A 12-day permie challenge

My challenge to myself is a little unusual.  I've had an exceptionally intense year - nursing my husband through his cancer, dealing with extended family, coping with losing him, the funeral, a break in, trying to clear out the farm so I can cope with running it, a mercy mission back to the uk to help a friend look after his dad, falling in love and starting a new relationship, returning home, learning how to live in a long distance relationship, burning out, trying to cut back enough to write my book, battling exhaustion and writers block.  It's time I just stopped, and learned how to pace myself so I can rest adequately, do what really needs to be done, and write enough but not so much that it becomes a burden, and have enough time to pop back to permies and do just a teensy bit of moderating or contributing.  

It's a hard balance and I'm going to use these 12 days to try to learn how to achieve and maintain that balance, instead of bouncing around between all things I want and need to do.  

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:I typically fast between Christmas and New Year. It's a great way to get some autophagy going. First time I did a long fast, my blood pressure plummeted from unhealthy to normal. Since then, I've made it a yearly tradition.

Hmm, this is really interesting to me and I intend to try it in the New Year. I'd never considered it before, but I do have high blood pressure (despite being relatively young, a healthy weight and doing loads of exercise!). It seems am easy thing to try, to see if it makes a difference. Thanks!

Charli Wilson: A few notes of what we have learned about fasting...

If you routinely use caffeine, continue to do so while fasting... There is no point in getting a caffeine-withdrawal headache and them blaming it on fasting. Eliminate any sugar that you might take with the caffeine, but don't stop the caffeine.

The family that taught me how to fast long term eats two eggs each morning while fasting. I tend to follow that pattern, and might also include 5 ounces of steamed parsley. So like a 95% calorie reduction.

Consume some type of electrolytes... People that switch to low-carbohydrate diets often experience "Low-Carb Flu". My best guess is that it is due to an electrolyte imbalance. I make my own electrolyte solution from sea salt, potassium chloride, and Epsom salts.

Drink plenty of water.

Great idea and quite inspiring. Seems like I missed the first few days, nevertheless my plan is to make a dairy free soda bread. I'm supposed to stay away from wheat too, so I'm thinking I'll use All purpose rice flour instead. This will be a fine self-challenge. Thanks for the ideas good Permies folk.
What do you think about this recipe? godairyfree.org/recipes/brown-soda-bread
I began my search here:   thespruceeats.com/wheat-irish-soda-bread
Brian
P.S. Another one of lifes little kickers: Why does gluten look so damn appetizing when you can't digest it?  

Charli Wilson wrote:

I'd never considered it before, but I do have high blood pressure (despite being relatively young, a healthy weight and doing loads of exercise!).

Hi Charli - I know two people who had high blood pressure for no good reason who both turned out to have serious sleep apnea. This too is an easy thing to get tested for and getting treatment made a huge difference for both of them and neither of them had symptoms that shouted out that sleep apnea was an underlying issue.

@Brian Rodgers - many bread recipes don't call for egg, but since you're experimenting, if you have the opportunity to try adding a duck egg (better than a chicken egg from my experience) to displace some of the water, you may find it will help you achieve an enjoyable end product. Good Luck!

Brian Rodgers wrote:
P.S. Another one of lifes little kickers: Why does gluten look so damn appetizing when you can't digest it?  

Brian, my husband has Celiac Disease, so we do a lot of gluten-free cooking and baking. He doesn't have to eat dairy free but I've noticed these days there are more and more recipes that are GF that have tips for making them DF as well.

Weaving begins!

I just finished a draft of my product for the digital market place this morning before my son woke up Took longer than I wanted but great to have a draft done. My wife is going to review and edit it. Should be able to be done with it in time for this challenge! now to find time to draw...

Wow raven, that looks lovely in a warm, fuzzy, comfortable, I'd love it under my feet, sort of way! I have no doubt that having gotten to this step, you will get it finished.

This may seem like a ridiculously small goal, but sometimes it's the small things that take the most ingenuity. We process our own animals at times, and my husband bought two special rubber aprons to make the job a little cleaner/easier. Unfortunately they came with a strap system which is quite unsuitable for quickly putting it on or off depending on where in the sequence we are, not to mention it's clearly "one size fits Omar the tent-maker" (please don't take that as an insult Omar - I appreciate tents, but I'm built more like an English Game Bird than a Brahma). I'm thinking of replacing the existing system with a adjustable clip system (sort of like a backpack), but I messed around with that idea last night and so far the materials I've tried to seem like they'll take too long to adjust. Since the weather requires a variety of layers when processing, the adjustment system has to be simple. If I come up with something that works, I'll post a picture whether I make the deadline or not!

