Tag: health

Week 1 – Progress Report

We’re juggling schedules and preparing to head out on the annual October Trek to Hershey, Pennsylvania. I had a day procedure on my eyelid today (totally in keeping with the 2015 Left Side Makeover — knee replacement, carpal tunnel release, and eyelid growth removed), and my husband had a medical appointment in San Antonio. He’ll have a procedure on the 19th when we get back, so I changed my medical appointment in Temple originally scheduled for that day to a later date (mine was routine). For now, he’s less able to withstand the rigors of that three hour drive, so I’ll be driving him more than I have in the past, and that requires some schedule adjustments.

We’ll take the truck in then to hopefully find out why we have to remain in 4X4 to keep it from grinding. Our research tells us it’s a faulty solenoid. We’ll see what the Lincoln factory-trained technician comes up with. Before we knew putting it into 4X4 stopped the noise, they hadn’t come up with a cause.

Tomorrow, we pack the truck and take the cats to boarding school in anticipation of an early start on Wednesday.

I’ve submitted my DMP first draft (really my fourth draft, but the first draft to see another set of eyes). Two hundred and fifty-six words of a maximum of 400. I believe I’m going to need to add dates and other specifics, but I’ve written it in the present tense as if it’s already my reality, so adding dates seems tricky to me. I’m sure my Guide will provide guidance.

I’ve submitted my survey, and the blog entry is completed. Surveys and blog entries come easily for me. Other aspects of the course are likely to be more challenging, but that’s why I’m taking the course. If I would have figured it out on my own, I wouldn’t be here.

So far, the homework is going well. I can definitely feel the power of it working to kick my Old Blueprint out, and it’s only been a few days. I plan to discuss the course with my husband tonight, if he isn’t too tired after driving back from San Antonio. That will help us with various planning issues we’ll have to manage over the next month. I hope he will be supportive, because, of course, that tends to make things easier. Yes, I was silly to think I could do this course and not discuss it with him, but I feared he would be negative about it, and he may be, but I have to do it. It’s the one piece of homework for this week I haven’t done yet.

Week 1 – First Impressions

We have the materials for the first week. Here are my first impressions. As expected, a fire hose effect, but that’s a factor of the newness and the desire to do it right. I’m going to do my best, but some of the honor tasks might not get done right. I’m going to do them one way or another, but it’s going to be strange.

At least blogging is comfortable for me. I was able to SIT last night before bed for the required 15 minutes. I was more still than in my previous meditation attempts, but I read a member’s blog from last year who had some troubles with it because of swallowing? Well, if I have to sit that still, I’m going to have some work to do, but last night was a beginning, and I know there’s much more to this journey.

I’m encountering resistance in the form of technology. My printer is giving me a hard time. All the color cartridges are replaced, but even though the drum has 13% life left, I suspect I will need to replace it, too. I have one. Not a problem. I’ll take care of it next time I go upstairs.

I like the idea of reading Scroll 1 three times a day for 30 days. My initial struggle is going to be reading aloud in the evenings for the next two weeks. We’ll be traveling, and I haven’t told my husband I’m doing this class yet. I see one of the requirements is we discuss this with our family, so I’m going to have to figure out a way to do that. In the past, he’s been quite negative about things similar to this class, but since one reason I’m taking the class is to get my Definite Major Purpose (DMP) right, and he’s part of my DMP, I realize I was silly to think I could do the class and not discuss it with him.

That’s one strong resistance area for me, and that’s a part of my Old Blueprint I’m here to change. See, I’m quite fortunate that many of the reasons other people want this course are not a factor in my life. Money isn’t a problem. Material things are only a problem in that I have too many. I had a comfortable career and was able to retire at 47 — something I never imaged doing in my wildest of dreams until it became closer to reality. My husband and I can and do travel when and where we want. Our homes and vehicles are paid in full.

My relationships with other people are superficial, and I’ve withdrawn from most in person relationships, largely because I retired to a small town where we didn’t know anyone, and all my friends and family are at least 500 miles away. I’m not too concerned about that except where it affects my husband and my parents. Perhaps my siblings. My husband and I have been married 21 years (October 15), and we’ve known one another for 30 years. For the first 14 years of our marriage, we were geographically separated. Learning to live together for the last seven years has been one of the more challenging things I’ve ever done. I don’t think I’ve done a good job. My husband wants to keep me, and I want to keep him, so I need to learn to communicate better with him and be a better wife.

Additionally, I have some health issues that would be improved all the way around if I lost a significant amount of weight — almost half of me.

Finally, I want to write competent fiction to at least self-publish.

The one thing I’ve been passionate about these last five years or so is my cats. I’ve been doing a one person rescue and have eight indoor and four outdoor cats I take care of. I want to expand those passions to my husband, my health, and my fiction.

I’m obsessing a little about the scheduling challenges of Week 2, 3, and 5 for the course due to required travel, but I suspect, as someone says, taking it one day and week at a time, and things will work out.