the excitement of everyday life

yesterday i took a well deserved day off. i'd been working myself too much lately, and thought it would be refreshing to take a day and just do whatever i wanted.

slept in and woke up late. yes!

invited claire to come to the soup kitchen with me. she said yes!

had a great time at the soup kitchen. was told i looked gorgeous! and smelled good! only had to break up one small fight. sometimes men are so obnoxious. i wish they would learn to hold their tongue! that's what my mom and dad taught me. it's not worth it to get in the last word. they wouldn't stop even when a cute girl asked them to just drop it. sigh.

i spent some time with my cd collection. it'd been a year or so since i updated my music list, and i thought i was finding cds that weren't where they belonged, and others seemed to be missing from the list.

while doing that project, i found *3* cds that had been put into other cases for travel purposes, i'm sure...but those 3 cds had been lost for 9 months and i was SUPER EXCITED to have them back! i had actually started to worry that i'd lost/left them somewhere. hooray!

later in the evening, i got a call from someone who had some firewood to sell. cherry, split, and big pieces, about a cord. did i want it? absolutely! made 2 runs in my car, well into the night, and the roommates helped me unload it into the yard. warmth in the winter, i can't wait! well, yes, i can wait. i want to wait. i'm not ready to build fires yet, but i look forward to being ready with dry wood! during the unloading, zach sang us a rousing rendition of "the wonders of mechanical invention" since we were using a wheelbarrow.

[this was my second night of firewooding - the previous night i made a run to someone's house where i got some rounds of fir and some bigger pieces, and then i happened upon a house that had a sign out front that said 'free firewood' so i got some. it was kind of rotten birch, but some of the pieces were solid. score! i feel like a midnight firewood raider, however...]

after all the unloading was complete, we went inside, at which point zach realized we were all in the house together at one time, and he decided it was time for us to share the ONE lone pepper that had been growing in the garden. it was pretty feeble; small and leathery. but it was red and we were determined to share it since we all helped with it's growth and development. for a little red pepper, i found it to be quite tasty, even though we each only got a sliver.

to top off my wonderful day, i decided to sleep outside under the stars. a few things i learned from this:

1. lights on in the house can really light up the deck
2. chocolate before bed is a bad idea
3. every noise makes you think something big is coming for you
4. not using a tent makes a person feel very vulnerable!
5. the stars at night are amazing, along with the cool breeze, lack of biting bugs, and crickets chirping. thank you oregon!
   
6. the full moon is very bright!
   

i didn't sleep very soundly, but i did dream, and the last few hours of my sleep were very restful. i'd probably do it again, while i still can.

happy thursday!

that's the brakes

yesterday was wednesday. i had lots to do and i thought, "you know what, i deserve to drive today after dilligently biking for the past 2 days in the rain." i had errands to run and places to be and wanted to get to work early and thought that driving would be the best option.

that is, until, i started to go downhill and realized that my brakes didn't work. holy crap, that was a scary situation! i'd never experienced pressing the brake pedal all the way to the floor, and with no response. i guess the brakes worked barely enough to slow me down, since i hadn't really accelerated and was just coasting. but still, going downhill, around a corner, and toward a busy street...thankfully the car stopped appropriately before i got to the even bigger hill i needed to go down to get to work.

i sat at the stop sign thinking, "what do i do? i can't make it down this hill to get to work, i won't stop and i'll crash and that will be awful." i decided to wait until traffic was clear, pull a u-turn into the busy street (that wasn't busy at 7am) and then go back home (uphill) and sit and figure out what to do next.

i needed at least 30 minutes of thinking, sitting, calming down, and a few phone calls to decide to call AAA and get towed somewhere. but where? i don't know any place to get my car fixed in town. i haven't had to do that. and i hadn't ever asked anyone where they got their's fixed. and now it was WAY too early to be calling people to ask that. so i put my trust in AAA and let them figure out where i should go. they went with the company that was going to tow my car anyway, and i figured that was the best bet i had.

i sat in the car for 45 minutes. now, i hadn't gotten much sleep the previous 2 nights (average of 4 hours). so i'm waaaaaaaaaaay tired and sitting in my car and trying not to fall asleep before the tow truck arrives. hardest 45 minutes of my life, of recent. i now know that i can survive one night of complete sleep deprivation, but the second night makes the third day really, really bad. nothing like adrenaline though, to wake me up, at least momentarily.

