Yes, I do know. But I guess, can you help me with the many things I can do that do not involve screens here after 6pm? We are living in a small studio apartment. The only books I have are on my ipad. I cannot go walking after dark here in Africa. I have had a decent night's sleep now and feel better this morning. But I really do not know what to do with myself when it is after 6pm, dark, I am emotionally spent and/or cognitively spent.

I would love to sleep, but I can’t

No tv for movies and streaming services wont work here. Never done yoga. And to my husband : You think I dont know my brownies tasted like cake. I already know I should cook them less. He can cook tomorrow but it will taste perfect because he does everything really well, especially cooking. He did say thank you. But I liked the cake.

I am sleepy, but not sleepy.

I am currently reading Crosswick Journals by Madeline L’Engle How to Know a Person by David Brooks Inner Compass by Margaret Shilf Joyfule Surrender by Elizabeth Elliot Just finished Time Management for Mortals and hated it

I have a copy of it at home and pretty much believe everything I wrote and yes, did what I wrote about as well. (Music teacher)

La la la

??? I don't know how I go ahead and go to sleep. That said, I think I am too riled up to go to sleep. Will probably be talking to all of you all night in my head.

My husband is awake and chatting on the phone. We have a one room apartment here.

Yep. Homelessness is a really hard problem, especially when mental illness is involved.

And I keep coming back here right now because I am desperately trying to stay awake.. I need to stay awake for another 45 minutes or so. But even if I stay awake until 9pm, I will probably still wake up at midnight and be up for the rest of the night. But I don't know what else I could do but be here. Actually it is impossible.

I am so sleep deprived I don't know what the plot is. The issue is that I need to build habits particularly when I am home. But unlike Atomic habits I cannot make them automatic because I am not home more than 2 or 3 weeks at a time, so I have to change it. Does that make sense? But she was saying I should build habits for Kenya so I am not on here. I don't know what that habit would be or how I would establish it.

But other than when I am at home alone, I cannot structure my days. They are structured for me.In Kenya: One day I could be tutoring children or teaching a class. Another day I am visiting people in the hospital. Another day I am in the car all day making hospice visits. Another evening I could have a dinner at a permanent missionaries house. And my husband's schedule just depends on what comes in. I could see him I could not. For Honduras, I don't choose exactly. I do what is prescribed. RV is the same. It depends on what is in the area and what my husband wants to do.

Yes, i would. Heck in the old days I created multiple accounts with multiple names so I couldn't get locked out of it. I think the issue is that I am already tired and stressed when I come on here ( I haven't slept much at all in the last week...maybe 3 hours a day if that..couldn't sleep on the airplanes. Got in at 2am, had stuff when we got here immediately....) Reading about drowning migrant children doesn't help. Sort of. But rather I get to talk. I am sure you guys think I am some kind of person who only talks about herself, but I don't do it anywhere else and I seem to be the person that people talk to. When I got my flu shot, the woman told me about how she had lost her husband a month before. I just sat and listened to her talk. We cried together and I prayed for her. People open up like that to me ALL THE TIME. But I really don't have anywhere to express myself... Well, not exactly true. I do in my writing, but you have to be SO SO SO carefule and say only safe stuff so you don't get canceled, only be positive, etc.

OH NO! You didn't derail it at all. We can make it a combined thread now. Big hugs.

See I will put myself in front of a bus not to let someone else down, But if it is just for me. Forget it. The only reason I am walking is because my husband wants to and I do enjoy it when I do it. But if he is out of the country, I never walk. I love the book Atomic Habits, but it doesn't work for me because my life changes constantly. For example, right now in Africa there is not tv. I do have books on my ipad and read them some. But work here starts later and ends earlier. We did go for a walk. But I am through so much earlier than my husband and now he is doing an email to our lawyer. I am too emotionally exhausted from today and haven't adjusted to the time change to really write in the evening, though that is true at home as well. By 5 or 6, I am just done. Or do I build a habit when we are in the RV, though honestly, I don't have any issues because I have no time and he is always with me pretty much. Or do I build a habit when I get home for the 3 weeks and I am in the house alone? That is when I will put the tv on 24/7. (It is NEVER on when hubby is home.) Or do I build the habit when we are in Indiana in an airbnb to see our daughter. And the other big issue is that how do I make it harder. I have a podcast, a newsletter and a blog. All of that is done on my computer and well trained mind is on the computer.

Yeah, I put a 15 minute limit on the website and I ignore it all the time.

