Month: November 2024

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Building Strength: A Journey of Patience, Progress, and Support

Written October 15, 2024

Hello Dear Readers,

I woke this morning to confirmation that I had put enough effort into my pullups. My subscapular muscles and my biceps were sore. Even last winter, the pull-ups gave me muscle aches, although the aches were much less intense than today. 

I wear gloves my sister gave me last winter to protect my skin. My wife gifted me the pullup platform over a decade ago before I had a brain stroke. Due to the brain stroke, I could not use the machine for several years. My wife did not get rid of it. She adamantly told me that she would use it if I could not use it in the future. She usually gets rid of things we don’t use without hesitation, so this was abnormal behavior for my wife. I thanked her for not getting rid of the machine, regardless.

Because I have been working on muscle exercises, my wife wants to gradually add muscle exercises to her workout curriculum. She is more of a cardio person but says that is not good enough. She runs to keep her body, especially her energy, high. Still, she would get hurt without a proper body to handle her energy. She’s started stretching to be more flexible. Now, she wants to have more muscles. She has so many things she wants to do, and she wants to have a healthy brain to do them at a later age. I know she does not like muscle training as much. So, I want to help and support her in her muscle training.

Despite this soreness, I did another set of exercises before breakfast. I wanted to see how well I would do today. Completing a push-up set was more manageable than yesterday. I could complete more before needing to drop off for a moment.  So, I expect to be at least as sore tomorrow. 

I have loved training my muscles since I was young and did gymnastics. My training is about something other than bulking up muscles, though. You would need strong core muscles to complete some gymnastics routines. 

As we age, our bodies act a little differently. For example, retaining muscles while maintaining them will be easier. I also understand that I have restrictions since my kidneys are compromised. For one, I consume protein like I used to, which hurts me to gain muscles. But I also understand it is not impossible to gain muscles even if I am aged or have compromised kidneys. I need more patience with my body. 

Eventually, my muscles will catch up to what I’m forcing them to do, and the soreness will fade.  It might take a week or two to reach that point, but I’m in no rush.

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Adjusting to Winter: Balancing Workouts, Cold Weather, and Health Challenges

Written October 14, 2024

Hello Dear Readers,

Last night, I decided to start my winter running routine early. The day is getting shorter, and the sun is rising past 6:40 a.m. now. I used to run a little past 8 a.m. to avoid the Nashville heat. The later the sun rises, the chilly the outside temperature is. The coldest temperature of some of the day was below 40F.

I started to shift around my workout schedule so that activities involving going outside are done much later in the day. I began adding pull-ups and push-ups just like before implementing the summer exercise curriculum.  After setting my breakfast bowl and coffee on my desk, 

It had just been a few months since the change, so I decided to do push-ups like I used to. In reality, that is not what happened. I found doing the pullups to be much more complicated than I remember them being the last time I did them. Previously, I remember being able to do a set of 10 without pause, but today I could only manage 4.  I completed 10 in total but had to drop off for a few seconds between bursts of effort. At least the push-up exercise was easy for me to complete.

It was a little disappointing. Now, I wonder how long it will take me to return to where I was before summer. I’ll just have to keep working on them and doing what I can until they’re more accessible. The only way I will do this is to increase the rep per set gradually. 

In summer, I had to do much more chores outside. The chores can be stressful for my body, especially with the steep hill in our backyard. Some days, I didn’t have enough energy to complete both, so I changed my exercise routine. I have kidney conditions, so I get tired much faster than a healthy adult. 

I started adding muscle training to my routine in the last two years. It was better in the first year because my reps and sets for each session were much smaller. 

For next year, I should schedule a little differently so I can still do my muscle training, like push-ups or pull-ups. There are some solutions to this. I could have yard work split not into two days but three days. I could also reduce the days I work out but keep doing them.

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Running Through the Roller Coaster of Temperature Swings

Written October 11, 2024

Hello Dear Readers,

The very chilly morning temperatures look like they’re about to bounce around chaotically over the next week. The weather may rise 10 degrees before dropping 20. We are riding a roller coaster made by some weather machine. I don’t like these swings because they don’t give me time to adapt.

Ever since my brain stroke, I have caused trauma in my hypothalamus, and I have lost control of my body temperature and the thermoregulation system. Our body is supposed to adjust heat by sweating, shivering, or changing blood vessel dilation. Brain stroke also damages the censoring system on my skin so that I can feel both cold and hot at the same time. 

