You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January 2009.
Has anybody ever heard of GAINING weight after starting an exercise program? Don’t tell me it’s muscle. I’ve never had muscle, I’ve never tried to build muscle. I’m pretty sure that my arms are made of popsicle sticks and spaghetti. It’s been six weeks. I’m running consistently, eating healthy and curtailing the cocktail hour. WTH???
Right now I’m on the computer in the office wasting time on Facebook and writing this post. Mimi is on the couch with my old laptop playing games on Disney.com. Wixi is playing Super Mario Cart on the Wii. This has been going on for quite some time now and I’m trying to muster the parental gumption to care that I may be raising little techno-isolationist babies. Mimi’s home sick this afternoon and I guess I just want to let her rest doing something she likes. This requires also letting Wixi do something he likes – the only thing that has the power to keep him from bugging his sister to tears. When I was a kid home sick I would watch hour upon hour of Family Affair, My Three Sons, The Brady Bunch, Laverne and Shirley and Three’s Company. Isn’t this the same thing? Well, isn’t it?
Only difference may be that I don’t recall my mother suffering from all the GUILT.
I can’t remember where I heard about Joe’s Goals but I’ve been using it for the past few weeks to track my New Year’s resolutions. It’s really simple to use and I love completing a task just so I can go to the site and give myself a check mark. It amazes me that I’m motivated to go run a mile on the treadmill just so that I can click that button, but there you go. Maybe it would work for you? Here’s all you do:
1. Go to the site and sign in.
2. Click “Add Goal” and type in whatever you want. It works best with short-term goals if you like that feeling of crossing something off a list.
3. You can add a positive goal or a negative goal. If you’re trying to quit smoking or stop eating Little Debbie snacks, you can track how often you’re doing those things too (doesn’t seem like much fun, but maybe the punishment of the check mark can be as effective as the payoff?).
4. Create a logbook to keep notes related to your goal. For instance, I have a logbook that tracks how far I run each time I reach a cardio goal. So, not only am I motivated to run, but I push myself a bit harder so that I have incremental progress to report in my log book.
4. Track your progress with a visual graph. If you’re kind of a pointdexter like me, you may like seeing your progress displayed in a long wavy line.
My sister-in-law watched the inauguration yesterday with my nieces (4 and 6) and tried to explain to them why this election is so important. Her youngest became exasperated and wanted to know why this particular election is so different from other ones. Amy carefully explained that it’s important because some people see themselves in this man. Some people never believed that someone like him – someone like them – could ever be the President of our country. So then my niece says, “Oh, you mean people with big ears ?”
I’m torn between wishing I was in D.C. for the inauguration and feeling relieved I’ll get to watch the events from my warm comfy couch. I’m so excited and full of hope for this Presidency. I haven’t talked about it too much with the kids, but they’re excited too. Mimi asked last night if we would record the swearing-in and the parade so that she can watch it with us tomorrow night. Um, yeah. We can do that.
That kind of excitement is usually reserved for some lame Disney movie. We make it fun by pulling out the card table and draping it with blankets to make a fort. They stuff it full of pillows and blankets and watch the show from there while I wait on their every whim – water, snacks, pillow-fluffing, whatever.
Barack Obama has reached Disney status in this household. I’m loving it.
My best friend Lauren (since 6th grade!) was supposed to fly back to Michigan for Christmas this year, but instead she got stranded in Portland, Oregon because of the weather. I’m lucky if I get to see her once a year, so we were pretty disappointed. She moved to Portland a year after college graduation in 1995. We drove her little VW Fox across the country taking the scenic route through the Grand Canyon and up Highway 101. I hated flying back without her, and I’ve struggled ever since with trying to keep in touch with her in a meaningful way.
This Christmas, out of desperation, we decided to try Skype. Skype is free downloadable software that lets you make phone calls over the internet. If you add a web cam – you have an instant video phone!
I”ve been using Skype for instant messaging for a couple of years, but had never used it with video. Lauren told me to set it up and give her a call. It took me all of three minutes to sign-in and search for her contact info. I clicked on her name and…there she was (complaining about how she hadn’t had time to shower). It was so awesome to see her smile. We talked for awhile and the kids did a little dance for her and I even helped her pick out which dress to wear for an upcoming wedding. It definitely wasn’t the same as having her with us, but it sure can work in a pinch.
I’m worried about my plan for the new year. I set a lot of goals for myself that will require me to develop some new habits. Habits that won’t be easy to develop (like excercising everyday when I used to excercise hardly ever). I also will need to develop a regular writing habit to meet another goal. Both of these will require not only major changes in attitude and laziness quotient, but a schedule shift to find more time in the day. Considering that I also want to cut back spending (aka: shopping for comfort), I’m afraid I may have bitten off more than I can chew. This new routine is definitely a shock to my system. So far I’ve been able to swing it – but smarter people than me advise that this is probably not the best route to take.
For instance, the Zen Habits blog (awesome site!) recommends changing a habit incrementally to make it stick. This makes so much sense to me intellectually, but somehow I always find myself thinking that it has to be all or nothing. I don’t have the patience for ONE THING at a time. I hate that about me. Maybe I should work do develop another habit of trying to do things one at a time? Oh hell.
What about you? What’s your secret to making a life change?
One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to run 3 miles regularly by April. That sentence is so funny to me. If you asked anyone who knows me at all, they would die laughing at the idea of: Me. A runner.
Hilarious.
But, this goal is born out of necessity. I have to do something to stay in shape and I just don’t have time for all the walking. Oh my god the walking. It takes so long, dude. I was doing it pretty regularly this summer, but I needed at least an hour to have any impact. Do you know what else I could be doing with that hour? It’s an eternity in mommy time. So, this fall I moved to the treadmill because exercising in the COLD is a doubly whammy of misery that I just cannot bring upon myself. For fun I played around with the speed setting and cried a little when I saw how many more calories I would burn in so much less time if I could move my legs FASTER.
Today I hit ONE MILE of running. Without stopping. I’ve been working my way up for about a month VERY inconsistently – kind of a little New Year’s sneak attack. Take that, little top hat baby.
