now cooled wort and am hoping good things happen in there.

Bought a pork roast and fresh corn for supper. After one more load of brush, I'm going to start a fire and cook the roast in the dutch oven. With a pineappley-brownsugar-teriakki sauce so it's got to cook v slow...burnt sugar is hard on the ironware.

Later same day

It's noon. I've:

• Had oatmeal and fruit for breakfast. Coffee, no sugar,
• boiled up the mead wort,
• Talked to my mom for 30 minutes. It's her birthday tomorrow. Yeah for Mom!!
• printed off the recipe I'm going to use and other documentation,
• gone to the store for stuff,
• washed two loads of throw pillows and dragged them out to dry
• while letting the wort cool, I primed the yeast and am realizing it is dead, dead, dead. What I get for leaving a liquid yeast in my purse over night! Fortunately, the stuff from the fridge that's been there awhile is alive. It's alive!!
• Repacked my armor from throwing it all in the car after the rainstorm cancelled fighter practice on Thursday,
• Put a tarp in there and started loading the car up with branches from the two brushpiles Van has just been piling up this year. I think it looks trashy so I'm doing something about it.
• Took the time to hit my pell in between grumbling about brushpiles. Yeah, I'm the one with the problem so I should do the work is one argument but maybe that's all just a crock, too. When you start a job, you should finish it. Trimming trees isn't done until the trimmed branches are off the property. Anytway, working on breathing AND on moving the hips during combos. Oh, and throwing combos.
• Just had a couple pouched eggs and a few soda crackers. Brain was complaining about no protein!!

Welcome to Saturday

This is going to be a babbly sorta day. I'm at home, Van is gone, I've a laundry list of things to do. Firstly, I cleaned the mice out from behind the stove. Alice-cat loves to shove her toys back there. Also scrubbed it down.

Went to the store for an extra pound of honey, some lemon and other stuff. The mead-honey mix is simmering right now and I'm skimming. Using the Clove Mead recipe here but using Grains of Paradise instead of cloves. I'm prepping for Ivetta's Brewing Challenge at the next WW.

I have pillows to wash - bought at Savers so even before I take the insides out to use in new pillows, I want to wash them. Going to try the washing machine...this could be a mess. Let's go see...

Well, that's a pell for ya!

Van and I are watching "Human Weapon" and they are practicing with rattan practice weapons. Mostly hitting each other, without armor but some padding. I'm watching buff guys swinging these slender rods using arm movements I've been suggested to not use. Fun to watch them flip each other over, hehe. Good wrists, twisting torsos. They suggest that proper technique can cause 25 pounds of pressure being delivered by the tip. I'm watching them train and do drills - supposedly for hours but lol it's tv.

The pell that compelled me to blog is a number of tires stacked on top of each other, a pole through them to keep the whole thing together. Ooo, there it is again! The fighters can really wheal away on it. And they are punching forward...no sideways swinging of the arm.

I went to River Revels on July 21st in Stromfeldt. It was a day event but the fighting was superb. Couple of round robin tourneys (I was only in the second), some pickups, and then over to the battlefield. Two good memories stand out. Sir Thomas was my warm-up fighter, and it was good. He's there - gives me back just a bit more than I can give him and useful advice afterwards. Doesn't make me feel like I'm going to die and die uselessly - Oh, I die! But not die and dismissed, if that makes any sense.

The second memory involves Roisin calling me out after the Round Robin Tourney to help me over some things. Good suggestions about footwork, especially. Some words about aggression, and I think a blow correction - if I'd move my silly feet, I'd have a whole new set of targets. The advise I came away with was this: When I walk onto the field, I own that ground. I move on it as it is my ground. I respect my opponent and give her/him the best fight I can, and my confident movement, my footwork, on that ground is part of that.

I fought and got tired and then fought more. Didn't fight as long as the main core but I did the best I could and a bit longer than my body wanted to. Part of that was trying to keep up with Sir Thomas' encouragement out in that broken field battle. All good!

Well, I still got to talk about going up to Sir Tristan's training the next day and then our own local practice on Thursday but I think I'm going to go to bed instead. Tomorrow! Oh, and the lovely fun my car has given me this week...NOT!

:: Authentic Happiness :: Using the new Positive Psychology

Link: :: Authentic Happiness :: Using the new Positive Psychology.

Positive Psychology, a new branch of psychology which focuses on the empirical study of such things as positive emotions, strengths-based character, and healthy institutions. His research has demonstrated that it is possible to be happier — to feel more satisfied, to be more engaged with life, find more meaning, have higher hopes, and probably even laugh and smile more, regardless of one’s circumstances.

I'd like to take the signature strength's test but can't right now. So...blogging it.

As an aside - I know I need to update. I've had two fighter practices since the last update and get to go fight people again tonight. Plus a funny story about my car. Plus a funny story about Chad Vader. Been pretty busy but I'll squeeze it in asap.

Fighter practice July 19

It was a good practice - reached a state I have not ever reached with this group of fighters before. I achieved high enough aggression levels where I felt myself rollercoasting between ready to fight and cranked back/coming down. As long as there was someone ready to fight me, I was good until my shield arm would go 'ow' and the breathing got silly. (I'm either not breathing when I swing, holding my breath, or the composition of air is actually changing for brief periods. ) And then I'd go stand over and breathe for awhile but begin to feel like crying. It was either engage or cry. So I pushed myself through further than normal. Couple of the guys stepped up and helped, whether they realized what I was going through or not, by fighting. LOL. That's what we were there to do.

I've done this rollercoastering before, mostly up in Nordskogen. There have been some practices, ones I travelled on my own to, where I would be all up-down-up until I hit Cannon Falls.

Oops. Going to go run. Got more to say but my coffee cup is empty.

Back. Quick run in some really cool weather. Good for breathing. But back to aggression building up and releasing. Why is it so hard?  I'm thinking, and I'm just starting to do a study of this today so this is just me talking, but i'm thinking it's cause I'm an empathic extrovert. I've been told I wear my heart on my sleeve and I'm not sure if that was meant to be a good thing or a bad thing in that conversation but it's really just a thing. Part of me. And I am easily manipulated, easily won over by the flashy agendas of the day, tender-hearted, find myself inspired by stuff that doesn't touch most of us. Like those silly internet stories that keep getting forwarded. It's a thing to deal with.

And what this translates to in practices is that I'm more focused on what other people need OR watching what other people are doing (cause it's interesting, lol) because I really enjoy being an empath. Even more than I am enjoying the milk and dried cherries on my buckwheat flakes this morning...I enjoy seeing a fighter walking off the field with the sweat just pouring down his face and the shoulders held just so and this jazzed satisfaction radiating through his body language. I enjoy working with someone new and watching them 'get it' as they work through something blocking them. A new technique. A successful kill. Even getting into armor for the first time and realizing it's good. I enjoy that team-thing that runs through a connected group when they have a goal - it's palatable and real, that thing.

So why blather on about all this? Cause I'm saying I need to set this aside and fight. Focus on what I need, not what is going on around me. Very hard to do within my own circle. But buckwheats are eaten - must shower and go to work. I'm going to talk more to myself/to you, dear reader, later in the day. Maybe tonight although I got an event to pack for.