January 2017 – Page 3 – Creative Meanderings

New Year’s Resolutions: 2. Work

Jan 092017

My next focus for my NYRs is Work. Work is something that the majority of people do for most of their lives and sadly for a lot of people is also an activity that most do not like – yet they continue out of necessity or lack of options (known or unknown).

Luckily for me, 2016 brought about the opportunity for me to quit my full-time work. I admit that while I did not particularly like what I was doing or where I was doing it, I did not hate it and could have continued it. It was naivety, impatience and a dream that pushed me to step away from stability, security and sanity! 😛

However, when I look back over the challenges that resulted from this decision, I do not regret it for a minute. When I hear my friends speak about the environment and situation of staying, I feel so glad and relieved that I stepped away when I did.

With that said, I still do have some ‘work’ goals. I have just paused now as I do not think that I have actually written much at all here on what my new work is. I have spent so much time building the business site that I think I have kept them quite separate…. So, here’s a brief.

I decided to start my own business called The OSH Network in talent development and wellness training. These are fancy buzz words to say it is a business for wellness yoga, mindfulness/meditation training and life coaching. I determined that these elements go together in creating a whole, happy and healthy lifestyle that people desire to achieve. Therefore, the business idea is to work with those who really want to actively improve their lives to reach its greatest potential for themselves, their families and their communities. My belief in the power of humans and humanity with the help of the Lord God and Universe is what drives me to do what I can to help individuals to contribute to a better world.

So, I launched the business in August of 2016 and spent a lot of effort in marketing myself through networking, etc. However, I quickly learned this is not my forte and so I have redefined the yoga aspect slightly to focus more on wellness (therapeutic) yoga in addressing anxiety, stress and depression along with alignment and health. We shall see how this goes.

Therefore, my goals in this area are:

generate a client base in any of the three service areas to the point of having a 3-month waiting list through online marketing and word-of-mouth (this may mean a few more networking events…;) ).
develop wellness retreats either here to an external destination or elsewhere depending on our future location (more on this later) for those who need an escape to cope with their wellness needs.
study more nutrition and psychology to offer the best services I can
eventually turn the business into a ‘lifestyle’ business (still defining this)

So, I have not broken these down into short, medium or long term goals as I am not yet certain of the how in achieving them yet. When I do, I’ll try to pinpoint more specifically timeframes. 🙂

In addition to the wellness business, I am calling myself a writer. I think now that I have a regular ‘column’ with an online magazine (a bit of a delay in December), I can finally say “Yes” to being a writer. 😉

Therefore, my goal by March (3-months) is to write my first Kindle book to self-publish using the theme of The Universal Asian. I had this blog before but let it go defunct as it was hard to keep up with the stories in an interesting way. However, I think there are enough stories to tell to make a series of short books that will hopefully be entertaining and sell. 😀 Stay tuned for that.

By June (6-months), I am planning on having my first memoir/autobiography completed to either self-publish or send to publishers.

By September (9-months), I hope to have at least three Kindle books published with my first novel in the works for publishing.

By the end of the year (12-months), my dream is to have a signed book contract and perhaps even the beginnings of a book tour option…- this might be a little soon as I am not sure how long these things take.

These are my writing goals. I am trying to get more freelance work doing writing bits and am going to look for another place to get paid for my writing – in my extra time, of course! 😛

So, this is my NYRs regarding work. I really do not think of any of it as work since I enjoy these kinds of activities. I definitely want to make an income, but at the same time I truly want to enjoy what I do. Therefore, if I do not make an income or find that this is not enjoyable, I’ll adjust and forge a new path if needed. 😀

I am sure that I am missing some other bits here regarding ‘work’, but for now, you get the gist!

Tomorrow, we will look at 3. Finances! That should be an interesting one!!! 😀

~T 😀

New Year’s Resolutions: 1. Health

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Jan 082017

As promised, here I am with my NYRs for 2017. I am starting with Health because it tends to be the easiest resolution for us to make, break and focus upon.

In general, we are fairly healthy. I keep active, exercise pretty regularly and we eat a decent Paleo-ish diet. Still, it is easy to yo-yo back and forth during down times, holidays or when I think I am doing great and then become lax.