Yes, this was me. However, I did teach in a private school when my daughter was in high school. It closed in 2019, and hubby retired in summer of 2019 so I guess we retired together. LOL. The plan was for him to do locum tenems for 1/3 of the year to pay our living expenses, 1/3 of the year do mission work, and 1/3 of the year travel for fun. However, he ended up having to retire for medical reasons as he could not keep up the pace of the practice after a medical issue. Stress and sleep make his issues much worse which his profession is pretty much built on. My husband will never slow down. Even in "retirement," he has a legal pad filled with a daily to-do list and several other bigger to-do lists. Our schedule at home: We both tend to wake up somewhere between 3 and 5 without an alarm, getting up at 4am most mornings. 4-5am He- 50 situps and 50 pushups ( or more, maybe). If we are not going walking for some reason, he rides his stationary bike. He does Bible study with the Logos program, often watches lectures from my seminary I make coffee and unload the dishwasher. I read my Bible and journal. I often work on writing a devotion, newsletter or something that takes a lot of brainpower. 5-7am He is often working on either getting supplies for our mission trips like implants and such. He is head of a council that helps train surgeons in Africa, so he does a lot of work for that. . Sometimes he is researching something like how to add an inverter to the RV or something. I am still working on my writing. Oh and we both eat . at some point, normally when we are doing our Bible studies. We do not eat together. We walk anywhere from 2.5 to 4 miles at least 4 times a week, sometimes more. This time varies as to weather and when the sun comes up. In the summer, we walk at 6:30 am. In the winter it may be 8-8:30 Then it just varies. Are we getting ready for an RV trip? He is sanitizing the water tank, packing wheel bearings, wiring the RV for internet, etc. Are we getting ready for a mission trip? See above. Is it spring or summer? He might mow or bushhog our place, edge, spray the fruit trees, etc. He also practices guitar on a regular basis and does Spanish Duolingo. We typically eat lunch together and that is our big meal of the day. He will grill and is often the one that cooks, though I do as well. Then he goes back to his lists to do other things. We typically eat dinner and watch a show like The Chosen at 6ish. Then he goes back to emails or other chores. I really struggle as I am typically tired and I wander the house. Maybe clean up. But I really don't know what to do with myself. If I try to read, I will fall asleep, but that means I will wake even earlier. We are in bed at 9pm We go to church on Sundays. He is vice-chair of the deacons, so he has meetings with that when he is home. We both go to church on Wednesday afternoons and have dinner and choir practice. I write, declutter, and do housework during the day. Last year we traveled 26 weeks out of the 52 weeks. 10 of those weeks were on mission trips. My husband traveled an additional 4 weeks without me. A couple of weeks were for conferences and/or training. 4 or 5 weeks were for traveling to see our children graduate from seminary or star in a musical or something. A couple of weeks we were at my MIL for the holidays. The rest of the time were RV trips.

I guess I do not understand how you guys managed to fast from the board. I mean if you block it, you just override it. No problem. I have no self-discipline unlike my husband. I SHOULD do a lot of things, but I have no self-discipline. It is why I never started drinking or doing drugs. I know I would never stop. @Ginevra @marbel I admire your self-discipline. I have tried. If I am busy, then it is easy. When I have so much downtime, I cannot help myself.

So sorry @Kassia Will be praying.

I am 56, so not sure if that counts as being older, but definitely have felt panicked by my mortality lately. What I like? No periods. They quit around 50 and I do not miss that AT ALL!!! I've always worn what I wanted regardless of fashion, so no change there. I am enjoying not being responsible for anyone's well being anymore: making sure I did everything "right" raising my children (though some of it was wrong in retrospect. Man I wish there was a checklist that was absolutely correct.), taking care of my dad, husband's grandmother, and then my mom. So many medical decisions and things. Such a weight. Only parent left is my husband's and she is in good health. Her daughters live 5-10 minutes from her, so the bulk of care will not fall to me. So I am enjoying being free. However, I feel the weight of desperately trying to make sure I am not a burden that my husband and/or children need to take care of. I don't know. My death just feels so close. Panic is real. I am not sure what else I enjoy. Life feels way too wide open for me.

Hey, I am curious. I have various sets of silver and yes, I believe most of it is real silver, though some is silver-plated from my grandmother and great grandmother and maybe farther back. It is various mismatched items and some is in a case, others are just in a ziplock bag. I have tons of my dad's what do you call them, they held the cuffs of the sleaves together, and tie pins and various rings and such. They have been sitting in my attic for years because I have no clue what to do with them.

First of all, I love this thread! I will participate when I can when I am home. I have something similar. I think I am going to take it out of the frame and put it in my cedar chest. I will add to the document I made for the cedar chest that explains what the item is and why it means something to me. I cleaned out my cedar chest and took out the old baby/toddle clothes and made a box for each of the kids of their outfits, so that I had room for some stuff I got when I cleaned out mom's house like the navy uniform my grandfather wore in WWII. I realized that they would have no idea what half the stuff in my box was, so I created the document so they would know when I was gone. It has some of my mom's jewelry in it as well.

Yes, absolutely. The first two times my mom went through this, they found them very early on mammograms and after treatment it kept it at bay for over a decade each time. If it is cancer, I will talk to my oncologist though. Because I never completely understood when it came back for the third time with my mom. She had her mammograms every single year and nothing was ever seen. In fact, she didn't have cancer in her breast at all the last time. Instead, she had multiple tumors in her liver and in nearly every single bone. But it was breast cancer??? So it was very advanced stage 4 when they found it despite her seeing a doctor multiple times a year and having that mammogram every year. Oh and yes, both my mom and I have had multiple rounds of genetic testing and have none of them for breast cancer. (At least none they have discovered yet.) So yeah, I can't help feeling like...ok at most, I have maybe 25 years of life left. That's it. But I am 56, so that would probably true anyway. Just makes me feel panicked.

Good idea. I didn't know about this feature.