HJ Waxing Moon

Being pregnant has been a roller coaster. I've been sparing you details, hence the radio silence. One thing I struggled with early on, especially so early in recovery for a restrictive eating disorder, was eating "junk" food. It made me keenly aware how ableist and toxic our modern discussions are about food and food-health connections. I had been struggling already to follow my doctors' orders about eating whatever sounds good, however much of it feels good, whenever I want and need to. After a decade of self-imposed eating restrictions, it was a difficult adjustment. But one I needed to start before I got pregnant. Because I was already getting better at it when I was suddenly thrust into "morning" sickness and all my careful food choices became impossible to manage. I knew my OB was the right one for me when she said, and this IS a direct quote, "I don't care if you live on mashed potatoes and Sprite until the day the baby is born, just eat...

It took two weeks for the hefty restrictions of this candida cleanse to wear me down into the beginnings of a full-on breakdown, stalled only by me recognizing what was happening because it's not my first rodeo. The details of it are personal and largely irrelevant, but the big-picture effects are not. There's no chance I will say this better than others have before me. So-called healthy eating, clean eating, cleanses, dieting, and the like are not accessible to everyone. There are hundreds of essays available across the internet about the privileges of healthy eating, and the lack of access to fresh foods in poverty-stricken areas, communities of color, and by people with disabilities. We know for an unmitigated fact that dieting is bad for us, and leads to malnutrition, unhealthy eating patterns, and can trigger mildly disordered eating into full-blown dysphoria and eating disorders. It is a mark of privilege, of which I'm aware, that I even had the opportunity to try...

It's been... a minute or two since I last posted. As I was telling my family on vacation, there's a lot going on, but none of it is terribly exciting to talk about and even less exciting to hear about. I got into coloring in like actual legit adult coloring books. It's a lot of fun, and definitely some nice stress relief. After June's failed attempt at the candida cleanse, we left it until after our vacation. And then I decided I needed a few days to recuperate before risking too much shock to my body. So, we're getting back at it tomorrow. In reviewing the rules, I discovered that it's a little less restrictive than I'd previously understood it to be. As in, it's not NO NUTS, it's no peanuts, cashews or pistachios but almonds, pecans, and walnuts are fine. It's not quite NO GRAINS, buckwheat and quinoa are still okay in moderation. That makes it quite a bit easier to manage, all things considered. Though what I did discover is that the r...

Mr. Moon is the first to admit that he's scatterbrained and unfocused. And he'll be the first to tell you that if he doesn't have a list, it doesn't get done. However, making lists isn't exactly his strong suit. Thankfully, he married a woman who lives by her love of lists & structure. The hard part is struggling with falling into stuffy old gender roles. Ultimately though, we have to do what's best for each of us and our partnership, utilizing our strengths and working around our weaknesses, even if they're the ones we learned through a society that taught them to us based on our perceived genders. Recognizing where they came from doesn't negate their existence and the reality is that I'm both a lot more organized than him, and have a lot more time to BE organized. With the wedding out of the way and staring down the moving target of daily parenthood, we had a long discussion about priorities and what we want the rest of our lives to look like...

Whew! Our first week back from weddings & vacation, and we're heading right back into the swing of things. We do much better when there's a bit of routine, a bit of organization to our lives, so we're right back to our checklists & menu planning. One thing that concerns me is the new(ish) system we're trying. We have had this sheet for a couple months now, and it got us through the crunch of final wedding planning, but frankly we were ignoring most of our chores by that point and we weren't menu planning at all for most of this year. This system allowed for that, so I'm not sure it's sustainable long-term. But we're going to try it. Because having the things that are the same every day written out for each day made it harder to see what was different about "today." We're cracking down on chores timing. 20 minutes for the "weekly" chores, and no more (not including laundry, of course). Whatever gets done in that tim...

I'm proud to announce the birth of my nibling ! Of course for his personal privacy we will not be posting his name, but in honor of his chubby cheeks, let's call him... Gus Gus.  This is my bio-brother's first kid, but the bestie I adopted as a sister about 18 years ago has three already so I'm old hat at the Aunt thing: Arrive at nap time with noisy toys, chat with Mom until the screaming hurts my ears, run away and let the parents pick up the pieces. That's about it, right? I'm unsurprised at how homesick this has made me. One of my biggest fears with moving far away from my hometown has been proven to be valid. It took me so long to do so because I knew it would mean missing major milestones in my families' lives, and every time it's happened so far has felt like a kick in the stomach for me. On the up side, technology has been progressing such that I now have multiple ways of video chatting with my family members back home. I've Skyped...

The last few months have been one of life's most ambivalent times. You know the ones, where good things are happening and you think you should be feeling guilty being happy when others or even ourselves are hurting over the pain and loss that life brings us. Navigating grief while planning a wedding has been on our minds a lot. We know that Mr. Moon's father's absence in our wedding celebrations will be notable, and trying to find ways to grieve and honor him in such a joyous occasion hasn't been easy. It's not even a situation to which we've found a solution that feel right, yet. But this entire endeavor I think has been good for me. Despite my lack of mental health care at the moment (which is a long story and a rant for another day), I've found myself navigating a lot of intense emotions and stressful situations with more grace and self-love than I really expected to experience. Mr. Moon and I have our spats for sure, but those even haven't been as ...