That rug looks AMAZING! Is it fun to make? I remember every time I work with chunky yarn, it's really fun because it takes so much less time to make visible progress.

I have written 17 pages, and am starting to organize it into coherent chapters, hopping back and forth between them as the thoughts come gushing out. I love writing.

Nicole Alderman wrote:That rug looks AMAZING! Is it fun to make? I remember every time I work with chunky yarn, it's really fun because it takes so much less time to make visible progress.

You would think it would be easy, wouldn't you?  

It's interesting how long each pick (pass of the shuttle) takes.  I have to give the weft (the fat yarn) extra room so that it can snake it's way up and down through the warp, otherwise, it stays flat and the warp goes up and down over the wool.  I place each pass with care, then I have to beet several times with the loom, to get it to firmly snuggle into place.  It's actually quite hard on the shoulders.  I can see why they make special looms for this kind of weaving.  I think if I were to do a lot of this (which I might), I would add weight to the loom so it doesn't jump around while I'm working.  

All in all, it's going to take quite a bit longer than I expected.

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:Charli Wilson: A few notes of what we have learned about fasting...

If you routinely use caffeine, continue to do so while fasting... There is no point in getting a caffeine-withdrawal headache and them blaming it on fasting. Eliminate any sugar that you might take with the caffeine, but don't stop the caffeine.

The family that taught me how to fast long term eats two eggs each morning while fasting. I tend to follow that pattern, and might also include 5 ounces of steamed parsley. So like a 95% calorie reduction.

Consume some type of electrolytes... People that switch to low-carbohydrate diets often experience "Low-Carb Flu". My best guess is that it is due to an electrolyte imbalance. I make my own electrolyte solution from sea salt, potassium chloride, and Epsom salts.

Drink plenty of water.

Thanks for your advice Joseph, I shall be giving it a go!

I unrolled some of the cloth so you can see how the texture and colour are coming along.

I'm halfway through my second rug but things have slowed down tremendously as I had a run in with a sheep yesterday.  Well, I say I had the run in, when really she was the one that was running and I was doing my best to be an immobile obstacle that resembled a wall (to stop her from running).  A normal sheep would simply turn into the open passageway we provided for her, and to their credit, the rest of them did.  But Dorabella decided she didn't feel like it and kept going in straight line.  To her defence, she doesn't have great steering and possibly I should have taken this into account.  Anyway, I had a sensation of impact below my knees, the feeling that my legs were floating higher than where my head usually rests, trying to imagine how I can turn this into a roll and painfully aware that I need to get my wrists and ankles out of the way of the fall if I don't want to break something, then an understanding that I was embedded flat on my face in several inches of manure mud and if I didn't want to have my back massaged with hooves I had better get up.  Urgently.  Stop laying there, the ground is quivering with their approach.  Sheep hoves are really loud at ground level.

Anyway, feeling pretty stiff now.  I'm sure it will hurt more tomorrow as it takes a few days for my body to catch up with the pain.  It's not so easy to raise my hand up to the keyboard so I think I'll be spending less time online and conserving my typing for my book.

Weaving is also going to go slower for a while.

Ow! Hot bath and hard cider. The cider doesn't heal but you won't care after a few.

I decided to finally take the risk - I don't social media very well (my humor doesn't translate too good) but, I made a crowdfunding thing to try to get what I need to push dirt and gasify dead-fall on my mountain.

That, and I got the pieces parts for the water-maker.

No reward without the risk they say - passion makes possible the pain.

Here's hope.

Built two new 5x5 foot beds for spring.  Working on improving drainage away from back of house.  Today took down and packed away the Christmas lights.  Lost about six glass beer bottles (empty) in two mishap-.  Started a home beer brew 2 days ago and bubbling well.  And mixed and baked a successful stollen two days before Christmas.

To clear and plant another garden bed. The bed I have in mind is very overgrown but somewhere in there are yacon needing some light...and, since my compost has lots of vege seeds in it, who knows what else I might find in there The bed in question is close to the house so I see it whenever I go out. Even now, I can sense the pleasure I will feel when it looks beautiful again.

One more day left.

The first draft of my cleaning book is finished.  There is a lot of editing to do.  I won't have it published in time.

However, I hope to have the last rug finished tonight and do the finishing touches tomorrow.  So that's on track.

Life and depression have seriously derailed me, but I've decided to keep going working on my list of 9 things, and add three more to get the full twelve.

