Pins and Needles

If I write this will they call? I am waiting to hear from the Wiley Corporation, publishers of the For Dummies series of books, DVDs, wall patching kits, and all kinds of other weird items. They hold an annual display contest, and having won an honorable mention for our efforts last year, my library has entered again this year. Today is the day by which the winners would be notified, so I'm nervously waiting for a phone call.

As I wait, I've been trolling the Internet for other entries. I've found several, and I know I'm biased, but ours is definitely the best! Look at these.

No matter what the results, we are winners. It doesn't take a bunch of Dummies to tell us that we really are the best branch!

Peeped Out

Today my place of employment had their (hopefully last) all-staff training inservice day. In an effort to boost staff morale with a little healthy competition, the Staff Association sponsored a contest: Pimp My Peep. I wasn't going to enter, but my roommate convinced me the night before that it would be fun, so we were up until almost one in the morning working on our respective entries. Here's mine:

"Peeps at the Beach"

The whole staff voted on the entries, and I won the prize for Most Creative Entry! I won a Peeps bubble blower, some sidewalk chalk in the shape of smiling veggies (no, not those smiling Veggies), and a POGO discount card. Not too shabby!

Now I know why I keep all that arts and crafty stuff that I don't really have any use for. I guess you never know when it might come in handy. And everything is better when you add glitter.

There was actually a national Peeps contest held this year by the Washington Post. Check out those entries here. It's wild!

Nibble While You Knit

I noticed something strange tonight while I was knitting: it made me hungry! Not that I was knitting so fast and furiously that I was just burning up the calories (oh, if that were possible!), but I realized tonight that I frequently snack on something at some point while I'm knitting. Usually it's something small and light like cereal or Cheez-Its, but often I stop in the middle of my project to get a bigger snack, like ice cream. I don't know when or how this started, but I defi-knit-ly need to nip this problem in the bud.

I managed to go for twenty minutes on my elliptical machine at home tonight. I am five weeks and nine pounds away from my goal (according to my scale tonight). So I need to step it up. I've been really slacking on cardio lately, so I need to get back to my original goal of thirty minutes every day. Mom, if I don't get up and do at least twenty minutes on the elliptical machine tomorrow before I drive to Schuyler, I will pay you $10.

What Goes Forth, Must Come Back

Okay, I realize that really isn't a law of physics, but it certainly applies to biking. Yesterday evening I went for my first bike ride in nearly ten years! At first I was a bit wobbly, but after a few minutes, it all seemed to come back. I went with my two roommates and we had a really nice ride. The weather was nearly perfect: warm but not hot, with a (sometimes gusty) breeze. We just followed the bike trail that is just a few blocks from my house all the way to Bethany Park and then decided to bike up to Bethany Library, just up the street. All together our ride was about seven miles round trip and took us about an hour and a half (that's with a couple of short stops along the way and a longish break when we got to the library). It was challenging, but fun. My legs aren't nearly as sore as I thought they would be (thanks, BodyPump!). Maybe I'll start riding my bike to work on the days I'm at Bethany, especially now that gas is so expensive and won't be getting cheaper anytime soon. I really should ride my bike to the gym for BodyPump and kill two birds with one stone!

The bike trails in Lincoln are really nice and well-maintained. Though I have nothing to compare them to, since I've really only ever ridden my bike in small towns. There were quite a few people out yesterday. Lincoln often has that small-town feel, in that you always run into someone you know. I actually saw several families that I know from work and I saw a fellow library employee who lives in the neighborhood. I like the fact that the trails run behind people's houses, like alleys. You get a little glimpse into the lives of the residents. Lots of houses had really nice, big backyards and gardens, which I'm sure will look beautiful later this spring and summer.

Fun in the Sun

Last time I posted I implied that I would be posting more regularly. And obviously that hasn't happened. Maybe I'll be better this week.

