Posted onMay 20, 2022|Comments Off on Not Fully Able To Unpack (or I Think The Move Prepared Me For This)
It’s been about a month since I really moved into my new place. I had a few things I moved after I moved in before I turned in my keys to my old house, but almost all my things were here when I had the moving truck. And I have gotten a lot of things settled and unpacked in the time that I’ve been here. I know there isn’t necessarily a timeline to be fully moved in, but I think I assumed I would be much more moved in by this point.
There have been a few unexpected things, such as changing up furniture, so I haven’t fully planned out things I need or where I want to put things I already have. I also haven’t bought a few things that I know I need that will help with my organization. Some of the things I will be buying will be bought pretty soon. I should have them within a month or so. But for my office, the main storage piece that I want to have will have to wait because it is a combination sliding bookcase and murphy bed and I need to work on saving up money for that.
I can recap more about this at the end of the month when I go over the monthly challenge I set, but I have been working hard on getting most of my stuff out of boxes. I only have a fraction of the boxes before, and I’m so glad that it feels less like a transitional area. But in my office, I have all the boxes I have left with the things in them. And those won’t be moving for a bit.
A few things still have to be done around my new place. The biggest of which is repairing my floors. I got all new floors when we remodeled, but unfortunately, the floors were not installed correctly and they have to be redone. While this isn’t what we would have liked, the company that did them realized the error and will be doing all the repairs for us. We need to wait on the new floors to get here since they were ordered and have to ship to LA, and we don’t have the exact timeline of how long that will be. But because everything I have will have to be moved when the floors are fixed, I’m not taking the rest of my things out of boxes. Keeping them in the boxes will make them easier to move.
I’ve been living with boxes for longer than I would like to remember. I started packing up my old place really early because I was hoping my new place would be done sooner than it was. At least this time, the things in the boxes tend to be things I don’t really use that often. A lot of what is boxed up are different decorative items, so while I would like to have them out and in view, they aren’t necessary. And if there is something that I need, because the boxes are all open and in one place, it’s easy enough for me to find what I need.
I’m ready to not live with boxes, but I know it will take a bit longer until I get to that point. But at least I’m finally at the tail end of this time and I can just focus on unpacking and not also packing and moving.
Posted onMay 11, 2022|Comments Off on Cleaning And Karma (or This Feels Like Some Progress)
As I work on my monthly challenge of getting more of my things out of boxes, I have had piles of boxes left all over the place. After I finally got all of my things out of my old place, I started to get smarter about the empty boxes in the new place. I kept one of the biggest boxes together, and for the rest of the boxes, I removed the tape and flattened them. And then I put them into the one big box I had left. I did it so the boxes were like file folders since that was the easiest way to organize them. But they were still taking up space even just being together in a single box.
I could have put them into the recycling for my new place, but there is limited space for recycling and I didn’t want to take up the entire bin. Plus, these were good moving boxes and I thought someone might be able to use them. So I posted something online asking if anyone needed moving boxes because I was happy to give them away for free. I found someone through a Facebook group who needed them and was close by so she could come over without having to take too long of a drive.
She picked up the boxes at the end of last week, and I really feel better having them cleared out of my living room. I still have plenty in boxes to work through, but the more I can make my place look less like I’m moving, the better. And I’m glad I decided to give the boxes away instead of just recycling them because I could tell she was grateful I had so many for her.
We were chatting a bit when she picked them up and it turns out that she also hadn’t moved in over a decade as well so she wasn’t sure if she was doing all the things around moving the right way. That’s exactly how I felt so I was giving her some of the tips that I learned from my move. For example, I wish I had put more into boxes and had the movers take for me. It wasn’t bad since it was such a short drive between the places, but it was annoying going up and down the elevator so many times. And it was tiring moving the boxes in and out of my car. I’m lucky that my parents loaned me a little dolly so I didn’t have to always carry the boxes, but it was a lot harder moving than I expected. So I told her to take advantage of the time she books with movers. We also talked about moving clothes and I told her about the moving bags I used for all my clothes. I found them so much easier to deal with than wardrobe boxes. And while we were discussing that, I realized that I could give her the 3 bags that I had emptied so far.
