@Hollis100 Just adding my thanks and support to the that already offered by others. You are a remarkable person, but there is a wealth of goodwill here for you.

@juliemouse83 So much wisdom! Thank you so much for your insight and compassion.

Hang in there, folks! This pandemic is the pits!!!

Dear UACers, thanks for all the kind encouragement and support.

@BMcC9 I hope to be back later today with a trick you may or may not have realized to speed up the time needed for tracking even more I repeat many of the same foods, but logging everything ahead of time doesn't work for me -- I tend to change my mind. Yesterday, I bought a tiny paper notebook to carry with me for times when I can't access my phone or laptop. Thanks for your support!

@MadisonMolly2017 Thanks for your list of reasons to remember why we need to put our health and well-being first. Those are all good reminders to keep before us. I'm in agreement with all of them. Your expressions of gratitude suggestion is an especially good practice.

@juliemouse83 Thanks! I often think about you pushing all those patients and heavy beds around and don't know how you do it. Good luck with the work on your home.

I'm with you 100% on meditation. My best days at work are when I practice it no matter what my circumstances, including in crowds of people -- I lose it and pick it up every few minutes all day. I've found meditation to be the most valuable practice of my life and have been practicing it off and on for decades -- when I lose track of it and then come back, I can't imagine why I stopped. My form of meditation combines both awareness and personal prayer. I'm with you on contact with nature, too. I take my lunch hour outside in my car so I can sit down but see the grass and trees (or the Panera river rocks). Nature is a great healer. Everything is part of nature, including all the junk and noise, but it's good to be outside a building and close to the earth.

Practice gratitude. Yesterday, I included expressions of gratitude in my walking meditations at work, so I thank you for that suggestion. I have plenty of things to feel gratitude about. It took away my anger and stress and reconnected me with what's good and real for a few moments.

@Anya_000 Thanks for your support and for the personal story about your work at a hospital. I hope you've fully recovered now -- that's an ordeal to live through. I agree, the physical exhaustion is a huge problem.

@cjane917 Thanks much for the food suggestions, I appreciate it. I don't do well with shakes -- they make me constipated (which might be TMI, sorry, but it is what it is). I do better with non-shake whole foods, like fresh fruit and raw vegetables. The prep is just to put them in a portable container -- and remember to shop.

@readyornot1234 Thanks for your empathy and support, much appreciated!

@RangerRickL @TerriRichardson112 @Chinkiri Thanks also to you three for your kind words. We all have our struggles. The pandemic has thrown unexpected curveballs at everybody, no matter where we live or what we do. It's essential to stop and remember what's important.

@BMcC9 that's an AWESOME idea, wonderful workaround!

@Hollis100 - huh. I’ve never even thought about it that way but it makes total sense. Food is love. From the day we are born.

So true, food is love. I cared for end of life patients, and many reach the point where they can't swallow. It's near impossible to keep families from trying to feed them. They sneak. It's frustrating, because the patients choke and aspirate. But feeding loved ones is a hard impulse to resist, understandable.

However, that other kind of food pushing, sabotaging, not ok. My mom was obese, and every time she'd try to diet, her husband would make her hot chocolate with whipped cream, and bring it to her in bed. He'd make her favorite foods, etc. He was so invested in keeping her overweight. He was a real creep.

HASWLRS wrote: »

@BMcC9, yeah, I am in Oxford county so we will be going to Phase Three as well. This time of year my husband spends so much time at work that our routines will not be enhanced at all by this opening. I must say, more and more people are starting to wear masks at the grocery store (pretty much the only place I go). I have put mine on twice (once was when I HAD to go to Walmart and once in the grocery store). Tillsonburg is a small town, with no active cases of the virus. Now, I have heard, when you go to the nearby city of London that everyone is wearing their masks, which makes sense to me.

DH and I always have ours with us when we go off the end of the property/driveway whether going to the store or going for our evening walk but not planning or picking anything up on the way by. Masks go on in the parking lot before approaching the store entrance. And we only go during low-customer-traffic times. The two other places have click and collect so we don't have to enter. (they bring the tap pad to the car, attached to a hockey stick at one and a selfi-stick at the other)

There are more masks "on the street" downtown than just out walking in our neighborhood, as there is plenty of room here to get out of other people's way when walking, but starting to see more ready to pull up when they get to the store / gourmet ice-cream take-out shop etc.