I have had a pretty good week. I got my taxes done, which was a huge relief, and I'm getting a refund, which is an added bonus. I made it to three BodyPump classes this week, spread out more evenly throughout the week, as opposed to crammed into three consecutive days like last week. I didn't do as much cardio as I should have though. I stayed after BodyPump for a half an hour on the treadmill with Karrie on Thursday, and I went for a long walk with the dog, and yesterday Karrie, Jennifer and I played tennis outside for an hour, enjoying the beautiful sunshine.

I squeezed my weigh in yesterday into a couple minutes late afternoon between playing tennis and going to dinner. I was a half a pound heavier than I was a week ago. I really need to pay more attention to what I eat and I really need to step up my cardio exercising. My original goal was to do a half an hour every day, and obviously I haven't done anything near that. So that will be my focus this week. Starting today.

This afternoon I hope to get out and enjoy this warmth some more, despite the wind. I hope to get the tires on my bike fixed so I can actually ride it. I think they both need to be completely replaced. There are a ton of other things I should be doing, but spring fever has really gotten the best of me, and I just want to feel that sun on my face.

Ta ta for now, I'm headed out into that glorious sunshine!

We Now Return to Your Regularly Scheduled Blogging

Taxes are done! And I'm getting a refund! Yay!

I can't believe it's been ten days since my last post. I have no idea where the time has gone--I feel like I blinked and somehow missed the past week.

Working out: I went to BodyPump three days in a row last week, Wednesday morning (6:00!), Thursday evening, and Friday afternoon. I'm not sure why I did that, but I don't think I'll ever do that again. By the end of Friday's class, I was so tired and sore, especially in my triceps. I wasn't as good about cardio workouts, but I did spend about twenty minutes on the elliptical machine on Tuesday and Saturday. And there's a dog living in my house now, and I took him for a brief walk a couple times.

Eating: I really haven't been very good about watching what I eat. I haven't even been writing in my food journal. I am still drinking way more pop than I want to be drinking, but I have almost doubled the amount of water I drink too, so I'm very well hydrated. The only other good thing that I have to mention is that I've been eating breakfast every day.

Weigh-in: I did manage to remember to weigh myself on Saturday, though I didn't get to it until the evening. I worked all day Saturday and didn't make it to BodyPump. I was one pound lighter than I was the previous Saturday, though.

I went to my parents' house yesterday and while I was there I picked up my old bike. It needs to be cleaned up and tuned up a little too, but I hope to do quite a bit of bike-riding this summer. Lincoln supposedly has an excellent network of bike trails, but I've never been on a single one. Anyone want to join me?

If you go biking with me this summer, please don't make fun of my bike. I picked it out for my 12th birthday, and it's obviously a little bit childish. But it is still the perfect height/size for me. Maybe I'll try to paint it and make it look a little more like a bike owned by someone over the age of fourteen. And hey, at least it doesn't have tassels on the handlebars!

The Taxman Cometh

I'm doing my taxes. At this very moment. I'll write a longer post when I'm done.

Weighing In

For some reason, I was just terrified to weigh myself today. I put it off as long as possible. I started the day right by meeting Karrie, Jennifer, and Brandy for BodyPump, and had a good, challenging workout. I even added extra weight on the squats (now up to 2 mediums and a small--that's almost 30 pounds total!) and on the back track (now at a medium and 2 smalls). I even almost liked the lunges track today.

Instead of going right home after BodyPump to weigh in and shower, I met my sister and went to a big indoor garage sale (kind of a waste of time and $2) and then lunch. After that I had praise team practice, and then I decided that since I was still pretty grimy, I might as well put in some work on my new old kitchen cabinets, since I would like to actually get them installed sometime this year month. When it got too dark and cold to work outside, I finally admitted to myself that I'd run out of excuses and went upstairs to weigh in.

I'm exactly where I was a week ago. I didn't lose any weight, but neither did I gain, which I guess is pretty good, considering that I wasn't very faithful to my diet and exercise plans. I also took Karrie's advice and measured myself, so that even if I don't lose any weight, I can tell if I'm making progress in other ways.

