Another 20 miles

I was able to put another 20 miles on the treadmill this week.  I feel good about this plan.  I have not done the P90X this week, but hope to resume at least the upper body discs on my off days from the treadmill.  I was only able to do the Ab Ripper one time this week.

My best time this week was four miles in 62:44.  One of my big goals for the next few months is to get that time down to 60:00.  I am adding some tenths of a mile in my "cool down" in hopes of working up a little toward five miles a day.  I am setting a personal goal of a 10K by this time next year.  I want to surprise my tiny little friend, so I'm not saying much to her until I get closer to the 6.2 miles.

A Lazy Day

Today is kind of a lazy day.  Sitting in the recliner googling whether Beyonce was really pregnant and the Six Best Ways to Keep Your New Man.  I landed on a ranking website that ranked Rhode Island School of Design as having the number one creepiest mascot.  Apparently, it's a man's parts--down there. "Scrotie".  Ewww.

Leave it to those free thinkers.

The verdict?  I never thought Beyonce was pregnant.  I wondered how she was going to pull this off.  I think most people would have forgiven her if she'd just come out with the surrogate.  Maybe she could have said she couldn't carry babies for some medical reason.  I don't know.  Her body is how she makes money, why would she want to risk that?  I don't blame her if she wasn't.  What if she gained gobs of weight an stretched out her stomach and was never quite able to get back on top of the industry?  She'd be screwed.  That's how it is when someone has used their body to sell their singing voice.

As far as keeping my "new" man.  The list was stupid.  I'm supposed to laugh more, enjoy his hobbies, include him in my decisions, not let him monopolize my time and some other goofy things for women in their twenties and thirties that still actually think they should have to jump through hoops to keep a man.  Big tip comin' up here ladies.  If you like each other enough and your don't have any super-duper personality flaws, the rest kind of works itself out.  You'll either stay together or break up.  There's really no way around it.  Unless you go for the friends with benefits junk that is a bunch of nonsense.  Everyone knows the girl is using herself up.

So I look at the picture of the "plush" mascot representing male genetalia and just wonder where I've been that this is actually OK.

I'm Broke . . . Again

Went to the bank today.  I was $375 overdrawn.  That's always so embarassing when the teller give you this blank smile through the window.  I'm in a pickle.  Two of my students haven't paid me in MONTHS.  I'm owed something like $500 and I lost two students in January.  This is even suckier, because just maybe I can get the $500 dollars from the studetns I have, but the $120 a month is going to add up fast.  Apparently, it already has.

Logged In 20 miles and P90X

Last week was a good week for the treadmill.  As my title shows, I got in 20 miles.  5 days, four miles each.  I was going to do some uphill stuff, but it was just wearing me out too much to do anything the rest of the day.  I know with time I would have gotten accustomed to it and would have benefitted much more from the challenge, however, I need the emotional triumps almost as much as I need the physical triump, so I adjusted the treadmill to level and did four miles three more time.

I also did disc 1 of the P90X and the Ab Ripper X on Tuesday and a nother Ab Ripper on Thursday.  I started into the first 15 minutes of Disc 2.  Plyometrics are tough for me.  I wanted to power through them, but felt week and sore from doing too much on the treadmill.  I decided to put them off for Friday and as I could have predicted the days slipped away and now it is time to start a new week.  I feel good about last week's performance on the treadmill, just working through disappointment at not being able to do very much of the Plyometrics.

These are so awesome.  See the little knobs?  Those adjust the
weights that you pick up when you pick them up.  The numbers
are too small to see in this picture, but they are 5, 10, 15, 20
and 25 pounds.  This created a great workout.

For Disc 1 I used my new dumbbells.  Did I already mention I bought some Gold's Gym Space Saver  25 singles?  I love these weights.  I had some "girly" dumbells at 3, 5 and 8 pounds that were just not heavy enough.  I didn't get a good challenge out of them.  I am a new convert to "free" weights.  I've worked out on a circuit trainer for years and never saw some of the disadvantages.  Now I'm not slamming a circuit trainer because something is better than nothing, but free weights are definitley where it's at for a wholistic training session.

The balancing muscles don't get used when you are pulling or pushing stable weights.  When you sit or lean against something, you are actually almost doing yourself a disservice.  However, something is always better than nothing.

So that's where I was at and going into this week.  I'm going to try to stick to the 20 miles and try to get through the Plyometrics video.  I love P90X.  I hope I can do it someday.