She asked if I wanted to charge her for them or if I wanted them back when she was done moving, but I told her just to pass it forward and try to find someone else who can use them after she was done. Yes, I did spend money on them, but I really don’t need all 4 bags taking up space. I still have one since it’s not unpacked yet, and I’ll save that one in case I need it for any reason. Maybe I’ll need it and maybe I won’t. But it folds up pretty small so keeping one isn’t that big of a deal.
I know it’s not a big deal to give away boxes and moving bags, but it did feel like something nice to do. I would have totally taken boxes from someone else if they were offering and I needed them. But I was lucky with having saved boxes from deliveries for a little while plus finding a good deal on banker boxes. So my costs for supplies were pretty low considering how many boxes I had and how much stuff I had to move. Using movers wasn’t cheap, but I knew I would have that cost and it would be a lot. But I was able to save a lot with so much else, and I was happy to put some good and positive energy out into the world by sharing that with someone else so they can save some money too!
Posted onMay 6, 2022|Comments Off on Getting More Settled In (or Really Feeling Home)
I’ve been living in the condo for a few weeks now. Even though it was only a week ago that I turned in my keys for my old place, I was sleeping and working from the condo for the last 2 weeks I had my lease. And most of the things I needed to move were moved by that point as well. I did have some things I needed to move in those last 2 weeks, but most of it was stuff that needed to be sold so I have felt that most of my things have been with me since I started living here.
Because it had been so long since my last move, I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to feel settled. I also knew going into this move that things wouldn’t be totally done and set up right away. There are quite a few things I want or need to get to complete my space. But I’m working on being more mindful and not buying things until I find something I really want to get. And I did feel pretty out of sorts for a bit after starting to sleep at the condo. Things have been all over the place for me and I didn’t know where everything I wanted to find was. I was still going over to the old place to work on things so I felt like I was living between 2 places. And I have had to adjust to different things living here versus living in the old place. For example, I haven’t had to worry about anyone living above me for 12 years. Now, I do and I’m adjusting to the noise from my neighbors. But the noise I hear is a lot quieter than the noise I dealt with at the old place. It’s a different type of noise, so I’m sure that soon enough I won’t even notice it anymore.
I have hated feeling in transition and how it was affecting my life. So I have been working on feeling more at home and more settled. That’s a big part of the reason why I picked my monthly challenge this month. I still have to work on getting things out of boxes, but I’ve been making an effort at finding where I want to put things away too. Some of the setups I had before worked perfectly for the new place so that was easy. I think my desk might have been one of the easier things to get settled since almost everything just went back to where it was before. It’s not exactly the same and I still have to do some organizing, but I made my desk very usable for me quickly. And I needed to do that since I had to have everything I need to work ready to go right away.
I know that when I put things away I can change my mind later so I don’t need to stress too much about where I’m putting things for now. But I also want to pay attention to what I have and what things I might need for organization. I know I will need to do some things to create more usable storage space for me, but that also takes planning. Since I will be creating a little pantry-type storage inside of a closet from pieces from The Container Store (or somewhere like there), I have to do measurements and decide exactly how I want it to look. So I’ve been putting things on the ground and trying to imagine what I want to create.
But even with the things I don’t have settled yet and the fact that I’m living with a lot of boxes still, I do feel home. And I’m so glad that I feel that way already and I’m not having any anxiety about being in a new space. I don’t wake up confused or accidentally walk into a wall thinking I’m walking into my bathroom or anything like that. I didn’t think I would necessarily do that, but I did think about it. I also thought I might accidentally drive into my old driveway when coming home from things since I pass by my old place all the time. But that hasn’t happened once. In fact, when I was driving over to the old place to get more things or to clean, there were times I almost missed the driveway. The landlord drastically changed what the front of the driveway looks like, so it doesn’t look like the place I lived in for so long. Like I said before, in a way I don’t miss the old place since it hasn’t felt like my old place for the last few months I was living there.
I know that it will take some time before I feel like I’m fully moved in and settled here. I have so much I still want to do with getting some new furniture and really customizing my space. And there is so much more space I get to plan out, so it will not be done super quickly. But I’m in no rush. I do want to be out of boxes (or almost out of boxes) soon, but there is no deadline for feeling like I have finished turning this into my home. It will happen, and I know that because I’m not doing anything just to get it done, it will be worth it when I can sit back and admire where I am lucky enough to get to live.