got towed, got a ride to work, and on both of those truck rides i got asked eerie questions from the drivers. now it may have been just random chit chat. but it seemed directed. both of them asked questions or made comments about women being alone or working at a job like a tow truck drivers...i don't know it's hard to explain. but one of them we started off talking about my job, which led to global warming debate (he doesn't believe it), which led to my job again, which led to me being tired and working late hours, which led to him saying something about me being unattached, which led to me saying i didn't have kids, which made him ask the question if i was married, which made me answer that i had a boyfriend, and then he got on the topic of protecting women and women being careful and did i carry protection when i went home at night by myself...

reflecting back on it, i couldn't tell if he was just chatting because he cared about my safety, generally, as a woman who could be attacked, or if he was feeling for details because he could be an attacker. i couldn't work it out in my mind. i was just not sure. so then i was all worried about going home at night.

the rest of the day went well enough. got to work, got things started, went to the soup kitchen where i got called "little lady", and was told i looked like a qp doll, or better yet, one of the characters from south park. wasn't sure how to take that. we had breakfast for lunch and i made sure to get a few slices of bacon. soooooooo good. also there were sugar cookies to take home. i ate a few with some milk. soooooo good. my bad day was shaping up alright.

the rest of the day went fine. the mechanics at the place were out that day, so they wouldn't be looking at my car until the next day anyway. i survived the afternoon of work. i didn't fall asleep. the experiment must go on.

i did not go to the gym, however. my calf muscles are KILLING me. they are extremely sore and tight. those triple calf raises are the worst! i thought after the first round a week ago that i would have healed up from the pain. but oh no! it's back. tomorrow i will get out the rolling pin and roll the knots out of my legs. this morning when i got out of bed i almost fell over from the tightness. ouch. more stretching to come.

long day ahead

other titles for this post could have included:

devotion
is routine so bad?
night biking
new year's resolve
3 x 3 = what a way to end 2009!

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i'm tired. it's only 840am and i can feel myself unable to overcome the day's sleep deprivation already. this week i'm back to my crazy experiment that needs near-constant supervision, as to not catch fire or stop working. so, yesterday i got a late start after chasing around some equipment that is now considered "stolen" (i didn't get my hands on it). the experiment got running around 3pm. i ran it until 12am. 9 hours is not bad for one day. except i needed to run it for about 12 hours yesterday. so now, in my quest to run the experiment for 30 hours over 2 days...well let's just say it's not happening.

i got the thing going this morning at 7am. if i stay till midnight again, that's 17 hours today, plus 9 yesterday = 26 hours. which means wedesday i run it for 4 hours, before cooling things and switching to the second phase of the experiment which again, needs to run for 30 hours over the next 2 days. if i get in by 9 on wednesday, run the thing until 1pm, cool for an hour, switch the solutions, get it going again by 230, and run it until 1230am, that still leaves me with 20 hours to run it over thur and fri. plus, after that's all done, there's something like a 4 hour hot water boiling period to wash out the remaining solution residues.

needless to say, work is my life for the next few weeks (i get to do it all over again next week!) this would all be a lot easier if i had help. as in, someone to watch the solutions after i put in 10-12 hours in a given day. if someone else could come in late and stick around until late, well that would be OK with me. *yawn*

i already had my oatmeal and tea this morning. and yet i'm not feeling peppy and revived. went to bed around 130am and first woke up at 530 this morning and decided, you know what, it's just too freakin' early. actually got up at 620 and got to work by 7, which for me is quite a feat. i prefer, and function more highly, on more than 4-5 hours of sleep a night.

i can't complain too much, because over the weekend i did manage to get plenty of sleep. it's unfortunate that sleep isn't more like a bank account, where you can save it up and use it when you're more tired.

so now i'm thinking about power napping. but there's no place to do so in the building where i work. and it's a 20 minute uphill ride home which has no appeal to me, since i'd have to come back down after such a short nap at home. and it's raining outside. which isn't exactly bad, but it's not ideal for biking home and back, just for a short nap.

