{"id":2448,"date":"2021-10-04T11:24:22","date_gmt":"2021-10-04T18:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/?p=2448"},"modified":"2021-10-04T11:24:23","modified_gmt":"2021-10-04T18:24:23","slug":"a-week-in-the-life-october-4-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/?p=2448","title":{"rendered":"A Week in the Life: October 4, 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Did you know it’s Fat Bear Week<\/a>? Alaska’s Katmai National Park puts together a bracket of fat bears every year for people to vote on. It’s a lot of fun to get excited about some incredibly fat bears. They’re living the dream. We’re at the end of the bracket now, but it’s not too late to vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other exciting news, we are finally planning a trip to Iceland! I’ve been learning Icelandic for a few years, but wasn’t really ready to plan a vacation. However, I’ve been keeping my eye on these Icelandic knitting tours<\/a> and we finally got one booked. We’re going on the autumn knitting retreat<\/a>, which has some nature sightseeing and cool textile stuff. Kirk doesn’t knit, but he’s happy to go along for the ride. We’re going to do some more traditional sightseeing either before or after the knitting stuff (Kirk’s only requirement is that we see a glacier, so that seems doable). Let me know if you have any Iceland recommendations!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve spent this week trying to take my doctor’s advice about TMJ and that’s kind of been a drag. However, it is hurting less so I guess this is my life now. I’ve been avoiding hard or crunchy foods, which means I’ve converted most of my snacks to things like a tortilla with hummus or more snacking cakes (“snack” is in the name of the book!). I am annoyed that salad is kind of hard to eat or at least more limited now, but Kirk suggested using the peeler shred carrots into not-very-crunchy strips, so I have that going for me. I’ve also been doing some face massage (thanks, people posting youtube videos) and bit of the old alternating ice pack\/heating pad. I’m hoping I can get to a manageable pain level then start introducing some more excitement back into my diet but, for now, pain avoidance is king. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consuming<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Here are some things I’ve recently read, watched, or bought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Books and Other Words<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

My reading habits lately have been pretty erratic. Some days I’m tired from vision therapy exercises and don’t want to read. Others, the kitten is bouncing off the walls and it’s distracting. So I didn’t read any books this week, but I did try to read what turned out to be a really horrible book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Content warning<\/strong> for the next paragraph: eating disorders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I recently found out that there’s an eating disorder called binge eating disorder<\/a>. A podcast I was listening to made an off-hand mention of it and I was like wait a minute, I do\/have done those things. So I checked out a library book about it called The Binge Eating and Compulsive Overeating Workbook. It was pretty fucking bad and I tweeted some examples<\/a>. Maybe a book about eating disorders shouldn’t start by suggesting you calculate your BMI and telling you that being fat is bad? It says that nutrition is confusing and that’s why people are fat. BUT you need to trust yourself. Telling people with eating disorders to trust themselves is crazy bad advice. It’s hard enough grappling with suddenly being like “oh, maybe I do have an eating disorder” and then to have a book be like “you’re confused and stupid, which is why you’re fat,” is not great. I have a lot of thoughts about this, like “why didn’t my doctor ask any follow-up questions when I gained weight instead of suggesting I ‘let myself go’ after getting married?” However, I think I will return to this topic in a future post. For now, just know that this book was trash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, on the internet:<\/p>\n\n\n\n