Winter Of Our Discontent: Is This the Moment?

I slept in a little this morning and a thought occurred to me that has occurred to me before but I didn't give it much attention.  When I was in the beginning of tenth grade or even perhaps the summer before tenth grade, my mom left me and my dad and took my two sisters to another state.  I remember being told she was going over there to go to a different doctor.  There is a great deal of tragedy that has followed her decision that she never could have predicted.  A seriously sad chain of events critical to my future and the future of the family.

I kind of suppose up to this point in my life--what was I 15 or 16--I didn't do much caring what was going on around me.  I was just living my life.  So when the other shoe dropped I didn't give that much mind either.

I was given a choice.  Leave my friends, my school, my home and go with them or stay with my dad and live my mom's friends during the week and live at home on the weekends.  Now I know at the time I was in the tenth grade.  I was playing in a big band and felt very much a part of the group.  I'd been first chair all through middle school and the first two years of High School.  I had some friends in the band and my best friend at the time was  my locker mate for the last two years.  These are the things that are important to a tenth grader with little else.

What I had at home was strife.  My older sister was a little bit of a bully, and my younger sister had been a sickly child, so she inherently got the lion's share of attention.  I didn't know my dad as much as I should have at 16.  I wanted to stay behind.  Things here might not have been the greatest, but at least I had stability.

So, that day my mother, two sisters and the family dog packed up the station wagon and left.  I don't remember feeling much of anything about their leaving.  That bothers me a little.  What bothers me more is what happened to all of us that year or so and the butterfly effect that followed one woman's decision.

Mental Messages: How Do Other Women Do It?

Where do they go to shed this weight of being a woman?  This heavy burden of being "emotional", "moody", "flighty", "quirky"--the list goes on.  Some times I just don't want to exist anymore.  It's so heavy on my soul today, I really have to keep going just to survive.  I don't know who to be, how to be, or what to be.  I'm so frustrated with the world around me.  I try not to be weak and I get abandoned.  I try to be decisive and I get rebellion.  I try to be firm and I get attitude.  I try to be clean and organized and I get disrespected.  I try to include and end up being excluded.  I try to not talk and I get ignored.  I try to talk and get interrupted.

I just don't know what to do anymore.  I have no one.  Everyone is so busy.  I have opened up to a few people in my life and was met with disinterest.  People I thought loved me and cared about me are just too busy to deal with me.  It's your decision.  Just pick yourself up.  What are you complaining about?  At least this, at least that.  I want to crawl on a rooftop and tell the world I am dying inside from trying to figure out what to do, how to be, what to be . . .maybe someone would notice what it has felt like to be me.  Even if for a brief moment.

This is not how it was supposed to be.

I once dreamed.  I dreamed of family, of happiness, and of satisfaction.  I dreamed of holidays, vacations, plans and change.  I hoped for the future and reveled in the past.  My days were filled with pleasing those I loved.  Now I wonder what those I love fill their days with.

Back to the Treadmill

I'm back on the treadmill and I've decided that this year my goal will be four miles.  Seems a little goofy knowing that my goal last year was three miles and I didn't make it.

Here's the difference.  I realize my failure in that I kept trying to peak.  I pushed myself and when I could perform, I got discouraged and gave up.  I've pretty much gone back tot he drawing board again and set the goals and try to stick with them.  The idea that "At least I'm doing something" isn't goin to work with me anymore.  I'm going to run four miles and I'm not going to take year to do it.  I am doing four miles (two at incline and two flat) in 100 minutes.  I realize that is super slow, but I want to go faster and faster little bits at a time.

If I did the math correctly I should be doing four miles in an hour in about 7 weeks.  I am also going to be doing the P90X alternately until my stamina for running improves.  I know the program prescribes everyday, but again, I will be fighting a psychological battle as well as a physical battle.

Wish me luck!

2012 Is Your Year

I heard it a few times.  That's an exaggeration.  Well, maybe in a conversation.  Apparently, 2012 is her year.  A new boyfriend and a new job.  Things couldn't get any better than they are right now.  For Her.

So on the way home I go into my usual funk when things haven't gone my way.  I now want to know when is my year.  When do I get the metaphorical new boyfriend and new job?  Why do I get to keep the old model and still don't have a real job?  I'm grouchy about it now.  It's been a few days and I've stewed on the whole idea of when it was goin to be my year.