Posted onMay 3, 2022|Comments Off on I Really Did Give Myself An Easy Monthly Challenge (or This Month Will Possibly Be Easy As Well)
For my monthly challenge in April, I set it to be something that I had no choice but to accomplish. The challenge was to be completely out of my old place by the end of the month. Because the last month of my lease was April, I had to be out by the end of the month. Of course, I wanted it to be a bit easier than just rushing at the end of the month to get it done. And most of my things were out about a week before the end of the month. I did have a few last things I had to move or give away within the last few days, but on the last day of April, I did turn in my keys and officially said goodbye to my old home for the last time.
I know it was an easy challenge for me to set, but I wanted to make it an easy one since I was preparing for the month to be stressful and didn’t want to add any extra stress that I could avoid. Of course, I wasn’t fully prepared for how stressful moving would be. So I’m extra grateful that the challenge I set for April didn’t add to that stress and make things worse for me.
And my challenge this month is also connected to moving and hopefully will be a bit of an easy one as well. My challenge for May is to get most of my things out of boxes or into consolidated boxes. I know it won’t be possible to get everything out of the boxes by the end of the month because I still need to buy some furniture that will hold my things. And right now, I’m pulling a temporary hold on buying more stuff due to some things in the condo still needing to be worked on (more about that coming later). So things like my books will need to stay in boxes for a bit longer.
But I can get a lot of things out of boxes by the end of this month. And for what I can’t get out of boxes, I can get into boxes for each section of my house. For example, right now in my office, I have about 5 boxes with different things in them. Some of the boxes have things that won’t be going into my office and some of the things going into my office are in boxes in other parts of the condo. So if I could get all my office stuff into a few boxes in my office, that will make things easier when I do have the pieces I need to put things away.
Even though I got rid of a lot of things while I was packing up my house, I’m sure I will find things in these boxes that I might not want to keep. So organizing what is not put away will also help me make sure I don’t keep things just to have them. But I don’t think there will be too much that I find that I need to get rid of. It will be more about planning where I want to put things now that I have so much more space. So things that I had to put in one place because it’s the only place they fit before could be put somewhere else now that I have some options. Decorating this new space should be a fun process and I’m finally getting close to enjoying that part of my new home.
I would love it if most of the boxes were out of my condo by the end of the month, but I don’t know how possible that will be. So I just want to see how much I can get it down to and how much I can organize all the things that I haven’t put away just yet. And hopefully by doing that, I will feel even more at home by the end of May.
Posted onApril 29, 2022|Comments Off on It’s Finally Goodbye To My House (or Closing This Chapter)
Tomorrow, I turn in the keys to my house. I still think I can’t totally believe that because it feels like this move has taken forever. But it’s finally the end of the month and the end of my time renting this house. I’ve been sad about saying goodbye to this house for a while, but I think I’ve finally moved past that feeling and now I just feel like I’m leaving a space and not saying goodbye to my home. As things have been moved out of the space, it has felt less and less like it was mine, so that helps with the feelings.
I still can’t believe I lived there for over 12 years. Almost a third of my lifetime. The entire time I have written this blog has been while living there. I have had so many different jobs while living there, and working from home started for me there. I survived a pandemic in that tiny home. I have made some amazing memories and have had some really sad ones there. I am glad to be leaving behind some ghosts of sad memories there, but I also know that those sad moments have made me who I am today.
Finding that house was honestly such luck for me. Before moving there, I was living in a 2 bedroom apartment and had gone through multiple roommates. There were times I had no roommates and the apartment was so expensive to have just to myself. But I always ended up finding new roommates and making it work. But when another roommate told me they were moving out, I knew I needed to find a new place and couldn’t keep just finding new people every year or so. But it wasn’t easy to find a place in my budget in my preferred area. Or if I did find a place, there was something really wrong with it. But one day, I found my house and it was cheaper than anything else. It turned out they had a rent special for one amount for 6 months and a slightly higher amount (but still within my budget) for the next 6 months. I asked if we could split the difference and keep the rent the same for the year, but the landlord said no. But that worked to my advantage because he never raised the rent for the second 6 months.
