My school year has finished up. The grading and the reading and the meetings that have kept me from blogging and writing and just finding my place in the world are over and I can be selfish... at least for a little while.
For the next two weeks, I will covet my time, since little of it will be mine. The little bit of time I get to myself, such as now, in the early morning hours, I will cherish. I will use this time to clean up my office (which badly needs it), work on some craft projects and read and rest and reflect and hopefully do a lot more writing. I want to do morning pages. I want to read Sophie's World. I want to get healthy, not just physically, but also mentally. I want to be able to dance at my wedding, play with my eventual children and live a good long, healthy and happy life. And I can do it, with the help of some tools that I need to pick up again.
Tools are good things. They help you maintain, reflect, become better. I am a a huge supporter of tools, and I use a few on a semi-regular basis. Well.. anybody who really knows me knows that I do very little out of habit or on a regular basis. I can't even really seem to remember to take my meds every day. Hmmm
Anyway, here are a few of my tools that I have picked up as I go along my merry way...
Tool One: My big pink notebook. AM calls it my "bible" and it's sort of an apt description. I keep everything in there. It has 5 sections right now. The first is my planner, second is food stuffs, third is blog ideas and random writings, fourth is wedding stuffs, and fifth is financial stuffs. If I lose the thing, I won't be able to remember anything. It has a nice loop for my pink fountain pen and it is wonderful. I carry it with me nearly everywhere, though it does need to get cleaned out and replaced sooner or later... probably sooner.
Tool Two: My pen. I have a hot pink Levenger True Writer fountain pen with Hope Pink ink in it. (you may be noticing a trend.. it is my favorite color). I almost put Morning Pages as my second tool, but I don't really write them as habitually as I am supposed to. One of my summer goals that I will be writing about in a later post (probably tomorrow). My pink pen, like my pink notebook, goes with me everywhere. It is a reminder that I am supposed to write. It is a reminder that I can jot down a note and my weird kinesthetic brain will remember it more readily than just reading it or asking someone else to remind me.
Tool Three: Our big freakin' white boards. We have two in the house. One of them is our calendar, which we write up every month and our To Do List for that month. It hangs next to our front door in a prominent place near the table in the kitchen. The other, much more neglected one, is in my office, full of project ideas that never really get done. I have to work on this this summer.
Took Four: My phone. In this day and age, I couldn't live without my phone. AM is constantly saying that I am always on my phone and I'm afraid he's right. I use my phone to help track everything. It is my backup calendar which I coordinate with the planner in my pink notebook. It my food tracker, my mood tracker, my link to other people through Facebook. I use a few fitness apps, and am trying out new ones all the time (most of them are free).
My final and Fifth (and best) tool: AM and my friends circle. I cannot say how much these people have helped me. From my online big brother, RO, to our Stockton Writer's Group, I have so much support. Having a live in personal trainer and personal chef helps, as AM is constantly helping me be a better person and reminding me that I am so much more than I think I am and I can do so much more than I think can. These people have helped me and made my life amazing. They are supportive and give me great suggestions and kudos and high fives and big hugs and I appreciate and love them all for it.
Anywaysssss.... before I get too sappy... I am going back to bed. I walked 3.74 miles yesterday and I am SO feeling it right now. Now that I'm off for the summer, I plan on making writing part of my regime, as well as some reading, some exercising and a lot of snuggling from my wonderful AM! :)
Love and Lollipops,
ToryLynn
Showing posts with label self-respect. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self-respect. Show all posts
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Episode 66: Putting Color Into Life
Today we went to the Farmer's Market behind the Weberstown Mall. We got up, even before breakfast, put on clothes, braved the cold, crisp morning (at 8:45) and went out to see what sort of fresh produce they had for us today. What you see in the picture is what we bought.
Fresh veggies, raspberry jams and some pomegranates. They are all glorious (and barely fit in our tiny tiny apartment fridge). The plan is to make some really awesome veggie soup, since we're on a type of Weight Watchers.
In fact, I'm sort of cheating. I have no money and very little resources to rejoin Weight Watchers at this time, but I have all of my old book and all of my old program stuff, so we're using these as resources, with some help from some web sources, to create our own version of Weight Watchers. I haven't given up on the whole milk or the whole fat yogurt, as they seem to be better for my digestion than the low fat stuff (I don't get nearly as may ucky tummies), but we are adding many more veggies and things to our diet. I feel healthier. According to my Wii, I have lost about 5 pounds in the last two weeks.