Yesterday, I posted about my workouts for last week and will continue to maintain that as long as I can. As I said, it is a good way for me to keep track for myself as well.

In the Health category, I am breaking it down between exercise and diet. So, let us start with exercise:

*3 month goal = to have a six-pack stomach.
Yes, I know that women are probably healthier with a little bit of roll or pudge to their tummies. I also do not judge anyone in any way regarding bellies. This is a personal goal for myself to see if I can do it and what it would look like. That is all. Once I have achieved the six pack, I will most likely just try to maintain a four-pack, which I think is sufficient. 😉

*6 month goal = to do between 5-10 pull ups.
At the moment, I can do zero. I can barely lift my body from deadweight up a few centimeters. Despite my arm strength in certain muscles, I am severely lacking in triceps and whatever other muscles are used to do a pull-up. Therefore, with a bit of focus, patience and work, I am hoping that within six months I can do 5-10 pull ups. 😛

*9 month goal = to run 10km under an hour.
Now, I think this is probably quite slow of a run, but at the moment I can do around 10-12 minutes of running in one stretch before I get bored. Yes, bored. I am fairly certain that I could probably run longer, but my mind drifts and I would rather enjoy what I am reading or listening to while I exercise so I end up walking. Although I have joined the MRTTAD running group, I mostly walk because it is easier to socialize and well, my competitive nature kicks in so I either feel bad about not being as good or arrogant about being better. Neither of which I desire to foster in my psyche. Therefore, I walk. Still, I have determined to train on the treadmill as it allows me to address my boredom issues and I think that I will be able to build up my stamina better this way. I used to be able to do 45 minutes with about 30 minutes of running. I am not sure that I ever made it to 10km, but in any case, this is my goal.

*12 month goal = 90 minute yoga practice plus 30 minutes meditation every day
I know…it may seem strange to have this goal considering the fact that my current claimed profession is a yoga instructor. I mean, how does one become a yoga instructor and have a year goal to be able to do 90-minutes every day??? 😉 The truth is that I am human! I do not always want to get on the mat. For the past week I have definitely been more disciplined and been on the mat at least four times with meditation included. However, I need to build up my practice stamina. At the moment, I can do about 30 minutes of yoga following my Vijnana Yoga Manual from my training. Probably, I could stretch that out a bit more, but I don’t. I am also building my meditation to now about 20 minutes straight where my legs fall asleep around 15 minutes in. Of course, more practice will make this easier. I was up to a 45 minute sit before, so the meditation should not be difficult. The key here is EVERY DAY! On top of working out at the gym, it is a little difficult to make sure I also have 2 hours set aside to do this. Therefore, to reach this goal, I imagine I shall have to adjust my schedule more and other things will give….But, this is my goal by the end of the year!

As for diet, I do not mean dieting to lose weight. I am sure if you know me, you already knew this. Diet means what I eat each day – just to make it clear. I do not have quarterly goals per se because that might put focus on weight loss or even suggest that these changes cannot be made overnight, but really for me they can since we already are a leg up in how we are eating.

We did decide to make January – Drynuary. This means staying away from alcohol for the month. It was really M who determined this as he initially said to cut back to just once a week. When he asked if I thought I could go the whole month without it, I said “Sure, no problem at all.” To his surprise he said he would try it. 😀 What I have noticed in the eight short days that we have been ‘dry’ is how much thought and activity is centered around drinking. Our culture, especially as expats, is heavily focused on food and drink to satisfy, bring joy/happiness and distract us from the lives that we lead. In a way this is extremely sad to realize and accept.

So, our one month goal is to stay away from alcohol. Beyond that I am not sure for M, but for me, I had already decided to avoid it for the most part as my body just does not react well to it anymore. This is not to say I will not have a glass or two when out and about, but no more binge nights in my future. 😛

Also, I would really like to work out how to have a more alkaline diet for M’s acid reflux issues as well as investigating what a more balanced Ph level in the body does. In fact, I am considering taking an online nutrition course this month or next (need to research it a bit) just to have a better knowledge of these topics.

Well, this turned into a long post, but I believe that these NYRs that we make should have depth and quality to them rather than fleeting claims to improve ourselves only to laughingly fail a week or month later.