I did get some of them done:

-started and got a lot of work done in the kitchen
-played a couple of games with the kids
-watched that screwball comedy
-started reading a non-fiction book
-bought some dragon egg supplies
-found my guitar tuner so I can tune it before playing
-started on the Bullet Journal set-up (two actually, one master journal and one travel journal)

Today is the last day for the 2018-19 Holiday season.

Yesterday I spent a great deal of time helping a sheep that was feeling poorly (but she's much brighter today).  No weaving accomplished at all.  

Normally, but the end of the 12-day challenge, I feel rested and recovered from the early December madness.  This year I'm not feeling that at all.  I'm feeling that there is so much to do that I'm failing at and here are some more things I'm not accomplishing.  

Back to work tomorrow for a hectic start to the new year.  

I got new straps on the processing apron, but I also got the evil flu that's hit the area, spent 6 hrs in emerge where they put me on IV fluid and diagnosed pneumonia. I just don't have it in me to fight with cameras and computers, but at least I'm breathing better.

I'll try better next year!

raven ranson wrote: I'm feeling that there is so much to do that I'm failing at and here are some more things I'm not accomplishing.  

There's a lot of that going around lately.

Jay Angler wrote:I got new straps on the processing apron, but I also got the evil flu that's hit the area, spent 6 hrs in emerge where they put me on IV fluid and diagnosed pneumonia. I just don't have it in me to fight with cameras and computers, but at least I'm breathing better.

I'll try better next year!

Hope you're feeling better soon, Jay. I've had pneumonia and it's certainly no picnic. Sending healing thoughts and prayers your way.

Jay Angler wrote:I got new straps on the processing apron, but I also got the evil flu that's hit the area, spent 6 hrs in emerge where they put me on IV fluid and diagnosed pneumonia. I just don't have it in me to fight with cameras and computers, but at least I'm breathing better.

I'll try better next year!

Poor you! Get well soon. X

Feel better soon Jay!

Got my product completed today! So that goal is checked off Technically it won't be available until tomorrow but it is done. Not so sure about getting the drawing done. The power got knocked out in a big windstorm last night and is still out. So my wife, son and I are all at Grandma and Grandpa's place since they still have power (and internet access!). Might just do the drawing this week and "turn it in late"

What a neat challenge! I get 2 weeks off from my full-time job in Dec so I did decide to use it to do something new and challenging-for-me, which was to work through the clutter/mess in our house. When we bought our home, we told the previous owners to leave behind anything they felt like leaving behind, which turned out to be nearly everything. It was great because we are first-time homeowners and were seriously lacking in furniture and general "house stuff" so we saved a ton of money, but it also means that there's two layers of stuff in the house, "ours" and "theirs", and a lot of it is really unnecessary (think old rolls of carpet that needed to be tossed, literally a jigsaw puzzle left in the rain in a pile of clutter on the porch for some reason, jars of mystery powders, etc etc). For the most part we've just ignored the most egregious parts of the house and struggled to clean around the clutter, but over the break I decided to use some of the time to clean things up more seriously. I didn't get all of it done but I made a big dent. I think if I do this again next year, we might actually have a tidy house? The craziest thing is that it wasn't even hard or felt like work. It just involved a lot of strategic puttering around (strategy borrowed from an amazing book that I read, which inspired me to do this). Neither of us are naturally tidy or clean people but I think we might become tidy-clean people. Our house is currently guest-ready despite us not expecting any guests, because it is SO EASY to spot-clean the house without working around the clutter.

I think I will retroactively count this as my 12-day permie challenge if that's okay, even though I completely cheated by starting a few days early!

Molly Kay wrote:Life and depression have seriously derailed me, but I've decided to keep going working on my list of 9 things, and add three more to get the full twelve.

I did get some of them done:

-started and got a lot of work done in the kitchen
-played a couple of games with the kids
-watched that screwball comedy
-started reading a non-fiction book
-bought some dragon egg supplies
-found my guitar tuner so I can tune it before playing
-started on the Bullet Journal set-up (two actually, one master journal and one travel journal)

I LOVE my "bullet journal". I'm a heretic bullet-journalist because I don't use it for scheduling or daily tasks, and it's also ugly as sin because I'm a messy writer and can't draw. But even just the indexing system is ingenious and something I hadn't considered before in a personal notebook. It's basically all of my life and plans in one book, except gardening (because I have a separate planner for that). But I have a spread for soapmaking, for disaster prep, for meal planning, for goals, etc. Anything that I know is important to me but will get lost otherwise goes into the bullet journal. Otherwise there's no chance I would remember that New Zealand spinach discolors when exposed to lye and regular spinach doesn't. :D

I'm cutting it very fine...and probably only slip in because you're behind us in time ! However I'm about to step out the door to clear the garden bed I want tidied up. Thanks for the challenge. My goal wasn't anywhere near as ambitious as some of yours but it's still something I wouldn't have done without the nudge from here.