speaking of rain. when i woke up this morning i thought it sounded like it might be raining out. but it was dark and my window is protected by an overhang, so there wasn't any droplets on the window pane. however, once in the living room i could hear the rain running down the gutter, and thought, "oh geez. it's really raining out there!" so i geared up in my full raingear attire, packed my gym shoes and some other essentials into backpack #2 (left my regular backpack at work last night, too tired to pack it up and for what?), and headed outside to brave the elements. it was still pitch black, same as when i got home from work last night. i thought to myself, "this really bites. going to work in the pitch black, coming home in the pitch black." but it's a job and i guess i have that going for me.

anyway, once geared up with helmet and lights and such, i walked my bike to the top of my driveway (enough of a hill that i never want to deal with it), and realized that, it wasn't really raining that hard. it was sprinkling at best. a little harder than misting. so maybe this biking in the rain wasn't so bad. i wasn't going to get soaked before i got to work; all my stuff was in plastic bags in my backpack so it was safe. i was basically weatherproofed, and all i had to do was pedal a short distance and coast down the big hill to work.

maybe winter isn't so bad after all. but i'm still very tired.

more later...perhaps i'll use up those other prospective blog titles!

mama if that's movin' up, then i'm working out...

well it's christmas eve eve and i haven't got a single thing wrapped. but i'm with my family and that's the main thing. i see a long night of wrapping ahead of me. that's ok though because that's how we do it here :)

finished my christmas shopping (with my brother) last night. am trying to get my christmas letter done but it's dragging me down. 3 years to catch everyone up on...and wording it so it sounds like me...seems like it would be so easy but i'm just not motivated to do it.

i've already been to 3 contra dances in the first week i've been here. concord massachusetts one night (to crowfoot!) and 2 nights in greenfield massachusetts (wild asparagus, and green street!) i've seen a bunch of people i haven't seen in a long time, and got to dance with some of my favorite dancers. plus, i got to go the people's pint to have their home brewed ginger ale. delicious. yum.

have been watching the office season 5 on dvd. enjoy that show so much, thanks to my brother for introducing it to me and letting me watch his dvds. have also been watching this season of house that my mom dvr'd. is that even a verb? i guess recorded is right. it's not taped, like it used to be :)

have had a hard time sleeping the past week. not sure if it's just holidays, or insomnia, or the bed, or caffeine, or the tv, or time zone differences, or sleeping in, or what. i get up at 8am and am not sleepy until 130am. and, if i don't give into my first whim to just fall asleep, it takes me another hour to get rested enough to just drift off. i hate this because i've always been a good sleeper.

so, i've been going to the gym to try to help myself get tired. i've been working out with my mom for the past several days. went to her gym, which focuses more on resistance training and some small weight stuff, but mostly coordination, agility, strength, and flexibility...there are trainers there and they make up a workout of the day. my leg muscles are sore, despite not having done very much weight lifting with my legs. i guess my body weight is enough!

i haven't been good about writing these work outs each day, but here's what i remember from today.

--------------------
gym report:

10 min gliding runner

each exercise we did 7 reps, for 20 seconds each, and 10 seconds of rest

• kettle bell swing throughs (straight arms, swing kettle bell through legs, up to head height, using legs, squat position)
• alternating shoulder press
• squats
• bicep curl
• planks
• resistance band punching
• jacknifes (with weighted ball)

10 min gliding runner
10 min stretching

weight: didn't weigh today, but yesterday was 159.7
of course, i'm on a different scale so who really knows!

it only tuesday

yesterday couldn't go by fast enough. i was grateful when it was finally tuesday last night. then someone sent me this link:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/it_only_tuesday

hilarious. even though it's a few years old, i still felt the relevance today. although, today didn't feel nearly as bad as yesterday. yesterday i was ill and slept all day. then last night i hardly slept. i was glad to be done with all that yesterday business and get on to today! and by the time i post this, it will be wednesday. so i will backpost because it's important that this be posted on tuesday.

today was a good productive day. i made myself get out of bed and bike to work. i made myself go to the gym. i made myself work a bunch. now i've got enough hours to fill up the week, so i can take my vacation!

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gym report:
no sara, she had sick roommates to attend to last night...no sleep = no gym...

20 min cardio / step / elliptical (precor! hopefully i'll remember to call it this from now on)
- got to look out the window today, since there were none available looking at the tvs...it's for the best. i got to see parking services put the boot on someone's car tire because they'd been parked illegally for too long. i would hate to be the person to have that job.