My wife keeps the house temperature at about 65F (18C). She believes that being too hot in the winter or too cold in the summer would break our thermoregulation system. Living in Portland, we hardly used a heating or cooling system. This is not as possible in Nashville, where the weather can be hotter and cold. Since I have a problem adjusting my body temperature, this helps me greatly during hot summers or cold winters. 

I change how I dress to control my temperature by consulting the weather app on my phone. It can be critical when I go running. Sometimes, I do a 10km run and could be outside for over 60 minutes. I started to log my running speed; I noticed that the temperature greatly impacted my running performance. Sometimes, the temperature shifts to 10F while I am running. The volatile temperatures leave me either overdressed or underdressed.

The temperature will not stop me from running unless there is a snowstorm. I hope to run a 10k tomorrow, but I’ll do so after breakfast.  It’s been several months since I’ve eaten breakfast before running, so I’m curious how returning to that schedule will feel.

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Revisiting To Kill a Mockingbird: A Movie Night with a Twist

Written October 13, 2024

Hello Dear Readers,

Today was a nice day. The temperature exceeded 85F, but the wind was still cold, making the temperature relatively comfortable. On a day like this, I just want to sit, relax, and have a lazy day. My wife had a plan for us.

My wife read “To Kill a Mockingbird” this September and wanted to watch the movie. She has been planning to watch the film since last week. 

My wife does not watch movies, TV shows, or YouTube videos, so she rarely suggests this type of activity, such as watching movies. She has trouble sitting still and watching anything for a long time. She watches movies, usually intending to analyze a film. Many people would have popcorn for a movie; my wife has a notepad and water bottle. Since she was, in part, watching the film as an academic exercise, she was more willing to sit through it. I love watching movies, so I am always happy to watch them with her.

I watched this film in high school after we had read and analyzed the book. Rewatching the movie brought back some childhood memories. My wife told me the book is now banned in some parts of the United States. The movie was rated as 18+. Many high school children would not even watch the movie at school. 

After watching the movie, we talked about it. My wife wondered which color suit Atticus (Gregory Peck) was wearing. She thought it was likely gray, but I pointed out tan would also make the color. 

She also talks about the differences between the books. Although we both agree the difference would not change, it was not too significant to the point of killing the author’s intention. She was interested in how they expressed the book’s Southern Gothic part. I, on the other hand, was distracted by how the shadow of Boo was portrayed when Jem was at Boo’s house. My wife said all perceptions are memories of young children; they could not be accurate, and vividly remembering things is primarily memorable to them. 

I think we had a good day overall. We watched a good movie and had a good conversation about it.

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How My Wife’s Literary Journey is Shaping My Writing

Written 10/10/2024

Hello Dear Readers,

Over the last few months, I’ve noticed that my wife’s skill at analyzing literature has dramatically improved. After more than a decade of reading only non-fiction, she unexpectedly ventured into fiction again. Then, last year, she suddenly began to learn how to analyze literature. Along the way, she also started to learn how to write a novel, hoping she could reverse engineer works of literature one day. 

She started rereading classics she read as a teen. As people gain more knowledge and experience, their impressions of novels change drastically. She told me that her reading experience of those novels had shifted. My wife found that experience exciting. She also picked up other classics she had somehow missed reading while young. She talked about the books she had read with me. I’ve read some of her books in the past, so I shared my thoughts with her. We compared our experiences with the stories. 

Whenever something in a book piqued her interest, she researches the topic. All her findings are organized in her digital research notebook. She told me that writing about what she found out and organizing notes were the ways she retained her acquired knowledge. The method works for her. 

She still asks me questions about other books I’ve read, but she tries to understand my interpretations of literature. Our interpretations are often different since we have different knowledge and experience sets. She asked me why I interpret things that way when we have different interpretations. She also finds our differences interesting. I guess anything seems to make her curious. Her curiosity never seems to wane.

Meanwhile, I am writing a novella by taking Brandon Sanderson’s writing courses on YouTube. I’m already in several classes. It amazes me that we can learn anything from YouTube. He formally learned at University, so he gave us many valuable tips on writing. I always thought Sanderson was extremely good at developing his characters. I adore all the characters he has in the Stormlight Archives series. The course intends for people to write a novella by the time you finish the course. My wife told me she would take the course after completing the U.S. citizenship exam. 

I’ve already started working on my novel. My wife is learning literature criticism while she does all her research on books she is reading, taking note of any techniques she finds interesting in them. If I ever complete writing a story draft, I will ask my wife to help me improve by adding her thoughts. With her growing expertise in literature analysis, she can help me turn it into something truly worthwhile.