01
Sep
2010
Having a Baby…
Me: Just one more push! We’ve just got one more!
Steph: YOU SAID THAT THE LAST FIVE TIMES!!!!!!!!!
Me: I meant, one more in this set.
Because baby-birthing is the ultimate total fitness workout.
Kameron Hurley
“I worshipped dead men for their strength, forgetting I was strong.”
- Vita Sackville-West
Archive for the ‘life’ Category
14
Mar
2010
New Digs!
All settled into the new digs. Check it out! (everything here but pics of J’s room, which he’s still putting together a bit)
02
Mar
2010
Oh, How I Love Thee….
J. and I have nearly finished the first full season of Farscape. Last night, he looked up some actors on IMDB to see what else they’d done, then came back into our room and said, deadpan, “Did you know that most of the actors are Australian?”
Oh, J….
26
Feb
2010
Looking forward…
… to spring.
21
Feb
2010
Moving Daze
The move to the new digs is beginning. We pick up the keys next weekend, and have started packing today. Or, in my case, cleaning up all the fucking stacks of paper in my room to *prepare* for moving. Figure we’ll get keys next Saturday, spend Saturday cleaning the place up, Saturday night and Sunday moving smaller boxes, and then do an official move-in weekend March 6th.
We decided to do this mainly to cut down on utility costs, since we’ll be paying for both places during March. Better to clean out the big house, jack it down to 50 and stop running the space heaters, and jack up the other house to 65 and sign up for budget billing, which is $100 per month (last month’s gas bill for this house was a whopping $371).
So… here goes.
13
Feb
2010
Back in the PNW
I’m back in the PNW (Pacific Northwest) for my grandmother’s funeral this weekend. I’d have much preferred being back in the PNW on a happier occasion, but since I’m here, I’m trying to make the best of it.
The air here is different, did you know that? Clear and clean; tinged with evergreen. I love it. I miss it. I miss the big trees and the water and the 40-50 degree “winter” weather. I miss eating fresh fish.
I do not, however, miss the cost of living. I stood in the grocery store this afternoon suffering from quite literal sticker shock. Stuff here was often $1-2 more than I would have paid back in OH. Gas was 30 cents a gallon more expensive. But you know what? Folks are a lot more friendly. And they know how to drive as if there may actually be other human beings in those big hucks of metal they share the road with.
I’m sitting in bed now with the window open, listening to the frogs in my parents’ pond out back gettin’ on their early-spring song in the otherwise silent night, and man… I do love the PNW.
But who can afford to live here?
In any case, here’s a picture of my niece, Kaylee, who is training to be a carpenter or perhaps an engineer, as you can see from how skillfully she removed this slat from one of the kitchen chairs. I anticipate getting her some overalls with a teddy bear patch at some point.
With a career like that in her future, she will have no trouble getting along in the PNW!
01
Feb
2010
New Digs
After much wringing of hands and moaning over our $900 rent payment and crazy utility bills, J. and I decided to downsize.
We can afford our current place perfectly during the summer and passably during the winter, but we’re looking for a place we could afford should one of us lose our jobs. Crazy economy, and all. We also wanted something with a slightly more efficient heating system (no more radiators!), a fenced yard, a garage, and a liberal pet policy that would let us have a dog.
Enter our solution: $665 a month. Slightly better neighborhood. 2 car garage. Forced air heat. 700 sq feet smaller. Still has 3 bedrooms. Lacks a shower upstairs, but has one downstairs. Needs some extra 3-prong plugs upstairs, but we’ve got them in the kitchen and upstairs in what will be J’s office (I have no problem using converters. He shudders at the thought).
We’ll still be paying out the ass for utilities during Dec/Jan/Feb, but the furnace is more efficient and total sq ft is smaller, and I’ve learned my lesson about the whole “put plastic sheeting over the windows” thing. I detest the white trash idea of “winterizing” my house with plastic sheeting. But then, I grew up in the PNW, where it doesn’t generally get below 40 degrees for very long. Winterizing is still a foreign idea. We’re def. doing it next year.
We’ve filled out all the paperwork, so we’ll see how it turns out. Move date would be around March 15th.
26
Jan
2010
Things That Need Doing
Stepped on the scale today for the first time in, what, six months? When I was living at my old apt, I was very good at weighing myself once a month and making adjustments accordingly. It kept my weight steady and my clothes fitting and all was well. Now that my house is so damn cold, I’m less inclined to strip and step on a scale. So I’ve avoided it since at least October when the house started getting chilly.
I knew I’d put on 10lbs or so since J. and I moved in together. I actually managed to get that back down to +5 before the holidays. Then came the holidays, and winter, and tax season, and this really great website with low carb coffee cake recipes…
Despite getting up at 5:30 in the morning to do 30 minutes of exercise and another 20-25 minutes 3 times a week when I get home, it just hasn’t been enough to make up for the coffee cake and cold house. They’ve also cut the workout program at work, which means no more twice-weekly strength training sessions and no more gym membership.