3x10 @ 70lb leg curl
3x10 @ 70lb leg extension
3x10 @ 65lb squats
3x10 @ 150lb leg press
3x10 @ 190lb toe raise

10 min abs and stretching

weight: 161.8
i may have been this weight, but i felt good and thought i looked pretty good in the mirror while i was doing squats. so nyah, scale! eat it!

stomper: i went too early, didn't see her

notes: 11am is a great time to be at the gym. hardly anyone in there. few people in the pool. few people on the machines.

sleeping, but not on a rock

i don't have to joke around about this. anyone who knows me, knows i absolutely LOVE to sleep. i could go on and on about how much fun i have sleeping, all the fun dreams i have (or not so fun dreams sometimes), and the overall general idea of laying down. it all thrills me. i love it.

today was a good morning for sleeping. gray and sort of drizzly weather makes me want to stay in bed for days. i know i'll write more about this but i'm about to head out to go eat pizza and go dancing with some of my dearest dancing friends. i cannot wait!

wild asparagus, here we come!

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gym report:

20 min cardio / step / elliptical
8 min cycling @ 70rpm
3x10 @ 70lb leg curl
3x10 @ 70lb leg extension
3x10 @ 50lb individual leg kickback
3x10 @ 150lb leg press
3x10 @ 170lb toe raise
10 min abs and stretching

weight: 161.5

stomper: 4th day, the girl never rests

so, so tired

and miles to go before i rest.

i'm just plain tired.

i did get some sleep this weekend. but it was not enough.

today i've got a serious case of the mondays. and it is hard to focus on something detail intensive like my own scientific research when all i can think of is how comfortable my bed would be right now.

*drowsy eyes*

only 8 hours until i rest. they can't pass quickly enough.

zzzz...

it's about...time!

i am ready to start a new beginning, and i finally have time for it. it has already begun.

i started writing in my blog again. this in and of itself is a step forward for me. i'm happy to be back and to be thinking and cataloging and wondering about things.

michael and i have parted ways. this was agony and a blessing. i'm living in a new place. the room is extremely small but overall i love having a place to call my own.

i have begun unpacking / reorganizing my things. in the past few years i've lost track of some things that i thought were important, like keeping things simple, not accumulating too much, and staying organized. so i'm about to write the books on how to keep my stuff together in an orderly fashion. this is a quest of self discovery and finding out what i think i can really live with or without.

each category of stuff has some kind of optimal limit of "amount". how many flannel shirts do i really need? this goes on for socks, t-shirts, and other assorted "dress" clothes that i just don't think i'll wear again. i started the process of sorting clothes before i left michael's house - a sort of spring cleaning. i didn't finish, however, because i moved out. so now i'm unpacking all the sorted piles and dealing with them. again, trying to set an optimal limit on how many of each thing i need. how many long sleeve shirts do i need? how many work shirts? how many pairs of pants? shorts?

so far the limit has been loosely based on what fits right now and what doesn't. i find myself in one of those in between sizes that is not really one size (the size i've been for 13 years) and not quite the next size up (though, those clothes are looser and more comfy sometimes). my issue with that is purely pride. i don't WANT to wear the next size up, and i don't WANT to have to go out and buy new clothes.

the solution may be to lose some weight. i would not say i consider myself overweight. but i have just enough little bit extra to make some pants tight in the legs / waist. i am certain this is a quandry all women face. however, most other women are fine with going shopping and getting new clothes. in this way i'm stubborn. no new clothes! i already have enough old ones that are still in good shape! people have suggested goodwill. this way i don't have to spend much money on new clothes. it's the principle, however, of going and buying bigger clothes, that is the real issue for me.

in order to accomplish this "lose a few pounds to get my pants to fit" idea, i decided to buckle down and join the gym. seeing as i hate running outside by myself, and i don't really care for trail running (i always seem to twist my ankle...and i dislike hills though i like the view from the top), i thought i would try going to the gym and seeing what happens.

in general i dislike the gym because the sweat feels fake. it feels slimy. maybe the air circulation in all previous gyms was just bad and didn't allow for proper drying of sweat like being outside in the sun does. (maybe i will start bringing a towel.) in any event, i joined for the whole summer. till october 2nd, actually, which is EXACTLY the weekend of homecoming at hartwick, which i plan to attend. if i can find someone to play tennis with me on a regular basis over the summer, i can really see this going somewhere.

