SpiralGalaxy

Sorry Zebarah! At least my husband enjoyed it, and he sends his thanks. ;-) Today also went badly: -Crisis in the morning meant I didn't make breakfast *or* lunch at home -Ordering breakfast, the server didn't get my order for tea, so I was without caffiene at lunchtime -Weird meeting schedule meant I didn't really have time for lunch. Went to cafeteria and got crappy chicken wrap + some fruit and cheese -Grabbed a Coke because of caffeine headache and no hot tea available. This cured my caffeine headache, and then promptly caused a high fructose corn syrup headache -Realized my meeting was 1/2 hour earlier than I'd thought, abandoned lunch after 2 bites. -Hit vending machine for something I could bring to the meeting. Ended up not eating it because a) I was too engaged in what was going on, and already having too much sugar junk with the soda, and c) honestly didn't feel like or want to eat it -Finally got "lunch" (the fruit and cheese) at a little past 3 pm. Sorry for the TMI, I'm just bitching because I've had a crappy day. (At least the meetings went well.) Won't get too much better since my mother is making dinner tonight (she's a terrible cook--I had to teach myself to cook from scratch starting in college), but as long as I get my 15 min of sledgehammer workout in, I can still claim victory! TL;DR--I actually kept to all my goals, only incurring a $1 penalty for having a soda. Still, after almost two months, I've not yet hit my original 6 week challenge $10 level (currently standing at $9.75), and I have a long way to go before I actually have to send a donation in to the loathed charity. I did get my meditation in, I didn't break my lunch-from-home-or-cafeteria vow, and tonight I'll actually be able to have a hard cider. So there.

Sometimes a whole day of rest is the 100% best option. My husband thought he was coming down with something last week, took a whole day in either the tub or bed, and the next day was right back to normal. Hope you feel better tomorrow!

Thanks guys! I was simultaneously really annoyed at my past self and very pleased with her when I realized that there was nothing worth "cheating" for in the house. Today was better: still a bit queasy after dinner, even though I made one of my go-to regular meals. I think that the milk with dinner I've been having instead of alcohol might be the culprit. Next week I'll stick with plain water and see if things improve. Nonetheless, I got my Angry Birds workout in: Squats: 20/17/15 = 52 = ** Knee Push-Ups: 17/12/13 = 42 = ** Dead Hangs: 41/41/41 = 123 = ** Planks: 43/47/44 = 154 = ** Total Score = 12 20 squats and 17 push-ups is a new PR for me! Also: wrote in journal and edited a piece for the blog, did sun salutation & meditation even though I over-slept, and as mentioned, no alcohol. It also looks like I'll be 8 for 8 on bringing lunches in to work--it's amazing how much I'm motivated by *not* wanting to go to the on-site cafeteria.

LOVE LOVE LOVE the snowman battle! You inspire me with your battle against the cold.

Yesterday didn't work out as I'd hoped. I had some honey/ginger/apple/pork in the crockpot all day. It smelled great and my husband liked it, but it didn't sit well with me at all. I spent the right of the night slightly queasy and grumpy and out of sorts. I would have totally cheated on my don't-eat-crap vow, but luckily I'd emptied the house of just about everything that would have tempted me, and I was too grumpy to go out and get something. I did have some popcorn later. I skipped exercising, for which I am sorry, but I can still claim success this week if I shift things by a day and exercise Friday night as well. That would just be 15 min of sledgehammer work, which is easy to squeeze in. Although I felt a bit fail-y, I still hit all my other goals: wrote in my journal, did sun salutations + meditation in the morning, drank milk with dinner. Only three checks instead of four, but hardly a serious fail. As part of feeling out-of-sorts last night, I apparently also forgot to set my alarm and overslept by 40 minutes. But I still got my sun salutation + meditation in! Hah!

