Unfortunately, I gained weight this week. I tracked almost everything I ate, and for the most part, was running a calorie deficit. So it is time for a change. I’m still figuring out what I’m going to do. The problem is that I’m really hungry in the mornings, which I never used to be. Even though I stop eating at 6 PM and don’t eat again until 9 AM on a regular basis.

So I’m not sure if the weight gain is my fault, or if in part it’s my thyroid medication not being up to snuff.

I will do something about it, I’ll figure out what exactly later today.

I didn’t get in as many steps last week as I have been doing. My knee took a turn for the worse late last week, and I spend a couple of days not doing much of anything because the damned thing hurt too much.

I’ve been trying to take better care of my knee, to treat it like an injury and not an inconvenience. This is difficult for me, but I figure that mindset is important. I am frustrated when I do that and I still end up with the cyst at the back completely swollen and full enough that it pulls everything else out of alignment on my knee.

I did not write much last week. Had a couple of good days, mixed in with a bunch of bad days. However, I did write every day. It’s been two and a half months of that. Though I was tempted on Saturday to use the streak-freeze amulet, I didn’t. I still managed words.

I didn’t do my email every day last week either. Yeah, it wasn’t a good week. I’ve basically managed to stay atop my email, but I haven’t been getting ahead. So I’m reframing how I approach email to see if I can get further ahead on it. I do have one inbox that’s mostly empty, but two more that I really need to clean out.

I am on Reddit currently, following the hydroponics boards. This has been great. There are lots of people who know so much more than I do about hydroponics, and sometimes, someone asks a more technical question and I get to learn more.

There is SO MUCH that I don’t know about hydroponics. I’m currently doing the easiest system possible, basic Kratky, with a single deep-water container (DWC). I started off with two mason jars my window, growing kale. I made mistakes at that point, because I just started and I didn’t learn everything all at once.

That tends to be my MO. Jump in, make mistakes and make corrections.

I understand that I can’t learn everything at once. The best way for me to learn is a little bit at a time. I run into a new concept, I look it up, I learn about it. The same with the new vocabulary that comes with hydroponics.

Blaze had to point out to me last night that what I was doing was actually anti-stodgy. I have always thought about anti-stodgy being *doing* something new. But learning something new I guess counts too. I’m constantly learning new stuff. Not just new words in Hungarian, but also all about hydroponics.

Next year, I plan on building a vertical wall system. Before I’m ready to do that, I need to figure out what lights I want to use, how strong the pump needs to be, measuring the EC/PPM (electrical connectivity/pounds per minute) water rates and figuring out what those should be for the system I have in mind, etc.

It’s a lot to learn. It would be daunting if I was trying to learn it all at once. Instead, I’m learning it in bite-sized pieces. Kind of like how I learned business, and politics, and…

How do you learn best? What have you learned about lately?