We will be moving on to 2. Work goals tomorrow. Stay tuned!

~T 😀

Workouts

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Jan 072017

One of our NYRs is to lose our holiday weight by getting ourselves back to the gym. Later, I will write about my health/fitness NYR, but for this post I will focus on sharing my workouts this week. My aim is to do a regular weekly update on what I managed to do during the week to track progress for myself as well as share with whomever might care. 😉

For a while I toiled with the idea of starting Crossfit as it is becoming quite the trend and it does seem like something I should like. Mostly, I like the idea of the short timings, but overall body workout. Well, I decided I would try our first day with a beginner’s Crossfit workout that I found on Pinterest.

Omg! I thought I was going to die and the amount of soreness I felt from it the next two days was rather shocking. It also gave me a bit of a reality check in that not only do I have extra weight to lose, but I am very much out of shape! Me?! I usually take some pride in my body and fitness regime, but wow…there’s always a bigger fish, eh?

So, the workout is to do As Many Reps As Possible (AMRAP) in a 10 minute period of 10 burpees, 10 push-ups and 10 situps. That is it.

Well, Day 1, I started with a walk/jog on the treadmill for 20minutes. I jogged (and when I say jogged, I mean fast walk) for 10 minutes and then walked fast the rest of the time, I felt pretty good about this as a start. I also tried to listen to a podcast while on the treadmill instead of reading as I thought I would see if I can focus that way. After that, I thought I would try the beginner Crossfit workout and managed to last just about 2 minutes and 24 seconds doing a mere 14 burpees, 10 push-ups and 10 situps. After that I gave up…. 🙁 I added in 10 bar squats, an attempt at a pull-up or hang, and then to feel better about myself I did 20 crunches with 20kg and 10 half crunches on the machine. It was a bit of a shocker I must say.

Day 2 was a focus on cardio as I would like to get to doing 5km in a 30minute workout. So, I managed 2.62km in 25’07”. This was not a bad start and I did return to reading as I just find it easier to do on the treadmill. However, I will keep working on being able to listen to something so that perhaps one day I can enjoy running outside – for now I only enjoy it on the ‘mill.

Day 3 was a short warm up on the elliptical to get the body flowing. Then, I mostly focused on the upper body. I attempted the same beginner Crossfit workout from the first day and managed to last 4’20” and did 20 burpees, 20 sit-ups and 16 push ups. Not too bad after just a few days. Afterwards, I did the following:

50 ball sit-ups
30 15kg wide arm pulls
25 25kg crunches x2
15 bar squats
20 half crunches x2
Bar hang…
15 back crunch
10 side crunch each side
20 bicep curls
12 10kg shoulder press
10 10kg pectoral press

So, not too shabby. The bar hang was the biggest challenge, though I did not feel as sore from it as I had expected to be. I heard a podcast the other day about what exercise to add in if one already does quite a bit of yoga. The speaker said that doing pull-ups is the best one because there is nothing in yoga that works those muscles. Boy was he right! Therefore, I will be adding those in and hopefully be writing soon about how I managed my first pull-up! 😛

Day 4 was a return to the yoga mat. I did a Wednesday Vijnana manual practice for 30 minutes with a 15 minute meditation. Although we thought maybe we would make it to the gym later in the afternoon, our schedule was altered slightly so we ended up not doing that.

Thursday morning workout was delayed to the evening since M felt that it would give us something to do since we are not drinking for the month. 🤣 In the morning, I did a Thursday Vijnana manual practice with a 10 minute meditation. Then, we did make it to the gym where I ran/walked 2.7km in 30 minutes. I ran for about 12 minutes.

Friday morning we got up and headed to the gym. I focused on lower body and stomach after a 5 minute warm up.

4’50” – 26 burpees, 20 push-ups, 20 sit-ups
30 25kg crunch x3
20 25kg adductor press x2
20 1.25kg ab crunch (half crunch) x2
20 50kg leg press
20 bar squats
20 back crunch
10 side crunch each side
30″ plank x2

Saturday is meant to be a rest day, but will see. Might be another cardio day in the end. 😜

~T 😀

New Year’s Resolutions: Introduction

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Jan 062017

Starting on Sunday, I am going to write about the six major areas of life that affect our well-being, wholeness and happiness.