Another good day. Wrote in my journal & edited and sent in a column to a magazine. 2 sun salutation rounds + 5 min meditation in the morning. 14 min of sledgehammer work at night, and that's starting to feel a bit easier. Had simple soup & biscuits for dinner tonight after doing the grocery shopping (sooo much good stuff for the coming week!), and had milk with dinner. Will polish off tonight with some more water, and call it good. Oh, and continued the bring-lunch-to-work streak with sourdough bread, some chicken salad, and grapes. Check, Check, Check, and Check!

Good luck on fighting that cold! Winter sucks. Go you for getting your run in!

Ooo, for ignoring TV, do you have a good set of headphones? That way you can be in your own space w/o the TV sounds intruding. I got some Bose headphones for my office environment, although I've come to prefer some cheaper Skullcandy earbuds. My husband uses actual noise cancelling headphones when he travels.

I'm just a super n00b! I'm working on balancing on things and hanging from things (mostly the latter) at the moment. You're a little closer to the Urban Movement gym than I am, but I bet it's still a bit too far: http://www.urban-movement.org/ 2215 Lawrence Houston, TX 77008 It's about 23 miles away from Cypress, and about 38 miles away from me. Darn Houston for being so huge and sprawling!

Hi! I'm doing yoga sun salutations in the morning, and limiting myself to 1 bottle of wine and 1 six pack of beer/cider each week, to be consumed only on Fri-Sat-Sun. After being successful for the first pre-week, I think I may have tracked down at least one possible source of my insomnia--I was disgusted to learn that I slept much better on the nights when I abstained from alcohol. Darn it! Keep up the good work!

That looks *delicious*. I think I'm going to try it this week. Thanks!

Whoa, thanks! I was feeling kind of wimpy by doing them. I just realized that the reason negatives hadn't gotten me where I wanted was that I was still lacking in grip strength and in the shoulder strength to handle the bottom of the movement. I *hope* that these will help those problems, and then my negatives will come as a much better progression.

You look like you know what you're doing! BTW, thanks for choosing this piece of music. I enjoy instrumental music when I'm doing reading/writing work, and this is going straight onto my instrumental playlist.

Another good workout, love seeing progress! Squats, L1.5 (hands on hips): 15/15 = 30 = *** Level up! Push ups, L1 (knees): 15/14/12 = 41 = ** Dead hangs, L1 : 32/39/32/33 = 136 = * Planks, L2: 45/44/46 = 135 = ** Total = 11.5 Wrote in my journal and edited a piece for the website, so all good there. Had milk with dinner and will finish off the night with some super fancy post-workout water. ;-)

Aw, much sympathy. My situation is the reverse--my mother is worse than my MIL. It's like when my son gets tired and cranky she does too. But my son is much younger (16 months), so she can't do much of the undermining yet (I'm sure that's coming). I don't have much in the way of coping tactics--I just ignore her and focus on the kid and then stew about it later. All I can offer is sympathy, I'm afraid. There's a light at the end of the tunnel when you get home. Hang in there! BTW, I totally don't understand why people who have raised children themselves sometimes seem to have forgotten what's involved. Toddler = screaming sometimes. It's inevitable. My favorite was when my FIL (who raised three wonderful boys), put his afternoon snack of crackers + cheese + sharp knife to slice the cheese on the coffee table in front of my 14 month old who was very proud of his new found ability to walk around and get things off coffee tables. My MIL and I both lunged for the knife before he could get his hands on it, and my FIL stood there looking bewildered about what these crazy women were doing. ::sigh::

I'm heading to the World Science Fiction Convention in San Antonio over Labor day (also helping with the programming there), and probably also ReaderCon in Massachusetts early in July.

Love the pictures--it's always great when you can find a way to get outside.

No kidding! Right around Christmas I had a small bag of Doritos, which used to be my favorite vending machine snack. I swear I could feel that ball of carbs sitting in my stomach for the next 30 hours. Crazy how our bodies adapt!