And because it was a rent-stabilized building, my landlord was very restricted in how much he could raise the rent. He never raised it for the first few years I lived there. I don’t know if he didn’t bother or just forgot. But even when he was raising the rent each year, it could only go up 3%. The last month I paid rent was only $239 more than what I was paying when I moved in. I know that it was a cheap rental. Most places in my neighborhood went for 2 or 3 times the price. I always said I couldn’t afford to leave until I bought a place. And it’s crazy to think that is exactly how it happened even if the timing wasn’t exactly what I planned for.
I had been looking at condos casually for several years. But when we found out my landlord was selling, things went into high gear and we got serious about condo hunting. And I honestly feel like somehow this is exactly how it was supposed to happen. I don’t know if we would have looked at or considered this condo years ago. I was in a different place then and I was a different person. My condo might have been too overwhelming or too much for me before. And while I do feel a bit overwhelmed, I know I can turn this space into a home and I’m not worried about taking my time with it.
I feel ready now to be moving on from the house I loved so much. That place was where I grew so much and really came into my own. I wasn’t sure of who I was and I was a bit lost when I first moved in there. But I rebuilt my life while living there. My life isn’t perfect and not necessarily where I thought I would be now, but it’s my life and I’m happy with things. And I am so grateful that I have this amazing new home to continue to build my life and my future.
I will always be grateful for my tiny home for 12 years. I learned so much while living there. I learned how to be much more independent and that I could live alone and not feel lonely (this doesn’t count when I felt very lonely during the pandemic). I learned how to really create a home and a space that is mine and makes me happy. I built a life in LA that I didn’t have before and I didn’t let others hold me back or always allow fear to stop me from going for what I wanted or asking for what I deserved.
Thank you to my house for being a home for so long. The 12 years there have been amazing and I know that I will take the lessons I learned there for the rest of my life. I know that when they finally tear down the houses (which we know is the new landlord’s plan), I will be very upset to see that home gone forever. But I hope that someone else can live there before that happens so they can experience that magical place just like I did.
Posted onApril 28, 2022|Comments Off on Some Positives About My Move (or Not Just Focusing On The Stress)
I feel like for the most part since I started to move my things to the condo I have really only written about the negative things such as the stress. And I’m not going to deny that the past few weeks have been extremely stressful and that a lot of it is my fault. I did a pretty bad job with planning my move and I underestimated how poorly I was organizing things. Maybe I won’t move again for a long time, but I hope I learned my lessons and I won’t make the same mistakes. I think feeling like I could move a majority of the stuff on my own was a very optimistic idea that was poorly executed because of my schedule.
And yes, the stress and other negative things really sucked. But I wanted to do a post that focuses on the things I’m so happy about now that I’m almost moved into my new place.
First, the obvious one is that I have a much bigger place that has so many upgrades compared to my last place. I used to live in a house that was 400 square feet and over 100 years old. I didn’t have a lot of space and I didn’t have a lot of things that most people probably feel are almost standard things to have these days. I didn’t have a dishwasher. My water heater was pretty small and had issues maintaining the temperature I set it to. The insulation in the house was non-existent and I had extreme temperatures year-round inside.
And now, I have all new appliances. I have a dishwasher and my own washer and dryer (doing laundry on a random weekday felt like such a luxury since the ones I shared at my old place were not cheap to use). While I do have central a/c and heat now, I haven’t turned on the thermostat because the temperature inside has been pretty consistent no matter what it is like outside. I also have better lighting inside my new place and I feel like I’m not always having to turn on every light in order to do things.
And the space I have is a huge benefit too! It is weird to see my furniture look ridiculously tiny in the new place, but I will be getting some new pieces to help fill out the space a bit. My kitchen isn’t big, but I have probably triple the counters I used to have (maybe more than triple). We got rid of some cabinets in the renovation, but there are still so many more cabinets than I had before. I can’t reach the top shelves without a little step stool, but I haven’t had to use the higher shelves yet because I barely have filled the lower ones.
I also love having office space. Right now, things are a bit unorganized because I will be buying some new furniture for this room so things might stay in boxes for a little while longer. But I have my desk pretty much set up and I love having a separate space to work from so I don’t feel like I’m always in my workspace all day long. And in my old setup, my desk faced a wall in my living room so I didn’t have a nice view. I just saw a calendar on the wall behind my computer when I looked up. But now, I have a view of the courtyard from my desk.
