#at least i did housework/room organizing today i like that

[finalrestingplace]

youtoob knows

[good7luck]

personal, real life

negative, depressing (giving me a headache, at least)

mention of illness, hospital, passing away, etc

asking for your opinion(s)

(more under the cut)

.

This is very personal all of a sudden,

but I'd really appreciate your thoughts on this OTL

I know I cannot provide every single info and the full context, but I did my available best for now.

Summary exists at the end!

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My mother (full housewife) has been ill and currently hospitalized since a while ago (as a part of her medical treatment, not some unexpected emergency), which would last for a month or so.

My father (full worker) has been pretty kind to her overall and helped her with everything needed.

But...he has had a problem with her housework ways, mainly with piles of stuff (which is sure a lot tbh). Recently, he has tried to randomly "organize" things (unbox, see, re/move etc) at home multiple times, which annoyed and stressed her very much everytime.

Now that she's in the hospital and not coming back anytime soon, it seems he decided to take it as a "chance" to re-organize all the stuff piled he didn't like in the house. Even if he's obviously not young in 40s or such, not so healthy, and still needs to go to work almost everyday.

The thing is...he's even going to dispose of her old religion-related books (Buddhism), including mostly given as presents when she was doing some volunteer works at some religious place(s) years ago (maybe some were purchased, idk). It's not that she read them often, but she has saved them there for years for a reason. And yet, today he already took many of them out of the shelf and put them in boxes to remove later (maybe in 2 days). Of course, he did NOT get any permission from her and did NOT tell her any of this at all.

In fact, I, too, have had a problem with a lot of the boxes and things she has purchased but often abandoned for years, even if I understand it's cheaper to buy things a lot on sale at once. I do feel very irritated when I newly find a bunch of food which expired 2021 or such.

Still...I wouldn't carelessly touch her religion-related books or such?? Especially when she's suffering from the illness right now, and the religion has been one of her rare comforts (even long, long before the illness), and the books are basically her private, not his?? I'm not even so religious myself, but this looks quite rude and abusive??

Unfortunately, he sincerely thinks he's ~finally~ doing the "right" job that should've been done long ago, and realistically it's plain impossible to persuade him. He would never listen, much less change his mind because of me (or even her, perhaps).

All I can possibly do is probably to hide her books. But it's quite a lot for my room; he's checking almost all the spots in the house, and no guarantee he wouldn't enter my room. I'm not sure if it would even work tbh, as he seems sooo determined about throwing away "unnecessary" things, and he might notice some are missing idk.

Honestly, I'd like to let her know about what's going on to her books, so that she's at least aware and can make her own choice. But...she's literally sick and very weakened, she had better not get stressed. She's going to take some serious treatment soon, which might or might not succeed. Strictly speaking...the possibility of her passing away in the hospital is not zero. It's surely not a good idea to add more problems there.

Before she got hospitalized, I did tell her that he might dig up the whole house, and she said he wouldn't cuz he should be too busy with his work (especially when she cannot do the housework for him). I was more joking, and she sure didn't take it seriously, but now my concern came true, much worse than I ever imagined.

I'm pretty sure she'd get super angry, no matter WHEN she gets to learn about this. Or, would she actually be able to take it better if she hears about this after coming back home? Cuz it's all "ended" then, after all?

I just...don't understand why he had to make things (even more) complicated and worse. Seriously, it's even not like she's very likely to pass away soon. He didn't mean this for sure, but more than often he doesn't realize how insensitive and impolite his action can be. Her religion books were not so many and so not a real problem, in the first place...

Summary:

My mother (housewife) is currently hospitalized due to her serious illness. My father (worker) is going to dump many of her old religion books (Buddhism) in 2 days, which were already half-boxed today. I could try hiding them in my room at best, which might not succeed. And/or I could contact her and inform her of what happened, which would give her a chance but definitely stress her a lot.

...I feel I'm probably being ridiculous and immature here, but I'm genuinely so stressed about this now, especially when I have my own real life problems to take care of as well OTL Maybe I just wanted to vent idk ^^;; I cannot guarantee I'd strictly follow the poll result or comments, but I'd like to know what other people would do. I appreciate your attentions!

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(sorry this post cannot be reblogged and can be deleted in the future. this post is also not meant for screenshot or such spreading for obvious reasons. thanks for understanding...!)

[stressedlawsecretary]

TODAY'S FOCUS

08.30.23 - It is Wednesday my dudes *screams* which means it's my first of two (2) work from home days for me. Too bad it's gloomy af, chilly, and threatening to rain again.

Work - Not much. Since I'm not at the office I can't do filing, mailing, stuff like that. So I'm stuck pretty much just...emailing if I need to. I probably should get into NYM to close the case files I have sitting but uh. I hate that program and avoid it as much as possible lol.

Background Noise - So uh. Dad's back from Syracuse and rather than the usual YT I'll be trying to get the stuff off the DVR that accumulated during his trip. Today we're doing a...true crime cam sort of series, and American Ninja Warrior (I have like 3 episodes to catch up on.) I did do my usual Philip DeFranco/Charlie news round up, and I want to watch FriendlyJordie's video that's the counterpart to the last scam Coffeezilla covered at some point today but I don't know when that will be. I'll probably (mostly) have AEW on mute in the background because I am poisoned by pro wrestling and still have Dark/Elevation shows to watch.

Studying - We're using this word very loosely today. While I will still probably read whatever press releases the OAG puts out, I am focused more on writing today then I am on reading. I have at least one essay on environmental pollution vs vaccine conspiracies, and one on racism and childhood innocence I'm trying to write. I'm pretty sure I have at least one more wrestling essay started. I might buckle down and write some fiction as well.

Extras - Since I'm at home today, we're going to try to do a massive ton of housework. It's catbox day, and vacuum day, as a standard. I managed to clean the microwave last night but I have to self-clean the oven and do the kitchen floor today as well. Once those are done, I can do some of the nitpicky stuff in my dressing room that has to be done to organize, declutter, and generally just make the room work better for me.

[inquietstrength]

So I don't have a very good relationship with cleaning and organizing. I have ADHD and executive dysfunction. It also doesn;t help that my parents always SCREAMED at me to "STOP BEING SO PIGGY", "Can't you just keep things organized?" I am going to throw EVERYTHING IN YOUR ROOM AWAY NOW if it is not picked up off the FLOOR IN AN HOUR. JUST GET IT DONE!!!! And with cleaning, my father doesn't really clean. He NEVER helps with housework. My mother is the only one who cleans. And my ENTIRE family is RAGING inattentive ADHD. So yeah, DOOM boxes galore, half finished projects and clutter EVERYWHERE is the standard.  My mother will marathon clean on the weekends. Like, every weekend when I go over to the house, she will have spent her entire day cleaning the house from top to bottom in one fell swoop, with my dad doing nothing. And when I mention that I am on vacation, or have a weekend off? Her first response is "Oh! You can get SO MUCH stuff organized and cleaned and done!" I feel like I am not allowed to rest on my weekends or time off.

What does this mean for me? It means I feel absolutely SHITTY and wreaked with guilt when I am not productive on a weekend. Take today for example. I've hurt my shoulder, I slept late and was exhausted so I had a lazy day. However, since I only have Saturday and Sunday, I feel horrible about it. I mean, I did clean the stove, and the shower, and finally scrubbed the cart that holds all my toiletries because an ENTIRE bottle of body wash leaked on it. I also did a load of laundry that is in the wash, and I need to put sheets on my bed. But I still have dishes to put away, the rest of the bathroom to clean, my seasonal clothing to switch out, and my absolute LEAST FAVORITE CHORE VACUUMING. Like, if I could pay someone to vacuum and mop my apartment twice a week, I would consider that money well spent because I hate doing it. You can't listen to music during it. It is repetitive, and boring and hellish. I've rather drop things on my big toe repeatedly.

And I was never really taught how to clean things. Like I am constantly having to google what chemical can clean what surface without damaging it. I was never taught how to break things up into small manageable chunks. I have had good luck with the UnFuck Your Habitat book and blog, which breaks things up into 20 minute chunks with a 10 minute break, but still. It would be nice to have a routine, and actually not be cluttery.

But yeah, fuck cleaning, fuck my relationship to cleaning, and fuck my parents for tying my worth to it...

[p4nkow]

Sometimes you can't make it on your own

Yes, the title came straight out of a U2 song. Yes, second fic in two days. Just a little shorter than the previous one.

Summary: the two men who chased you on the boat and who scared Miss Lana to death broke in the Chateau, nearly catching you and your friends. Now, a few hours later, as you find yourself alone in the messed up house, the distress of the day is felt. And when you start to fall apart, JJ is there to keep your pieces together.

It’s a JJ x reader and it’s just pure fluff, fluff, fluff

Warnings: none, maybe just a little breakdown??

gif not mine so credit to the owner!

The Chateau was a nightmare. Everything had been turned upside down. The drawers had been pulled out, their content thrown on the floor without care. The kitchen cabinets had been emptied – food was everywhere on the floor, along with cans and empty bottles.

The ground was also covered with papers and pictures, spilled from the cabinets which had been thrown to the ground. On your way to the living room, you tried to dodge all the trash, carefully avoiding stepping on those papers.

With shaky hands, you pulled away from your face some strands of hair, trying to figure out where to begin. Lost your thoughts, it took you a few minutes to get organized – with John B being arrested and everything, your friends didn’t really have the time to clean up the Chateau.

But you didn’t want John B to come home and see that mess, reminding him that he’d just been robbed of the few things that he had left of his father.

Carefully avoiding looking at his father’s office, which reminded of you of the fear that you felt just a few hours back, you started cleaning up the place.

First thing first, you tried to pull up all the cabinets that had been shattered to the floor. It was a hard task, considering it was covered in papers and you risked falling and breaking your neck at least seven times.

The last and heaviest cabinet just wouldn’t follow your movements – no matter how hard you tried to pull it up, it just wouldn’t move. Dammit.

After a solid ten minutes, you decided to take care of it later.

It took you forever to get rid of the trash shattered across the ground, and even more to pile up all his father’s documents. Your hands were still shaking, probably because of the shock of the day.

Just a few hours back, those two men who chased you in the boat – and who scared Miss. Lana to death – had stormed in the Chateau, looking for John B. But y’know, John B’s problems were everyone’s problems. Pogue style. You were in all in this together, through thick and thin.

That doesn’t mean that you hadn’t feared for your friends’ lives. Especially for JJ’s. First when the windows wouldn’t open, then in the henhouse – you were scared to death that something could happen to him.

Cleaning up was helping you keep your shit together, but you knew you’d fall apart eventually. You were just trying to hold on as much as you could.

The burden in your heart became heavier when you passed by John B’s father’s office. With shaky hands you grazed the half-shattered doorframe, damaged by a gunshot.

Then your eyes slid all over the room – the shelves had been emptied; all those precious documents stolen. The windows were still closed, painted shut just how you’d left them. Only one was wide open – the one you eventually managed to unlock and from which you escaped towards the henhouse.

When you lowered your gaze to your hands, your fingertips were scratched and vivid red – you probably hurt yourself when you were trying to swing the windows open.

That’s what made you fall apart – those little scratches did nothing but remind you of the distress of the day, the look in JJ’s eyes when the window just wouldn’t open. The fear in his eyes when he met yours; the fear that something might happen to you, that he might lose you.

You felt the urge to lean on to something, so you let your back slide down the wall until you were sitting on the floor, knees pressed to your chest as you tried to control your sobs. As you started to revisit the events of the day, your breath became more and more irregular.

Until your felt warm hands on your back.

An arm was now surrounding your shoulders, and you didn’t even have to look up to know that it was JJ.

“Shh, it’s okay now”, he softly whispered. JJ knew how much you loved when he stroked your hair, so he tried to calm you down by gently touching your y/h/c locks.

When a loud sob escaped your lips, he held you even close to his chest. His chin was placed on your head as he slowly lulled you, trying to soothe you. “I’m here. I’m here, Y/N. Just breathe.” His voice had never been softer.

It was really a few minutes, but it felt like forever when your tears finally stopped falling, leaving you with swollen eyes. JJ held you for the whole time, whispering you reassuring words full of love.

“I’m sorry.” God, even your voice was hoarse. He loosened the hug so you could finally meet his big, blue eyes full of worry.

His lips parted a bit as he gently copped your cheeks, looking at you straight in the eye. “For what?”

You cleared your voice as you raised a hand, placing it on top of his – he didn’t move it from your wet cheek. “I know how much you loved that roaster.”

His features relaxed a bit as he let out a little laugh, slightly shaking his head. “I didn’t even care about that roaster. I just wanted you to be safe.” And the honesty in his voice made your eyes water again.

As you bit your lower lip, JJ gently started to caress your cheek with his thumb. “Things could’ve gone terribly today.”

“But they didn’t”, he immediately replied. “God, I’m glad they didn’t. But you don’t have to worry about anything, baby. I’d do anything to keep you safe.”

“Don’t say that”, you said, frowning.

JJ seemed confused. “It’s the truth.”

“You’re so reckless that you’d end up doing something stupid.”

“Hey, listen to me”, he started as his little smile turned into a frown, too. “I would do anything, anything to keep you safe. D’you hear me? I’m not going anywhere.”

Your voice was just a whisper when you said “They’ll come back. They’ll keep looking for him.”

“Yeah, they will. But they’re not gonna find him. Nothing’s gonna happen to you – to us. You need to trust me on this.” He seemed so desperate to make you listen to him.

JJ’s soft side was reserved to you and to you only. Nobody’d been lucky enough to know that facet of him, and as much as you wanted him to open up more with the rest of the guys, you loved how only you knew how gentle, kind and delicate JJ could be.

When your lips brushed his, the sweetness of his touch left you breathless. Then his hands slowly slid down to your neck, and he started leaving soft and gentle kisses on your wet cheeks, there where your tears had touched your skin.

Either of you moved for the next couple of minutes, as you let his deep breath calm yours. With your cheek pressed against his chest, you could clearly hear his steady heartbeat.

Then JJ broke that silence by saying in a low voice “Just ‘till we don’t solve this, please don’t go out alone. Call me, or call even one of the guys, but please, please do as I say. I need to know you safe.”

His reasoning was sound, so you slowly nodded and added a quiet “’kay”, without saying much more.

Then you pulled away, giving him a little half smile to reassure him before giving a quick look at the room you were in. There were still lots of things to put in order, so you dared to ask him “Care to give me a hand?”

JJ wasn’t really a fan of housework, but when he placed a hand in the back of your head and left a soft kiss on your forehead, you knew he wouldn’t dare to say no. Truth was, JJ would do anything to make you happy. Even doing some housekeeping.

“John B better be thanking us by giving us his spare room.” And when he winked at you, he received nothing but a slap on his arm.

While standing up, you let out a little chuckle and said, “I’ll think of a way to thank you, if you get down to work.”

And JJ’s face told you that he was ready to make that place shine.

[rk800downloading]

“Save me” Chapter 16 - Reader x Connor

Disclaimer: THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR BEING PATIENT WITH ME!! ❤  Pretty close to the end now guys, thank you so much for all of your support - I am so happy this fic has made it this far!! ❤ 

* DISTURBING CONTENT WARNING! * Read at your own discretion!! 