We have been using outdated checklists since we moved into our new place, just because everything has been so dysfunctional in our lives. I think there is a point at which routine & organizing is impossible, and then a point at which routine & organizing will help you get the rest of the way to where you want to be. There's definitely a tipping point, just as there is with menu planning. I think we've finally hit that tipping point. Finally today I've got our checklists updated and ready to be printed. One of the nice things about living in a place before updating the lists is that we can see what's been missed and make sure to get it on the list. So that's helpful. Bright side, right? I have to tell you though, don't skip getting the shopping list white board up on the wall as soon as you move in. Forgetting that rice vinegar was on the list for over a month was torture when I kept re-discovering for three whole weeks that I was out. Or the day we f...

I was diagnosed with chronic illness at age 17, after 2 solid years of suffering and plenty more before of pain and misery. I don't remember more than 3 days of my life when I wasn't in pain. I spent a lot of time internalizing my fear of making goals and having dreams, because when you can't plan a week ahead, how do you know what next year will bring? How do you plan for decades when you could be crippled with pain an hour from now? Having dreamed so big and fallen so far, I have learned many things. The first and foremost of which is that my home is a sanctuary, even moreso than for the average person. I need a safe, clean, comfortable home to return to at the end of the day, sometimes even the middle of the day. These days, sitting at home usually IS my day. Finding my place in keeping my home, playing the dutiful housewife who can't do much physically, has been hard. It's been allegorical to finding my place in the world at large, as I sit here wondering what...

Mr. Moon has finished unpacking the kitchen, though there are already some rearrangements I want to make when we have the rest of the boxes unpacked. The dining room is still not done, and yes I realize they're the same "room" but for our sanity we needed to check something off. Having the kitchen done means no more eating takeout, which is obviously the financially responsible decision. We're still eating some packaged foods that I would typically make from scratch, but I'm hoping we can wean ourselves off them next month. Right now, we're just being gentle with ourselves and honest about our capabilities. Since Mr. Moon finally caught up on the backlog of dishes, that's been our main focus aside from unpacking: keeping up with the habit of emptying the sink every single night and putting away the dry dishes first thing in the morning. The bedroom is our next priority, since we have a new mattress coming in on Wednesday and must have a path cleared to ...

Well after two weeks of apartment hunting, we are ecstatic to announce that we were approved for an apartment today! It was a bit of a nerve-wracking experience, as we are not the most predictable renters. A year and change of "not really renting" + Mr. Moon's former landlord being no longer of this world + my lack of rental history and crappy credit score + Mr. Moon just starting a new job = skittish landlord. But he approved us and that's all that's important right now. We pick up the keys tomorrow! Now that we have a Place in mind, it's on to strategizing the long-distance move. This is where my organizational skills come in handy, but my lack of body capabilities makes things difficult. Thankfully we have a number of good friends who are caring, strong, and follow directions well so it's just a matter of getting them into the right places at the right times and knowing what I want them to do. Of course, there are some things I want to do better for...

This announcement is a bit sullied, but Mr. Moon and I are ecstatic to announce we will be moving back to Seattle. This of course comes with apartment hunting, not the most exciting of activities and worse yet from 200 miles away. The mister and I may have gotten caught up in a Craigslist scam. There were a couple red flags along the way, which made me ensure I asked a lot of questions, had solid answers for everything, did some research and recon, and didn't reveal too much personal information too soon. Well, we still may have gotten caught. I don't know if there will be any identity theft issues, they didn't get much information. But we did waste two days and a LOT of emotional investment to potentially getting an apartment we really wanted, and now we have to start all over. I AM happy to be able to say that we did not exchange any money. The worst blow right now is to my pride. It's frustrating. I'm grateful to my dad for being another pair of eyes to go ...

There are so many things I want to do that fall under "daily journaling" and I have never been very good at that. I'd like to do a quick, one paragraph/5 bullet points entry on this blog every day about what we did around the homestead, but I'm afraid I would end up losing steam and feeling like a failure. Of course now that I've said that "out loud," it almost feels like failing even more not to even try. But if I've tried something similar a bunch of times with less than stellar results, is it failure to save my energy? I know that I struggle with perfection, and the phrase "do it right or don't do it at all" was oft uttered toward me in my childhood. So at least I come by it honestly! But I think accepting a certain amount of imperfection in our lives IS doing it right. Being able to forgive ourselves as easily as we forgive others is difficult, a lifelong lesson, and one worth learning. I'm hard on myself, and that's why t...

Mr. Moon and I had a fabulous time on vacation! We got to see four beautiful souls get married, reacquainted with some old friends, met some new ones, exhausted ourselves, ate too much junk food, and all-in-all had a marvelous time. Before moving down here, we spent two months driving back and forth, 3 hours at a trip, multiple times a week. It was a wonderful time to reconnect, discuss our goals and dreams and giggles and hopes and sorrows and concerns about anything that came to mind. It was helpful, because it gave us both time to process and strategize. Even the next two months we had plenty of time in the car together, with his job a half-hour or more commute each way. Lately our car trips have become shorter as have our tempers. Our time with just the two of us for company and no chores to be doing has become less frequent, and less time on each trip. I noticed it slipping away and thought it was a blessing, more time to Be Productive. But productivity is not the end-all, be-...