I do see everyone as they come and go because I have a view of the main gate, so that’s a bit distracting at times. But it’s also fun since I haven’t had a chance to meet all my new neighbors yet.
And my new neighbors are another positive. At my old place, there were only 8 units and we all knew each other pretty well. We helped each other out and looked out for everyone if things seemed off. Everyone at my old place knew I was moving and they all were offering to help me however they could. I know having a situation like that is very unusual and I never lived somewhere where I was close to all my neighbors. But in the new place, everyone I’ve met has been just as amazing. The neighbors on either side of my place have been so kind, especially since the renovation wasn’t quiet and they had to deal with the noise. And when I’ve needed help with anything, they have offered it without hesitation. And everyone else I’ve met so far has been so welcoming and really seemed like they wanted to get to know me, not just meeting me to be polite. This isn’t that big of a building (it’s under 40 units), but it’s bigger than my last place and I know it will take time to meet everyone. But I’m glad that the people I’ve met so far have all been really great.
And I think the biggest positive about my move and the new place is that this is my place. I’m not renting and have to worry about what my landlord might do. Ever since I knew my last place was being sold, I was worried about us getting eviction notices. I also couldn’t do all the things I wanted to do to the place since it wasn’t mine. I had to ask permission for things like having my a/c unit in the window or wanting to remove a screen from a window. But now, while I can’t really change the outside walls since it is a shared building, I have the freedom to do what I want to this place. The renovation already has turned it into the perfect place for me. And I have more plans for how I’m going to make this place really mine and I can’t wait to see how it looks when I have everything figured out.
The stress of this move has been brutal and I really didn’t think it would be this bad. But I know it’s worth it. I’m so happy with my new home and what I have already created in this place. And this is just the beginning and I know so many good things will be coming my way.
Posted onApril 27, 2022|Comments Off on Random Days Of Sickness (or I Don’t Know What Caused This)
I’ve clearly been going through a lot of stress lately, and I know stress can do crazy things to your body. I haven’t been sleeping well, my eating habits are all over the place, and I’m just having anxiety all the time. And that’s outside of the physical issues I’m having connected to moving such as the pain from lifting so much.
And I knew there was a risk of all this stress getting me sick, but you can’t really predict how and when it might happen. But I got pretty sick yesterday and I have no idea if it’s connected to stress or if I got something like food poisoning. Being sick is never fun, but it’s worse when you have so much you have to do and you aren’t really in a place where you know where everything is.
I spent the night before just feeling rotten. This was different from how I feel each month and I just couldn’t get comfortable in bed. I’m glad I wasn’t scheduled for a workout that day so I could have a bit of a lazy morning. And I tried to just be gentle with myself during the day. I had to work and move stuff from my old place, but I was taking my time with things. I also moved around my place while working to be as comfortable as possible. I’m not really set up to work from my couch right now, but I tried to work there so I could stretch out. I also spent some time working from my bed. I know I’m lucky that I’m able to do this since I work from home. If I was someone who had to go into an office I would have had to call in sick.
I’m hoping that this bug or stress sickness will be done now. By the end of the day, I was still feeling a bit off, but significantly better than how I was in the morning. I know that when I get bugs like this it can take a few days to feel fully better. I usually have a few days of uneasiness or being off-balanced.
I know this is a shorter post than what I normally do, but I’m still trying to feel better and I have a lot I need to get done today. I know I’ve said this so many times, but I just can’t wait until the move is done so I can get this stress out of my life. I’m almost there, but I still have a few things I need to do so I can officially say I’m no longer in the process of moving.
Posted onApril 26, 2022|Comments Off on More Selling And Donating (or It Really Doesn’t Feel Like My Old Place Anymore)
I’ve been working on clearing out my old place for what seems like forever now. I started trying to sell things online as soon as I knew I was going to be moving. Some things were easy to sell and other things felt like they took forever to get people to say they wanted them. And I wasn’t selling things to necessarily make a profit. I was offering things for crazy low prices and didn’t always take the money because I wanted things to go to a good home. But for some reason, I struggled to get some of the things sold that I thought would go quickly.
