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What strategies do you use to maintain your health and well-being?
First off, I by no means maintain healthy eating habits. I know for a fact that I don’t eat nearly as many vegetables as I should, & I definitely am not drinking enough plain water. However, I try to maintain a balance in my overall health & well-being in other ways.
I spend at least 30 minutes every day going for walks in our neighborhood, or run around & physically play in the backyard with my little bean. This is my main source of daily exercise. Plus, I get a healthy dose of Vitamin-D & fresh air. My little bean loves exploring in our backyard, & I love spending this time teaching her about all the different things in our garden.
If I am idle, listening to music or checking Instagram/YouTube, I try to stay in a standing position, not sitting down. It is very easy for me to get comfortable in one spot & not move for long periods of time. So I would rather stand instead of sit, thus eventually ruining my posture. Besides that, I’d like to believe that standing burns any small amount of calories, which is a win in my book.
On the flip side, I take a daily supplement for my hair, skin & mail health. Yes, this is a vanity supplement more than for body health, but I believe it also improves my mental attitude toward my body-image issues. I haven’t yet seen much improvement in my skin, but my hair definitely sheds a lot less, & my thin finger nails are less prone to cracking & splitting.
I used to take a ton of other daily vitamins & supplements (i.e. all the letter vitamins, Omega-3, women’s multivitamin, etc.), but I stopped taking all those vitamins after learning that they aren’t really boosting my immune system or overall health. As long as I am eating foods with the appropriate nutrients & nutrition, I don’t need to choke down 10 different vitamin/supplement pills the size of a McDonald’s happy meal toy.
There are other ways I maintain my well-being, like taking time for myself. That usually happens during the time my little bean is taking her daily nap. I make myself a second (sometimes third) cup of coffee, grab a sweet snack, then sit down to read a little tabloid celebrity gossip, or I will read a catch up on a few chapters in the current volume of the Japanese manga I am reading.
During this precious time, I will completely zone out & focus on the one thing I had planned & allotted for that time in my schedule. That helps me unwind & relax a little bit before I have to jump right back into mom & housekeeper mode.
These things seem pretty simple, but they fit my life & work for me. I do lots of little things throughout the day, everyday, rather than saving up all of my time & energy to workout at a fitness club or gym once or twice a week. This is more beneficial for my overall health & well-being rather than a few bursts of workouts/exercises. If it is not fully improving my health, at least it is improving my mood. Cheers.
Today’s song of the day:
What is your favorite genre of music?
This quote I found on Pinterest completely describes my musical interests. Also, yes. People still use Pinterest.
I am willing to listen to just about any type of music, even music in languages I don’t understand. I like songs in almost every genre or category, except Gregorian Chanting. That’s where I permanently draw the line. (I do not consider that music in the least.) My dad once bought a Gregorian Chanting CD from a CD subscription catalog (yes, that’s how looong ago it was), & he played it the entire time our family drove from San Francisco to Los Angeles. It was torture, but he wouldn’t allow us to change it. My mom was so irritated after that 7 hour car ride that she forbade my dad from listening to it on the drive home.
I don’t listen to a lot of songs from all genres, but there are a few songs I like from each category. For example, I don’t frequently listen to Country Western music; I listen to it very rarely, but there are a few Shania Twain, Taylor Swift, & Patsy Cline songs I like. I also don’t frequently listen to Reggae music, but I have been known to bop along to Bob Marley’s greatest hits.
Another genre that I do not listen to is Chinese pop, like C-pop or Canto-pop. It’s not that I think the music is bad. The one thing that turns me off from listening to this genre is the fact that all of the songs & their topics/themes sound the same. Every song is a love song, either about unrequited love, lost love, heartache, cute love, or sad love. There is no variety in the song subjects, & most of the songs are ballads. It just feels repetitive to listen to C-pop or Canto-pop music a lot of the time, so I avoid that genre most of the time.
Three of the biggest music genres I listen to the most these days are J-pop, Alternative Rock, & Jazz. I also love listening to other genres relating to these main categories, like: J-rap, Brit-Rock, & Bossa Nova. I used to be a super huge fan of Japanese male idol groups from the talent agency Johnny’s Entertainment, but since most of my favorite groups have either retired, broke up due to public controversy, or have disbanded, I haven’t really payed much attention to the new idol bands.
If you were to ask me which bands are on my repeat playlist, it would be:
I would definitely say that my preferences in music lean towards catchier songs, you know, songs with a catchy melody or chorus to sing along to. I also enjoy songs I can sing & bop along to. I wouldn’t say I have a great singing voice, but it’s at least adequate enough to carry a tune when I sing karaoke with my friends. Also, I have sung karaoke in public more than once & have not yet been booed off stage, so I’d say that counts as me being an okay singer.
I also like electronic music with no lyrics, LoFi ones that I can put on all day while I’m writing or doing house chores. Sometimes I will find a low key LoFi music stream on YouTube & run it in the background on the TV while I am playing with my little bean. She enjoys it as well. At least I think she does. It keeps her focused on playing in one spot & not running around the house like a child strung out on a sugar rush.
That pretty much sums up my taste in music. I could go in depth about every single specific type of music I listen to & which bands from each category I like, but that would take FOREVER! I’d like to end this post with my usual song of the day, but I will insert a playlist instead. Cheers!
Today’s PLAYLIST of the day:
Change in environment freaks me out. It makes me feel anxious & very unsettled. That’s probably why I am a creature of habit. I watch the same TV show episodes & movies over & over again, & don’t really look for new things to watch. I do all of my daily routines in the exact same order every time. I like things to (mostly) always stay the same.
That has also trickled down in to my little bean’s life as well. She eats roughly around the same time everyday, takes her nap around the same time daily, & bathe around the same time before bedtime as well. This has programmed her body to naturally want to eat & sleep around the same times every day. While these habits are good to build structure in my little bean’s life, it also provides a sense of comfort for me as well because I know what to expect each day.
Tomorrow Jian & I have an appointment to take a tour of a potential daycare facility we might want our little bean to start attending. My mom has been hounding pushing us for months & months to send our little bean to daycare. She & Jian have both been pushing the narrative that our little bean needs to learn to interact more with other kids her own age & not stay cooped up in the house all day with no other kids to play with. However, I also know that they want a break from our little bean, so they have time for themselves.
Yes, it is important for our little bean to learn to play with others & interact with kids her own age. She needs to develope her own social skills & become more independent, but I’m terrified to let her go. Sending our little bean to daycare, even if it’s once or twice a week, scares me so much. I am having a very tough time coming to terms with letting her out of my white knuckle grasp.
Our little bean was born during the height of COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. For the past 2 & a half years, she has always stayed by my side, & I was able to use the pandemic as an excuse to delay the inevitable…sending our little bean to daycare or to even hire a babysitter for a couple of hours. Just thinking about it sends alarm bells ringing in my head.
I have not been able to stop overthinking about tomorrow’s appointment. I know we are only going to take a tour of the daycare place. Who knows if they’ll even have availability for our little bean to go there. However, this kind of major change in her life & in mine, it freaks me out, & I don’t know how to cope with my anxiety.
I understand that I cannot keep our little bean locked in our house forever. I will have to let her grow up sooner rather than later. I am just overthinking things. My heart will break seeing her cry & cling to me as I drop her off at her future daycare place. I will also feel super embarrassed to see all the other parents glare/stare at me while my child throws a fit as I drop her off; the whole time I will be thinking internally that the other parents are judging me.
My mind is racing even as I am writing this post. The more I think about it, the more my thoughts become illogical. I think I should stop this post here for now. Until the next post, cheers.
Today’s song of the day:
Rabbits & Foxes 
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