back to the gym. i have been testing out "fit" classes this week, since it is free week and you can go to as many as you want for free (pass for the rest of the summer is $29. why this isn't included in the gym cost, i have no idea.)

here's what i've done so far:

monday - cardio kick
tuesday - step sculpting, strength without boundaries, dance scene

the cardio kick was intense, and i envisioned severe butt pain on tuesday. but i didn't have hardly any pain. did i not do it hard enough? maybe i need to punch harder and push myself harder. i'm sure the teacher will do that for us. she seems good like that. she's very enthusiastic!

the step sculpting was maybe my favorite, but it was only 45 minutes. still good. it takes some coordination of practicing which foot to step with at any given time, but i liked it. this teacher has the least personality of all the teachers so far.

the strength class was all about how many implements you can use to work out without having a home gym. we used a yoga ball, a step, a mat, a leg band, a longer leg band with handles, dumbells, and a bench-press type pole with weights on either side. i get her methodology, and for sure she's working on weight and resistance training, which is something new for me. she is also very perky and always saying, "here we go! you can do it! nice work!"

the dance class was somewhat of a let down. i had taken funky street style dancing at ucdavis, and the teacher there was very into a warm up and isolations and really getting us ready before we started any kind of routine - that is where i perfected my running man, my terminator, my michael jackson thriller move, and my c-walk. the girl yesterday was very nice and seemed to be a good dancer, but we did like, a few warm up stretches and immediately started into the routine she wants to work on. and for one day, we were at my maximum amount of new moves learned that i was sure i wouldn't remember them all (but i did). one new thing we learned was happy feet, which i guess i've done before but it didn't come back as easily as i'd hoped. still, not sure i'll go back to that one.

tonight i will try cycle fit class, and pop hop fusion dance class.

i have yet to try the yoga class or the core conditioning class, but there just wasn't time and a lot of them overlap. i think i will buy the unlimited all summer pass, and just go as often as i can.

what surprises me the most is how NOT sore i am. i figured, with all the movement and the weights and dips and kicking, i would be in severe pain. tuesday i was feeling a little tightness in my back and shoulders, but nothing unmanageable. after the 3 classes yesterday, i have a little soreness in my shoulders and a little stiffness in my legs. but really? i worked out for 3 solid hours yesterday and this is all i have to show for it? my arms aren't even sore and i was sure they would be after doing all these arm exercises with weights. maybe i need to use heavier weights! lord! i'm going to be so buff!

wait, i don't get buff. this i learned in college. well at least i'll have muscles, even if no one can see them but me.

ok i just did an arms over the head and lean back in the computer chair stretch. i can feel some soreness in my abs. which i expected.

another thing i want to start working on is having a routine. of course this is all shot to heck this week (and probably for the next 3 weeks...and then past that cause i'll be on vacation), because work is eating, eating, eating up my days. running an experiment where i need to have solutions running for 30 hours over 2 days. i don't have to be with them all the time, but i don't like to leave them for too long either in case something happens and there's a fire or explosion or whatever. so the last few days i've been getting up at 530am and going to bed around 130am.

for anyone who knows me, this is definitely not enough sleep for me. i need more like 7-8 or more hours on a daily basis. right now i feel a little bit like a zombie, and i'm certainly not being productive. but being here counts as work so i'm getting a bunch of hours. and in the middle of all that, i take breaks to go to work out. however i haven't been eating regularly.

back to routines. perhaps once these next 2-3 crazy weeks are over, i can start normalizing myself again. get up at given time. do some regular morning type activities, like eat, shower, get dressed, pack lunch, take vitamins (i did take a vitamin today!) then bike to work - which is amazing because it is downhill and SO FAST! work for some normal amount of hours. like 8-10/day. go to the gym sometime during the day or play tennis if that works out. go home at a regular hour by bike, which is a workout in and of itself. make dinner. have my evenings to do home type things which i have been neglecting this past week, like sorting things, organizing things, work on photo albums or scrap books.

one thing i've been able to keep up with even through splitting up and moving is dancing. and then i wonder partially if the reason i've been not very sore from the working out is because my core is strong from dancing. could this be the reason for all my strength? who would have thought? anyway i'm doing that and having fun with it. and now i get to dance with lots of partners in a given night, which is even more fun!

well, i think i'll go get back to work. i've got more to write, but probably should get something productive done before the day is completely over.

peace and turtles!