The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The good:  My fitbit says I've been walking about 2.5 miles a day!

The bad:  That's really only 5000 steps, half the arbitrary recommended 10,000.

The good:  My bike is finally done and it's awesome!

The bad:  I um, apparently have forgotten how to ride a bike.  I mean it's been 10 years, but I didn't think you could forget things like that!  It's awful.  I'm so disappointed.  I'm going to have to practice a lot before I'll be able to go anywhere meaningful on it.

The good:  It's Friday and we're all going to the City tomorrow!

The bad:  I've been working so late I haven't done laundry and don't have anything awesome to wear.  Also, I really need my nails attended to, they look trashy (-ier than usual).  I am dying my hair though, I'm not a TOTAL bumpkin.

The good:  I had 8 points left after dinner so I got to have a slurpee for a treat!

The bad:  I really can't see a downside to this, except I'm kind of sticky now.

change up:

The bad:  I really don't think I'll be off my cpap machine for burning man.

The good:  I learned how to make it work!  I'll need to make a dust box for it (Tupperware and furnace filter sort) and I saw a way at Maker Faire to put together a solar charger for a deep cycle battery.    I can also use the battery to power a swamp cooler I want to make from a 5 gallon bucket.

The bad:  I think that will eat up any money I was planning on using to build an art project.  Perhaps I will be an art consumer rather than an artist this year.

I can't think of anything ugly to post, and that's good!

Zzz!

I haven't slept well for the last couple nights.  I think I will tonight though.  I'm heading to bed right after I post.  

It's been a good day though.  I weighed in and I'm down 4.8 pounds.  Plus, my company just started a program where not only is the Weight Watchers program free, but they're going to start PAYING us to lose weight.  I'm getting $200 just to sign up (minus the 42% tax rate for bonuses, but hey, free money!)  I've pledged to lose 1 pound or more per week for the next month, and then I get some amount more money at the end of the program, which is some number of weeks, 12 I think.  It's variable due to prize drawings I get into by showing up for Weight Watchers meetings, and I didn't pay much attention beyond it should be some few hundreds.  It's definitely significant enough for motivation!  Oh, I won a fitbit zip at work too, which is compatible with my walkadoo program at work and much better than the pebble I was using to track steps.

I stayed within my points today and had awesome food.  They had veggie paninis at the cafeteria, and I made a really yummy chicken mole dish for supper, and then baked s'more stuffed bananas.  For purposeful movement I walked around the buildings twice, getting just over 6000 steps and making my 2 activity point a day goal.

Bed now, soooper tired.

Are long weekends even worth it?

There's always double work upon returning!  Also, working at home has pros and cons, the cons being that it's super easy to work until late into the night, which I just did.  I literally got out of bed, came to the computer, worked until it was time to get Evy, went and picked up a replacement goldfish for one that died last week, fed us, showered us, put her to bed, and sat back down to work.

I stayed within my points though!  Even if it was stuff like toast and lean pockets.  I just remembered my commitment to doing some sort of purposeful exercise every day, so I jumped up and did nekkid hula hooping for like two minutes in the living room.  It didn't work out too well because the hoop kept hitting things and I had to hold my boobs up so I didn't run over them with the hoop.  I'm sure it would have been hilarious had anyone been there to see.  In any case, it counts!

I'm not going to jinx it by saying I'm going to leave work at 5 tomorrow, because that always guarantees that I don't leave until at least 6, but I'm going to try and factor in some time for myownself.

Multitasking

I'm writing tonight while watching a replay of an official Burning Man newbie orientation.  It's available here.  The sound gets a little better.  I knew a bunch a bunch of the material already, but I probably learned at least 5 tips that will be invaluable.  Sheldon's online looking at tents and stuff, but when he clicked on a foldable yurt that stays cool enough to sleep until 11 am and can be built for around $200, I was in love.  I want to see if that will be a feasible thing to build and haul out there.