And as my time with my old place got closer to the end, I knew I needed to pick up the pace on getting things out of my home. I started listing them for free to friends (or friends of friends) to get things out. Again, I wasn’t trying to make a profit, I just needed things gone because I didn’t have another way to get them out of my place. And I couldn’t leave them because my landlord would charge me an extremely high disposal price (or at least I’m assuming he would). I finally found homes for most of the things and for everything else I was able to coordinate with Habitat for Humanity to pick them up as a donation.
And by some crazy luck, I was able to arrange for all of the pickups of these last few big items to all be on Saturday within a 4-hour timeframe. It worked out really well for me because I could work on cleaning up more as I was waiting for people to arrive. I also have some things that still need to be thrown out and are supposed to be picked up by bulk trash, but since that pickup isn’t until the end of the week I’ve been keeping things in one area of my house until it’s closer to the pickup day. So I won’t fully clean the old place until one of the last days I have the keys, but I was able to get a lot of cleaning done as things were being picked up and rooms were starting to clear out.
I am happy that I found some people who could really use what I needed to get rid of. Everything was in pretty good condition but they were things I just didn’t need anymore. For example, my fridge isn’t new but it’s never had any issues. But it wouldn’t fit in the correct space in my new place so I needed to sell it. A friend of mine just had a fridge break on them so this worked out perfectly! Another friend has a friend who is a single mom and needed some new storage solutions. They took my bookcase, pantry storage, and a few other things that will work out perfectly for their kids. Seeing things leave and my home clear out is sad, but it’s less sad when I know that everyone who took them is really excited about having these things.
Almost everything left in my old place is now in one spot in my living room and most of them are things that are bulky and will just be a specific car trip to get them (such as my vacuum and ladder). But it really looks empty in my old place now.
It’s so weird how the space looks nothing like the home I lived in for 12 years anymore. The rooms don’t feel the same size or shape and things just don’t feel like it’s what I’m used to. I guess this shows how much art, furniture, and other decor can really make or break a space.
I’ve only got a few more days before I give my keys to my landlord and I say my final goodbye to this place. But I feel like I already said goodbye to it being my home when my things were moved. Now, it’s just a shell of the home I lived in.
Posted onApril 25, 2022|Comments Off on And Even More Painful Workouts (or My First Week Working Out From My New Place)
This past week of workouts was even tougher on me than the week before. I had pain and nausea and I was moving even more stuff every day after work so I felt like I was double workouts almost every day. I also felt a little bit thrown off in my routine because I was sleeping and essentially living in the condo, but not all my things were unpacked so I felt like I was always trying to find things. But I made it work.
Monday’s workout was a 2 group class, which is unusual for me but I knew I could do it. I was expecting my pain and nausea to be worse for that workout, but I think the stress of having movers come the day before might have thrown things off for me. But I was sore from all the boxes I had moved the day before and a bit out of sorts because Sunday night was the first night I had slept at the condo.
For the workouts in April, not only are they all a mix of endurance, strength, and power but the workouts repeat during the month. And now that we are in the second half of the month we are repeating the workouts we did in the first half. But because of how the month went, this workout was one that I had not done before.
For cardio, it was different from what we normally do. We don’t usually have long base paces in our blocks, but this time we did for the first block to set up what we would do after them. So in the first block, we had a 3-minute base pace to start and then a 2-minute push pace and a 1-minute all-out. We had a minute to recover before doing the same pattern but we had a 2-minute base, 1-minute push, and 45-second all-out. And to end the block we had a 1-minute base, 30-second push, and 30-second all-out. And for the second block, we only focused on the all-outs. We had a 1-minute, 45-second, 2 rounds of a 30-second, 45-second, and 1-minute all-out in that block. And between each all-out, we had 45-seconds to recover.
On the floor, we also had 2 blocks and the first block also had a bit of rowing in it. We started the first block with 3 rounds of 350-meter rows and between each row, we had lateral hops. For the rows, we were supposed to focus on strength rowing which meant having fewer strokes per minute. And each time, we were supposed to decrease the strokes more. After the 3 rows, we had mini-band work for the rest of the block. We had mini-band deadlifts to low rows, mini-band bird dogs, and mini-band toe reaches. And in the second block, we had plank blastoffs, shoulder presses, and deadlifts. For the shoulder presses and deadlifts I had to go lighter than I wanted to because I was sore from moving, which was a bit frustrating. I felt like I had done really well for most of the workout and it wasn’t fun to realize I had to take it easy at the end but I know if I hadn’t done that it would have been worse for me.