I've tried to think of a time when things went well for me for any extended period of time, much less in multiples and I couldn't think of anything.  I think I permanently live in half-baked world.  Very little of what I do is ever much more than  mediocre success and it's always an uphill climb.

Ah well, I hear my husband snoring from the other room so it must be 1:00 in the morning.  It is.

You Should Be Thankful

Tonight my husband was emptying the dishwasher.  I caught him about to nest pots that were close in size.  I'd asked him not to do that in the past, so I made a point of telling him not to do what I'd already made of point of telling him not to do.  He made some sort of stoneage grunt when he bent over to put the pots away under the sink.

I heard him start to say I should be thankful.  Thankful for what, that you emptied the dishwasher?  Ummm, gee, thanks, but no thanks.  You'd have to do that anyway.

My dilemma in all this is that I don't feel like saying thank you anymore for something that he would have to do himself.  I dont' feel like saying "Thank You for emptying the dishwasher, thank you for folding the clothes, thank you for vacuuming. . ."

I hate that nerve.  When somebody hits it, I got blind.

So should I be thankful he does what he does because he'd have to do it if he lived alone, or am I to be thankful he does anything?  Like I should be thanful he doesn't stop at a bar and drink his paycheck away on the way home from work.  I'm afraid I wouldn't be married or stay married to a drunk, so why should I have to be thankful to someone for doing what he'd have to do anyway.

Warrior Dash II -- Perfect Pull Ups and Push Ups

Well, the Warrior Dash is behind me.  I enjoyed myself much more this year.  The pressure of the unknown is over.  I was able to do many of the obstacles just because I already had.  There were some new obstacles.  I especially like the floating one!  I came so close to giving up.  I just hung onto the rope to see what others were doing, and when I picked my strategy I hauled myself up  and made it out and over the other side!  I specifically needed this today because I've been so negative about the rest of  my life.

I am looking forward to the day I do all the obstacles.

The only ones I can't make are the walls.  This tells me I need to work on my upper body.  My husband bought me the Perfect Pull Up about a month ago.  I've been using it and probably would not have been able to get out of the water had I not been.  I am going back to P90X on Monday--once I am recovered from the race.  I hope to do something in March.

The girls that I've managed to team up with are war horses.  They are going to do the Metro Dash in March.  They have not invited me, and I have not invited myself.  I want to take what is left of January and February to really work on my upper body strength.  If it is not to late, I will decide then and offer myself as a team member.

Over all, it was a good day.  A lot of sand that was very difficult to run in, but I strove to do my best an "forget the rest".  I actually injured myself somewhere along the way and I'm not sure how.  I didn't know I'd broken the skin until I got in the water and it started to sting like crazy.  I looked down and saw a small amount of blood.  Best I can recollect it was when I slid through the ladder going down off the cargo ropes.  Good times.

There is also a general 5k in March another friend of mine is doing.  She runs regularly, however, and I don't see her being as kind as the women I am running with now.  She would probably leave when she was done and its still pretty hard to do one of these things without a cheer squad waiting at the end.  That's one thing I never thought was important until I have it now and realize that know they are there and watching makes me try harder.

Back to School: Fundamentals of Cheating

I am now in week four of my fourth class at University of Phoenix.  I've been here long enough now that I can post the name of the school without feeling like I am doing the school a disservice.  At have a 94.5 in the class at the moment.  However, my grades from week three have not been posted yet.

This class marks 17 classes until I am done with this idea.  I am now wishing it was over.  I want to learn and I want to experience and I know I will miss that most of all, but I will not miss the students that want to be spoon-fed.

I'm sure the odds were destined to catch up with me, but I have experienced some new things.  Cheating and laziness.  I suppose the lazyiness isn't new, but when you read this you will be surprised at the new levels.

So, about the cheating.  It has happened in two classes.  Both times the cheating was more rooted in plagiarism than in actually cheating on something like a test, but it's still cheating in my book.  The first was a team mate submitted a flowchart as her work.  She posted "Here is my flowchart." among some other statements that said me that she was claiming a flowchart she had copy/pasted from a website as her own work.

The odd thing about that particular event was that I stumbled upon the exact same flowchart while I was looking for an example to study for the exact same assignment.  I called her on it and told our team leader.  Nothing was done.

In the next class.  I had a classmate copy/paste our teamleader's work and post it as his in his team's forum.  That was bold.