Just looking at that picture makes me happy! The colors, the vibrancy, and I've noticed that since we have been eating better, cleaning our apartment more often and working out a bit more, my whole life seems to be coated in this new vibrant color. A year or more ago, I was feeling kind of in the doldrums. I lived in a beautiful place, I had everything I ever wanted, but it wasn't satisfying. I was unhappy. I was overweight. I was lazy and in pain and everything seemed like crap. I was taking medication for bipolar disorder and it wasn't helping much. And the food I was eating was awful! Looking back at my Weight Watcher's books from a year ago, I was eating fast food daily. One day was Wendys. One day was Subway. One day was Taco Bell. Fried foods, foods full of fat, foods full of fillers. These were the things that I was putting into my body, and my body fought back with depression, acne and weight gain.
Now I eat what you see on the table. Fresh fruits, fresh veggies. I make my own breads sometimes.
I take a vitamin daily, and I cook my own food. I have even, on occasion, made my own butter (which is absolutely delicious!) I know exactly what goes in my food. If I write down a recipe, or a list of ingredients, I can pronounce every single one of them. I still eat meat, though we do have our Wegitarian Wednesdays, and Pizza Fridays (our one little concession to the "how do you pronounce that?" foods). We will eat out, but we go places where we can eat healthfully. We found this great little sushi place (at Sherwood Mall, no less) that makes great rolls and you can watch them make them, so we know exactly what goes into them. All of these things have greatly improved the quality of my life.
I plan on keeping up with this blog some more. I want to write and keep track. I want to post about how I organize my life, how I make it can make it better, and how I have learned to enjoy a life lived in less space and fewer calories but much more enriched. I'll post some of my recipes that we have found particularly yummy, some ideas for keeping life organized, and my adventures of jumping off the high dive of life and just, well... Weighting in the Deep End!
Keeping happy and healthy!
ToryLynn
Just looking at that picture makes me happy! The colors, the vibrancy, and I've noticed that since we have been eating better, cleaning our apartment more often and working out a bit more, my whole life seems to be coated in this new vibrant color. A year or more ago, I was feeling kind of in the doldrums. I lived in a beautiful place, I had everything I ever wanted, but it wasn't satisfying. I was unhappy. I was overweight. I was lazy and in pain and everything seemed like crap. I was taking medication for bipolar disorder and it wasn't helping much. And the food I was eating was awful! Looking back at my Weight Watcher's books from a year ago, I was eating fast food daily. One day was Wendys. One day was Subway. One day was Taco Bell. Fried foods, foods full of fat, foods full of fillers. These were the things that I was putting into my body, and my body fought back with depression, acne and weight gain.
Now I eat what you see on the table. Fresh fruits, fresh veggies. I make my own breads sometimes.
I plan on keeping up with this blog some more. I want to write and keep track. I want to post about how I organize my life, how I make it can make it better, and how I have learned to enjoy a life lived in less space and fewer calories but much more enriched. I'll post some of my recipes that we have found particularly yummy, some ideas for keeping life organized, and my adventures of jumping off the high dive of life and just, well... Weighting in the Deep End!
Keeping happy and healthy!
ToryLynn
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Episode 49: What's in a name?
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet, so Romeo would, were he not Romeo called, retain that dear perfection which he owes."
Juliet said it best. A name is just a marker that is chosen for us at birth, something that our parents choose for us, something that we don't really think about, because we think it is out of our control. If I change my name, I will still be the same perfect person that I am. And so, as Juliet requests of Romeo, I may doff my name.
As we grow up, we identify with our names, we become attached to them, for the most part. As a woman gets married, in subservience to her husband, she changes her name to his, allowing him to dominate her nomenclature and taking away a part of her orginal identity, melding herself with him. He does not take her name, and stays the same person, not allowing himself to be subjugated, but instead becoming dominant. It's been this way in our society for at least a thousand years, and women have put up with it. Hell, I've put up with it. I changed my name when I got married. I thought it would bring me closer to my husband. Things change.
I've been thinking a lot about my name, and posted a bit to Facebook about a possible name change, which prompted this post.
Now that I am divorcing, I have a chance to go back to my original name. Actually, it's even drawn up in my divorce papers that I will return to Victoria H----, but I'm not sure about this. My name has become sort of a sticking point for me for as long as I can remember.
I was born Victoria H---- over 35 years ago. My parents decided to call me Vicky, which changed to Vicki when I got to kindergarten and was asked which way I would like to spell my name. (I think I simply asked which letter comes first in the alphabet and decided that was how I would spell my name.) I was Vicki H--- from kindergarten until my sophomore year of high school. As Vicki H----, I was mostly subservient, quiet, kind, polite, not much of a troublemaker... for the most part. I had my fits of teenaged rebellion, but Vicki H---- was who I remained for a very very long time.