Previous Chapters: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15

“Knock, knock.”

“Who’s there?” You replied, untying your apron.

“Just me.” Tim opened the door, a grin wide across his face. “I know you said you didn’t want any presents for your birthday, but I couldn’t help it.”

“Tim!” A smile broke through your pretend pout as you hopped on your bed, sitting crossed legged. “Thank you.”

He sat down beside you, handing you a small card. “It’s not everyday you turn 18.”

You glanced at Tim once more before carefully opening the envelope. The card itself appeared to be handmade; it was construction paper full of scribbles you weren't exactly sure what of - but you thought you saw at least a dog and cat.  

“Did you draw this?” You asked, giggling.

Tim playfully rolled his eyes, running his fingers through his hair. “I’m good at housework, not drawing.”

You laughed again, taking your time to admire the work he had put into the card before opening it.

Sparkles, and a neat bundle of 100 dollar bills fell out, resting on your lap.

“You’ve been working so hard since we had that talk of moving to Detroit.” Tim placed a comforting hand on your back, gently rubbing. “I knew you were really close to what you needed - and I wanted to help.”

You opened your mouth, words refusing to come. “How-” You looked up, back down, and then up again. “How did you-?”

He pointed to his temple. “It’s pretty easy to pass for a human when you don’t have an LED. I took on a few graveyard shifts, labour jobs - I don’t have to sleep like you do.”

You shoulders began to shake, your eyes feeling hot.

“Tim- I can’t- I don’t- I don’t know what to say or how to repay you-”

“Then don’t say anything.” He grinned again, wiping a tear from your cheek. “Follow your dreams - move to Detroit. That’s all I need.”

---

Deep breath in.

You looked at the orphanage in the distance - how its deteriorating cobblestones begged you to walk down them - begged you to return to the past.

Connor’s fingers reached back from the passenger seat and intertwined themselves with yours.

“Does my hand still calm you,” He smiled, “my love?”

You saw Hank grinning in the rearview mirror. “That’s cute and all, but stop. I still have trauma from seeing you two making out.”

“From when you spied on us at the park?”

“For the last time, I was not spying!”

You smirked at their banter, gaze still lingering on your childhood home.

The moment you stepped out of this car you would be forced to remember what you had tried so desperately to forget. Your childhood, the massacre, Tim - the old Tim, the new GOR. You would have to face it all - but you wouldn’t be alone.

You had Hank, and you had Connor.

You finally let out a deep breath, a bright smile spreading across your face. “What’s the plan?”

“Uh,” Hank froze, caught off guard from your sudden enthusiasm. “Well, what is the plan Connor?”

Connor folded his arms across his chest. “We came here because it was our only lead - we don’t know if Tim is actually at the orphanage, but we should proceed as if he is.” He faced you. “Can you remember the layout of the building?”

You closed your eyes, trying to visualize your childhood home. The memories came easily.

You remembered the orphanage well - every room, every nook and cranny - every secret. If Tim was hiding, you would find him.

“The building is three stories tall with two basements.” You started, speaking confidently. “The main floor is the living room and dining area, everything upstairs is bedrooms, washrooms, and offices. The first basement is the kitchen, and very bottom is laundry.”

Connor nodded, eyes crinkled. “Very thorough. You never cease to amaze.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” Hank turned from the driver’s seat ruffling your hair, before leaning forward on the wheel. “Huge ass orphanage though. What if he escapes before we find him?”

“Tim is badly damaged - combined with the fact that he’s an outdated model means there is a high probability we can sneak up on him so long as we stay quiet.” Connor answered.

“Tactical espionage.” A mischievous look spread across Hank’s face. “I like it.”

Connor’s gaze narrowed for a moment as he gave Hank a look. ”I propose we go to the kitchen first.”

“You think he’s cooking red ice in an orphanage where he murdered children?” Hank grimaced. “Seems about right.”

“The blood red ice never stopped circulating even after authorities took control of the warehouse and apartments.” Connor brought a fist to his mouth, expression pensive. “Making red ice would be simple for an android - basic chemistry, like making acetaminophen - aspirin. Other than ingredients-”

“Oh, he’s got plenty of those.” Hank coughed.

“Other than ingredients,” Connor ignored the remark, “All he would need is a vent and a heat source.”

“A vent…?” You bit your lip. “Why?”

“An organic solvent is needed in order to dissolve all the ingredients - a common one is gasoline.”

Hank scoffed. “Oh, he needs a vent so he doesn’t blow himself up from gas fumes. Too bad he thought that far ahead.”

Connor faced Hank, tilting his head. “Your retorts are top notch today.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Hank threw his arms in the air. “I’m a little on edge right now.”

You gave the man’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze before returning to the matter. “The kitchen would be perfect. It’s large, meant to be able to cook for all the children at once. There’s a huge vent and even a natural gas stove.”

“Then it’s decided.” Connor grabbed the door’s handle, pausing for a moment. “You’ll have to lead us though.”

There was no hesitation in your mind. Only focus, determination - you wouldn’t let your old feelings get in the way.

No matter what.

You exited the car, opening Connor’s door and offering your hand to him. “Leave it to me! I’ve got this.”

His eyes were soft as he accepted your gesture. He stepped out of the car, pressing your body into his the way you taught him. “I know you do.”

“But one last thing before we take this show on the road.” Hank walked around the car to meet you. The corner of his mouth tugged into a apologetic grin as he grabbed your hands, placing the cool metal of a gun in them. “Do you know how to use one?”

“No...” You muttered quietly, staring at the foreign object. It weighed heavily in your fingers, but lighter than you guessed the weight of killing someone would feel.

“I’m sorry,” Hank’s voice was somber, “but I need to know you can protect yourself incase something happens.” He adjusted your body into a firing stance; your dominant arm locked, grip firmly around the gun, other arm supporting.

“This is the safety.” Hank spoke, clicking a little metal piece down. “The gun is now live and pulling the trigger will fire a bullet.” He quickly flicked the piece back up. “Make sure this is always up unless you’re ready to potentially take a life.”

Hank’s words settled deep in your chest as he pulled a small holster from his coat pocket, clicking it around your hips. He placed the gun in its rightful spot, locking it in with a snap of a button.

His blue eyes pierced you. “Don’t take it out unless you absolutely have to, okay kid?”

You nodded, gulping down the thick feeling in your throat. You hoped you wouldn’t have to.

“Okay.” Connor spoke, his gaze steeled as he looked you. He uncrossed his arms, fists forming at his sides. “Let’s go.”

---

Thorns of overgrown rose bushes scraped at your legs; their blood colored blossoms led you -  winding and turning until you reached a familiar gate, ‘Rosewater Orphanage’ was painted on wood above.

“Holy shit,” Hank murmured as he gazed past the metal bars.

The orphanage was even larger than you remembered. The shadow of its massive presence loomed over you, swallowing you whole. Ivy had grown up the sides of its brick wall exterior like a parasite; it wrapped itself around the pillars of the front door’s awning, framing the dozens of dirty, neglected windows. Cracks had worked themselves through the worn cement of the walkway, up and across the remnants of children’s paintings that time and rain had forgotten to wash away.

Connor opened the gate, his footsteps soundless as he led you to the double doored entrance. He pulled a gun from an underarm holster that his leather jacket had concealed. With a small nod, Connor pushed open the door.

It opened with ease, groaning as the sickening smell of iron welcomed you.

The click of Hank’s flashlight revealed a nightmare. Blood had soaked into the wood of the foyer - staining, dirtying, ruining whatever blissful reminiscence you had left. Memories of children snapped under your feet as you proceeded into the rust colored room, the feeling of nausea growing with each crunch.    

“They never cleaned up the fucking crime scene after?” Hank whispered angrily, pulling his shirt to cover his nose.

“The records say they did.” Connor paused, his LED spinning red. “I can see some faint traces of dried thirium on the floor - an android was involved.”

Hank screwed up his face. “Were we still doubting that this is Tim’s faul-”

“No - there’s no one else it could have been.” You kept your voice low and sharp as you tiptoed around the decay. “Follow me.”

The further you walked into the orphanage, the darker it became. An oppressive weight pressed against your lungs, threatening to suffocate you. You kept your eyes forward, leaving the dust and dried blood in your peripherals. You knew that if you looked too much - if you thought too much - your numb facade would crumble.

You crept into the dining room, the stench of rot even stronger than the blood; the carpet had become molded, the remains of spilt food and drink saturating it. Curtains were shredded and sullied, china dish cabinets knocked down. You almost tripped over the steak knives that had been stabbed into the floorboards.

The door to the basement was a thick metal, blue and tired. You pressed lightly against it, and then harder - It wouldn’t budge.

Hank sighed softly. “Classic.”

Connor attempted to fiddle with the door, hands dropping in defeat. “Is there another way?”

“No.” You bit down, forcing your brain to think. “But there could be a key in George’s office on the first floor. He always had spares of the important keys.”

“We’d better try it.” Hank frowned as his light illuminated scattered dolls - frayed and abandoned. “I wanna get out of here as soon as possible.”

“Me too.” Your voice shook as you tore your eyes away from the cracked porcelain faces that you once adored. You turned, footsteps swift as you headed back to the entrance and up its grand staircase.

At the end of the first floor’s hallway was a single, lonely door. You put your fingers around the handle.

You hoped that when you opened the door, you would see George sitting at his dignified oak desk. You hoped that he would pull down his round spectacles, and smile - saying your name when he realized who had come in. He would ask if you’d gotten in trouble again, and you’d say that you hadn’t - you just needed help with a crossword.

But that was in the past,

and this was now.

You opened the door, and all you saw was the desk - a desolate desk, an empty room lacking an owner. You walked forward, drawing a line through its dust with your hand, finding once forbidden drawers. You always wanted to figure out what secrets were held within its wood, but never had the cha-

QUACK, QUACK, QUACK - DUCKS GO QUACK!

A loud noise rang throughout the room, draining the blood from your face. You spun around to find Hank’s foot atop a blinking, blaring toy.

MOO, MOO, MOO - COWS GO MOO!

Connor rushed for the toy, muzzling the noise in his jacket.

BAH, BAH, BAH - SHEEPS GO B-

You heard a crack, and then complete silence. Connor pulled the toy from his jacket, a plastic farmer decapitated in his hands.

Your heartbeat echoed through your ears.

Your stomach was in your throat.

You shakily looked to Connor, who stood frozen in place other than the hand that halted you and Hank from moving.

Seconds felt like an eternity as you waited for a signal.

And you didn’t dare to breathe.

You only strained to hear - searching for a creak, or a rustle of clothes - but all you could hear was the static in your head, getting louder and louder.

It was deafening,

unbearable.  

And then finally, Connor spoke.

“If Tim was here, he definitely heard that.” He lowered his hand, gently placing the toy to the ground.

You collapsed, legs weak from the adrenaline.

“But I didn’t hear anything after the noise - no movements.”

“Fuck me! I’m sorry.” Hank exhaled, resting his hands on his knees. “That scared the shit out of me.”

You held a hand over your chest, finally managing some words. “You didn’t hear any movement? Is Tim even here?”

“I don’t know.” Connor kept his voice hushed. “Stay quiet though - we can’t let down our guard.”

“Right.” Hank heaved in one last deep breath before standing upright. “And I’ll make sure to watch where I fucking step.”

“Probably a good idea.” You muttered jokingly, using the desk as a support to help you stand. You began rummaging through the keys, reading their IDs aloud. “Laundry, laundry chutes, electrical, washrooms one, two and three, bedrooms…”

“But no basement, right?” Hank smirked.

You ran your fingers through the keys again, carefully, attentively - shaking your head no at the results.

Hank clicked his tongue, a look of irritation spreading across his face. “So, what's our new plan? Have Connor shoot off the lock again?”

“I already considered the possibility.” Connor leaned against a wall. “I inspected the door earlier. The hinges aren’t exposed and the lock is a deadbolt - I preconstructed 567 scenarios before deciding the thought was useless.”

Hank spat. “Fuck.”

“Wait.” Your eyes gazed over the keys once more, an idea formulating in your head. “The laundry chute…”

“What?” Connor’s LED spun red as his brows furrowed.

“The laundry chute!” You looked up from the desk, pointing to a small door on the wall. “There’s a cupboard like this for laundry on each floor that all connect to the same chute - and I know that I’m small enough to climb down it. I could climb down to the kitchen and unlock the door.”

You could see both Hank and Connor tense up, hesitating.

“That’s a little fucking dangerous, don’t you think?” Hank’s jaw clenched. “What if you fell?”

“I’ve actually climbed it before, as a child - part of the reason why the chutes have locks on them now.” You admitted unwillingly.

“And what if Tim is there, in the kitchen?” Connor’s temple hadn’t stopped flashing red. “It is physically impossible for Hank or I to come down that chute with you.”

“The chute cupboard is practically right beside the basement door - and you said it yourself that there’s been no signs of movement! Tim might not even be there.” You refused to back down from Connor’s glare. “I can do this. Let me help.”

Hank placed a hand on your arm. “It’s not about that - we just don’t want to put you at risk.”

“How many times have you put your life at risk for the people you love?” The words slipped out of your mouth - your feelings exposing you. “Give me the chance. I’ve been a coward since this whole thing started - but we need to catch Tim, for my sake, for yours and Connor’s - to make Cole proud, to avenge my family and the exploited androids - the android that gave his life for me!”

You clutched the key tight in your hand.

“Wait for me by the basement door, and come in as soon as I open it.” Your voice was just above a whisper. “Let me do this.”

You could see their eyes wavering, confliction painting itself across their faces.

“If Tim is there I’ll just do a little...” A small smile formed at your lips. “Tactical espionage.”

“That is not reassuring.” Connor scoffed at your bad joke.

You held up the key again, eyes pleading. “Well?”

“If you do encounter him…” Hank stood defeatedly, reaching out his pinkie finger to you. “Promise you won’t try to be a hero - promise you’ll just run to the door and unlock it.”

You smiled again, wrapping your pinkie finger tightly around his.

“I promise.”

Next Chapter: CHAPTER 17

[amuhav]

OTP Meme - I’m taking @dandylion240 ‘s invitation to tag myself, and of course, I’m doing my sweet, difficult boys, Loch and Asher ;P

Rules: ‘Answer the questions from your OC otp’s point of view and tag as many people as you want. You can do as many couples as you want it could be an otp you intend to get together but hasn’t got together yet or whatever haha… I’m just nosy and wanna know about your oc’s so tag me if you want! You can be as creative as you want, make a story out of it, whatever do it however you want, just answer the questions simply it’s up to you!!’

1. How did you two meet? Asher: Back in school. Loch: I think we had quite a few classes together? Asher: Yeah, you were completely oblivious of me to start with though. Loch: *frowns* Mm, I still don't know how.

2. Who is the most jealous of you two? Loch: *rubs back of neck awkwardly* Asher: ...Okay, fine, it's me!

3. What are your three favourite physical things about your partner? Loch: *cough* Asher: Seriously? *sigh* His eyes, his hands, and his smile. Loch: Uh, same? Asher: *shakes his head and rolls his eyes, but turns his face to secretly smile*

4. Who’s more likely to be running late? Asher: Oh, Loch, every time. Loch: Hey, wait! Asher: Am I wrong? Loch: ...Probably not.

