“Tranquil” (Day 4)

Today was my day off. I needed a day away from work. I woke up early and thought “hell no” and took myself back to sleep. Then, when I awoke at 10:30 I thought, I can stay awake, but I’m not getting up yet. I stayed in bed til close to noon when I thought, if I wait any longer I won’t eat breakfast.

So I hopped outta bed, with out my morning glass of water, did my sun salutation and went to make some oatmeal. I wasn’t ready to be in “public” yet, so I brought my oatmeal back to my room and ate, with the lights off and the curtain closed.

My breakfast selfie’s theme was “shame and laziness.” So I tried to make it funny because I just wanted to crawl back in bed… and that flash was bright. I did feel better after breakfast though because had I not eaten breakfast I would have been starving for lunch. During a non-challenge time that would have meant I would have splurged on junk food to feed the craving of hunger AND laziness. But, with a double serving of oatmeal and banana, I was able to have an appropriate portion of leftover gnocchi and sauce for lunch.

The rest of the day just fell flat. I didn’t have anything special to do today, as there really isn’t anything special to do in town. Having only one day a week off it’s generally laundry, shopping, cooking and cleaning day. Needless to day I didn’t feel like doing that. The past few weeks have been hectic with planning and hand making decorations for the Halloween party. Then last Sunday I devoted almost my entire day off to making cupcakes for my co-workers. Which felt stupid since it took  my time and money and they all ate them, a few said thank you.

Then the last 6 went disappearing. I know I left them in the kitchen fridge, but in my family you don’t just eat the last cupcake. You warn people first. In case, like me, they were thinking about the cupcake at work to then get home and discover they’re all gone. I complained to my trusty co-workers and asked around trying to figure out who had 6 cupcakes in less than 10 hours, but no one fessed up. Co-workers all said just get over, at least people enjoyed them… and in my petty mind it made me feel like “of course everyone else got to enjoy them, but I didn’t! and I made the bloody things!”

Which is why I believe today was relatively emotionless. I’m tired of giving my well being to this place. I know we should all be loving and giving and caring people, but there is a line. When that line is crossed and it’s running into the red zone, it’s time to stop, cut off and regroup. That’s where I am, in the red zone. I need time to get myself back together after the last few weeks of ups and downs. Now that I’m aware of it, I have no problem cutting off.

Essentially, I have 30 days from today until I leave this town. This challenge is a big motivation and help to get through the next 26 days, then it’s my birthday, then I’ll have 2 off days to get sorted and leave.

This upcoming week will be interesting – I have 3 housekeeping shifts and 2 desk shifts. The housekeeping will be fun to see how I go, how tired and hungry I get. 8 hours of cleaning is tiresome. My bestie here and I were thinking of going for a walk after work tomorrow, but we’re both eager to see how exhausted I am come 4 o’clock.

What I did do to help me stay on track was batch up lunches for the next few days. Tonight’s dinner was a pretty spectacular mess of vegan tacos. Including black beans, corn, tomato, coriander, red onion, garlic and guacamole with lettuce and arugula/rocket on a warmed flour tortilla. I even made some tofu, which I put on one taco and decided it didn’t add anything so I put it in a container for tomorrow’s dinner.

I’ve never felt this organized in my life. I like taking the power away from food and decisions of it by pre-planning and preparing the meals. It makes it a lot easier to not sabotage myself and set myself up for good things. It’s easy to fall into a cycle of self-loathing or guilt after a bad meal, but you can’t beat yourself up for vegan tacos.

Lettuce and arugula/rocket and black bean and lentil mix for my ready made lunches:

Spoiler alert: Tomorrow’s breakfast is NOT oatmeal!