In my sophomore year of high school, I grew very rebellious and changed quite a bit. This new identity that I created, this rebellious teenager who wouldn't take shit from anybody was called Tory. When I moved in with my grandmother briefly during my sophomore year, when asked what I would like to be called (Victoria was too formal), I told the teacher's Tory, and for three months, Tory went to Menlo-Atherton high school. Tory H----- was kind of a no nonsense kind of girl. I liked her.
I returned to Stockton and my name, changing it just a little bit to Vicky H----. The addition of the Y did little to change me and I returned to the girl I was. When I became interested in computers, my computer handle was Vixen, or sometimes Vixen Vipere, after a old device that my boyfriend and I had used in our writing. It was short for Vixantrayil, a name that I played with like a toy, a character I had created for a book that we had written together.
When I got married, I took my husband's last name as was tradition and was Vicky L---. We got married in 1998 and I stayed Vicky L--- for at least 7 years. Everybody still called me Vicky, at least family and friends, but I was in college and Vicky just seemed too..childish. Vicky, in my mind, was a cheerleader, a sorority sister, a little girl with pigtails and just wasn't who I was anymore. I attempted to get people to call me Victoria, which seemed much more professional and was the name that was put on all of my degrees. But my friends and family insisted on calling me Vicky... except one person.
With one person, I confident and powerful and I didn't take shit. He made me feel strong. For this person, I was Tory again. He called me Tory for a good five years, and I loved him for the confidence that he seemed to give me. A false confidence, I am sorry to say, for when he pushed me away, all of that confidence broke.
With a little time and healing, I knew that I could not go back to being Vicky again and Victoria didn't quite fit right. It felt a bit big for me, so I took the name Tory back and made it my own. I grew confident, I added my middle name to it and became ToryLynn online (although everybody still called me Tory). I grew into ToryLynn and became strong. I felt confident, I felt powerful, and I felt good finally being who I really wanted to be. I joined writing groups, I became a big part of the writing community on Second Life for a while, and I felt like a better person. I had found my power.
Unfortunately, as I gained my power as ToryLynn, Vicky was being left far behind with my husband. I grew apart from him as I pursued my creativity and my power. I feel bad about doing that, especially today. Now, I am leaving him. It's not like I suddenly stopped loving. It is that I grew up and became a different person.
So, now this new person needs a new name. In some societies, you are given a child name, something that your parents and family call you which is a personal name just for them. When you grow up in this society, you are given a new name by an elder, or are asked to choose your own, something that represents you. This new stage in my life is giving me a chance to choose my name and become a new person. The strong, confident, beautiful woman that I know Ican be am.
I am reluctant to return to H----- as I don't want to be the child that I was before I got married, and I don't want to keep my husband's last name, since I have outgrown that as well. I consider changing it to McGregor and becoming Victoria McGregor, which would look good on a book jacket, and Tory McGregor, which sounds awesome, and very ethnic to me. Back to my Scottish ancestors, honoring my blood. Another option is Victoria French, my grandmother's last name. Both are options which I find interesting, which I think are good.
I will try on both for the next five months, and make my decision once my divorce is final. I will give it a lot of thought.
Until next time, I am just
ToryLynn
Juliet said it best. A name is just a marker that is chosen for us at birth, something that our parents choose for us, something that we don't really think about, because we think it is out of our control. If I change my name, I will still be the same perfect person that I am. And so, as Juliet requests of Romeo, I may doff my name.
As we grow up, we identify with our names, we become attached to them, for the most part. As a woman gets married, in subservience to her husband, she changes her name to his, allowing him to dominate her nomenclature and taking away a part of her orginal identity, melding herself with him. He does not take her name, and stays the same person, not allowing himself to be subjugated, but instead becoming dominant. It's been this way in our society for at least a thousand years, and women have put up with it. Hell, I've put up with it. I changed my name when I got married. I thought it would bring me closer to my husband. Things change.
I've been thinking a lot about my name, and posted a bit to Facebook about a possible name change, which prompted this post.
Now that I am divorcing, I have a chance to go back to my original name. Actually, it's even drawn up in my divorce papers that I will return to Victoria H----, but I'm not sure about this. My name has become sort of a sticking point for me for as long as I can remember.