What happened is just what I suspected would happen when I ceased being vigilant – I’ve gained a retarded amount of weight since J. and I first met a year and a half ago – most of which I’ve put on in the last 4 months of coffee cakes and cold houses. Nobody believes me when I say this is what happens when I stop paying attention.
What actually moved me to get back on the scale was my crazy sugar numbers. My blood sugar has been a lot harder to control, and far more frustrating. I wanted to know if the weight gain was indeed substantial enough that it may be causing insulin resistance. And oh yes, dear reader – it is.
There are some quick and easy changes I’m making right away: no more low carb cookies and coffee cakes, for one (do you have any idea how many calories are in almond flour?), and sticking to the lunch I bring into work instead of adding snacks from the free salad bar at work. I did manage to eliminate my peanut butter/low carb English muffin fix way back, which is how I curbed the initial weight gain and got things back under control. But now there’s that coffee cake thing…
My 20 minutes pilates/15 min free weights workout each morning is pretty solid. What I need to work on now is getting at least 30 minutes 5x a week of cardio instead of the current 20-25 3x a week. A lot of the problem with getting this in is wonky sugar numbers. Some days I turn my insulin off at 3:45 and I can workout for 50 minutes. Other days, I turn it off at the same time and I can only workout for 20 and then my sugar crashes and I start to tremble and all the energy goes out of me and I have that intense hunger spike and desire to burn the world to the ground. I need to get this timing right if I’m going to workout properly every day after work.
I’m also working toward doing at least 40 more minutes on Sat or Sun to get me to 6 days. 6 days a week of 30-50 min a day is pretty much the only thing that moves me. It’s just a really tough routine to put into place during the best of times, and right now the house is cold and I’ve got a crazy day job and personal deadlines.
But. The alternative is very bad. This is a good reminder of what happens to me when I don’t stay on top of maintaining my weight with monthly weigh-ins. I know some folks thought this was odd – if you’re happy with your weight, why be so vigilant?
Here’s why: because aside from that whole immune disorder thing, I have great genes. I’m very good at packing weight away, and when you have aforementioned immune disorder, this is a very bad habit to get into. I have been displeased with my numbers, and not feeling well to boot. Now I have a better idea of why. I’m still quite pleased with how I look (I spent a long time learning how to like myself, and reorienting how my self worth was measured in a society with weird ways of measuring worth, particularly in women), but my numbers are bad, so I don’t feel as well, and I’m not throwing out my wardrobe because I’d rather eat coffee cake.
So, here’s what we’re going to do to get back to maintenance:
Monday/Weds/Friday
Workout: 20 min pilates. 15 min free weights
Breakfast: 2 eggs w/spinach
Workout: Bike to work (if not snowing, more than 20 degrees out)
Lunch: Leftovers. No more salad bar additionals.
Workout: Bike home (if not snowing, more than 20 degrees out)
Workout: 25-30 minutes elliptical
Dinner: Entree and side. No more tortillas/low carb bread
Dessert: Yogurt and berries
Tuesday/Thursday
Workout: 20 min pilates. 15 min free weights
Breakfast: 2 eggs w/spinach
Workout: Bike to work (if not snowing, more than 20 degrees out)
Lunch: Leftovers. No more salad bar additionals.
Workout: Bike home (if not snowing, more than 20 degrees out)
Workout: 25-30 minutes elliptical. 25 minutes circuit training.
Dinner: Entree and side. No more tortillas/low carb bread
Dessert: Yogurt and berries
Saturday
Breakfast: Low carb pancakes (no almond flour makes a big difference)
Workout: 40 min circuit training
Lunch: Soup/sandwich/leftovers. No more “it’s a special occasion” carbs
Dinner: Entree and side. No more tortillas/low carb bread
Dessert: Yogurt and berries
Sunday
Breakfast: Low carb pancakes
Workout: 15-20 minutes elliptical
Lunch: Soup/sandwich/leftovers. Ditto above carb curb.
Dinner: Entree and side. No more tortillas/low carb bread
Dessert: Yogurt and berries
This eliminates the low carb bread/tortillas I’ve been snacking on and low carb/high calorie coffee cakes and cookies I’ve been making. I think this alone will make a big difference. I’m telling you, I could live on low carb coffee cake forever.
I’m not terribly happy with this, but I’m less happy with my sugar numbers right now. If I’m going to do some of the things I’d like to do this year, it’s also very important that I get into some semblance of fighting shape. And all this happy-happy-joy-joy stuff has aided me in becoming a bit doughier than I’d like.
Thing is, you want to be a certain kind of person, you have to start living like that kind of person, no matter how frustrating it may be. And there’s a certain type of person I’d like to be. And she works out a lot more than I’ve been able to the last few months. It’s too bad she doesn’t eat as much coffee cake as I’d like, either, but them’s the breaks.
25
Jan
2010
07
Jan
2010
Tonight’s Agenda
I’d rather it snowed another 6 inches so I could work from home tomorrow, instead of just another 2, which will make it annoying and slow to get into work, but not annoying and slow enough to work from home.
Etc. It’s a rough life.
Anyway, new project in the works tonight, already outlined and chapter one’d. Will post excerpt soon.
Novels