I have also had the same student in two classes in a row now that posts the same response to everone's post--over and over again.  Within the post he adds a short sentence to "personalize" the post a little, but it's the same response!  He made it throught the other class even after someone else in the class called him on it.  Here is the irony.  He was the one that copy/pasted the work from my teamleader to his team.  The icing on that lovely little cake is that there were members of the class that defended him and said for people to stop singling him out.

Um excuse me, you cheated and you can't even manage to write your own posts.  When I saw him name on the roster for this class I knew I was not going to give him a moment of my time.  He posted one of his copy/paste reponses to my post and nested some kind of flattery in the middle with a question about the assignment.  I didnt' respond.  I don't care if I get counted off for not responding, I'm not going to waste my participation on a slacker.

Winter Of Our Discontent: It's Been A While

It's been a little while since I posted something under this label.  It's not because I haven't been discontent.  I've been very discontent.  I've also been very busy with school, so when it hits me, it hit me hard.  It hit me pretty hard on Monday night and I've been grumbling ever since.

I wonder why I have the gift of being disappointed and discontent.  Why am I not satisfied with status quo the way the men in my life seem to be?  Why do I want more?  Why is there always a better?  I search my heart to find if this is wrong or selfish and all I find is more dissatisfaction.

So to sit back and be satisfied would be a disservice to me because I'm not satisfied.  I want some thing back that I've lost and I want to be rid of some things I've gained.  I want a different life and I want to be able to decide who's in it.

Mental Messages: Other People's Blogs -- Their Corner of the World

I've been looking at other people's blogs and I stopped on a blog of a woman that bakes cakes with her husband in Las Vegas.  I was so drawn into her blog and pictures, 30 minutes went by before I realized I'd been looking reading and reading and reading . . .

She's cool.  A cool mom, a cool wife, a small business owner that's actually making it, she's got cute hair, tattoos . . .

I realized I was doing it again.  Comparing myself to them.  To those out there that survive, that make it, that rise to the top.  Over the years I've been a lot of things and none of them were a success.  There wasn't really anything I could take a picture of and say:

"Look what I did today!"

That kind of bothers me.  I'm not jealous, just bothered.  Bothered by the knowledge that I know how to do a lot of things ok, I know how to do some things pretty good and there a few things I can actually do and put a small price tag on, but is there anything that I do that I can wrap a business around and two years into be asking myself if I'm ready to take it to the next level?  If I'm ready to have "help"?

Nope.

Just as I struggled when I first started this blog.  I got nothin'.  I can take a picture of a pan of brownies or a pot of steaming rice or an organized cabinet, but I really would like something I can hang a price tag on and call my own.  I'm searching for a niche.  A spot.  A corner of the world that I can call mine and charge you for entering it.

Fitness: Warrior Dash II and the P90X

I has been a year since I ran my first obstacle course race.  I've tried sporadically throughout the year to land on a fitness regime that would work for me.  So here I am a year later almost at the same place I was a year ago.  I ran on Wendesday with a friend.  She is thin and younger than me, but a good friend seems to want me to succeed.

The choices I've stuck to the best have been bicycling, running and P90X.  Although I only made it a few weeks into the P90X, I could definitely see an almost instant improvement in my posture, balance and--of all things--my feet.  I am flat-footed.  I have some problems held over from a birth defect that make me incrdebly pigeon toed or duck toed.  I never know which it is.

My feet are just more comfortable splayed out.  When I started doing P90X I almost immeditely saw a change in my feet.  The new muscles began to pull my feet in and the arches up.  Is that possible.  I don't know.  Maybe that is the first thing I will ask someone that would know.  After the race I am going back to the P90X.  For now, I will alternate between the days I run and the P90X because running still takes so much out of me.  For that someday when I can run three miles and not crawl to the front door the next morning, I will start doing P90X and running on the same days.

Home Wrecker #2: Kicking It Out To Make It Better

By the end of the hour I will be done moving Kitchen Tradition here:

http://kitchentradition.blogspot.com

Bon Appetit!

Home Wrecker: Kicking It Out to Make It Better

I have decided to divide up my blogs.  The first to go is my Sew Retro! grouping.  You can find it here:

http://sewingretro.blogspot.com/

I finished moving everything earlier this evening and although it is going to be a while until I have everything all situated again, I am happy with my decision.

What would you like to see more of and what can you do without?