I know I promised a garden update ages ago. I even took pictures! On June 22. Let's see what we have here... Yes, let's start with an epic fail. I have no idea what was supposed to be in this planter. Badly cropped in the original photo, you can see a scrap of the plastic wrap I put over these to try to get some greenhouse effect on my seeds. Fabulous! All nice and warm and cozy inside there. Problem is, there were apparently no drainage holes in these herb planters. Oops. So no drainage + no ability to evaporate + a gap for watering that allowed the rain in = SWAMP BUCKET! We since took a drill to the bottoms of these buckets and added a few drainage holes. Having mud fling out at you from the drill bit? Not as delicious as one might expect. Actually it probably is, if you expect it to be kind of gross. So here in this little failure, you can see again the swampiness, the label that is half washed off from the condensation of the greenhouse canopy, AND the scraggl...

The wedding we went to last week was lovely. Just my luck, lack of sleep and allergies combined to make me absolutely miserable, and we almost didn't stay past the grand entrance. But by the time we'd said our goodbyes, the toasts were starting so we stuck around for that and the first dance. But we made it home safe and sound, no sleeping on the freeway, and got home to rest. With our new lounge area up and running, we've had to set some ground rules. Such as "no video games after 10pm," or else we just end up staying up all night. We may need to set a rule of "no screen time" after 10pm, instead, but we will see how this goes for now. As counterintuitive as it sounds, and contrary to our meal plan, we've been eating through some of our junk food last week so that this week we can focus again on better eating habits. The problem with me driving Mr. Moon around on his job hunt is that even if the job hunting takes only as much time as any job he co...

Spring has been a hard season for me. I started doing physical therapy for my knees, neck, shoulders, and upper back. Trying to keep up with even half of my treatment plan took all the time and energy I had outside of menu planning and keeping up on chores. We finally got the garage 80% converted to our Lounge area, which we are calling the Bat Cave. It is now at about the level of completion of the rest of the house, which is both thrilling and a little depressing. It's been nice to have another place to hang out besides my bedroom and still have some privacy, plus fresh air. And being able to play video games hasn't been bad, either.  Speaking of depression, I'm not sure if it's a Vitamin D issue or just the nature of the disease, and certainly some of it is circumstantial, but Spring was bad for me this year. It's almost May and I never even got a bunch of my seeds started. Now I think I'm going to have to go through my seed stash to very carefully se...

I'm horrible at taking medications regularly. I've tried so many tricks and life hacks and tactics and ultimately they all fail to overcome my subconscious resistance to taking medication every day. I don't even know WHY I'm bad at it! A couple years ago, I got so annoyed by myself and my roommates leaving coats and purses everywhere that was NOT the coat closet that I snapped. The issue was that the coat closet was across the entire house from the door that we used, and no one could be expected to use it. So, I went on Freecycle and got a freestanding wooden coat/hat rack to put by the door we used. Results were instantaneous, and worst case scenario was that if someone dropped their belongings on a chair and came back to find them not there, they knew exactly where to look. It was a revelation. Instead of fighting to do things that I simply wasn't going to do, maybe I could find different ways of doing things that would work better. It seems so simple, really,...

Mr. Moon and I acquired a membership to the local community center. Besides pool tables, ping pong tables, and a cafe, it also has a climbing wall, a pool, a walking track, and the usual exercise equipment. Of course, they also have a full schedule of classes. As a swimmer all through elementary, middle and high school, that's of course what I was most excited to do. The fact that it's the only thing I'm cleared to do thanks to many years of damage on my joints doesn't dampen the excitement factor. Mr. Moon is most excited for Pickle ball, Volleyball, and the water slide. I foresee many hours at the rec center for a while! Of course, with all this extra activity from the past week, our bodies are crying out for calories. Fast calories, easy to digest, and high on the "quick energy" meter. That means that combined with my raging PMS this week, much potato chips, peanut M&M's, and ice cream have been consumed. Can you say, Junk Food Binge!? I...

Mr. Moon and I have been waffling on whether we would spring for gingerbread houses, which is something I've enjoyed doing in the past but wasn't sure we had time to do this year. Eventually we decided just to embrace it, and invited a friend over to join us in making them. She didn't end up being able to make it, and we ended up getting wrapped up in other things, which is how we found ourselves, two days later than we'd planned, sitting down to start decorating at 10pm. But this post isn't truly about the gingerbread houses, as much as it is about dealing with the overindulgence of the season. As is to be expected, decorating candy houses includes a bit of sampling, eating the ugly pieces, quality control, eating the oopsies, and guilt-free snacking. On candy. For someone who hasn't eaten that much sugar in YEARS, suffice it to say by the end I wasn't feeling so hot. By the time we finished cleaning up, I was already dreading the sleeplessness and mornin...