5. Who is the most organized and who is the messiest? Loch: ... Asher: So, Loch- Loch: In my defence, I know where everything I need is! Asher: *sigh* Sure, but no one else does. Loch leaves chaos in his wake. And never tidies up after himself. Loch: That's an exaggeration. Asher: It's really not.

6. Who is the bigger flirt? (flirts the most?) Asher: Probably Loch. Loch: Yeah, you're more romantic. Though it was definitely you to start with. Asher: Well,��someone had to take the initiative.

7. Who does the most cooking? Asher: Me, of course. Loch: Again, in my defence, I was never taught growing up. Asher: You were spoilt, you mean.

8. How do you feel about kids and do you want them? If so how many? Loch: Thank you, next. Asher: *sigh* *mumbles* We will have to discuss this one day. Loch: Not today.

9. Who wears the pants in the relationship? *Looks at each other uncomfortably* Asher: ...Well, me now. Loch: For the better. Asher: *sigh* I think it's fair to say Loch used to run things, or more accurately, his anxiety did. Loch: *A little ashamed* Yeah. Asher: That said, if he seriously puts his foot down over something reasonable, then he tends to get his way.

10. What’s your partner’s least favourite housework task? Asher: *scoffs* All of them. Loch: Hey! I... Look, I earn most of the money, so it pretty much evens out fairly. Asher: It still wouldn't kill you to at least put your clothes in the wash basket rather than the floordrobe. Loch: ...Fine. Asher: You're supposed to answer the question too. Loch: Oh, uh... Laundry? Asher: *sigh* Probably, yeah.

11. What was the first thing you noticed about each other? Asher: His eyes, and the way he seemed to take in every single detail around him. Loch: I was gonna say your eyes too, but just how strikingly pale blue they were. And how you always seemed nervous. Asher: Around you, yeah, because I had a huge fucking crush on you. Loch: Yeah, I only figured that out after you asked me out. My one blind spot.

12. What does your partner do that pisses you off? Loch: Jeez, that could be a dangerous question. Asher: *sigh* Nowadays, I wouldn't say there was much Loch does that pisses me off as such. Anything that does come up we generally talk out. Loch: *quietly* Asher's jealousy has gotten a bit much sometimes but... *looks at Asher uncomfortably* ...We're working on it.

13. Where’s the craziest/weirdest place you’ve ever had sex? Loch: *snickers* Asher: Oh, shut up. Loch: Sorry. You answer then. Asher: *sigh* I suppose the empty music room back in school. Loch: *frowns* Huh... that wasn't what I was thinking. I'd all but forgotten that... Asher: We nearly got caught. Loch: Because you knocked over that set of cymbals. Asher: That was you, and it was the entire drum kit you knocked over. ...Where were you thinking of then? Loch: *smirks* I was thinking of my workstation in the basement. Asher: Oh, when you made us hide inside that egg-shaped machine... thing? Because someone was coming downstairs? Loch: Yeah, Nanna was coming down to store some wine. Asher: But she didn't actually come into your part of the basement. Loch: She could have, though. Asher: *rolls eyes* Sure, totally wasn't a ploy to trap me in an enclosed space. Loch: You initiated though! Asher: Well, yeah. We were hiding in an enclosed space...

14. Do you know your partner’s love language, if yes what is it? Asher: I've never heard of this before. But I do know Loch needs to be reminded everything is okay sometimes, just simple things like hearing 'I love you'. Loch: Ash is a physical affection guy. Cuddles and holding hands especially. 

15. Where do you see the 2 of you in 10 years? *Look to each other* Loch: Together still, definitely. Asher: Married? Loch: *chuckles* Maybe.

[justanoutlawfic]

The Guardians: What Happened?

Summary: Robin tells Regina what happened the night of their blind date.

Mentions of alcoholism and infant death in this chapter.

Also on AO3

Regina had to admit, it was a lot harder to hate Robin now that they were living under one roof. Before Neal and Emma died, they were equal opportunity jerks to one another. They’d give jabs as good as they got, sometimes it’d raise to bickering but never more. Regina never felt guilty about it because they could still be in the same room when the time called for it and it wasn’t like he didn’t give what he put out.

 Since they moved in together, though, he was tame. He did his fair share with Henry and the housework. He stuck to the schedule they had created to give them both a little free time. Once, Regina had even needed him to take Henry last minute when she had an emergency with one of her patients and he had been more than happy to oblige. She had been expecting at least a little fight, but there wasn’t so much as an exaggerated eye roll.

 Regina definitely came off looking like the asshole and she didn’t like it. She realized that she had spent so long hating him, for one bad date. Since then, he hadn’t done anything to make her life more challenging. He was adjusting to their situation and trying to be civil. Regina was the one that couldn’t cope.

 So, she did her best to play nice. She was naturally sarcastic, she got that from her mother’s side, but their jabs were more playful than anything. Regina even found herself smiling around him some days. One night, they even gave Henry a bath together.

 After he was tucked into bed, Regina decided to broach a subject she hadn’t wanted to discuss with him when she wasn’t sure where they were as co-parents. Now, it just felt wrong to leave him out of it.

 “Henry’s birthday is in a month,” she said.

 Robin blinked a couple of times, obviously caught a bit off guard. She couldn’t blame him. That meant that it had been a whole month since Emma and Neal died. One month since they had begun their co-parenting. Between taking turns with a fussy baby-Henry had reverted from sleeping through the night since the accident-and work, time had really flown by.

 “It’s not that I forgot, just…”

“With everything going on, I haven’t had time to think about it myself.” Regina bit her lip. “Emma had been planning this backyard thing. Neal was hiring a bouncy castle, they were going to have Granny’s Diner cater. Emma had told me about it, but I forgot until the landline got a call today about the castle.” She paused for a moment. “I told them to go ahead with it. I hope that’s okay.”

“Henry should have a good first birthday, even if we’re still adjusting to this whole parenting thing.”

“Great. I’ll drop off the invitations tomorrow.”

“Let me guess, Emma had those all worked out too?”

“She wasn’t very organized except for when it came to him.”

“Neal was the same way.”

 An awkward silence filled them. They didn’t talk about much outside Henry, especially not about the friends they lost. As a psychologist, Regina knew that was bad. Out of everyone, they were the only ones that knew how the other felt. They had lost two people in their lives that had been their family. Neither had much in the way biological wise. Robin’s parents were dead and Regina wasn’t close to her mother and sister. Cora hadn’t even called Regina since the funeral. They had lost two members of their chosen family and it hurt, more than they could ever describe.

 Regina chose not to say anything about that, instead she brought up the question that she had in her mind for the past 6 years. “Why were you so weird on our date?”

Robin laughed, shaking his head. “Seriously?”

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently. You’ve been so great and I’ve been well, a jerk to put it kindly.” She folded her arms over her chest. “For the best interest of Henry, we have to move forward and try to get along better.”

“Is that your psych speech?”

“If it was my psych speech, you’d pay me by the hour.”

“Touché.”

 Regina gave him a look as if to say go on and Robin sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. He gestured for her to sit on the couch and followed suit once she did.

 “You know I was married before, right? To Marian?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Well, during our marriage, we found out we were having a baby. A little girl. We were so excited.”

“You have a child?”

“We had a child,” Robin corrected. “When Marian was about 20 weeks, we went in for a scan and found out that the baby didn’t have a brain.’

Regina felt her stomach drop and suddenly she felt guilty for bringing this up. “Robin…”

“Please, let me continue. They gave us a choice. Carry to term or deliver, either way it wouldn’t matter because she wouldn’t live longer than a few hours.”

 Regina’s hand flew over her mouth and Robin looked as though he wanted to break, but he pressed on.

 “Anyway,” he waved off the emotion on his face. “After that, things were hard. Marian and I didn’t have the best of marriages to begin with. We loved each other sure, but there was always something missing. I had to go on the road for work after that and the more I called Marian, the more times she’d answer drunk. She swore she never had a problem. Eventually, things just got too had and we agreed it’d be best to divorce. Still, we remained friends. We were the only ones that knew what it was like to go through what we did.”

“Of course,” Regina whispered.

“So, Marian would still call me every so often, drunk off her ass. I tried to get her help, as did our other friends and her family. We couldn’t convince her. The night we went out…it was our daughter’s birthday.”

“Oh my God.”

“I was fine, I don’t like being alone on it, so I figured our date would be a good way to take my mind off of it. Marian chose to get drunk and she was the one that was blowing up my phone that night.”

Regina frowned. “Why didn’t you just tell me that?”

“Because it’s a long, personal story and not exactly first date material. I thought if you knew my ex was still so close to me, it’d be a turn off. Would it have been?”

Regina squirmed a bit in her seat. “Well…I don’t know.”

 That was honest. Leopold had been obsessed with his dead wife, but that was a bit different. She had never been int hat situation before. A part of her wanted to think she’d be okay with it, but the other knew she’d probably want to wait to be in a relationship with Robin until Marian wasn’t so dependent on him.

 Robin nodded, as if to say he had made his point. “Besides, after that you and I blew up about something else all-together. Neal tried to tell me to tell you after, but I just didn’t see the point. Even if I did, we both said some pretty dumb things that night.”

Regina winced at the memory. “Yeah, we did.” There was another moment of silence between the two of them. “Is Marian better now?”

“Yes. After that night, I got firm with her. It took some time, but she finally got some help. She’s been sober 5 years now. Remarried, with a kid of her own.”

“That’s great.”

“It is.”

“Given what you’ve gone through…I’m really surprised you agreed to take on Henry with me,”

“It wasn’t easy, but I realized that he needed me and maybe I needed him too.”

“He adores you, Robin. His eyes light up whenever you walk into a room.”

“They do not.”

“They do.”

Robin softly smiled. “He’s pretty amazing.”

 Regina’s eyes flickered to the family portrait of Emma, Neal and Henry on the wall. It had been taken when he was just a few weeks old. They were both smiling down at their son as if he hung the moon. God, they had loved him so much.

“What are we going to tell him one day? About them?”

“That they loved him and yet were crazy enough to leave him to us.”

Regina rolled her eyes. Their sappy moment was truly over. “I’m serious.”

“I don’t know. You’re the child psychologist. What would you tell yourself if you were a patient?”

“To be honest. To talk about them, but not be obsessive so he wouldn’t think that we didn’t want him.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do.”

 Regina looked back at the photo. She realized in that moment, that she and Robin shared something else. Given his own past and the loss of his daughter, he had admitted it had been hard to take on Henry. It had been for Regina too. Not the day to day aspect, but the fact that she was going to be his mother. She couldn’t just be “Aunt Regina”, no, she was now his mom. She was taking Emma’s place. He’d never remember his biological parents, just Regina and Robin.

 How was that at all fair?

[blastron01]

Ascendance of a Bookworm – 058

Reporting to Lutz

The day after the family council, everyone was a little bit awkward around each other. My father's smile looked a little bit lonely, my mother hugged me over and over throughout the day, and Tuuli kept suddenly bursting into tears. However, as the days pass, everything starts gradually returning to the same old day-to-day life that we'd been living before.

"You don't have to do that, Maïne. I've got it," says Tuuli. "Huh? I've got to do it! Aren't you the one who told me that I'll never learn how to do something unless I do it myself?"

Tuuli, who had previously been encouraging me to help out more so that I could work on building my own independence, thoughtlessly takes over my work. It's unmistakeable that she's taking even more special care of me than she already was before.

I'm woken up by Tuuli's excited shout. "Whoa, it cleared up! We have to go pick paru today!"

The sky is still dim and gloomy, but it seems like there isn't much snow falling at all. Tuuli had seen a little bit of light coming in through the window and thrown it open wide to check the weather, letting the freezing air outside come rushing in.

"Tuuli, I'm cold!" "Ah! Sorry, sorry."

She closes the window, then immediately gets started in on her breakfast. I, too, eat my breakfast, while my family noisily hustles around the house. The instant they finished their food, my mother and father started gathering up baskets and firewood. My father, starting to organize things by the entryway, looks up at me as I, still unkempt, chew on my bread.

"What will you do today, Maïne? Are you going to the gates?" "Nuh-uh, I was thinking that I'd go and try help picking paru, maybe?"

From what Tuuli had told me, a paru tree is a beautiful and miraculous kind of plant. I'm not entirely sure what she meant when she said how it sparkles brilliantly with light as it spins around, though, so I kind of want to see it for myself. But, when my curiosity prompts me to say those words, every single member of the family turns to stare at me.

"Absolutely not! You'll either stay here and watch the house or you'll go help out at the gates." "Picking paru is very hard, too hard for you! You'll definitely get sick!" "That's right! You're bad at climbing trees, and you can't walk through snow so it's impossible for you to help."

All three of them immediately reject the idea of me accompanying them to the winter forest to pick paru. Certainly, there's no way someone such as me, who can't even walk through the snow to get to the gates, would be capable of foraging in a snowy forest.

"...Okay. You'll be picking paru until noon, right? So, I'll go to the gate and help out there while I wait for you."

I prepare my tote bag and get myself ready to head out to the gates. I'd thought that since my father had the day off Otto might as well, but it seems that around this time of year he shows up nearly every single day.

My family loads up their baggage, including me, onto a sled, and we head off. I'd heard that everyone in the town goes to pick paru whenever they can, and based on the huge number of people dragging their sleds towards the southern gates, I'd heard correctly. The air is so cold that it bites into my skin, but everyone is filled with such excitement over being able to go and pick paru that the mood is very much like a festival. Even I am getting a little excited too.

"Sorry," says my father to a soldier at the gate, "but take care of Maïne for me. She'll be helping Otto out until noon." "Yes sir!" "Everyone, good luck picking paru!" I say.

When we arrive at the gate, I get off the sled and wave goodbye to my family as they head towards the forest. I say hello to the gatekeeper, who I'm acquainted with, and head to the night duty room.

"Mister Otto, good morning." "Oh? Maïne? I thought the squad leader had the day off, didn't he?"

Otto's eyes twinkle in wonder, and I nod, smiling slightly.

"Yes, since the weather is clear today, he went to the forest to pick paru. I'll be helping out until noon today." "Ahh, I see, I see. Hm, until noon, huh..."

Otto smiles broadly, seeming to immediately understand the circumstances, then starts laying out documents that he needs the calculations checked on. While he works on clearing a space for me to work, I thank him for the advice he gave me the other day.

"Mister Otto, thanks for the other day." "Hm?" "Umm, when you consulted with me about my job prospects. I told my family about the devouring, and about finding a job that I can do from home. When spring comes, I'm thinking I'll consult with Mister Benno, too..." "Ah! Well, taking care of yourself is very important, so if Benno has no idea what you could do, then my door is always open if you'd like to ask about things you can do here." "Alright!"

I definitely notice a hint of something dark in his smile, but now that I've properly expressed my gratitude, I get to work on my calculations, feeling refreshed.

After noon, my family returns from the forest, so I get back on the sled and head home. Since there were three of them out picking today, it looks like they've brought six paru back with them. Unlike last year, now we know that even the dried-up lees is useful, so my mother is in very high spirits.