I was born Victoria H---- over 35 years ago. My parents decided to call me Vicky, which changed to Vicki when I got to kindergarten and was asked which way I would like to spell my name. (I think I simply asked which letter comes first in the alphabet and decided that was how I would spell my name.) I was Vicki H--- from kindergarten until my sophomore year of high school. As Vicki H----, I was mostly subservient, quiet, kind, polite, not much of a troublemaker... for the most part. I had my fits of teenaged rebellion, but Vicki H---- was who I remained for a very very long time.
In my sophomore year of high school, I grew very rebellious and changed quite a bit. This new identity that I created, this rebellious teenager who wouldn't take shit from anybody was called Tory. When I moved in with my grandmother briefly during my sophomore year, when asked what I would like to be called (Victoria was too formal), I told the teacher's Tory, and for three months, Tory went to Menlo-Atherton high school. Tory H----- was kind of a no nonsense kind of girl. I liked her.
I returned to Stockton and my name, changing it just a little bit to Vicky H----. The addition of the Y did little to change me and I returned to the girl I was. When I became interested in computers, my computer handle was Vixen, or sometimes Vixen Vipere, after a old device that my boyfriend and I had used in our writing. It was short for Vixantrayil, a name that I played with like a toy, a character I had created for a book that we had written together.
When I got married, I took my husband's last name as was tradition and was Vicky L---. We got married in 1998 and I stayed Vicky L--- for at least 7 years. Everybody still called me Vicky, at least family and friends, but I was in college and Vicky just seemed too..childish. Vicky, in my mind, was a cheerleader, a sorority sister, a little girl with pigtails and just wasn't who I was anymore. I attempted to get people to call me Victoria, which seemed much more professional and was the name that was put on all of my degrees. But my friends and family insisted on calling me Vicky... except one person.
With one person, I confident and powerful and I didn't take shit. He made me feel strong. For this person, I was Tory again. He called me Tory for a good five years, and I loved him for the confidence that he seemed to give me. A false confidence, I am sorry to say, for when he pushed me away, all of that confidence broke.
With a little time and healing, I knew that I could not go back to being Vicky again and Victoria didn't quite fit right. It felt a bit big for me, so I took the name Tory back and made it my own. I grew confident, I added my middle name to it and became ToryLynn online (although everybody still called me Tory). I grew into ToryLynn and became strong. I felt confident, I felt powerful, and I felt good finally being who I really wanted to be. I joined writing groups, I became a big part of the writing community on Second Life for a while, and I felt like a better person. I had found my power.
Unfortunately, as I gained my power as ToryLynn, Vicky was being left far behind with my husband. I grew apart from him as I pursued my creativity and my power. I feel bad about doing that, especially today. Now, I am leaving him. It's not like I suddenly stopped loving. It is that I grew up and became a different person.
So, now this new person needs a new name. In some societies, you are given a child name, something that your parents and family call you which is a personal name just for them. When you grow up in this society, you are given a new name by an elder, or are asked to choose your own, something that represents you. This new stage in my life is giving me a chance to choose my name and become a new person. The strong, confident, beautiful woman that I know I
I am reluctant to return to H----- as I don't want to be the child that I was before I got married, and I don't want to keep my husband's last name, since I have outgrown that as well. I consider changing it to McGregor and becoming Victoria McGregor, which would look good on a book jacket, and Tory McGregor, which sounds awesome, and very ethnic to me. Back to my Scottish ancestors, honoring my blood. Another option is Victoria French, my grandmother's last name. Both are options which I find interesting, which I think are good.
I will try on both for the next five months, and make my decision once my divorce is final. I will give it a lot of thought.
Until next time, I am just
ToryLynn
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Episode 47: Taking Care of Myself
I talk about change a lot here, but that is because I feel like I'm changing.. and I am.
I used to be a slob. Ok.. well.. I'm a little bit of a slob still, but I'm not nearly as bad as I used to be. I can actually see the carpet in my apartment, I can actually move around without tripping over something. But, I have also noticed that my slovenly ways are receding from my personal self too.
Showers and long hot baths are something that I have always enjoyed immensely. I used to just jump out, grab my clothes (whatever I was wearing that day) and get dressed quickly and be out the door. My morning routine is beginning to take a bit of a longer time, and I think it is because I'm beginning to respect myself more. Now, when I get out of the shower, I put lotion on, to keep my skin soft. I like the feel of it on newly shaved legs, and the way that the cloth of my pants sort of slides over this newly treated skin. It feels good on my arms and the rest of my body as well, but I notice it most on newly shaved legs. I LOVE Bath and Body Works Sensual Amber. It is my favorite scent (even though today I found an old container of Chocolate Body Butter, so I smell like a chocolate bar yay!) and I have the body wash and the lotion and the triple hydrating body cream as well. So, that makes me smell good.