Wednesday’s workout was another one that I didn’t do in the first half of the month. I was feeling a bit better than I was on Monday when I got to the workout, but things hit me hard right as we were starting the class and I was feeling very nauseous. I have only had to leave once during a class to get sick (although I did return to the class after to finish it), and I was worried that I would have to do that again for this class.
For cardio, we were doing things at our own pace for the entire time. It was 1 block of work with decreasing inclines. We started at the highest incline and had a .1 mile (.4 miles for me) interval. Then we had a .1 or .4 mile walking recovery. All the recoveries were the same, but as the incline went down the distance went up. Because of how high we were supposed to be with the inclines, I was above my all-out resistance level for all the non-recovery intervals. That plus how nauseous I felt made this workout a real struggle.
On the rower, we started with a 500-meter row but we were supposed to be at a base pace row so we didn’t burn ourselves out. Then we had 5 rounds of a 100-meter row with squats and jumping jacks between each row. I didn’t do the jumping jacks, but I did do extra squats to make up for that. We were supposed to go all-out for each of the 100-meter rows and allow ourselves to recover so we could continue pushing as hard as we could, and I really tried. I know I didn’t do the best I could do if I was feeling ok. But I feel like I did the best I could do considering the situation.
And on the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first one was on our own and the second was timed out. In the first block, we started with a goblet squat. We were supposed to go heavy and then rest after doing those reps before moving on to the next part. When we were ready, we had 3 back to back shoulder movements. We had front raises, lateral raises, and hip hinge reverse flys. Because of how many reps we were supposed to do in a row, we were told to go light with the weights. And I definitely did. I usually would use 12 or 15-pound weights, but I started with 10 pounds and had to go down to 8 pounds. It was still very tough and my shoulders were really feeling it. And for the second block, we had rounds of neutral half thrusters and burpees. We always did the thrusters for 30-seconds and the burpees were either 20-seconds, 40-seconds, or 1-minute. And between each exercise, we only had 15-seconds of rest. It was only 5 minutes of work, but it was one of the hardest things!
Thursday’s workout was the first of the repeating ones that I had done before and I was interested to see how I would do this time. I knew that I couldn’t really compare how I did before to this time since I was still feeling nauseous, but I still wanted to see how I was feeling since I knew how it felt the first time.
This was a repeat of the “Construct or Deconstruct” workout we did on April 6th. Each section of the room had 3 blocks. In the first block, we did things in one order. In the second block, we did them in the opposite order. And in the last block, we got to decide which of the previous ones we wanted to repeat. And every block was 4 1-minute intervals.
For cardio, the first block had a 1-minute base pace, 1-minute between our base and push, 1-minute push pace, and 1-minute all-out. The second block started with the all-out and ended with the base pace. And for the last block, I repeated the second block again so I ended with the base pace.
For the rower, it was the same idea as cardio. But doing different paces is always tough so I knew I would just have to try and see if I could make small changes to my wattage on the rower. For the last block, I started with the base row and went up since I knew I could control that a bit more. I didn’t get a huge change in the wattage, but I did see a difference from one minute to the next which was important to me.
And on the floor, the first block had a seated torso rotation, alternating shoulder presses, squats, and squats to upward rotations. For the last block repeated the first block again since I was already sitting on the ground from ending the second block with the torso rotations and it was easier for me to stay seated instead of getting up and down.
And Friday’s workout was another one that I had done in the first half of the month. I was starting to feel better by this workout and I didn’t move as much stuff on Thursday evening, so I feel like this was my best class of the week even though it wasn’t the best that I know I could do if I was feeling great.
We had 2 blocks for cardio and in each block, we had 3 intervals of a push to a base pace and a 1-minute all-out at the end. In the first block, all the base paces were 1-minute and the push paces started at 1-minute and went down 45 seconds each time. And in the second block, all the push paces were 1-minute and the base paces were the ones that changed. Because I wasn’t doing anything too crazy, I didn’t notice a huge difference in the two blocks for how they felt for me, but I was trying.
