Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

Spring is definitely trying down here. The daffodils, crocus and a couple tulips appear to be ready already. I blame the super-warm weather last week confusing their little green brains. They will persevere, I’m sure… or at least I’m reassured by my mother that they’ll be fine. Given how fast the snow is melting, I really shouldn’t worry at all, right?

I spent 40 minutes on the elliptical machine at the gym today. It felt great. I’m pleased to discover that the iPad is perfect for reading on the elliptical too – bright, high contrast and adjustable letter sizes. I’m sure another eReader would probably work too, but the iPad is what I’ve got and I like it. Of course, spending 40 minutes reading about Starbucks’ business and marketing approach makes it really tempting to stop for coffee on the way home. (I resisted, not because my usual plain latte is bad but because I’d already caffeinated for the day.)

I have a new trainer I’m starting with next week. His name is Steve and I didn’t giggle at the name.* For those keeping score at home, that’s Trainer #6 in the year I’ve been working out at this gym. All previous trainers have left the gym. Needless to say, I’ve canceled my training contract and don’t expect to renew even after I’ve used up my surplus sessions. Which is a pity… if they’d been able to keep my original trainer around (he left for a better job at a better gym), I’d probably be gung-ho to continue with this gym until the end of time. Seriously, he rocked that hard. I’ve considered going into his new gym, but it’s in the city which will only serve as an excuse not to go. I may need to reevaluate that sometime in the near future.

*”Steve” has long been my default name when I need an example. I tend to forget sometimes that Steves actually exist.

exercise, gardening, snow, spring, training

This morning in the gym, when I looked up during my toe touches, there was a fat gray squirrel staring at me from the ledge over the door to the aerobics room. He might have been snickering.

New Trainer Guy continues to earn points. Varied and challenging workouts that happen to also be fun? Yes, please! Let’s keep doing them!

Pennsic exploded in the living room… and it’s still there. Laundry is on-going.

I’m not a big romantic, but the optimism and perseverance shown by the Chilean miner who proposed while trapped underground is really touching.

Today’s Penny Arcade is irreverent and made me laugh so hard I nearly choked.

It’s a Great Big Sea kind of day.

I don’t even know where to begin. Things have been busy, the world has been a little out of control and chaos has been a close companion. In the interest of being more amusing though, here’s the progress report without any of the causes, goals or even context in some cases.

Health and exercise:
- I still love the gym and see my trainer a lot.
- I’m still feeling better than ever and still shrinking.
- It’s entirely possible I’ll miss working out when we are at Pennsic. Handily there’s a big hill and a lot of walking.

House and home:
- The ceiling in my office and many of the cracks in the plaster walls have been fixed. My office is a different shade of green and my desk is setup again after a week and a half of working from less desk-like areas.
- The ceilings in the living room and porch are also repaired and repainted multiple times and the archway has had its plaster repaired.
- The house has been cleaned thoroughly to try to mitigate the mess the workmen made.
- Many of the broken windows have been fixed. (The windows were broken by hail, not the workmen. The workmen only broke a door to my stereo cabinet as far as I can tell.)
- There are roofing supplies (albeit the incorrect ones) in the driveway to replace the roof post-hailstorm. There will also be siding.

The Mini Clubman and cars:
- The Clubman is in the shop getting $4000 of damage fixed, also post-hailstorm. Paintless dent removal is an amazing thing but there are still dents to be removed with body work.
- The Mercury Grand Marquis has been returned to Enterprise because, despite how novel I found the feeling of driving my living room, it smelled pungently of cheap air fresheners over cheap cigarettes.
- The HHR is sitting in the driveway pretending to have the allure of the Clubman but without the appealing gas mileage or zip of the Clubman.

Pennsic prep:
- We are not certain where all the garb is but we do have hunches.
- Cute Project: supplies achieved. Construction likely.
- Fun Project: may bring supplies to Pennsic and do it there.
- Sewing: HAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!
- Packing: Do we even need to go there? I bought a new basket in Media as well as some toiletries that landed in that basket, does that count?

Work stuff:
- Work has eaten my life lately.
- I’m going on vacation in a week.

Miscellaneous:
- I have wonderful, awesome, greatest of the greats friends and I love them dearly because they really are just that superlative.
- I want to spend more time reading.
- I bought Bejewled for my iPad which means time I would spend reading is actually spent playing Bejeweled. This was an error.
- If I owe you responses to email, voicemail or snail mail, I apologize. I’ve been terrible with that stuff this summer due to work eating my life.

cars, clubman, exercise, health, home, pennsic, work

In the land of random open tabs I’ve been meaning to share, we have have the following:

• Yodeling Pickle: I never knew I needed a yodeling pickle (toy)… I still don’t know. But I’m sure there’s someone out there who will love the yodeling pickle.
• Truckers knitting and quilting: a cute story. Installing a sewing machine in a sleeper cab is brilliant! (link from Laura)
• Margaret Thatcher in a tank: actually linked from a larger story about the Top 10 Careers damaged by Photographs. Ms. Thatcher’s photo was provided as an example of one not damaged by a photo.
• Bunny party after roof collapses: Swedish rabbits “make special friends” after the roof over the country’s biggest rabbit exhibition collapses under heavy snow. Paternity suits increase 72%.
• Convicts in sheep’s clothing: quite literally. Apparently it’s an effective disguise for avoiding recapture.