Ysabet--thanks! Emlily--Kind of both. I experimented with lots of different things, and as I found meals that my SO and I both like and are relatively easy, I kept making those and perfecting them. But I've always liked going out and finding new recipes to try. My "standards" have shifted a lot over the years, so something I used to make once a week now I maybe only make every few months. OK, so I didn't get *any* writing done on the weekend. That's slightly disappointing, because there's really no reason why I couldn't have on Sunday. My problem is that when I've got the kid to bed and I've got my exercise done, I drop into "I'm *done* for the day" mode. There are lots of things I could do with that time--unpacking books, writing, editing podcasts, cleaning--but I've wound up either watching TV with my SO or reading the next book for reviewing. Anyway, I'll work on it. Sunday ended up being an odd day--up early to get to a fencing tournament where I was a referee. I didn't do my meditation in the morning since I wasn't the one waking up the kiddo. I decided that spending 6 hours on my feet moving side to side counted as my exercise for the day, so skipped the sledgehammer in the evening. I managed to avoid the cookies and donuts provided for the refs, and focused on the veggies. But I was *really& thirsty after the first event and succumbed to a soda--my first in 8 weeks. I also had tortilla chips. It might be a coincidence, but after I had the soda I got a really nasty headache in the afternoon; I may have lost some kind of tolerance to high fructose corn syrup. Still, I confined my alcohol consumption to the weekend: 2 hard ciders on Friday, 3/5 of a bottle of wine on Saturday, and 1 hard cider on Sunday. We polished off the bottle of wine, but there's still hard cider left over, so that's a good sign. Will abstain once more until next Friday. Getting back on the horse today: plan to get some writing in, already done my meditation + 2 rounds of sun salutation, and will do Angry Birds tonight. Forward!

Spencer--Hi and welcome back! Looking forward to seeing what you do. Nuala--I know! I'm 33 but I feel like I was born to be 28 and have been forever.

Emlily -- thanks! It took me a loooong time to get good enough at cooking to toss off a meal like this. I started learning to cook back in college by following cookbooks precisely and making *lots* of mistakes. Now stuff like this feels easy because I know roughly how it's all going to go and roughly how it will turn out. Once you have a good feel for what you're doing, it turns out that steak can be a pretty easy meal! I knew I wouldn't be able to workout this afternoon or tonight, so I snuck it in in the morning: Squats: L1.5 (hands on hips instead of out in front). 13/14/10 = 37 = ** Pushups: L1 13/15/11/6 = 45 = * Dead hangs: L1 28/33/39/34 = 134 sec = * Planks: L2 50/40/37 = ** I was sooo close to getting 2 stars on push ups! Except something funny came up on my playlist and I bust up laughing instead of knocking out the 12th pushup needed. For Planks, 50 sec is my new record recently (I have done as much as 60 seconds last year). I'm getting closer to leveling up there. So far I've hit my exercise, writing, drinking, and meditation goals for the week. Good start, but it's the stamina that matters. Will need to find a bit of time to write something in my journal today to keep the streak going.

+ 1 on this.

Yeah, I have the same problem. I've moved in two directions: 1) like you say, find recipes that use the same ingredients. That's why I was so happy to do the spinach calzones, it will use up the spinach left over when I make baked eggs or spinach onion quesedillas. 2) Buy veggies that last longer. Carrots and onions last weeks in the fridge, celery can too if you store the stalks in water. Apples, potatoes, squash, and sweet potatoes last a month or more on the counter. I try to buy lettuce that still has the root system, since that will last two weeks instead of one.

Zebarah--electrical engineering is my field too! I work at NASA down in Houston. Unfortunately, we've been plagued by budget cuts, so no luck here. But some of the folks who've been let go here have had good luck in the oil/gas/renewable energy sector, either here in Texas or for some of the European companies. Texas economy has been less impacted than other places, so it's been a little easier to find work here--lower cost of living too. Downside? It's *Texas*.

Quick question--do you have any specific plans about what you'll do differently with the online courses compared to what you've done before? A different time-management strategy or focusing exercise or something? I'm just worried that if you try to bull through it without changing what hadn't worked before, you'll end up frustrated and even less motivated. For body weight workouts, for this challenge I'm focusing on the Angry Birds workout plan. It's simple but with lots of room for leveling up. Might work for you? Still, sounds like you have a very clear view of where you're going and some steps to get there. Good luck!