For Mother's day Sheldon refurbished the junked up bike I got for Christmas in 7th grade.  He painted it candy apple red and magenta, and replaced a bajillion bits of it.  It should be ready this week, and I'm super excited about it.  I'll be taking it to the playa, but before that I'm going to ride it a LOT.

As far as an art contribution, I'd wanted to make an LED cube, but when I looked at the parts for what I wanted to do it was over $500!  Plus, it really didn't seem that interesting, so I'm back to the drawing board.  I have an idea forming for a harp like thing...my little midsized keyboard is in peril!

I'm wondering also about something to give as a gift.  I think we're going to be tight on space, so small is key.  Something useful would be neat too, rather than just a gee gaw.  Hmm...

In diet news, I stayed within my points today.   We had to drive down to Oakdale to get Evy, a four hour round trip, but we stopped at a fruit stand and got cherries and really gorgeous strawberries to munch.  I had enough points left this evening to have a homemade cheeseburger on a ciabatta roll, mmmm.   I didn't get to be really active, but I did hula hoop for a few minutes, so I made my activity goal.

Aaaaand I'm back

That last thing back there on April 3 was a false start it seems.  I never really started tracking or anything.  I don't quite know why, and it doesn't really matter.  TODAY I did track my food.  I messed up a little at dinner because I ate too much naan at the Indian restaurant, but all it did is dig a little into my weekly points budget, not a problem.

I've been using my activity trackers all along, but that's because it's easy.  I haven't gone out of my way to work out since then except maybe twice.  I have been being mindful about trying to seek out activities that involve a lot of walking around.  I got 12 activity points the day I went to Maker Faire, and 10 the day I helped Sheldon with his photo safari class.  I was limping back to the car the night of Maker Faire!  One 90 degree day I went out and brushed horses with Evy, and I made myself sick within 20 minutes moving around in the sun.  It's obvious I need to step it up or else I'll be miserable at Burning Man.  I've gotten so out of shape again that this week my goal is nothing more than "do something that is "moving on purpose" every day.  It doesn't matter what or how long because goals should be reasonably attainable and not suck!  Today moving on purpose consisted of hula hooping as long as I could (maybe 3-5 minutes) three separate times.

Today I sat down for a couple hours and meal planned two weeks worth of dinners.  Dinners are my downfall right now.  I'm TIRED when I get home from work and anything sounds like a good excuse to grab take out or heat up a pizza rather than cook.  Not having a required ingredient was a great excuse.  Nothing that I could throw together in the house that was healthy sounded good either, as it would usually be something like a bit of baked chicken breast, white rice, and frozen vegetables.  So I chose 10 dinners that were both healthy AND looked like something I'd actually enjoy eating and I went out and bought all the ingredients at once.  So instead of something blah I'll be making things like tomato beef ragu with ricotta and mint, or soy and honey glazed tofu and vegetable skewers.  I'm looking forward to cooking and eating it all up in the next couple weeks.

Ooh, also a friend of mine is helping me out, and we talked for an hour or more yesterday about goals and what they should be and HOW the heck to start going towards them instead of just floundering around.  We also talked about headspace stuff like self worth and image and the like, all things I REALLY need to examine more.  I got action items!  I'm not ashamed to say blogging is one of them, as well as making the meal plan, tracking and moving.  I think that as tending toward s on the D/s spectrum, I'm feeling a bit overly gleeful about having specific tasks to complete!  I'm actually kind of torn between the hard way of thinking "This is something I'm doing for myself to reach my goals, and that pleases me."  and the much easier (in my convoluted brain), "Ooh, I'm going to do these action items and I'm going to do them absolutely flawlessly, and everyone will see how perfectly I can do these tasks, and my friend will be SO pleased, and pleasing my friend makes me happy!"

How's that for a stream of consciousness blog entry?  I'll talk about Burning Man stuff tomorrow maybe.