best layed plans

It's hard to stick to a plan if you don't actually develop one, evaluate progress, and fine tune it: that is, if you have little faith in the plan itself.
I've started studying for ACE certification as a personal trainer, and for now I discover that my best study time is my hour of driving. Unfortunately I have yet to find ACE specific study materials as an audio book. Since some of my friends are kicking around the idea of developing a podcast I think there will be high quality audio recording equipment in my future, so maybe I'll just read the ACE text I have into MP3s for my personal use. But where's the plan in that? A 'maybe', dependent on someone else's decision to branch out in an exciting new direction, is not a plan.

Just like my 'diet and exercise' plan. Because it's not based in any information I actually trust it's really easy to get derailed. How many carrots make a decent snack, and how many mean I'm filling up on carrots and need to get some other veggie, or some lentil soup, or some . . . ?

Which, of course, is the point of the ACE certification. Even if I never bring that all the way to a career change now, or after retirement in the distant future, I need to find something to base these plans on, and I need to make it mine.

office birthday

Birthdays call for cake, and when getting the office to celebrate one is like pulling teeth, birthdays call for GOOD cake. I'm grateful for a concrete way to support the indefatigable office cheerleader while her parents are introducing her to the amazing world of aged-ness. So pitching in to get the cake (that she normally would have) for our colleague turned out to be a gift to both of them.

It also lets me eat yummy birthday cake on my mom's birthday. While she's 6 hours up the highway, that and a phone call are the closest I'll get this year.

(there's a Lenten dispensation for birthdays, right?)

too sleepy today

I am so unquestionably tired this afternoon. Heck, I was tired this morning. I did only get about 6 hours sleep, and I don't drink coffee, but this is ridiculous. If I sit back my eyes close and I start to hear things (like the narcolepsy symptom.) How do I beat this back?

I skipped my nap at lunchtime today because of a late start out, I didn't stick with the food plan for today. Sure, I ate the first half of my lunch at 10, but this cold weather made the idea of a dry salad very unpalatable. On my way to the grocery store for some salad dressing (I should just get some next time we go to the store -- it'll be cheaper at the one we usually go to) I opted to visit Panda Express to give them another shot. "It's rainy and cold today," I thought' "I should have something warm for lunch." Never mind that this would be easily 3x the amount I needed, 2 hours before I needed it, and would completely bypass my nap. I'm paying for it now. The food was yummy, and the service was delightful -- I noticed a bit late the a la carte option -- and I needed some more chicken in the diet today. But, ugh. I shouldn't have dropped the plan like that.

So hear I am, an hour and a half away from an hour long drive, drinking lots of water, getting up to walk in circles in the office, and trying to understand my tech research (the SSIS transformation I should use for "look up a value; if no match, that's good") , and blogging instead because this keeps the fuzziness away.

I will get better.

George the Fish

It is so fun watching my betta fish explore his little world (I have him in a 1 gallon vase with a peace lily on top) after I refresh some of the water and groom the plant roots. Putting the lily back in re-arranges it, and conceals or reveals more of the top of the aquarium castle. He loves swimming through the roots, and made a habit of forcing his way through the roots quite frequently when I first assembled his home. The lily needs fewer roots to get what it needs from aquarium water, so this endeavor is no longer as athletic. I need to get an aquarium net soon -- some pieces of root fell off before I noticed to groom he plant, and they're just sitting there, decomposing. Which, I believe, takes O2 out of the water. Bettas know how to breathe air, so it's not dangerous for him, but it's something I should get done to keep things comfortable.

Friday morning came, that alarm went off, and I knew the one thing that made sense was to take a sick day before almost half of my co-workers went on spring break. That was a good decision. I had hives on Friday, which may have been a reaction to how much hand sanitizer I was using on Thursday, or may have been me finally developing a food allergy to walnuts in my oatmeal every day. I'm cutting out the walnuts to see if there's a change in my general energy level. In a month or so I should re-introduce them to see if the hives come back.
The weekend was particularly odd -- low energy, not able to execute a single plan. Except for the bellydance performance on Saturday night. The actual dancing was really good. (the transition between dances, not so much, but then again we didn't actually practice that.) I'm looking forward to the youtube recap.
The US house of representatives did something truly stupid last night. They started a new thread in US history with the passage of the "Universal Health Care Bill". Some of the states are determined to begin its reversal, to preserve a restricted role for the federal government in the lives of us citizens. I hope they can obtain a complete victory in court.