I used to just throw my hair up in a bun, wet or not, and let it dry that way. It made for some interesting curls.. or very damp hair, when I finally took out the bun at the end of the day. Now, after putting on my lotion, I take the towel off of my hair and actually use the blow dryer. It makes my hair soft and shiny and while it doesn't add any curl (my hair is really really naturally straight) it does give it a lot of shine and a lot less of that horrible fuzziness.
I tend towards comfortable clothes.. jeans and t-shirts, rather than stylish or overly professional, but even with this, as I put on my clothes, I am finding that I choose them much more carefully. I look over what I plan to wear, I pick it out and feel good about my choices. It may not be perfect or what is the most latest or modern thing, but I feel good getting dressed in the morning. I can't wait to weigh a LOT less so that when I do put on clothes, they fit really well, and look stylish. Even in Second Life, where my body is perfect, I tend towards jeans and sweaters. It's just my style (unless I'm being cute, and then it's mini-skirts and thigh high stockings and sweaters... and maybe I'll wear more of that if I get myself down to a good 130 pounds or so. LOL)
Anyway, the gist is that...I feel better about myself. I am respecting myself more and I feel that I am worth taking care of. The wrinkles that are coming in on my face from age are all laugh lines, my body is beginning to be in the best shape I've been in for at least five years, and I feel that with time and effort, I can do just about anything.
On a side note, just a little one, this new self respect.. is making me not want to take shit from my students anymore so I'm really getting annoyed at disrespectful behavior. Looks like I have some behavior modifications to do in my classroom as well.
Off for a glorious day watching movies with my students! (Premonition is a great follow up to irony and ambiguity!)
Have a glorious day!
ToryLynn
I used to be a slob. Ok.. well.. I'm a little bit of a slob still, but I'm not nearly as bad as I used to be. I can actually see the carpet in my apartment, I can actually move around without tripping over something. But, I have also noticed that my slovenly ways are receding from my personal self too.
Showers and long hot baths are something that I have always enjoyed immensely. I used to just jump out, grab my clothes (whatever I was wearing that day) and get dressed quickly and be out the door. My morning routine is beginning to take a bit of a longer time, and I think it is because I'm beginning to respect myself more. Now, when I get out of the shower, I put lotion on, to keep my skin soft. I like the feel of it on newly shaved legs, and the way that the cloth of my pants sort of slides over this newly treated skin. It feels good on my arms and the rest of my body as well, but I notice it most on newly shaved legs. I LOVE Bath and Body Works Sensual Amber. It is my favorite scent (even though today I found an old container of Chocolate Body Butter, so I smell like a chocolate bar yay!) and I have the body wash and the lotion and the triple hydrating body cream as well. So, that makes me smell good.
I used to just throw my hair up in a bun, wet or not, and let it dry that way. It made for some interesting curls.. or very damp hair, when I finally took out the bun at the end of the day. Now, after putting on my lotion, I take the towel off of my hair and actually use the blow dryer. It makes my hair soft and shiny and while it doesn't add any curl (my hair is really really naturally straight) it does give it a lot of shine and a lot less of that horrible fuzziness.
I tend towards comfortable clothes.. jeans and t-shirts, rather than stylish or overly professional, but even with this, as I put on my clothes, I am finding that I choose them much more carefully. I look over what I plan to wear, I pick it out and feel good about my choices. It may not be perfect or what is the most latest or modern thing, but I feel good getting dressed in the morning. I can't wait to weigh a LOT less so that when I do put on clothes, they fit really well, and look stylish. Even in Second Life, where my body is perfect, I tend towards jeans and sweaters. It's just my style (unless I'm being cute, and then it's mini-skirts and thigh high stockings and sweaters... and maybe I'll wear more of that if I get myself down to a good 130 pounds or so. LOL)
Anyway, the gist is that...I feel better about myself. I am respecting myself more and I feel that I am worth taking care of. The wrinkles that are coming in on my face from age are all laugh lines, my body is beginning to be in the best shape I've been in for at least five years, and I feel that with time and effort, I can do just about anything.
On a side note, just a little one, this new self respect.. is making me not want to take shit from my students anymore so I'm really getting annoyed at disrespectful behavior. Looks like I have some behavior modifications to do in my classroom as well.
Off for a glorious day watching movies with my students! (Premonition is a great follow up to irony and ambiguity!)
Have a glorious day!
ToryLynn
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