While my mother works on preparing lunch, Tuuli and I work on juicing the paru. Tuuli grabs the skinniest stick she can find from the pile of firewood, lights it in the fire from the stove, then jabs it into the fruit. In the next instant, just that little bit of the rind cracks open.

"Maïne, here it comes!" "Got it~!"

I stick a bowl under it, so as not to waste any of the creamy white fluid that starts spilling out. Entranced by the sweet smell, we finish draining the juice, then Tuuli passes off the drained paru to our father. He crushes the pit of the fruit, pressing the oil out of it. Since he's able to lift the heavy weight we use for pressing oil, leaving that part of the task to him means that the oil is finished in the blink of an eye. Since the lees left over after the fruit has been thoroughly squeezed has actual use in cooking, we set aside four parus' worth of it for ourselves, leaving the remaining two to give to Lutz's house in exchange for eggs.

After lunch, I head out, bringing both the paru lees and some fresh ideas for recipes. If I could only just use an oven, I could make a gratin or a pizza, but since all I have access too are a griddle and a pot, the kinds of things that I can make are sharply limited.

"Hi, Lutz. Could you trade me for some eggs, please? By the way, I came up with a new recipe, do you want to try it?" "Yo, Maïne! I'm happy about the new recipe, but there's nobody around to help out right now so we can't start on it yet. Come on and wait in here."

Even though I finally brought them a new recipe, Lutz's older brothers aren't here, it seems.

"Where're your brothers? Did they go sledding or something, since it's clear out?" "Those kids went out to earn a little change shoveling snow," says Lutz's mother.

I had no idea this was a thing, since there's no way I could participate, but it seems like some of the heavy labor of shoveling snow is something that kids can do in order to earn some decent pocket money.

"Why're you still here, Lutz?" "Someone's got to juice the paru. If you wait too long, they'll melt, right?"

It's true that you can't just leave paru alone for a while, but I can't help but notice that it looks like Lutz has been stuck with the housework, unable to earn any pocket money, and I'm realizing that he's actually looking a little gloomy. But, since neither Lutz or Auntie Karla are saying anything, I figure that I, as an outsider, should probably keep my mouth shut.

I'd at least like to help them with pressing the fruit, but since that's something that fundamentally requires actual physical labor, it's beyond my capabilities. All I can really do is watch as Lutz smashes the core with a hammer and Auntie Karla presses the oil out.

As I absent-mindedly look on, I suddenly remember that I haven't actually told Lutz about the family council. Letting him know that I won't be working at Benno's shop is something that I absolutely have to do.

"Um, so, Lutz. I've, uh, decided that I'm not going to work at Benno's shop." "What?! Why?!"

Lutz, his hammer raised high, turns to stare at me with wide eyes. Auntie Karla looks over at me as well, her eyes open a little wider too.

"Umm... my mother mentioned something like this, right? I'd just be a burden on you. Plus, no matter how I think about it, I don't have enough stamina for a job like that. I talked with Mister Otto about it, and he pointed out a few different things." "A few things like what?"

Lutz gradually starts moving his hammer again, urging me on with a stare.

"Right, um. So, if a brand new apprentice keeps getting fevers and has to rest all the time, what do you think everyone else that has to work with her is going to think?" "...Ahh. That's..."

Murmuring quietly to himself like he might be starting to understand, he hits his paru. Auntie Karla, firmly pressing hers, squints.

"You'd be a bother to everyone when you're absent," she muses, "and you being absent during your training would hurt you in the long run, too..." "That's right. ...Plus, I've still got lots of things I'm planning on making, and if they wind up being really profitable, I'm going to earn a lot of money, you know? So if there's an apprentice that's always absent, but she still makes a ton of money, wouldn't that ruin human relations at the shop?" "You're right..."

Lutz scowls, nodding in understanding, but Karla looks a little astonished.

"Well," I say, "the bit about the money applies to you too, I think, but if you work as hard as you can, I think people's reactions will be different. I think we should discuss this with Mister Benno in detail, though." "Yeah, let's make sure we talk to him in the spring."

I think it might be possible to keep Lutz's profits separate from his wages. Then, he could be given the extra money secretly. After all, even now, all it takes to give someone money is to tap your guild cards together.

"If you're not going to work at the shop, then what are you going to do after your baptism, Maïne?" "In my case, I don't know what I'm going to do about the devouring, so I'd work out of my home transcribing letters or official documents while coming up with new products, or helping out at the gates... I told my family that I don't really want my lifestyle to change all that much." "Ah, okay. Yeah, that's probably better for your body."

Now that I have Lutz's support, I let out a little sigh of relief. As I do, Auntie Karla's expression suddenly brightens.

"Well, now! If Maïne's not going to work at the shop, then there's no need for you to work there either, Lutz, is there? Now you can be a craftsman!"

I tilt my head to the side, confused. What does me deciding not to work at Benno's shop have to do with Lutz not working there? Lutz, however, raises his eyebrows high as soon as he hears his mother's sigh of relief.

"Huh?! What are you saying, mom?!" "What do you mean?" she asks, a complete lack of comprehension on her face. Lutz clucks his tongue. "I want to be a merchant!" he yells. "Maïne has nothing to do with it! I'm the one who dragged her into it!"

She stares at him, looking as if she can't believe a word he's saying.

"What did you just say?! So, you still are planning on becoming a merchant?" "Of course I am! I really wanted to be a trader, but after I talked with one I learned about how citizenship works, so I decided I wanted to be a merchant instead." "Lutz, why didn't you say anything about this before?!" "I did! Were you not listening, or did you just forget?!"

It looks like she really hadn't acknowledged what he'd been saying. She looks at him as if this is the first time she's ever heard this.

I, not wanting to intrude into a conversation between mother and son, watch quietly from my chair, not saying a single unnecessary word.

"...You did say that you wanted to be a trader," she says.

She shakes her head weakly, a troubled expression on her face. It's clear to see that she's bewildered by how her expectations aren't matching up with reality.

"But, that was just a childish fantasy, wasn't it? That was just something you were dreaming about, not something that had any basis in reality, wasn't it? I didn't actually think that's something you really had your sights set on. I've been thinking that you'd eventually come to your senses."

I think that what Auntie Karla is saying isn't unreasonable at all. It's rare for someone who lives in the city to go any farther than the forest or the surrounding farmland. A trader is a foreigner that unexpectedly drops in from time to time, not someone that anyone typically aspires to be. It's a childish fantasy, and he needs to wake up from it soon. Karla's line of thought is probably pretty typical of people living around here.

"...I really did want to be a trader. I want to leave this city, and go to other cities that I've never been to before. I wanted to see all sorts of things that I haven't even heard of... and I still do! I'm still holding onto that dream." "Lutz, you..."

Auntie Karla rises halfway from her seat, looking like she's about to say something. From her expression, it's probably some sort of objection to his train of thought. However, before she can say anything, Lutz continues talking.

"But, I talked to someone who used to be a trader himself. He told me that only an idiot would give up his citizenship. And traders don't have apprentices, so it would be impossible for me, anyway." "Well, he was right," she says, looking a little bit relieved. She sits down with a thump.

It seems that being a trader is an occupation that is very much something to avoid. I'd thought, naively, that being able to travel the world and see the sights sounded really fun, but I still really haven't internalized enough of this world's common sense.

"So then, once I found out that I couldn't be a trader's apprentice, I started thinking that maybe I could just go out and be a trader on my own. Then Maïne told me that maybe instead of being a trader, I could be a merchant in this city. If I was a merchant, then I could still go to other towns to buy and sell things, she said. It's more pragmatic, and more realistic to try to do." She shrugs. "Well, compared to being a trader..." she says, tiredly. It seems like she had no idea that her son was serious about his plans to become a trader, so this might be a bit of a shock for her. "So, I told a merchant that I wanted to be his apprentice. He was only a second-hand acquaintance of Maïne's, though, so he basically refused me right away." "...Sounds about right."

With how the apprenticeship system works in this town, Lutz's odds of actually becoming a merchant's apprentice were really slim. So, probably, even though Lutz kept telling her that he wanted to be a merchant, she didn't consider it to be any more than some half-hearted ideal. Then, working from that assumption, she might not have ever really fully listened to Lutz when he explained that he actually would be able to do it.

"But, we got him to set out some conditions, and agree to let us apprentice under him if we met them. Maïne and I already met those conditions, so we've got his approval to be his apprentices. So, whether Maïne's there or not, I'm going to be a merchant."

Karla finally looks directly at Lutz, a serious look in her eyes, noticing at long last that Lutz has started forging his own path forward.

"...Lutz, even if you got this man's permission to be his apprentice, did you really think you could do so if your parents disapproved?" "I already decided that I'd do it. In the worst case, I'd be a live-in apprentice. I got him to hear me out, I got him to set some conditions, and I finally started on a path towards becoming his apprentice. I'm not gonna give that up." "A... live-in apprentice...?"

Being a live-in apprentice is probably among the worst lifestyles you could have. First of all, as an apprentice, you can only actually work half of the week, so your wages are low. Plus, you have no family to rely on. A child suddenly forced to live on their own would find it both really physically taxing as well as time-consuming.

His living quarters would be the attic on the topmost floor of the building. Summers would be hot, and winters would be cold. It wouldn't be at all rare for the roof to constantly leak. Carrying things upstairs, especially water, would be an enormous undertaking. It's not unusual for birds to nest in attics, like they do in Lutz's home, so the smell would be horrific, too. Plus, unlike the rooms rented out for families to live in, there wouldn't be any place for Lutz to cook, so he'd need to either get someone else at the shop to let him use theirs or eat out a lot.

Naturally, that kind of lifestyle isn't something that leaves you with any money left over. Rather, he'd need to constantly be taking advances on his pay, putting him in debt. The shop would provide the bare minimum to keep him alive, but until he grew up he would basically be living solely to work his apprenticeship.

"Lutz, think about what you're saying! Do you really think you could live that kind of life?!"

I don't think any normal parent would want their son to have to live such an austere life. She raises her voice so high it's practically a shriek. Lutz, however, just shrugs.

"I can, yeah. I've started preparing for that already."

In Lutz's case, he'll be able to save up the money we're going to make from paper-making during the spring. If we use the bark that we've already got in the storehouse, we'll be able to put quite a lot of money in the bank. By my calculations, even after buying the clothing necessary to be a merchant's apprentice, he'll still have a sizable amount left over.

Plus, during his apprenticeship he'll have half of his days off, which he'll be able to spend with me, developing new products to potentially make money off of. If we can do that, then there's no doubt that he'll be making much more than an ordinary apprentice's wages. He won't have a lot of room in his budget to spare, but I think it'll definitely be much better than destitution. I don't think he'd have enough extra money to rent a place for himself, though, so he wouldn't really be able to do anything about his awful living conditions.

"...You're serious about already preparing, aren't you?" "Very serious."

After a long silence, Auntie Karla lets out a deep sigh, slumping her shoulders. She wears a complicated expression, like she's given up on challenging Lutz's seriousness but still can't give up altogether.

"I still think it would be better if you found a nice, steady job as a craftsman instead of something as unstable as being a merchant." Lutz purses his lips in dissatisfaction. "...If I do what you say and become a craftsman, nothing's going to change, is it?"

Auntie Karla squints at him. Since he just effectively said he's dissatisfied with his current life, her mood quickly grows sharp.

"What do you mean by that?" "My brothers do whatever they want with me, and when I have something they want the just take it, and I never have anything left for myself." "That's... you're siblings, so of course they take things from you, but they give things too you as well, don't they?"

She frowns, troubled. Lutz, however, immediately rejects her opinion.

"It's not like they can give my food back after they eat it, and when I get stuff from them it's all just broken hand-me-downs, you know? And if the hand-me-downs are too awful to actually use and I get something new for once, then they immediately take it away!"

The fact that the youngest child always gets hand-me-downs is something that's true for me as well. However, while Tuuli is always helping me out, Lutz is constantly being ordered around by his brothers. I don't know if that's just what brothers do to each other, but the difference between the two of our experiences is enormous.

"I set my sights on becoming a merchant, worked really hard doing a lot of different things with Maïne, and learned what it's like to actually hold onto something I've earned. I want to see how far I can take myself without anyone getting in the way. I've never even considered being a craftsman."

Lutz, who has always been kept down by his family, has made it his goal to find an environment where he can be free of their control, and he was finally able to find a place where he might be able to accomplish his dreams.

Auntie Karla hangs her head. "I didn't think you were so serious," she says softly. "I thought this was just Maïne dragging you along..." "I wouldn't make this kind of life-changing decision if it was like that..." "I really thought it was, so that's why I was objecting."

She lets out a long, deep sigh, looking down at the floor. She thinks to herself for a while, then slowly raises her head, a smile on her face as if she'd come to accept things as they are.

"If you've thought it through that far, and this is something you really want to do, to the point where you even started preparing to leave home, then why not go for it as much as you can? Your father will probably object, but you'll have at least one supporter in this family." "Really?! Thanks, Mom!!"

Lutz's face is practically sparkling. He had long since giving up on earning his family's understanding, so hearing something so unbelievable makes him so happy he could jump for joy. Until just a moment ago, he'd been forcing himself to look focused, but now his expression is something that a child his age should actually be wearing, and I can't help but smile, too. Having even just one family member on his side must make a whole world of difference.

When his brothers come home, Lutz is still in a good mood. The four of them work harmoniously together as they start making my new recipy.

"Zasha," I say, "could you and Zeke please heat the griddle? Lutz, please grate plenty of cheese and mix it with the paru lees. Then, Ralph, could you chop those lege leaves finely, please?"

While I divide up the work amongst the brothers, I add some paru oil and salt to the bowl that Lutz is grating cheese into. Once Ralph is done chopping the basil-like herb, I add it to the bowl, and all that's left is to mix it and grill it.

"The griddle's hot!" "Alright, then grill this please, like how you do the parucakes."

We grill it thoroughly, until the cheese gets crispy, then eat it. It looks kind of like _okonomiyaki_1, but thanks to the melted cheese that's holding everything together, it has a very western flavor. This recipe is a variation on something I'd come up with in my Urano days, making use of leftover cooked somen or spaghetti noodles by chopping them up really finely.

"It's so simple, but it's so filling!" "It would be really good if you added minced ham or veggies, too," I add. "Yeah, now that I think of it, these would actually make a good meal on their own, unlike the parucakes."

Everyone eats their food, smiling happily about how delicious it is. In the middle of that, Ralph tries to help himself to seconds off of Lutz's plate, but Auntie Karla smacks him in the back of his head.

"Don't take other people's food. That's greedy! How about you grill another for yourself?"

Ralph, who had just gotten smacked on the head, looks at her with mild shock. Lutz does, too. After a moment, Ralph gets up to start grilling up his seconds, and Lutz goes back to eating, relieved. Karla watches the two of them, then smiles. Now that Lutz has convinced someone as influential as her of his problems with the rest of the family, it looks like things have calmed down around here, at least for now.

After that, I return to being a shut-in. My life becomes an endless cycle of handiwork, tutoring Lutz, helping at the gate, and lying in bed with a cold, while Lutz keeps stopping buy to deliver hairpin parts, be tutored, and occasionally bringing completed product over to Benno's shop.