I've only just seen this topic but what great ideas projects I'm going to do this nest year meanwhile one of my new years resolutions is to buy no clothes this year as I already have enough to last me a life time. I'm also clearing out my wardrobe and either passing items on,  giving to charity shops or making cleaning cloths. Oh and thanks for the fasting tips  I currently fast around five days a week for about 16 hours at a time and its doing me no harm.

This year: Renovations.

I picked a room to improve.  Now it begins!

And here's a thread for my project:  The Loom Room!

Been a rough few months, but I figure a modest challenge couldn't hurt. Might even help with the mid-winter doldrums.

I will work on my novel (yeah, still unfinished, but I did get to work on it again this fall so there's been a little progress), and bake some Christmas cookies before the new year. I've got my birthday coming up soon too so I'll maybe get out of the house--a very worthy goal this time of year.

My challenge is to get the rabbit barn totally cleaned, with a designated work/tool area, and update the roof/loft insulation to help with temperature.
This is actually an ideal time to tackle this, as I work in the education field, so am on holiday break during the 12 days of Christmas; and the weather has been in the upper 50's to low 70's, so it's not too hot or cold to comfortably work out there.

I guess I've decided to make as castle..castle doll house that is! I always wanted to live in a medieval castle, and now I'v made little medieval/fairytale dolls for my daughter and bought her furniture.

Evidently, all this was just my subconcious's prelude to me making a castle. Because, now I'm in the middle of making it! https://permies.com/t/132182/Building-materials-doll-house-castle



Some parents bemoan the fact that they didn't get ballet lessons and so put their kids in ballet. I, evidently, bemoan the fact that I never had a doll house, so I'm making one for my kids!

I love this topic and had already started doing it on my own before I got this link in my dailyish email. Here's what I've done so far:

1. Registered as an Etsy affiliate and outfit my blog http://www.catintheflock.com to reflect the new potential source of semi-passive income, as well as penned a couple of posts using deep links to cool handmade, eco-friendly Etsy finds.

2. Made elderberry syrup for the first time ever using elderberries I grew myself this past year and harvested/froze this fall.

3. Took my second-ever solo hike. The first one was only a couple miles on a suburban nature center's paved trail. This second one was 4 miles with rugged elevation gain on a state park trail further afield for me. Next I try for 5-6 miles, and/or solo hike in the snow.

Here's what I still have to do:

4. Repair a seat cushion by hand for the first time.

5. Clean out the basement, setting up shelving for my growing collection of herbs, seeds, and preserved food. Since I've never lived in any one place longer than 3 years until now, this is the first time I've had to clean and reorganize without boxing things up to move. And the seedsaving, herb storing, and food preservation is all new.

Thanks for bringing up this great topic!

Kc Simmons wrote:My challenge is to get the rabbit barn totally cleaned, with a designated work/tool area, and update the roof/loft insulation to help with temperature.
This is actually an ideal time to tackle this, as I work in the education field, so am on holiday break during the 12 days of Christmas; and the weather has been in the upper 50's to low 70's, so it's not too hot or cold to comfortably work out there.

I love that you have a rabbit barn. That is all.

Lisa Brunette wrote:

This second one was 4 miles with rugged elevation gain on a state park trail further afield for me. Next I try for 5-6 miles, and/or solo hike in the snow.

Your highly unofficial safety committee here. Wilderness etiquette/hiker responsibility strongly urges *all* hikers, but particularly solo hikers to make sure someone knows where your hike starts, ends, and approximate times. We almost lost a couple of young people recently in BC and in the spring almost lost a permie when they missed a few of the basic safety rules. Cell phones often don't work in wilderness areas, particularly if you're not on the trail because you slipped into a ravine when ground you thought was solid, wasn't.
Hiking is awesome, solo hiking is incredibly peaceful, but shit happens. My friend who's in Search and Rescue loves the work, but prefers it to be "rescue" - not "retrieval". That difference can be as simple as how prepared you are, and how quickly you're reported overdue.

This message is for everyone, please keep safe! I get all teary and upset when people get hurt or dead.

This year I'm keeping it very, very simple. I'll keep working on the humor novel until the first draft is actually finished, and I'll set up my bullet journal for 2021.