I never went out last evening to do any shopping ─ I had speculated in yesterday's post that I might get the hike in.
Instead, I watched a Christmas movie (while having some Hong Thong Thai whisky) titled Christmas with a Prince that was released last year.
The female lead was played by actress Kaitlyn Leeb whose "filmography" reveals that I have undoubtedly seen her in other productions on T.V. or film, but she wasn't familiar to me.
The movie was okay, and I did feel the sought-after emotion toward its finish, but its relevance to Christmas was too slight for my liking.
I want a Christmas movie to be very heavy on "Christmas" ─ not to just have "Christmas" as an incidental backdrop.
My younger brother never arrived home until almost 9:30 p.m.; and since I have 9:00 p.m. as his cut-off, I was all prepared to hie myself off to my bedroom for the night.
If he is not home by 9:00 p.m., I deem him too likely to be excessively inebriated and thus not worthwhile consorting with.
Besides, I did not want to have to be sitting up late operating our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box fetching episodes of the T.V. series we follow.
I had felt somewhat tired earlier, but apparently the strong caffeinated beverage I enjoyed after 7:00 p.m. probably staved off chance of easily finding sleep.
I now do not recall how long it took for me to sleep, but I know that I was awake at 11:00 p.m. Fortunately, I was quite comfortable in my bed, so it did not become an ordeal to be just lying there.
I took the opportunity to emerge from my bedroom to micturate, and I could see my brother downstairs in the living room watching T.V. by himself. Both of my stepsons were probably home, too.
I think that I rose around 1:30 a.m. to turn on and log into my computer so that it would be all set for later use ─ I also used the bathroom again. I had slept a little by then.
Upon returning to bed, I slept some more. But by approximately 3:30 a.m. I found myself feeling rested enough that I rose in order to get to work on the day's content assignment for the post I have in production at one of my six hosted websites.
My brother had said yesterday that he was supposed to help some couple he knew move today, and that he had been asked to show up at 9:00 a.m. Since I had failed to go shopping last evening, I hoped to try and get out this morning before he had risen.
The store I wanted to visit is at least a 1¼-mile walk away, and I wanted to try and get there by 8:00 a.m.
Alas, that was never to happen for me. By 7:00 a.m. I had grown far too tired to care to be going anywhere. But at least I had managed to accomplish an 11-minute plank awhile earlier ─ I believe that this is the sixth 11-minute plank I have achieved over the course of the past three or so weeks.
As I have explained before, I do not care to keep monitoring the stopwatch 'app' on my cellphone because it seems to be counterproductive tormenting myself like that. Instead, I try to count as slowly to 500 as I can, usually trying to approximate a count with each inhalation and another count at exhalation.
The point is for each successive count to be slower than the passage of a second. Since 480 seconds equate to eight minutes, if I count slow enough to 500, upon logging back into my cellphone and accessing the stopwatch 'app,' I should find that I am well beyond nine minutes.
Most of those 11-minute planks were achieved because ─ just like this morning ─ I managed to count so very slowly that when I finally checked the stopwatch, I was by then well in excess of 10 minutes.
This morning, I had lasted almost 10½ minutes by the time I accessed the stopwatch, so I had the determination and resolve to hold on until I was in excess of 11 minutes.
Believe me, it is not easy planking for 11 minutes! Heck, I am beginning to feel the strain of a plank even before I have completed one minute.
However, the excruciation experienced with lasting seven or eight minutes is not really any worse than it's going to be at nine, 10, or even 11 minutes.
The problem is entirely in tolerating that excruciation for each successive minute by the time one has held out for those seven or eight minutes.
The strain is unremitting. It doesn't actually grow worse and worse, I find ─ only one's toleration for that strain weakens.
I have given up at 10 minutes ─ even nine minutes ─ when I have checked the stopwatch and discovered that I had counted to 500 far too quickly. The motivation-killing revelation that I was yet well short of 10 minutes has proven to be too great a disappointment to sustain any further effort.
Knowing that I am not nearly done, and that I actually have one or even two more minutes to suffer through to achieve 11 minutes very often utterly defeats me. The pain suddenly makes the end result not worthwhile, and I give up.
Maybe next time, becomes the mindset and justification.
And as often is the case, the "next time" is indeed that time of success and achievement.
This morning, it did occur to me by the time that I hit 11 minutes that it was within my endurance to make it to 12 minutes ─ that would be my new record.
But I just did not care to put up with the strain for that much longer.
The major reason behind that is because 11 minutes are a somewhat awkward target to have. And because holding out for 11 minutes is so difficult for me, I do not want to start believing that I can and should start targeting 12 (or a dozen) minutes ─ which is of course a more rounded target figure than are 11 minutes.
I know me. If I reach 12 minutes, I will thenceforth have that as my new target in the back of my mind each time I plank.
I am not ready for that ─ I actually fear it. Eleven minutes are going to suffice for some while.
Anyway, I returned to bed this morning when I could hear my brother getting up. I think by then it was just after 8:00 a.m.
I slept quite well, and was probably abed for around two hours, if not a little longer.
I never did go shopping, though.
The day was gloomy and somewhat rainy until into the afternoon. By the latter half of the afternoon, the Sun was breaking forth.
It is slight, but I may yet find myself motivated enough to get out to do that shopping. I just hate being out in the public.
Well, it has been quite some time since I have posted any of the photos that my wife took in Italy last year when she went there to visit one of her two sisters.
The family are all Thai, but this particular sister has made Italy her second home. She has a young adult daughter who knows very little Thai, and I expect that the same will hold true for the sister's quite young son.
I am only going to post two photos. They were both taken approximately June 8 (2018) somewhere in Rome.
My wife's digital camera never had its date setting adjusted for the holiday. I don't even know if it had been adjusted following our Pacific Time Zone change earlier that year ─ so I can only accept as approximate the date the camera tagged the photos with in their metadata.
The first photo is a selfie by my wife:
And that ought to do it for today.
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