Eventually, the snow starts gradually getting weaker, and my wintry shut-in lifestyle comes to an end.

Translator's notes for this chapter:

1. Okonomiyaki are a savory grilled food, kind of like a pancake with a variety of other ingredients inside.

prev • next

[organizingconceptsanddesign-blog]

Monthly Archives: April 2014

How to organize mail

Posted on

April 28, 2014

Before you start, I recommend having the following supplies available:

shredder

Recycling bin

Trash bin

Calendar

Two trays (one for incoming mail and one for outgoing mail)

I highly recommend setting up a mail station wherever you keep your files.

Keep in mind that there’s really only four options when it comes to incoming mail. You can: Toss it, Shred It, File It or Put it in an action file (ie. To Do, To Read, To Pay, etc.)

If you are not in the habit of going through your mail daily, try scheduling a time in your appointment book or calendar so that you make the time to open your mail every day. This will prevent the mail from piling up.

When going through your mail:

Immediately toss all junk mail.

Shred anything that has your personal information on it that you are not interested in (ie. credit card offers).

File all statements or other mail in their appropriate files (which should be right there next to you)

Any items that need attention should be filed in your Action files. If it is a bill then put it in your “Bills to Pay” file, if it is an invitation, put it in your Upcoming Events file.

inally, don’t forget to put any important dates or due dates on your calendar!

This whole process should take a few minutes. If you take just a few minutes each day, you will ultimately avoid having the mail pile up day after day. It will also avoid needless late fees or penalties from unpaid bills.

Remember to keep it simple!

Top 10 reasons to get rid of things

Posted on

April 25, 2014

We all have too much stuff. The fact is, we never use 80% of what we own. Below is a top ten list of reasons to help you make the decision to “get rid of it”:

You don’t need it anymore – You’re over it.

Someone else does need it – Cell phones, for example, are frequently refurbished and given to victims of domestic violence.

There’s just too much stuff – If there’s no place to put it, get rid of it!

It doesn’t work anymore – FYI, chances are the parts can probably be recycled.

It doesn’t fit you anymore – Whether you’ve lost weight or gained weight, whatever the case may be, get rid of it. You can get a tax deduction for donations.

It no longer suits your lifestyle -You’re moving, redecorating or downsizing or, you’re just ready for a new look.

You can get value from it – Sell it on Ebay, donate it and get a tax deduction, have a garage sale or set up an estate sale.

Less stuff makes your life easier. There’s less to clean. Getting rid of clutter will reduce housework by 40%.

It’s expired -Oh, just get rid of it.

Because “Less is More” – Ludwig Miles van der Rohe

If you’re still not sure whether you should get rid of it or not, ask yourself the following questions:

Papers

Is the information still current?

Can the document be duplicated if needed?

What is the worst thing that can happen if I get rid of it?

Is it a duplicate?

How long do I need to keep it?

Do I need it for tax, legal, insurance, or warranty issues?

Can I find the information some place else?

Clothing

Do I love it?

Does it fit?

Is it too worn?

Is it out of style?

Do I feel great in it?

Does it match anything else?

Other Items

Is it broken?

Do I use it?

Will I really need it?

Does it make others happy to see it?

If I keep it, will I remember I have it?

If I was moving, would I want to pay to have it packed and shipped?

Can I borrow or purchase another one if I need it?

Does it make me happy?

Am I keeping it because someone else gave it to me even though I don’t like it?

So, get started today by getting rid of the things that either have no value (sentimental or monetary) or no longer have a place in your life. Ready, set, go!

Too much to do and not enough time?

Posted on

April 14, 2014

How often have you thought to yourself, “If I only had more time,” or, ”I wish there were more hours in the day?”

Do you think if you had more time that you would get more rest or slow down? Well, chances are if you had more hours in the day, you would probably fill them up with more things to do instead of creating time to take a much-needed break.

The truth is you don’t really need more time in the day. What you really need are strategies to better manage your time.

The problem we face in this 24/7 world is that we tend to forget to make time for ourselves. We forget that when we get run down, we put ourselves at a higher risk of being out of commission. Unfortunately, most of us are only willing to slow down and rest once we get sick or reach the point of exhaustion.

Here’s some Time Management Tips to help you avoid getting to that point:

Make a “To-Do” list. Do not rely on your memory. Keep one, and I emphasize only one, “To Do” list! This list should include all the tasks you have to do this week.

Because we are all so busy, you probably have a list that is way too long. Choose what you can realistically handle. That does not mean you won’t get to other things, it just allows you to take some of the pressure off that comes with feeling like you have to do everything now. You will need to consider which items on your “To Do” list are number one priorities. Those items that have priority could be highlighted, circled or underlined to indicate importance. Remember to cross off or delete the items you have completed at the end of each day and add any that may have surfaced during the day. By prioritizing you are wisely taking control of your time.

Delegate whenever possible. Moms and Dads, that includes you. Your children as young as 3 years old can get involved in cleaning up after themselves and should. Next time you tell them “clean your room” or “put your toys away” explain what that means. Does that mean shoving everything in the closet? Throwing everything under the bed?? Piling things on top of one another? Show them how to do it. You will probably have to show them several times, but, like everything else, they will eventually get it.

Employers, you can delegate by allowing your employees to take on more responsibilities. Take the time to train your employees and entrust them with a little at a time. In the beginning, make sure to follow up, ask if they have any questions and periodically evaluate their progress. Delegating will pay off enormously in the end as you will have more time to do the important things that only you can tend to. Your employees will feel more valued as well.

Open your mail every day. Do one of following four things with each piece of mail you open:

Toss it – Throw away anything that you don’t want or need, like junk mail.

Shred it – Shred anything that has your personal information on it that you don’t want or need.

File it – File those things that you do need but not right away.

Take Action – These are the items that need your attention – like a bill to pay or a call that you have to make.

The longer you wait to open your mail, the more it’s going to pile up and become overwhelming. So, open your mail each day, follow the above instructions, and you will be able to streamline your paperflow to avoid unnecessary clutter and piles of paper. The goal is to touch each piece of paper just once and decide what to do with it at that time.

Plan your day. Begin your day with a plan and end your day with a plan.

Set aside at least 10 minutes at the beginning of every day to plan your day:

What calls and meetings do you need to prepare for?

What are the three top things you’d like to accomplish today?

What is the most important thing you want to accomplish this morning?

Set aside at least 10 minutes at the end of the day to wrap it up:

What important things did you accomplish today?

What meetings, calls and activities do you need to follow up on?

Who do you need to follow up with tomorrow?

Don’t forget to update your “To Do” list accordingly. Managing time is more than just the ability to layout an organized schedule. Time management means setting priorities that communicate clearly what’s really important, making wise decisions that help set realistic goals, and setting firm boundaries that allow you to keep the promises you make to yourselves and others. By managing your time efficiently, you have the power over how productive you can be.

Just the facts

Posted on

April 6, 2014

Being organized can help save you time and money, increase productivity and reduce stress. In a recent survey, NAPO, the National Association of Professional Organizers, found that:

96% of those surveyed felt that they could save time each day if they were more organized at home.

91% felt they could be more efficient at work if they were better organized.

71% indicated their quality of life would improve with more organization.

As Harry Browne once said, “Everything you want in life has a price connected to it. There’s a price to pay if you want to make things better, a price to pay just for leaving things as they are, a price for everything.”

So, weigh the price you pay for leaving things as they are against the price you pay to make it better. If you decide that you want to get organized, you will need to invest some time and energy but it will be well worth it.

We’re here for you!

Need help? No problem! Call us now for your 1/2 hour consultation.

Closet space before…

Closet space after!

[milenasanchezmk]

9 Ways to Normalize Your Hormones

There are straightforward, pharmaceutical methods for altering specific hormones, and, as I showed in last week’s testosterone replacement therapy post, they can really help. But a safer intervention for your overall endocrine environment is a systemic one. Some might call it scattershot approach in that one input affects multiple endocrine targets. I’d say, “That’s the whole point.”

Today, I’m going to give you some tried and true methods for helping to normalize your endocrine health. These are things that apply to everyone, as far as I can tell. They won’t fix every problem, but they’re good places to start. Whether you’re a post-menopausal woman, a 21-year-old bodybuilder worried about overtraining, or a thyroid patient, these interventions can’t hurt and will probably help.

Get Your Sleep in Order

When you sleep poorly, everything falls apart, including the normal function and patterns of testosterone, thyroid, and growth hormone. Sleep loss itself alters the activity of the master endocrine organ, the pituitary gland, so following good sleep hygiene is a non-negotiable.

Sleep in a cold, dark, quiet room.

Get plenty of bright natural light throughout the day, especially the morning, and limit bright light after dark, especially blue and green lights. Sun lamps can help if actual natural light is unavailable during the day. Blue-blocking goggles or glasses like these (inexpensive, block blue but not much green light) or these (expensive, but block both blue and green) can help at night.

Use the seasonal variation of daylight as a rough barometer for how much sleep to get. In the summer, when it’s lighter longer, you can probably get by with 7-8 hours. In the winter, when it’s darker longer, you should aim for 8 at a minimum and 9 as an ideal.

Check out TS Wiley’s Lights Out for a full treatise on seasonal sleep variations, and why they’re so important.

Make the effort—nay, commitment—to get more sleep. Stop fiddling with your phone at 10 PM (you always regret doing it). Don’t fall asleep with the TV on (read a book instead). Get a bedtime routine.

Get Your Diet in Order

To make hormones, you need the basic structural building blocks. That means eating enough dietary fat, especially saturated, monounsaturated, and omega-3 fats.

Cholesterol is an important building block, too, and has been shown to increase muscle and strength gains in weight training adults, an indication of testosterone boosting.

Minerals like zinc, selenium, magnesium, and calcium are also extremely important for healthy hormone production and metabolism.

You also need to make sure you’re eating enough calories—not too many, not too few—as the amount of food you eat sends a strong signal about the bountifulness of the environment around you. Hormones like leptin, thyroid, testosterone, insulin, and others all perceive and are modulated by the caloric balance. Your endocrine system responds to the availability of energy by up- or down-regulating hormone production. You’re not going to get pregnant very easily during a famine, nor will you produce much testosterone if you’re obese.

Carb/glycogen balance is another indicator your endocrine system uses to determine production. If you’re training hard and burning through glycogen, you’ll probably need to eat some carbs. If you’re just doing easy slow movement, some sprints, and strength training, you probably don’t need extra carbs. The key is to eat the carbs that you earned—no more, no less.

Hammer Home Primal Style Exercise—and Avoid Any Whiff of Chronic Patterns

For Crossfit hardcores, that might mean dropping from 4x/week to 2-3x. For endurance heads, that might mean trading 140.6 goals for 70.3 goals, or 26.2 2 for 13.1 (and buying the requisite new bumper sticker, of course). For everyone, that means making your short, intense workouts even shorter and more intense.

My good friend, former co-competitor, and current writing partner, Brad Kearns, more than doubled his free testosterone simply by sucking it up and lowering his assumed aerobic base heart rate (the heart rate at which you’re burning primarily fat) from 145 to 130. Didn’t change his actual training, diet, or anything else. Staying at or below 130 HR during long slow days was enough to get his free T to the 99th percentile for his age.

Increase Your Non-Exercise Movement

Increased daily movement—fidgeting, walking, housework, gardening, carrying groceries, playing with your kids/pets—adds up, and it’s something that the most health- and fitness-conscious tend to ignore or discount. This is the stuff Katy Bowman talks about in Move Your DNA and Don’t Just Sit There.

Sitting time predicts estrogen metabolites in postmenopausal women, with more sitting time predicting rises in the same metabolites associated with breast and endometrial cancer.

Breaking up sitting with frequent standing and easy movement improves insulin sensitivity.

The more men sit in front of the TV, the lower their testosterone.

Exercise isn’t enough.

Manage Your Stress

When we’re stressed out, everything gets put on hold until we can deal with the stressor. This makes sense, because back in the day a stressor was usually a life or death situation like an enemy tribe encroaching on your tribe, a huge predatory cat, or famine. Even though most stressors these days aren’t life or death in the immediate sense, our body treats them like that—and there are a seemingly endless string of them to contend with.

What happens when stress hits? Cortisol appears. If stress sticks around, or constantly wells up, cortisol levels become chronic and disrupt your endocrine system. Chronic cortisol opposes testosterone production. Chronic cortisol reduces thyroid hormone production and impairs the conversion of inactive T4 to active T3. Chronic cortisol makes you insulin-resistant.

Everyone’s stressors are unique, but there are some big ones to watch out for: toxic relationships, terrible commutes (at the very least, find a great podcast you can listen to on the drive/ride), lack of time in nature, excessive technology exposure (especially social media). 

Discover Meaning in Your Life

Hormones direct physiological processes in the body. They’re a bit like software programs—if they’re riddled with bugs, nothing gets done. But just as computers need a user to tell the software what to do, our bodies need a narrator to give the hormones a goal to work toward. Without meaning or life purpose, the endocrine system drifts aimlessly. Why produce testosterone if there’s no competition on the horizon?

There’s admittedly not a ton of clinical support for this hypothesis. Middle-aged women with strong life purposes have better sex lives, indicating a more favorable hormonal environment. I suspect a lot of the links between life purpose and hormonal function are circular, with causation going in both directions. But that means disrupting the circle at any point can help.

Search within for what makes you tick. What makes you get up in the morning. What inflames the passions and makes you feel strong and good and right when you’re knee-deep in it. Then stick to that.

Test Frequently and Track Relevant Variables

I’m a big believer in following the symptoms, in going by how you feel, look, and perform. But having the numbers in front of you can really help, especially if you if you pair them with your symptoms, get tested at regular intervals, and track the trends.

Case in point is the earlier example of Brad Kearns, who more than doubled his free testosterone by tweaking his training and tracking the trends in his numbers. Had he not done the testing, he wouldn’t have any reference points.

Directlabs has good deals on male and female hormonal panels.

Get Uncomfortable

We lead comfortable lives. Everything works. We don’t have to face pulse-pounding situations or bring down large game just to eat. If we get cold, we turn up the heat. Hot, we turn up the AC. Things are so easy that we can spend all winter in short sleeves. It turns out that exposure to uncomfortable physical and mental sensations is important for hormone function.

Cold exposure is great at improving insulin sensitivity and reducing insulin levels. In one study, women swam in cold water at least twice a week for 7 months, enjoying huge increases in insulin sensitivity and drops in insulin.

Heat exposure also has positive hormonal effects. It increases endocrine homeostasis in Russian fighters. Sauna use increases insulin sensitivity. A 1989 study found upwards of 5-fold increases in GH after using a sauna.

Bring In the Professionals

Sometimes you just need modern professional medical help. As I’ve said time and time again, the Primal Blueprint is about availing ourselves of everything both traditional wisdom and modern science have to offer. And because our environments are so wildly different from our evolutionary environments, we occasionally need to step outside of “natural” methods to get the help we need. Sometimes replacement therapy is the ticket. Sometimes supplementation and healing protocols. That’s okay, especially if they’re laid atop a strong foundation of ancestral health practices. There are no purity tests.