These six areas are:

Health
Work
Finances
Relationships
Family
Personal

For the next week, I will focus on sharing my goals/resolutions in these areas in the next year or even shorter-term depending on the goal itself.

While most of my life I have avoided using the word resolutions because I feel it is a cliche and a bit a minomer since resolve requires a willingness to change or take action, but very few people make realistic goals to achieve long-lasting and true change. However, I have come around a bit for myself as I do intend to have long-lasting and true change to reach the goals that I have set for the next 3, 6, 9 and 12 months.

If I am going to work in an industry that requires healthy life habits, it is imperative that I model them as well, no? So, I begin here on this site. If you follow my business blog, The OSH Network, then you may see some overlap. Hopefully, you will not get too bored. 😀

Stay tuned!

~T 😀

Screen Time Overload…?

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Jan 052017

Remember the days when we were told to go outside and get some fresh air or the parents controlled how much time we could spend watching TV?

As an adult, I no longer have someone to tell me to go outside or to do “something useful”.

When I was a university student, I hardly even knew about TV. The Internet was just developing so that streaming was not a possibility and downloading was difficult to do. Therefore, I did not have to struggle with screen time.

Then, my years in Japan limited my time because most programs were in Japanese, which I was not yet capable of following and unless I rented videos there was no opportunity to see things in English. Streaming was still not really possible and downloading took days. 😫

It was only really when I came to the UAE that I discovered the real beauty of streaming and downloading. In fact, I did not bother to buy a TV when I first arrived because I was watching everything on my computer. Besides that there was not much available in English on the mainstream channels.

Now, within just a few years the mainstream TV service has upped its English options and streaming is as normal as walking. Therefore, even as I type this post, I am streaming a US TV show. 🤓

The problem is that now instead of going out to soak up sun or get exercise outside, we sit inside watching shows that may or may not be useful for our brains. 😜

Thus, I am recalling those days of my father telling me to get fresh air and do something useful.

Already, I have returned a limit to my FB time – once in the morning and once before bed. No other times unless it is through Messenger to chat with friends – when I just use the Messenger app without having to check the FB pages. I think that it might also be time to limit my screen time for TV to just two hours a day so that I can focus on other activities more.

The real struggle will be in figuring out what is considered a healthy balance on the computer since my blog writing, business writing and general writing 🖋 is all done either on the iPad📱, laptop💻, iPhone or desktop🖥. I am also volunteering to redo a local organization’s website, so need more time on the computer time to do that…. Therefore, I need to consider this a bit more.

In any case, I do feel as if there is a bit of screen time overload in our lives these days.

~T 😀

Back To It

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Jan 042017

The winter holidays are over, so life is on its way back to ‘normal’ again. I had not realized that it had been nearly three weeks that M was off, so this morning when he had to leave early I was a little bit surprised. It also meant that we missed our morning gym time as I had gotten used to having a slow morning.

However, I must say that it is nice to be back in the routine. Instead of the gym, we had our morning tea, then once M was out the door, I managed to do half hour of yoga, 15mins of meditation, read today’s Bible passages, hang with the cats for their morning wake-up, write in my journal and organize a bit of the house. All this before 9:30am!!! Woohoo!!

So, there is definitely something to celebrate about getting back to it!

Yesterday I spent the entire day indoors and on my own. When M returned I was not in the best of moods. Although I had thought that I was okay, there were small things that set me off. He claims it is because I was inside all day….Maybe so…. In any case, I have promised to at least go down to the pool today. 😛

I definitely need to work on my vitamin D and B12 intake, I think. My moods are greatly affected with a decrease in these. It has been a while since I stopped taking my supplemental vitamins due to money and, well, a desire to see how helpful they are…. The truth is that I mostly do not notice a difference without them. However, I do wonder if my moods are affected and I just do not notice this enough. Or, if the insides are affected which I would never see anyway…?

Anyway, while I have the ability to enjoy the outdoors more, I should at least do that. I know that being outside does, in fact, affect me; therefore, there is really no excuse for sitting inside all day, especially when I have every technological device available to use ‘on the go’. 😉

With that, I’ll end here with my random post for today. Off to the poolside I go. 😀

~T 😀

Podcast Fav 1: Serial

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Jan 032017

Just before the end of last year (yes just a few days ago), I made a list of my recent interest in podcasts.