The Fog Has Lifted

I've been so bad. Since I last posted, I haven't done any exercising, and I've totally ignored my diet. No, not just ignored, flat out laughed in the face of my diet. I've been in kind of a funk for the past few days. Actually it's been for about the past month, and now it's clearing, and I feel like I'm waking up from a very strange dream and I don't quite know where I am and what's going on. This past month was so busy at work and I had several things going on at home, that I was literally running on stress. My desk at work was buried under about two feet of paper. On Wednesday afternoon, having finished everything else that needed to be done, I took my off-desk hour to clean up my desk. It was like an archaeological expedition; layer by layer I dug down through weeks of rolls of bulletin board paper and paraphernalia, overhead transparencies, random die-cut letters, old meeting agendas, books, catalogs and so on, until I hit the solid surface of my desktop. (I want to mention that some of that stuff wasn't mine, as I share a desk with a co-worker, and as my desk is right next to the staff copier, it tends to catch a lot of crap that doesn't belong there--like those stupid faxes advertising cruises and beauty treatments, which I'm sure people put on my desk "temporarily," fully intending to take care of them in a moment, although why they don't just drop them in the blue recycle bin right beside my desk, between my desk and the copier actually, I'll never understand.) Each item that I put away, or threw away, was like one more little stress point that I released, so that when I was done, I was just exhausted, because all the tension that has been sometimes literally holding me up, was just gone. It is a glorious feeling.

Anyway. I've sort of been indulging that feeling lately, not doing anything that requires much energy or even much thought. I've been catching up on my reading and my knitting, returning phone calls to my long-distance friends, watching the Netflix movie that I've had for almost a month.

Tomorrow I will start over on my diet and exercise plan. Tomorrow morning I will get up and go to BodyPump. Tomorrow I will get outside and enjoy the beautiful spring weather. Tomorrow is also my first weigh-in, so we'll see how much the past couple days has impacted my plan and if I need to make some modifications. I'll keep you posted!

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Back in February I bought a couple small seed kits from the dollar section at Target and I have been growing them in a little window garden in my kitchen. They sprouted several weeks ago, but have recently really started to grow. I have four little strawberry plants, and four little mini-rose plants. After I transplant them outside when it's a little warmer, I think I'm going to start a little window herb garden there.

I Can't Think of a Good Title for This Post

This diet thing is even harder than I thought it would be! I've never been good at sticking to a plan; like I said before, I have very little will power and I'm easily swayed by other people to change my plans. For example, Sunday evening, when I got home, I planned to spend half an hour ellipticizing, then eat a small bowl of cereal and go to bed. But my new roommate's mother came by and brought a whole tin of homemade Runzas and another of apple crisp. Well, I couldn't be rude and not eat anything, right? (Although, no one forced me to take that second helping of apple crisp either...)

But I have been pretty good about exercising. Monday afternoon I went on a walk with my other roommate, almost two miles in a half an hour. That's pretty fast for me. And on our walk we found some tomato plant stands that were on someone's curb for trash pick-up. So we came back after the walk to snag those for our new garden, which we started yesterday! We are following the method outlined in Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza, in which you layer compost materials, peat moss, and mulch to build up good soil, rather than tilling the ground. We got three layers done yesterday; it was more of a workout than I thought it would be. We'll be growing tomatoes, green peppers, spinach, and cucumbers in the garden, and a patch of strawberries along the front walk. I'm so excited to have fresh produce this summer! All that gardening wore me out, but I made it to BodyPump last night and then Karrie and I stayed for a half an hour on the treadmill.

I have been better about limiting my pop intake, but I am still drinking way more than I planned. The problem is, I keep eating lunch out with friends, so I get a pop there and refill it before I leave. So I'm drinking maybe three times what I said I would, but it's still less than what I was drinking before.

On a little side note, I always listen to Matt and Shannon Mornings on KFRX, and Shannon now has a workout blog too! This blog thing is really catching on! And she goes to my gym too! Maybe I'll see her there. We should get her to come to BodyPump with us!