And yes, they may recommend hormone replacement therapies or pharma/nutraceuticals. Exercise caution and implement extreme vetting, but don’t dismiss them out of hand. According to Weston A. Price, North American Indian tribes would often harvest moose thyroids when they were at their largest and most potent and reserve them for men and women trying to conceive. They may not have known the word “thyroid” or even understood the concept of a hormone, but they took artificial steps to enhance men and women’s hormonal health.

For more guidance, check out the podcasts Elle Russ did with Dr. Gary Foresman. He’s a former UC Irvine doctor who got sick and tired of all the nonsense and decided to branch out into integrative medicine.

NourishBalanceThrive does comprehensive testing and consultation for the peak performance minded client interested in maintaining or regaining hormonal health.

I can vouch for Dr. Howard Liebowitz in Santa Monica. A former athlete with an athletic mindset, he curates customized regimens that emphasize hormonal health, especially for the aging adult.

Don’t sell traditional docs short, either. At least not before you actually see them. They may know more than you assume, and if nothing else, they can help you order the necessary tests.

That’s it for today, folks. There are plenty of other ways to modulate your hormone function, I’m sure, and I’d love to hear about any of the ones I missed. Thanks for reading!

Question: Has anyone done all these measures and had your hormone situation worsen?

[fishermariawo]

9 Ways to Normalize Your Hormones

There are straightforward, pharmaceutical methods for altering specific hormones, and, as I showed in last week’s testosterone replacement therapy post, they can really help. But a safer intervention for your overall endocrine environment is a systemic one. Some might call it scattershot approach in that one input affects multiple endocrine targets. I’d say, “That’s the whole point.”

Today, I’m going to give you some tried and true methods for helping to normalize your endocrine health. These are things that apply to everyone, as far as I can tell. They won’t fix every problem, but they’re good places to start. Whether you’re a post-menopausal woman, a 21-year-old bodybuilder worried about overtraining, or a thyroid patient, these interventions can’t hurt and will probably help.

Get Your Sleep in Order

When you sleep poorly, everything falls apart, including the normal function and patterns of testosterone, thyroid, and growth hormone. Sleep loss itself alters the activity of the master endocrine organ, the pituitary gland, so following good sleep hygiene is a non-negotiable.

Sleep in a cold, dark, quiet room.

Get plenty of bright natural light throughout the day, especially the morning, and limit bright light after dark, especially blue and green lights. Sun lamps can help if actual natural light is unavailable during the day. Blue-blocking goggles or glasses like these (inexpensive, block blue but not much green light) or these (expensive, but block both blue and green) can help at night.

Use the seasonal variation of daylight as a rough barometer for how much sleep to get. In the summer, when it’s lighter longer, you can probably get by with 7-8 hours. In the winter, when it’s darker longer, you should aim for 8 at a minimum and 9 as an ideal.

Check out TS Wiley’s Lights Out for a full treatise on seasonal sleep variations, and why they’re so important.

Make the effort—nay, commitment—to get more sleep. Stop fiddling with your phone at 10 PM (you always regret doing it). Don’t fall asleep with the TV on (read a book instead). Get a bedtime routine.

Get Your Diet in Order

To make hormones, you need the basic structural building blocks. That means eating enough dietary fat, especially saturated, monounsaturated, and omega-3 fats.

Cholesterol is an important building block, too, and has been shown to increase muscle and strength gains in weight training adults, an indication of testosterone boosting.

Minerals like zinc, selenium, magnesium, and calcium are also extremely important for healthy hormone production and metabolism.

You also need to make sure you’re eating enough calories—not too many, not too few—as the amount of food you eat sends a strong signal about the bountifulness of the environment around you. Hormones like leptin, thyroid, testosterone, insulin, and others all perceive and are modulated by the caloric balance. Your endocrine system responds to the availability of energy by up- or down-regulating hormone production. You’re not going to get pregnant very easily during a famine, nor will you produce much testosterone if you’re obese.

Carb/glycogen balance is another indicator your endocrine system uses to determine production. If you’re training hard and burning through glycogen, you’ll probably need to eat some carbs. If you’re just doing easy slow movement, some sprints, and strength training, you probably don’t need extra carbs. The key is to eat the carbs that you earned—no more, no less.

Hammer Home Primal Style Exercise—and Avoid Any Whiff of Chronic Patterns

For Crossfit hardcores, that might mean dropping from 4x/week to 2-3x. For endurance heads, that might mean trading 140.6 goals for 70.3 goals, or 26.2 2 for 13.1 (and buying the requisite new bumper sticker, of course). For everyone, that means making your short, intense workouts even shorter and more intense.

My good friend, former co-competitor, and current writing partner, Brad Kearns, more than doubled his free testosterone simply by sucking it up and lowering his assumed aerobic base heart rate (the heart rate at which you’re burning primarily fat) from 145 to 130. Didn’t change his actual training, diet, or anything else. Staying at or below 130 HR during long slow days was enough to get his free T to the 99th percentile for his age.

Increase Your Non-Exercise Movement

Increased daily movement—fidgeting, walking, housework, gardening, carrying groceries, playing with your kids/pets—adds up, and it’s something that the most health- and fitness-conscious tend to ignore or discount. This is the stuff Katy Bowman talks about in Move Your DNA and Don’t Just Sit There.

Sitting time predicts estrogen metabolites in postmenopausal women, with more sitting time predicting rises in the same metabolites associated with breast and endometrial cancer.

Breaking up sitting with frequent standing and easy movement improves insulin sensitivity.

The more men sit in front of the TV, the lower their testosterone.

Exercise isn’t enough.

Manage Your Stress

When we’re stressed out, everything gets put on hold until we can deal with the stressor. This makes sense, because back in the day a stressor was usually a life or death situation like an enemy tribe encroaching on your tribe, a huge predatory cat, or famine. Even though most stressors these days aren’t life or death in the immediate sense, our body treats them like that—and there are a seemingly endless string of them to contend with.

What happens when stress hits? Cortisol appears. If stress sticks around, or constantly wells up, cortisol levels become chronic and disrupt your endocrine system. Chronic cortisol opposes testosterone production. Chronic cortisol reduces thyroid hormone production and impairs the conversion of inactive T4 to active T3. Chronic cortisol makes you insulin-resistant.

Everyone’s stressors are unique, but there are some big ones to watch out for: toxic relationships, terrible commutes (at the very least, find a great podcast you can listen to on the drive/ride), lack of time in nature, excessive technology exposure (especially social media). 

Discover Meaning in Your Life

Hormones direct physiological processes in the body. They’re a bit like software programs—if they’re riddled with bugs, nothing gets done. But just as computers need a user to tell the software what to do, our bodies need a narrator to give the hormones a goal to work toward. Without meaning or life purpose, the endocrine system drifts aimlessly. Why produce testosterone if there’s no competition on the horizon?

There’s admittedly not a ton of clinical support for this hypothesis. Middle-aged women with strong life purposes have better sex lives, indicating a more favorable hormonal environment. I suspect a lot of the links between life purpose and hormonal function are circular, with causation going in both directions. But that means disrupting the circle at any point can help.

Search within for what makes you tick. What makes you get up in the morning. What inflames the passions and makes you feel strong and good and right when you’re knee-deep in it. Then stick to that.

Test Frequently and Track Relevant Variables

I’m a big believer in following the symptoms, in going by how you feel, look, and perform. But having the numbers in front of you can really help, especially if you if you pair them with your symptoms, get tested at regular intervals, and track the trends.

Case in point is the earlier example of Brad Kearns, who more than doubled his free testosterone by tweaking his training and tracking the trends in his numbers. Had he not done the testing, he wouldn’t have any reference points.

Directlabs has good deals on male and female hormonal panels.

Get Uncomfortable

We lead comfortable lives. Everything works. We don’t have to face pulse-pounding situations or bring down large game just to eat. If we get cold, we turn up the heat. Hot, we turn up the AC. Things are so easy that we can spend all winter in short sleeves. It turns out that exposure to uncomfortable physical and mental sensations is important for hormone function.

Cold exposure is great at improving insulin sensitivity and reducing insulin levels. In one study, women swam in cold water at least twice a week for 7 months, enjoying huge increases in insulin sensitivity and drops in insulin.

Heat exposure also has positive hormonal effects. It increases endocrine homeostasis in Russian fighters. Sauna use increases insulin sensitivity. A 1989 study found upwards of 5-fold increases in GH after using a sauna.

Bring In the Professionals

Sometimes you just need modern professional medical help. As I’ve said time and time again, the Primal Blueprint is about availing ourselves of everything both traditional wisdom and modern science have to offer. And because our environments are so wildly different from our evolutionary environments, we occasionally need to step outside of “natural” methods to get the help we need. Sometimes replacement therapy is the ticket. Sometimes supplementation and healing protocols. That’s okay, especially if they’re laid atop a strong foundation of ancestral health practices. There are no purity tests.

And yes, they may recommend hormone replacement therapies or pharma/nutraceuticals. Exercise caution and implement extreme vetting, but don’t dismiss them out of hand. According to Weston A. Price, North American Indian tribes would often harvest moose thyroids when they were at their largest and most potent and reserve them for men and women trying to conceive. They may not have known the word “thyroid” or even understood the concept of a hormone, but they took artificial steps to enhance men and women’s hormonal health.

For more guidance, check out the podcasts Elle Russ did with Dr. Gary Foresman. He’s a former UC Irvine doctor who got sick and tired of all the nonsense and decided to branch out into integrative medicine.

NourishBalanceThrive does comprehensive testing and consultation for the peak performance minded client interested in maintaining or regaining hormonal health.

I can vouch for Dr. Howard Liebowitz in Santa Monica. A former athlete with an athletic mindset, he curates customized regimens that emphasize hormonal health, especially for the aging adult.

Don’t sell traditional docs short, either. At least not before you actually see them. They may know more than you assume, and if nothing else, they can help you order the necessary tests.

That’s it for today, folks. There are plenty of other ways to modulate your hormone function, I’m sure, and I’d love to hear about any of the ones I missed. Thanks for reading!

Question: Has anyone done all these measures and had your hormone situation worsen?

[watsonrodriquezie]

9 Ways to Normalize Your Hormones

There are straightforward, pharmaceutical methods for altering specific hormones, and, as I showed in last week’s testosterone replacement therapy post, they can really help. But a safer intervention for your overall endocrine environment is a systemic one. Some might call it scattershot approach in that one input affects multiple endocrine targets. I’d say, “That’s the whole point.”

Today, I’m going to give you some tried and true methods for helping to normalize your endocrine health. These are things that apply to everyone, as far as I can tell. They won’t fix every problem, but they’re good places to start. Whether you’re a post-menopausal woman, a 21-year-old bodybuilder worried about overtraining, or a thyroid patient, these interventions can’t hurt and will probably help.

Get Your Sleep in Order

When you sleep poorly, everything falls apart, including the normal function and patterns of testosterone, thyroid, and growth hormone. Sleep loss itself alters the activity of the master endocrine organ, the pituitary gland, so following good sleep hygiene is a non-negotiable.

Sleep in a cold, dark, quiet room.

Get plenty of bright natural light throughout the day, especially the morning, and limit bright light after dark, especially blue and green lights. Sun lamps can help if actual natural light is unavailable during the day. Blue-blocking goggles or glasses like these (inexpensive, block blue but not much green light) or these (expensive, but block both blue and green) can help at night.

Use the seasonal variation of daylight as a rough barometer for how much sleep to get. In the summer, when it’s lighter longer, you can probably get by with 7-8 hours. In the winter, when it’s darker longer, you should aim for 8 at a minimum and 9 as an ideal.

Check out TS Wiley’s Lights Out for a full treatise on seasonal sleep variations, and why they’re so important.

Make the effort—nay, commitment—to get more sleep. Stop fiddling with your phone at 10 PM (you always regret doing it). Don’t fall asleep with the TV on (read a book instead). Get a bedtime routine.

Get Your Diet in Order

To make hormones, you need the basic structural building blocks. That means eating enough dietary fat, especially saturated, monounsaturated, and omega-3 fats.

Cholesterol is an important building block, too, and has been shown to increase muscle and strength gains in weight training adults, an indication of testosterone boosting.

Minerals like zinc, selenium, magnesium, and calcium are also extremely important for healthy hormone production and metabolism.

You also need to make sure you’re eating enough calories—not too many, not too few—as the amount of food you eat sends a strong signal about the bountifulness of the environment around you. Hormones like leptin, thyroid, testosterone, insulin, and others all perceive and are modulated by the caloric balance. Your endocrine system responds to the availability of energy by up- or down-regulating hormone production. You’re not going to get pregnant very easily during a famine, nor will you produce much testosterone if you’re obese.

Carb/glycogen balance is another indicator your endocrine system uses to determine production. If you’re training hard and burning through glycogen, you’ll probably need to eat some carbs. If you’re just doing easy slow movement, some sprints, and strength training, you probably don’t need extra carbs. The key is to eat the carbs that you earned—no more, no less.

Hammer Home Primal Style Exercise—and Avoid Any Whiff of Chronic Patterns

For Crossfit hardcores, that might mean dropping from 4x/week to 2-3x. For endurance heads, that might mean trading 140.6 goals for 70.3 goals, or 26.2 2 for 13.1 (and buying the requisite new bumper sticker, of course). For everyone, that means making your short, intense workouts even shorter and more intense.

My good friend, former co-competitor, and current writing partner, Brad Kearns, more than doubled his free testosterone simply by sucking it up and lowering his assumed aerobic base heart rate (the heart rate at which you’re burning primarily fat) from 145 to 130. Didn’t change his actual training, diet, or anything else. Staying at or below 130 HR during long slow days was enough to get his free T to the 99th percentile for his age.

Increase Your Non-Exercise Movement

Increased daily movement—fidgeting, walking, housework, gardening, carrying groceries, playing with your kids/pets—adds up, and it’s something that the most health- and fitness-conscious tend to ignore or discount. This is the stuff Katy Bowman talks about in Move Your DNA and Don’t Just Sit There.

Sitting time predicts estrogen metabolites in postmenopausal women, with more sitting time predicting rises in the same metabolites associated with breast and endometrial cancer.

Breaking up sitting with frequent standing and easy movement improves insulin sensitivity.

The more men sit in front of the TV, the lower their testosterone.

Exercise isn’t enough.

Manage Your Stress

When we’re stressed out, everything gets put on hold until we can deal with the stressor. This makes sense, because back in the day a stressor was usually a life or death situation like an enemy tribe encroaching on your tribe, a huge predatory cat, or famine. Even though most stressors these days aren’t life or death in the immediate sense, our body treats them like that—and there are a seemingly endless string of them to contend with.

What happens when stress hits? Cortisol appears. If stress sticks around, or constantly wells up, cortisol levels become chronic and disrupt your endocrine system. Chronic cortisol opposes testosterone production. Chronic cortisol reduces thyroid hormone production and impairs the conversion of inactive T4 to active T3. Chronic cortisol makes you insulin-resistant.