In the absurd and silly category this week we have the Snuggie for Dogs. I actually saw this product earlier at Kohl’s so I can unfortnuately confirm it’s not just a figment of the Internet’s imagination. Yes, the blanket with arms is now available for dogs of all sizes… poor dogs. (Here’s a picture of a poor little dog in a pink snuggie linked from PetCo.) Poor dogs.

In other news, I had a great workout this morning as well as excellent shopping karma this afternoon despite the proximity to the the Snuggie for Dogs. And then all my errands came to a stop for people being dumb trying to get around a big accident at a major intersection. One lane was being directed through by a police officer but people were still trying to make turns around it as well as follow the traffic signals instead of the police officer. It took me 15 minutes to get through the intersection at which point I decided I’d had enough of stupid people and put off my trips to Home Depot and PetSmart.

The weather is lovely. The windows are open. The cats are flopped about. It’s Friday. I’m ready for Spring!

After long procrastination of various sorts, some ripping of rows and rows of stitches and a mistake in the heel not discovered in time to fix but in time to repeat in the other heel, I have finished my first pair of adult-sized socks. The yarn is “Walk on the Wild Tide” from Blue Moon Fiber Arts. I have 2 more skeins of BMFA yarn to play with as well as a membership to the Socks That Rock club. So far I like their yarn – it has enough twist to it that it doesn’t split easily. They dying is exquisite though I’m not all that excited by this colorway. (I traded away the first color way from the sock club because it was oh so pink as well… I’m hoping for greens, blues or purples for the next shipment!)

Anyway, pair #1 done. I expect the next pair to go much faster!

My first week back at the gym has been good. I’ve survived. I hate my trainer just a little evil so far… but I suspect him of much deeper, darker, more grueling evil. 5 work-outs in 5 days. I’m taking tomorrow off. I have this faint hope my calves will not be screaming at me by tomorrow. I don’t mind the new awareness I have of my abs, but the calf pain is rather special and impedes my willingness to run around.

By the by… overnight tonight (Saturday), we get to “Spring Ahead” for Daylight Savings. I know, you’re just as excited as I am, I’m sure. Sleep robbery! But at least my purple “iMac” clock will be correct again!

daylight savings, exercise, knitting, sock

More roses today. I enjoy playing with light.

The Patriots had it too easy this season and it didn’t prepare them for the intensity this game. It was a great game, both teams played amazingly – but the Giants deserved the win. I loved the last few minutes of the 4th quarter: lots of action and suspense. I also loved how the first 2 possessions led to scores which in turn led us to assume we’d be watching a high-scoring game. Just fun football. Hurray!

I am coming to the conclusion that I’m just not going to get a Winter this year. I’m not exactly happy about this. It feels surreal to be in January and February without any cold temperatures or snow. I could never move any farther south than I am now apparently. My internal calendar is getting all messed up as it is!

I have eaten an enormous amount of food that is not at all good for me this weekend. I feel like I need to eat raw vegetables for days to try to make it up to my body. The belated birthday dinner was fabulous despite food karma making my steak rather dramariffic. I also have an extremely soft spot for pomegranate martinis. The extra time it took to get me a proper steak involved sipping an extra martini. Oh well… Today there were munchies and junk food for the Superbowl. And it’s Girl Scout cookie time so there are Tagalongs (er… peanut butter patties) lurking in the kitchen already with clever plans laid to acquire more. I think it’s time to unfold the treadmill and get myself back on it.

I guess my plan is to feed my body raw vegetables and Girl Scout cookies this week. While on the treadmill…

Not a bad plan, really…

sports, superbowl, patriots, giants, weather, winter, food, exercise, football, girl scout cookies, photographs, roses, sweetheart roses

In the spirit of Spring, the weather has been wild this week. Today and yesterday have been very blustery days and chilly. I love it. I should get decent sunglasses. My eyes were watering from the wind and brightness at the beginning of my walk. Today maybe I’ll remember sunglasses.

So it’s been about a month since I started walking regularly. I’m walking for a half hour 5 times a week now and it’s a very good thing. I’m no longer getting that bizarre spacey feeling after every walk. I am having some really great other beneficial effects. I feel like I have muscles in my legs again! I can actually feel them when I’m walking now. My body has come to the realization, “Oh she’s actually going to stick to this. I guess we’d better get conditioned for it.” I’m still trying not to over-do it but my back (and its general malaise of aches and pains) appears to be doing better with the exercise. These are all big “well duh” items, I know, but they’re still exciting.