While I do have some other topics to write on, I am saving them up for my focus next week…yep, I am getting a handle on planning my posts, even for here where no one knows really who is reading…. 😉

So, today I am going to write about Serial.

At the moment there are only two seasons and when you binge listen it makes it go really fast through the seasons, but I admit that is exactly what I did. Now, I have to wait until spring for the next season or so the rumor says.

In any case, I got turned on to this podcast from the Paleomg.com blogger who I follow and love.

Season 1 looks at the case of Adnan Syed who was found guilty for the murder of an ex-girlfriend, Hae Man Lee, in Baltimore during his senior year of high school in 1999. Syed has claimed his innocence from the very beginning. The reporter, Sarah Koenig, speaks with Syed and looks into his case closely throughout the episodes.

I will not give away the ending here, but you can obviously Google it or check out the site link (above) if you are dying to know before you start. 😉 I was totally hooked on this season – even finding myself listening to episodes while cooking or finding reasons to do activities where I needed to listen to it! 😀

Season 2 was equally engaging, though less of a cliff-hanger as we start off knowing what happens for the most part. Still, Sarah Koenig looks at the story of Bowe Bergdhal, a U.S. soldier who walked away from his unit ending up captured and held by the Taliban in Afghanistan for five years. When his release was negotiated there was a great deal of controversy around it; thus this story.

These seasons are captivating like Netflix’s series on Making a Murderer or The Jinx. True crime seems to be increasing in popularity. Some might find our interest in such things as morbid or strange; however, I look at it from a psychological and sociological study of humanity in our current times. I am fascinated by them for sure – which is why the majority of the TV shows I do watch are all crime related….

In any case, I highly highly recommend this podcast and cannot wait for Season 3 to come out. Is it spring yet??!!!

~T 😀

_The Loney_ by Andrew Michael Hurley

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Jan 022017

_The Loney_ by Andrew Michael Hurley

Looking for a “holiday” read, I saw that this book was available on Kindle. I had been waiting for it to come out since seeing it on a friend’s list of coming books, but then forgot about it amidst other reading priorities.

As my first book of 2017, I realized that I am craving some more philosophical and thought-provoking stimulation. This one did not really do it for me.

It is engaging enough as I did read it within a week. It holds some value in trying to combine mystery, theology✝️, and cultish themes within a British setting. 🇬🇧However, I found it a little weak in the overall aspect of the story as I never really connected with any of the Mai characters. When I thought I had it turned out that the story went another direction.

So, overall it was a good read for a “holiday”, but I was not necessarily impressed with it as it has been touted…. Maybe I just don’t get contemporary fiction – struggled with it in college too….🤔

Still, as a first novel, I could only wish that my own can win an award one day!! 😜

My next read is for book club and then I think I need something deep….

~T 😀

2017 At Last!!!

Going Mental No Responses »

Jan 012017

Happy New Year! Well, 2016 is finally at an end. I already recapped that yesterday, so no need to go there again.

We spent yesterday at the beach mostly and then decided to have a nice quiet evening in since neither of us really care about ringing in the new year with a crowd. So after watching “Hacksaw Ridge” (nice & uplifting, eh? 😜), we forced ourselves to stay awake. We were also waiting for Airbnb guests to arrive, so that helped. Even still, I was dying for my bed until midnight struck and the fireworks 💥 display started.

We could see these from our window and I reckon that we had a better view than those who were on the ground level minus the smoke and ashes. 😜 There are definitely some perks to living high up and in a prime location. 😎

Today, we have spent our time relaxing, but also kicking off on our mutual fitness goals of getting to the gym. I will start to write about my workouts as well since it will help me to keep track. Tomorrow, I will write on the other goals I have made with a bit more detail. I think I may have touched on some of them earlier in December as that is generally when I begin reflecting on the year past and the year to come.

So, we are both excited about what 2017 has to offer with more changes to come, but all with good results this year!!!

Here is to a fantastic year ahead!!! 🍾💃🏽🙌🏽

~T 😀

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