Everyone’s stressors are unique, but there are some big ones to watch out for: toxic relationships, terrible commutes (at the very least, find a great podcast you can listen to on the drive/ride), lack of time in nature, excessive technology exposure (especially social media). 

Discover Meaning in Your Life

Hormones direct physiological processes in the body. They’re a bit like software programs—if they’re riddled with bugs, nothing gets done. But just as computers need a user to tell the software what to do, our bodies need a narrator to give the hormones a goal to work toward. Without meaning or life purpose, the endocrine system drifts aimlessly. Why produce testosterone if there’s no competition on the horizon?

There’s admittedly not a ton of clinical support for this hypothesis. Middle-aged women with strong life purposes have better sex lives, indicating a more favorable hormonal environment. I suspect a lot of the links between life purpose and hormonal function are circular, with causation going in both directions. But that means disrupting the circle at any point can help.

Search within for what makes you tick. What makes you get up in the morning. What inflames the passions and makes you feel strong and good and right when you’re knee-deep in it. Then stick to that.

Test Frequently and Track Relevant Variables

I’m a big believer in following the symptoms, in going by how you feel, look, and perform. But having the numbers in front of you can really help, especially if you if you pair them with your symptoms, get tested at regular intervals, and track the trends.

Case in point is the earlier example of Brad Kearns, who more than doubled his free testosterone by tweaking his training and tracking the trends in his numbers. Had he not done the testing, he wouldn’t have any reference points.

Directlabs has good deals on male and female hormonal panels.

Get Uncomfortable

We lead comfortable lives. Everything works. We don’t have to face pulse-pounding situations or bring down large game just to eat. If we get cold, we turn up the heat. Hot, we turn up the AC. Things are so easy that we can spend all winter in short sleeves. It turns out that exposure to uncomfortable physical and mental sensations is important for hormone function.

Cold exposure is great at improving insulin sensitivity and reducing insulin levels. In one study, women swam in cold water at least twice a week for 7 months, enjoying huge increases in insulin sensitivity and drops in insulin.

Heat exposure also has positive hormonal effects. It increases endocrine homeostasis in Russian fighters. Sauna use increases insulin sensitivity. A 1989 study found upwards of 5-fold increases in GH after using a sauna.

Bring In the Professionals

Sometimes you just need modern professional medical help. As I’ve said time and time again, the Primal Blueprint is about availing ourselves of everything both traditional wisdom and modern science have to offer. And because our environments are so wildly different from our evolutionary environments, we occasionally need to step outside of “natural” methods to get the help we need. Sometimes replacement therapy is the ticket. Sometimes supplementation and healing protocols. That’s okay, especially if they’re laid atop a strong foundation of ancestral health practices. There are no purity tests.

And yes, they may recommend hormone replacement therapies or pharma/nutraceuticals. Exercise caution and implement extreme vetting, but don’t dismiss them out of hand. According to Weston A. Price, North American Indian tribes would often harvest moose thyroids when they were at their largest and most potent and reserve them for men and women trying to conceive. They may not have known the word “thyroid” or even understood the concept of a hormone, but they took artificial steps to enhance men and women’s hormonal health.

For more guidance, check out the podcasts Elle Russ did with Dr. Gary Foresman. He’s a former UC Irvine doctor who got sick and tired of all the nonsense and decided to branch out into integrative medicine.

NourishBalanceThrive does comprehensive testing and consultation for the peak performance minded client interested in maintaining or regaining hormonal health.

I can vouch for Dr. Howard Liebowitz in Santa Monica. A former athlete with an athletic mindset, he curates customized regimens that emphasize hormonal health, especially for the aging adult.

Don’t sell traditional docs short, either. At least not before you actually see them. They may know more than you assume, and if nothing else, they can help you order the necessary tests.

That’s it for today, folks. There are plenty of other ways to modulate your hormone function, I’m sure, and I’d love to hear about any of the ones I missed. Thanks for reading!

Question: Has anyone done all these measures and had your hormone situation worsen?

[cristinajourdanqp]

9 Ways to Normalize Your Hormones

There are straightforward, pharmaceutical methods for altering specific hormones, and, as I showed in last week’s testosterone replacement therapy post, they can really help. But a safer intervention for your overall endocrine environment is a systemic one. Some might call it scattershot approach in that one input affects multiple endocrine targets. I’d say, “That’s the whole point.”

Today, I’m going to give you some tried and true methods for helping to normalize your endocrine health. These are things that apply to everyone, as far as I can tell. They won’t fix every problem, but they’re good places to start. Whether you’re a post-menopausal woman, a 21-year-old bodybuilder worried about overtraining, or a thyroid patient, these interventions can’t hurt and will probably help.

Get Your Sleep in Order

When you sleep poorly, everything falls apart, including the normal function and patterns of testosterone, thyroid, and growth hormone. Sleep loss itself alters the activity of the master endocrine organ, the pituitary gland, so following good sleep hygiene is a non-negotiable.

Sleep in a cold, dark, quiet room.

Get plenty of bright natural light throughout the day, especially the morning, and limit bright light after dark, especially blue and green lights. Sun lamps can help if actual natural light is unavailable during the day. Blue-blocking goggles or glasses like these (inexpensive, block blue but not much green light) or these (expensive, but block both blue and green) can help at night.

Use the seasonal variation of daylight as a rough barometer for how much sleep to get. In the summer, when it’s lighter longer, you can probably get by with 7-8 hours. In the winter, when it’s darker longer, you should aim for 8 at a minimum and 9 as an ideal.

Check out TS Wiley’s Lights Out for a full treatise on seasonal sleep variations, and why they’re so important.

Make the effort—nay, commitment—to get more sleep. Stop fiddling with your phone at 10 PM (you always regret doing it). Don’t fall asleep with the TV on (read a book instead). Get a bedtime routine.

Get Your Diet in Order

To make hormones, you need the basic structural building blocks. That means eating enough dietary fat, especially saturated, monounsaturated, and omega-3 fats.

Cholesterol is an important building block, too, and has been shown to increase muscle and strength gains in weight training adults, an indication of testosterone boosting.

Minerals like zinc, selenium, magnesium, and calcium are also extremely important for healthy hormone production and metabolism.

You also need to make sure you’re eating enough calories—not too many, not too few—as the amount of food you eat sends a strong signal about the bountifulness of the environment around you. Hormones like leptin, thyroid, testosterone, insulin, and others all perceive and are modulated by the caloric balance. Your endocrine system responds to the availability of energy by up- or down-regulating hormone production. You’re not going to get pregnant very easily during a famine, nor will you produce much testosterone if you’re obese.

Carb/glycogen balance is another indicator your endocrine system uses to determine production. If you’re training hard and burning through glycogen, you’ll probably need to eat some carbs. If you’re just doing easy slow movement, some sprints, and strength training, you probably don’t need extra carbs. The key is to eat the carbs that you earned—no more, no less.

Hammer Home Primal Style Exercise—and Avoid Any Whiff of Chronic Patterns

For Crossfit hardcores, that might mean dropping from 4x/week to 2-3x. For endurance heads, that might mean trading 140.6 goals for 70.3 goals, or 26.2 2 for 13.1 (and buying the requisite new bumper sticker, of course). For everyone, that means making your short, intense workouts even shorter and more intense.

My good friend, former co-competitor, and current writing partner, Brad Kearns, more than doubled his free testosterone simply by sucking it up and lowering his assumed aerobic base heart rate (the heart rate at which you’re burning primarily fat) from 145 to 130. Didn’t change his actual training, diet, or anything else. Staying at or below 130 HR during long slow days was enough to get his free T to the 99th percentile for his age.

Increase Your Non-Exercise Movement

Increased daily movement—fidgeting, walking, housework, gardening, carrying groceries, playing with your kids/pets—adds up, and it’s something that the most health- and fitness-conscious tend to ignore or discount. This is the stuff Katy Bowman talks about in Move Your DNA and Don’t Just Sit There.

Sitting time predicts estrogen metabolites in postmenopausal women, with more sitting time predicting rises in the same metabolites associated with breast and endometrial cancer.

Breaking up sitting with frequent standing and easy movement improves insulin sensitivity.

The more men sit in front of the TV, the lower their testosterone.

Exercise isn’t enough.

Manage Your Stress

When we’re stressed out, everything gets put on hold until we can deal with the stressor. This makes sense, because back in the day a stressor was usually a life or death situation like an enemy tribe encroaching on your tribe, a huge predatory cat, or famine. Even though most stressors these days aren’t life or death in the immediate sense, our body treats them like that—and there are a seemingly endless string of them to contend with.

What happens when stress hits? Cortisol appears. If stress sticks around, or constantly wells up, cortisol levels become chronic and disrupt your endocrine system. Chronic cortisol opposes testosterone production. Chronic cortisol reduces thyroid hormone production and impairs the conversion of inactive T4 to active T3. Chronic cortisol makes you insulin-resistant.

Everyone’s stressors are unique, but there are some big ones to watch out for: toxic relationships, terrible commutes (at the very least, find a great podcast you can listen to on the drive/ride), lack of time in nature, excessive technology exposure (especially social media). 

Discover Meaning in Your Life

Hormones direct physiological processes in the body. They’re a bit like software programs—if they’re riddled with bugs, nothing gets done. But just as computers need a user to tell the software what to do, our bodies need a narrator to give the hormones a goal to work toward. Without meaning or life purpose, the endocrine system drifts aimlessly. Why produce testosterone if there’s no competition on the horizon?

There’s admittedly not a ton of clinical support for this hypothesis. Middle-aged women with strong life purposes have better sex lives, indicating a more favorable hormonal environment. I suspect a lot of the links between life purpose and hormonal function are circular, with causation going in both directions. But that means disrupting the circle at any point can help.

Search within for what makes you tick. What makes you get up in the morning. What inflames the passions and makes you feel strong and good and right when you’re knee-deep in it. Then stick to that.

Test Frequently and Track Relevant Variables

I’m a big believer in following the symptoms, in going by how you feel, look, and perform. But having the numbers in front of you can really help, especially if you if you pair them with your symptoms, get tested at regular intervals, and track the trends.

Case in point is the earlier example of Brad Kearns, who more than doubled his free testosterone by tweaking his training and tracking the trends in his numbers. Had he not done the testing, he wouldn’t have any reference points.

Directlabs has good deals on male and female hormonal panels.

Get Uncomfortable

We lead comfortable lives. Everything works. We don’t have to face pulse-pounding situations or bring down large game just to eat. If we get cold, we turn up the heat. Hot, we turn up the AC. Things are so easy that we can spend all winter in short sleeves. It turns out that exposure to uncomfortable physical and mental sensations is important for hormone function.

Cold exposure is great at improving insulin sensitivity and reducing insulin levels. In one study, women swam in cold water at least twice a week for 7 months, enjoying huge increases in insulin sensitivity and drops in insulin.

Heat exposure also has positive hormonal effects. It increases endocrine homeostasis in Russian fighters. Sauna use increases insulin sensitivity. A 1989 study found upwards of 5-fold increases in GH after using a sauna.

Bring In the Professionals

Sometimes you just need modern professional medical help. As I’ve said time and time again, the Primal Blueprint is about availing ourselves of everything both traditional wisdom and modern science have to offer. And because our environments are so wildly different from our evolutionary environments, we occasionally need to step outside of “natural” methods to get the help we need. Sometimes replacement therapy is the ticket. Sometimes supplementation and healing protocols. That’s okay, especially if they’re laid atop a strong foundation of ancestral health practices. There are no purity tests.

And yes, they may recommend hormone replacement therapies or pharma/nutraceuticals. Exercise caution and implement extreme vetting, but don’t dismiss them out of hand. According to Weston A. Price, North American Indian tribes would often harvest moose thyroids when they were at their largest and most potent and reserve them for men and women trying to conceive. They may not have known the word “thyroid” or even understood the concept of a hormone, but they took artificial steps to enhance men and women’s hormonal health.

For more guidance, check out the podcasts Elle Russ did with Dr. Gary Foresman. He’s a former UC Irvine doctor who got sick and tired of all the nonsense and decided to branch out into integrative medicine.

NourishBalanceThrive does comprehensive testing and consultation for the peak performance minded client interested in maintaining or regaining hormonal health.

I can vouch for Dr. Howard Liebowitz in Santa Monica. A former athlete with an athletic mindset, he curates customized regimens that emphasize hormonal health, especially for the aging adult.

Don’t sell traditional docs short, either. At least not before you actually see them. They may know more than you assume, and if nothing else, they can help you order the necessary tests.

That’s it for today, folks. There are plenty of other ways to modulate your hormone function, I’m sure, and I’d love to hear about any of the ones I missed. Thanks for reading!

Question: Has anyone done all these measures and had your hormone situation worsen?

[cynthiamwashington]

9 Ways to Normalize Your Hormones

There are straightforward, pharmaceutical methods for altering specific hormones, and, as I showed in last week’s testosterone replacement therapy post, they can really help. But a safer intervention for your overall endocrine environment is a systemic one. Some might call it scattershot approach in that one input affects multiple endocrine targets. I’d say, “That’s the whole point.”

Today, I’m going to give you some tried and true methods for helping to normalize your endocrine health. These are things that apply to everyone, as far as I can tell. They won’t fix every problem, but they’re good places to start. Whether you’re a post-menopausal woman, a 21-year-old bodybuilder worried about overtraining, or a thyroid patient, these interventions can’t hurt and will probably help.

Get Your Sleep in Order

When you sleep poorly, everything falls apart, including the normal function and patterns of testosterone, thyroid, and growth hormone. Sleep loss itself alters the activity of the master endocrine organ, the pituitary gland, so following good sleep hygiene is a non-negotiable.

Sleep in a cold, dark, quiet room.

Get plenty of bright natural light throughout the day, especially the morning, and limit bright light after dark, especially blue and green lights. Sun lamps can help if actual natural light is unavailable during the day. Blue-blocking goggles or glasses like these (inexpensive, block blue but not much green light) or these (expensive, but block both blue and green) can help at night.

Use the seasonal variation of daylight as a rough barometer for how much sleep to get. In the summer, when it’s lighter longer, you can probably get by with 7-8 hours. In the winter, when it’s darker longer, you should aim for 8 at a minimum and 9 as an ideal.

Check out TS Wiley’s Lights Out for a full treatise on seasonal sleep variations, and why they’re so important.

Make the effort—nay, commitment—to get more sleep. Stop fiddling with your phone at 10 PM (you always regret doing it). Don’t fall asleep with the TV on (read a book instead). Get a bedtime routine.

Get Your Diet in Order

To make hormones, you need the basic structural building blocks. That means eating enough dietary fat, especially saturated, monounsaturated, and omega-3 fats.

Cholesterol is an important building block, too, and has been shown to increase muscle and strength gains in weight training adults, an indication of testosterone boosting.

Minerals like zinc, selenium, magnesium, and calcium are also extremely important for healthy hormone production and metabolism.

You also need to make sure you’re eating enough calories—not too many, not too few—as the amount of food you eat sends a strong signal about the bountifulness of the environment around you. Hormones like leptin, thyroid, testosterone, insulin, and others all perceive and are modulated by the caloric balance. Your endocrine system responds to the availability of energy by up- or down-regulating hormone production. You’re not going to get pregnant very easily during a famine, nor will you produce much testosterone if you’re obese.