I went to bed reeeeeealy early last night, 9:30. I watched a bit of tv then rolled over and was asleep shortly after 11. This morning I could not get out of bed probably due to the wonderful warm quality of my blankets versus the chilly quality of the rest of the house. I’m very much looking forward to a relaxing weekend of sleeping in.

exercise, sleep, spring, walking, weather, wind, flowers, forsythia

Happy Friday! I’ve had a crazy week. Luckily it gets to end with a calm Friday! Work has been busy, culminating in a big meeting and presentation yesterday. I didn’t have to give the presentations but I did prep them so I have to say the meeting was dull. I was saved when the meeting ended an hour early. That rocked. I also appear to have a stable assignment through August or so. It’s nice to know that I’m still useful to my boss too. I’m still having fun and feeling productive, always a feature.

I started collecting silly World of Warcraft videos on their own page. I’m still trying to find a couple that I really liked but haven’t seen in a while. Feel free to toddle over there and make suggestions. Some of them are particularly WoW-geeky others will amuse anyone. Yes, I am that flavor of geek. But some of these are really great!

Last weekend’s to-do list went well enough. Home Depot run, indoor gardening, grocery shopping, some office cleaning and some correspondence happened. I tried to mail my novel outline to my other computer but failed… so I kind of touched it! As an added bonus, I got through a ton of laundry. Outdoor gardening has to happen this weekend though. I need to prune some shrubbery before it’s too late. So this weekend the same list applies and we’ll see if I can finish it off. I really want to make space for the scanner so I can order it and start playing! (And get the box of prints and slides off the futon couch in my office!) And maybe I’ll even tweak things so I can post photos without having to align them all to the left.

Walking is still proving to be very good for me. I will in fact continue doing it. Of course, I keep seeing the Little White Dog Mafia when I go out. I think they’re stalking me! I have a little first generation iPod shuffle I take walking with me. Intellectually, I know that the songs are played in a relatively random order, but in my heart I think my iPod is trying to please me. Songs like “One Night in Bangkok” and “Rock me, Amadeus” come up a lot in the shuffle. Really fun walking songs! What I find particularly good about walking is that I don’t obsess over work while I’m doing it. I’m more often looking for nifty things to photograph (like the flowers I’m posting today) or just letting my mind wander. It’s really quite meditative. Yeah, yeah, yeah, all those good things people say about exercise and walking are true.

The weather is still kind of crazy but pleasant. I admit that after one stupidly warm day I changed my gym membership from cancelled to frozen. If I don’t successfully shift my schedule to walk in the cooler parts of the day, I may reactivate it. I may eventually feel the need to go back to the gym and do actual training. We’ll see. I’m not counting my chickens or anything, just not cancelling the lease on the hen house. I hate the heat. A lot.

I hope this Friday Flower Fabulousness has entertained you! There’s a lot of yellow out there now. The magnolia trees are starting to bloom. The tulips should come along in another week. The cherry trees are starting to look like they’re contemplating spring while the dogwoods are preparing a little more seriously. There will be lots more flower pictures coming soon!

daffodils, flowers, spring, weekend, world of warcraft, irises, croci, crocuses, weather, exercise

It’s just the sort of gray morning that makes me want to curl up in my happy oversized chair and read all day.

My to do list for this weekend is kind of fun:

1. Home Depot run for gardening supplies
2. Optional Ikea run for … Ikea stuff and a belated b-day present
3. Grocery shopping
4. Indoor gardening – transplanting houseplants and such
5. Outdoor gardening – pruning stuff
6. Rearranging my desk to try to make room for the cat, the computers and the scanner… and maybe devote an entire cubby to work stuff
7. Bake grapenut bread or some other such tastiness
8. Write letters to various people I owe letters to and generally catch up on correspondence
9. Touch my novel outline

If I get half of these done, I’ll call it a win.

Speaking of 4, I made it out walking 4 times this week! Go me! Today’s walk turned into a walk in the rain kind of quickly so I cut it a few blocks short. I got home slightly damp but none the worse for wear. The problem with gray days like this is that the light is perfect for photography (at least how I like the light to be) but the danger of getting caught in the rain with an expensive camera is very real. I made the right choice by not taking my camera out today but there are daffodils desperate to be photographed! But, circling back to walking, exercise has been good for me the past 2 weeks. All those things that we know intellectually about the effects of exercise? Turns out they’re actually true! Hopefully I’ll keep it up!

In the interest of providing some sort of content, borrowed or otherwise… what do you think of this new take on Apple’s 1984 ad?

exercise, politics, random, to do list, 1984, Apple ad, Apple