Gosh, the weather is crazy this month! There was frost to scrape, but now it's up to 60 deg. F or so. I am eager for something more stable . . .
On the up side, I've decided that I do have a cold; I'm just back to my "colds really don't bother me" state. I wonder if it has to do with how much more water I'm drinking than I did just a month or two ago. Or the fact that I let myself take a half-hour nap in the middle of the work day, hang the American tradition that napping is lazy. It's the best way I have to keep my energy up, and it has only good effects.
I received my sister's copy of the 1996 ACE personal trainer manual. Only the first chapter is on exercise science -- it also has chapters on motivation and ethics. I think I'll be able to pass the exam in one or two tries. Time to get studying.

Spring, no fever

This is either the highest functioning cold I've had since I worked in sanitation, or I developed allergies this week. My energy level is consonant with having a bed fellow who, being in the same sinus boat, has started snoring. I got about 5 continuous hours of sleep. I'll need to Spring Forward my traveling alarm clock just in case we get worse and I need to camp out on the couch for a couple nights, which is always discouraging -- I don't sleep as well there, and he thinks it's his fault. It's cute that he doesn't want to drive me out of bed because he's a snore-monster.

Ugh, sneeze! Not fun. Trying to catch up on sleep kept me from the yoga mat this morning, too.

Dancing happy

Last month I attended a really great, local belly dance conference, Reigning Down on Oregon http://www.freewebs.com/zephyrdance/reigningdownonoregon.htm . I've been a tribal bellydancer for about a year and a half, and this was the first set of workshops I attended. Shimmying for 3 days, for a dozen different teachers, made something just click -- my usual teacher says there's a difference in my performance and presence.
We'll see on Saturday. Our troupe is performing at our usual monthly coffee house gig, and several out-of-town dancers are coming. The bar will be set high! I get to pull out our new move, Honor Roll, named so because we made it up while our teacher was attending an academic celebration for her child.
Similarly, my knees and hips have begun to ask me exactly what it is I'm trying to do on Monday nights and one Saturday a month. Time to investigate their concern on the yoga mat . . .

shadow on the clouds

This morning's commute was blessed by an amazing sunrise -- consolation for living in a state that Springs Forward. The sun rose behind Mount Hood, and it cast a shadow on the high clouds that were magenta in the sunrise.

Shadows fall where they will, whether we expect them or not. I wasn't expecting one last (hopefully) depressive bout before spring really sets in with its warmth, sunshine, and outdoor exercise, but there I was bickering with my husband in front of friends and weeping at Mass. An 8-mile hike along deep ravines in my favorite state park later, and I'm feeling much better now.

The first thing that goes when this mood sets in is the desire to be vibrant and happy. If only I could detect and counter that, it wouldn't get this messy.

starting the garden

This past weekend I seeded in peas, lettuce, carrots, mustard, and radishes, taking up about 1/4 of the half barrels that serve as my raised beds. This weekend some more brassicas will join the mix (maybe some cabbage, but will save most of that seed for a winter crop; definitely some broccoli.) I'm really happy to start the new veggie garden, and am daydreaming of zucchini and tomato on the grill this summer.
I count my blessings that I garden in a maritime climate on the west coast, of North America, that my collards over-wintered and are delightfully frost-sweetened still. I don't think this will be the magical year that I get to eat something homegrown every day of the year (counting from May to May), but I don't doubt it will happen soon.

Cookies are calling my name . . .

So, here I am, waiting for my computer to find a file I saved three minutes ago, and my mind wanders to the chocolate chip cookies I made a while ago and stored in the freezer. If I store them in a normal cookie jar I eat too many, and that's just a sad thing. But on the day after a really cloudy, emotionally blue day I still have this inclination to self-destruct with food. I'm going to stave this one off for a few days before I decide it's just that I want a cookie, and it's OK for an adult to have a cookie every once in a while.

on the other side of the clouds

He, he -- so that's what I get for starting a blog on the cloudiest day in two weeks. To add to my intro, part of my life has been a very mild but persistent depression. Not deep enough to need medication, but enough to get me questioning the bigger decisions I've made on days when the sun doesn't shine, I don't swim, I don't watch my diet, or I don't keep up with my mental hygiene. Remember the scene in "Beautiful Mind" when the doc says, keeping sane and happy is like being on a diet? He's right. Then one day the effort of staying on the mental diet of good, productive thoughts is just too much, and you cry yourself to sleep, and the next day is much better. A new start.
Especially when I remember to bring upbeat music on my commute to work. Thank you, Monkees, for everything you did!

Good Morning

So, my first attempt at blogging should probably include an introduction of some sort. I'm too young to be having a mid-life crisis -- to happy to be having a crisis of any kind -- but at the same time I almost consistently find myself longing for one of the many less sensible options I bypassed several years ago.
So here I am, looking for insight and truth. . . and wondering if those are things we discover, or things we create?