Carb/glycogen balance is another indicator your endocrine system uses to determine production. If you’re training hard and burning through glycogen, you’ll probably need to eat some carbs. If you’re just doing easy slow movement, some sprints, and strength training, you probably don’t need extra carbs. The key is to eat the carbs that you earned—no more, no less.

Hammer Home Primal Style Exercise—and Avoid Any Whiff of Chronic Patterns

For Crossfit hardcores, that might mean dropping from 4x/week to 2-3x. For endurance heads, that might mean trading 140.6 goals for 70.3 goals, or 26.2 2 for 13.1 (and buying the requisite new bumper sticker, of course). For everyone, that means making your short, intense workouts even shorter and more intense.

My good friend, former co-competitor, and current writing partner, Brad Kearns, more than doubled his free testosterone simply by sucking it up and lowering his assumed aerobic base heart rate (the heart rate at which you’re burning primarily fat) from 145 to 130. Didn’t change his actual training, diet, or anything else. Staying at or below 130 HR during long slow days was enough to get his free T to the 99th percentile for his age.

Increase Your Non-Exercise Movement

Increased daily movement—fidgeting, walking, housework, gardening, carrying groceries, playing with your kids/pets—adds up, and it’s something that the most health- and fitness-conscious tend to ignore or discount. This is the stuff Katy Bowman talks about in Move Your DNA and Don’t Just Sit There.

Sitting time predicts estrogen metabolites in postmenopausal women, with more sitting time predicting rises in the same metabolites associated with breast and endometrial cancer.

Breaking up sitting with frequent standing and easy movement improves insulin sensitivity.

The more men sit in front of the TV, the lower their testosterone.

Exercise isn’t enough.

Manage Your Stress

When we’re stressed out, everything gets put on hold until we can deal with the stressor. This makes sense, because back in the day a stressor was usually a life or death situation like an enemy tribe encroaching on your tribe, a huge predatory cat, or famine. Even though most stressors these days aren’t life or death in the immediate sense, our body treats them like that—and there are a seemingly endless string of them to contend with.

What happens when stress hits? Cortisol appears. If stress sticks around, or constantly wells up, cortisol levels become chronic and disrupt your endocrine system. Chronic cortisol opposes testosterone production. Chronic cortisol reduces thyroid hormone production and impairs the conversion of inactive T4 to active T3. Chronic cortisol makes you insulin-resistant.

Everyone’s stressors are unique, but there are some big ones to watch out for: toxic relationships, terrible commutes (at the very least, find a great podcast you can listen to on the drive/ride), lack of time in nature, excessive technology exposure (especially social media). 

Discover Meaning in Your Life

Hormones direct physiological processes in the body. They’re a bit like software programs—if they’re riddled with bugs, nothing gets done. But just as computers need a user to tell the software what to do, our bodies need a narrator to give the hormones a goal to work toward. Without meaning or life purpose, the endocrine system drifts aimlessly. Why produce testosterone if there’s no competition on the horizon?

There’s admittedly not a ton of clinical support for this hypothesis. Middle-aged women with strong life purposes have better sex lives, indicating a more favorable hormonal environment. I suspect a lot of the links between life purpose and hormonal function are circular, with causation going in both directions. But that means disrupting the circle at any point can help.

Search within for what makes you tick. What makes you get up in the morning. What inflames the passions and makes you feel strong and good and right when you’re knee-deep in it. Then stick to that.

Test Frequently and Track Relevant Variables

I’m a big believer in following the symptoms, in going by how you feel, look, and perform. But having the numbers in front of you can really help, especially if you if you pair them with your symptoms, get tested at regular intervals, and track the trends.

Case in point is the earlier example of Brad Kearns, who more than doubled his free testosterone by tweaking his training and tracking the trends in his numbers. Had he not done the testing, he wouldn’t have any reference points.

Directlabs has good deals on male and female hormonal panels.

Get Uncomfortable

We lead comfortable lives. Everything works. We don’t have to face pulse-pounding situations or bring down large game just to eat. If we get cold, we turn up the heat. Hot, we turn up the AC. Things are so easy that we can spend all winter in short sleeves. It turns out that exposure to uncomfortable physical and mental sensations is important for hormone function.

Cold exposure is great at improving insulin sensitivity and reducing insulin levels. In one study, women swam in cold water at least twice a week for 7 months, enjoying huge increases in insulin sensitivity and drops in insulin.

Heat exposure also has positive hormonal effects. It increases endocrine homeostasis in Russian fighters. Sauna use increases insulin sensitivity. A 1989 study found upwards of 5-fold increases in GH after using a sauna.

Bring In the Professionals

Sometimes you just need modern professional medical help. As I’ve said time and time again, the Primal Blueprint is about availing ourselves of everything both traditional wisdom and modern science have to offer. And because our environments are so wildly different from our evolutionary environments, we occasionally need to step outside of “natural” methods to get the help we need. Sometimes replacement therapy is the ticket. Sometimes supplementation and healing protocols. That’s okay, especially if they’re laid atop a strong foundation of ancestral health practices. There are no purity tests.

And yes, they may recommend hormone replacement therapies or pharma/nutraceuticals. Exercise caution and implement extreme vetting, but don’t dismiss them out of hand. According to Weston A. Price, North American Indian tribes would often harvest moose thyroids when they were at their largest and most potent and reserve them for men and women trying to conceive. They may not have known the word “thyroid” or even understood the concept of a hormone, but they took artificial steps to enhance men and women’s hormonal health.

For more guidance, check out the podcasts Elle Russ did with Dr. Gary Foresman. He’s a former UC Irvine doctor who got sick and tired of all the nonsense and decided to branch out into integrative medicine.

NourishBalanceThrive does comprehensive testing and consultation for the peak performance minded client interested in maintaining or regaining hormonal health.

I can vouch for Dr. Howard Liebowitz in Santa Monica. A former athlete with an athletic mindset, he curates customized regimens that emphasize hormonal health, especially for the aging adult.

Don’t sell traditional docs short, either. At least not before you actually see them. They may know more than you assume, and if nothing else, they can help you order the necessary tests.

That’s it for today, folks. There are plenty of other ways to modulate your hormone function, I’m sure, and I’d love to hear about any of the ones I missed. Thanks for reading!

Question: Has anyone done all these measures and had your hormone situation worsen?

The post 9 Ways to Normalize Your Hormones appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

Article source here:Marks’s Daily Apple

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9 Ways to Normalize Your Hormones

There are straightforward, pharmaceutical methods for altering specific hormones, and, as I showed in last week’s testosterone replacement therapy post, they can really help. But a safer intervention for your overall endocrine environment is a systemic one. Some might call it scattershot approach in that one input affects multiple endocrine targets. I’d say, “That’s the whole point.”

Today, I’m going to give you some tried and true methods for helping to normalize your endocrine health. These are things that apply to everyone, as far as I can tell. They won’t fix every problem, but they’re good places to start. Whether you’re a post-menopausal woman, a 21-year-old bodybuilder worried about overtraining, or a thyroid patient, these interventions can’t hurt and will probably help.

Get Your Sleep in Order

When you sleep poorly, everything falls apart, including the normal function and patterns of testosterone, thyroid, and growth hormone. Sleep loss itself alters the activity of the master endocrine organ, the pituitary gland, so following good sleep hygiene is a non-negotiable.

Sleep in a cold, dark, quiet room.

Get plenty of bright natural light throughout the day, especially the morning, and limit bright light after dark, especially blue and green lights. Sun lamps can help if actual natural light is unavailable during the day. Blue-blocking goggles or glasses like these (inexpensive, block blue but not much green light) or these (expensive, but block both blue and green) can help at night.

Use the seasonal variation of daylight as a rough barometer for how much sleep to get. In the summer, when it’s lighter longer, you can probably get by with 7-8 hours. In the winter, when it’s darker longer, you should aim for 8 at a minimum and 9 as an ideal.

Check out TS Wiley’s Lights Out for a full treatise on seasonal sleep variations, and why they’re so important.

Make the effort—nay, commitment—to get more sleep. Stop fiddling with your phone at 10 PM (you always regret doing it). Don’t fall asleep with the TV on (read a book instead). Get a bedtime routine.

Get Your Diet in Order

To make hormones, you need the basic structural building blocks. That means eating enough dietary fat, especially saturated, monounsaturated, and omega-3 fats.

Cholesterol is an important building block, too, and has been shown to increase muscle and strength gains in weight training adults, an indication of testosterone boosting.

Minerals like zinc, selenium, magnesium, and calcium are also extremely important for healthy hormone production and metabolism.

You also need to make sure you’re eating enough calories—not too many, not too few—as the amount of food you eat sends a strong signal about the bountifulness of the environment around you. Hormones like leptin, thyroid, testosterone, insulin, and others all perceive and are modulated by the caloric balance. Your endocrine system responds to the availability of energy by up- or down-regulating hormone production. You’re not going to get pregnant very easily during a famine, nor will you produce much testosterone if you’re obese.

Carb/glycogen balance is another indicator your endocrine system uses to determine production. If you’re training hard and burning through glycogen, you’ll probably need to eat some carbs. If you’re just doing easy slow movement, some sprints, and strength training, you probably don’t need extra carbs. The key is to eat the carbs that you earned—no more, no less.

Hammer Home Primal Style Exercise—and Avoid Any Whiff of Chronic Patterns

For Crossfit hardcores, that might mean dropping from 4x/week to 2-3x. For endurance heads, that might mean trading 140.6 goals for 70.3 goals, or 26.2 2 for 13.1 (and buying the requisite new bumper sticker, of course). For everyone, that means making your short, intense workouts even shorter and more intense.

My good friend, former co-competitor, and current writing partner, Brad Kearns, more than doubled his free testosterone simply by sucking it up and lowering his assumed aerobic base heart rate (the heart rate at which you’re burning primarily fat) from 145 to 130. Didn’t change his actual training, diet, or anything else. Staying at or below 130 HR during long slow days was enough to get his free T to the 99th percentile for his age.

Increase Your Non-Exercise Movement

Increased daily movement—fidgeting, walking, housework, gardening, carrying groceries, playing with your kids/pets—adds up, and it’s something that the most health- and fitness-conscious tend to ignore or discount. This is the stuff Katy Bowman talks about in Move Your DNA and Don’t Just Sit There.

Sitting time predicts estrogen metabolites in postmenopausal women, with more sitting time predicting rises in the same metabolites associated with breast and endometrial cancer.

Breaking up sitting with frequent standing and easy movement improves insulin sensitivity.

The more men sit in front of the TV, the lower their testosterone.

Exercise isn’t enough.

Manage Your Stress

When we’re stressed out, everything gets put on hold until we can deal with the stressor. This makes sense, because back in the day a stressor was usually a life or death situation like an enemy tribe encroaching on your tribe, a huge predatory cat, or famine. Even though most stressors these days aren’t life or death in the immediate sense, our body treats them like that—and there are a seemingly endless string of them to contend with.

What happens when stress hits? Cortisol appears. If stress sticks around, or constantly wells up, cortisol levels become chronic and disrupt your endocrine system. Chronic cortisol opposes testosterone production. Chronic cortisol reduces thyroid hormone production and impairs the conversion of inactive T4 to active T3. Chronic cortisol makes you insulin-resistant.

Everyone’s stressors are unique, but there are some big ones to watch out for: toxic relationships, terrible commutes (at the very least, find a great podcast you can listen to on the drive/ride), lack of time in nature, excessive technology exposure (especially social media). 

Discover Meaning in Your Life

Hormones direct physiological processes in the body. They’re a bit like software programs—if they’re riddled with bugs, nothing gets done. But just as computers need a user to tell the software what to do, our bodies need a narrator to give the hormones a goal to work toward. Without meaning or life purpose, the endocrine system drifts aimlessly. Why produce testosterone if there’s no competition on the horizon?

There’s admittedly not a ton of clinical support for this hypothesis. Middle-aged women with strong life purposes have better sex lives, indicating a more favorable hormonal environment. I suspect a lot of the links between life purpose and hormonal function are circular, with causation going in both directions. But that means disrupting the circle at any point can help.

Search within for what makes you tick. What makes you get up in the morning. What inflames the passions and makes you feel strong and good and right when you’re knee-deep in it. Then stick to that.

Test Frequently and Track Relevant Variables

I’m a big believer in following the symptoms, in going by how you feel, look, and perform. But having the numbers in front of you can really help, especially if you if you pair them with your symptoms, get tested at regular intervals, and track the trends.

Case in point is the earlier example of Brad Kearns, who more than doubled his free testosterone by tweaking his training and tracking the trends in his numbers. Had he not done the testing, he wouldn’t have any reference points.

Directlabs has good deals on male and female hormonal panels.

Get Uncomfortable

We lead comfortable lives. Everything works. We don’t have to face pulse-pounding situations or bring down large game just to eat. If we get cold, we turn up the heat. Hot, we turn up the AC. Things are so easy that we can spend all winter in short sleeves. It turns out that exposure to uncomfortable physical and mental sensations is important for hormone function.

Cold exposure is great at improving insulin sensitivity and reducing insulin levels. In one study, women swam in cold water at least twice a week for 7 months, enjoying huge increases in insulin sensitivity and drops in insulin.

Heat exposure also has positive hormonal effects. It increases endocrine homeostasis in Russian fighters. Sauna use increases insulin sensitivity. A 1989 study found upwards of 5-fold increases in GH after using a sauna.

Bring In the Professionals

Sometimes you just need modern professional medical help. As I’ve said time and time again, the Primal Blueprint is about availing ourselves of everything both traditional wisdom and modern science have to offer. And because our environments are so wildly different from our evolutionary environments, we occasionally need to step outside of “natural” methods to get the help we need. Sometimes replacement therapy is the ticket. Sometimes supplementation and healing protocols. That’s okay, especially if they’re laid atop a strong foundation of ancestral health practices. There are no purity tests.

And yes, they may recommend hormone replacement therapies or pharma/nutraceuticals. Exercise caution and implement extreme vetting, but don’t dismiss them out of hand. According to Weston A. Price, North American Indian tribes would often harvest moose thyroids when they were at their largest and most potent and reserve them for men and women trying to conceive. They may not have known the word “thyroid” or even understood the concept of a hormone, but they took artificial steps to enhance men and women’s hormonal health.

For more guidance, check out the podcasts Elle Russ did with Dr. Gary Foresman. He’s a former UC Irvine doctor who got sick and tired of all the nonsense and decided to branch out into integrative medicine.

NourishBalanceThrive does comprehensive testing and consultation for the peak performance minded client interested in maintaining or regaining hormonal health.

I can vouch for Dr. Howard Liebowitz in Santa Monica. A former athlete with an athletic mindset, he curates customized regimens that emphasize hormonal health, especially for the aging adult.

Don’t sell traditional docs short, either. At least not before you actually see them. They may know more than you assume, and if nothing else, they can help you order the necessary tests.

That’s it for today, folks. There are plenty of other ways to modulate your hormone function, I’m sure, and I’d love to hear about any of the ones I missed. Thanks for reading!

Question: Has anyone done all these measures and had your hormone situation worsen?