On the rower, we also had 2 blocks. The first block started with a 250-meter row with medicine ball jumping jacks after. I did the medicine ball exercise as squats to overhead raises. And each time we got back on the rower we decreased the row by 50 meters. And the second block always had 150-meter rows and the medicine ball exercise changed how many reps we did each time. The exercise was supposed to be front press power jacks, but I did them as squats to front presses.
And on the floor, both blocks had a mix of chest and lower body exercises. The first block had lunges, close grip chest presses, and leg lifts using the straps. And the second block had lateral step-ups (which I did as lateral lunges), chest flys, and single-arm low rows on the straps.
I have had a lot of challenges the past few weeks in my workouts between feeling sick and the stress of moving. But I am hoping that I’m starting to get past that now. I’m not fully moved into the condo yet, but I worked a lot this weekend on getting things out of boxes and into where they make sense to me. So I hope that helps me feel a bit more put together when I’m getting out the door super early for my workouts!
Posted onApril 22, 2022|Comments Off on Another Unexpected Part Of Moving (or I Don’t Know Why I Didn’t Plan Better For This)
As I’ve written several times now, I’m finding a lot of things about moving that aren’t the way I thought they would be or how I remembered them from before. And I know a lot of these things are also related to how I’m doing my move. I’ve been taking my time and slowly getting things from one place to another. I have done a majority of the move within the last week, but it’s still been over multiple days instead of doing everything at once. And maybe this wasn’t the right way to do things even though I thought it would be easier because I keep finding random things that I wasn’t exactly prepared for. And this one is one I found out after I started mainly living at the condo this week.
At my old place, over the last few weeks, I tried to be pretty careful with what I got from the grocery store. I didn’t want to have a lot of food I needed to move over with me, especially if they were frozen items or things that were going to be opened and potentially make a mess. So the last few weeks I have been very conscious about what food I already have and was trying to make more meals from that instead of going out and getting more stuff. I still have some food at the old place I need to move over this weekend, but I got things down to only a handful of things left.
And when I moved my furniture on Sunday to the condo, I wasn’t sure at the time if I would sleep at the condo or at the old house. So I wasn’t really prepared with food at the condo. But I figured that would be easy enough to deal with so I got some takeout food for dinner that night. But because I hadn’t planned, I also didn’t have food for Monday and I wouldn’t be able to get to the store until after work. So I had to order some delivery food (I got a bowl from Chipotle) for lunch that day until I could go get a few groceries to get me through the week.
I didn’t get anything too crazy since I knew this week would be hectic and I would want things that would be easy and fast to have. So most of what I got was prepared items, things I could microwave, or shelf-stable items. Not necessarily the healthiest or best options, but I knew this would just be for now and not the way I would continue to eat.
And for the most part, this plan has worked ok for me. I’m having some weird food issues right now and I’m struggling to eat at times, but I do go through those phases occasionally and I think this is also just the stress manifesting itself in my body. But the issue I’m running into now is that my kitchen really isn’t set up for making food if I wanted to right now.
So much of my stuff is still in boxes. I know that I need to work on unpacking more, but I also wanted to plan out a bit where I would want to put things. But I might have to wait on that and just get things unpacked for now and work on the organization later. But also, not everything is here yet. I didn’t think too much about which boxes I was moving on which day since I knew I would eventually get everything over here. But until yesterday, I had no pots and pans. I was missing bowls until Wednesday but had plates. I didn’t think to bring stuff from my spice rack until later in the week. Honestly, I have no clue what parts of my kitchen are still in the old place and what is in boxes here at this point. I really need to work on getting stuff put away or at least where I can figure out what I have so I can start planning normal meals and not just what is easy to grab.
Just like everything else stressing me out with this move, I know this is temporary and I will have all my kitchen things soon and I can start cooking in my new and amazing kitchen! And I’m excited to cook in this kitchen since everything is new and will work properly. Plus, I have so much more space to prep so I won’t feel as cramped as I try to make things that involve more ingredients or steps.
And if I’m having some not-so-great food days for right now, I know it’s going to be ok. I need to allow myself to be a bit off from what I know I should be doing while I’m in the process of settling in. This doesn’t mean I’m going to go crazy, but I’m also not going to stress myself out more if I end up having another day where I need delivery food for lunch because I still don’t have my kitchen together.
I Really Did Give Myself An Easy Monthly Challenge (or This Month Will Possibly Be Easy As Well)
