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?

Day 1, Phase 1, Disk 1 - Fail?

I started the P90X last night.  Had I been able to do all the exercises I would probably be dead right now.  Instead, I was not able to do any of the pull ups.  Even with a chair.  I did little halves.  I don't know if I should keep trying to do the pull ups with my body weight or shift to something on the weight machine with a little less weight.

I was able to do some of the pushups, so that is an attainable goal I could reach.  The decline push ups were not an option and the "under the fence" push ups were a disaster.  However, I can see myself getting better at the push ups.  I need to answer the question about the pull ups.

I got a pull up bar from my son to hang in the doorway.

My husband worked out with me, but he chose the weight bench instead of following the DVD.  He's already strong, so it wasn't a big deal for him.  It was still nice that he did it.

P90X - Getting Ready

On Saturday I ran an obstacle course race.  My second.  The first one was Warrior Dash January 2011, this one was Iron Crusader.  I'll try to get a picture added here soon.  I have three months until the next Warrior Dash, so I've decided after recommenation and some YouTube research, I'm going to do the P90X.  The first thing to do is measure and take photographs of yourself.  I've decided I would start here.  I've included some pretty embarassing pictures of myself.  Last time I weighed it was 205.  Here's the pictures:

The Mystery of Le Mystere

I bought a Le Mystere bra.  It's the 9955 Tisha model.  I am a very full 38E.  Finding a bra is about the suckiest thing I have to do, so when it's time, I gravitate toward Bali's minimizers in a 38DDD.  However, I have found that I'm growing when I should be shrinking.  38DDD just don't fit the girls anymore and Bali doesn't have a lot of anything past DDD.  In fact I don't think they have anything.

So last year I bought a Bendon Sport bra in a 38DDD.  It fits really nice, but it's a sports bra and not the sexiest bra on the planet.  It's a very nice bra, though.  My most comfortable bra.  If I didn't have to take out a second mortgage to buy one, I would probably own five.

Back to the Le Mystere and how much I hate buying bras.  I'd seen this model on Opera a while back.  Supposed to be the miracle to end all miracles.  Well.  I liked the look of the Tisha bra.  No one sells LeMystere around here, so I was obligated to an online purchase.  I took a chance and ordered the 38E.  It is a beautiful bra and had the story ended there, it would have been very much worth the slightly under retail price I got.

However, it doesn't end there.  I'm not going to show you pictures of me in the bra.  Let's just say that if you are a big girl with big breasts, do not buy this bra.  Or, at best, try it, before you buy it.  Major spillage out the top!  This bra touts a full coverage for full figures.  Nope.  Not a chance.  It's jiggly, joggly, goop.  My boobs were all over the place.  When I look at the bra, the redeeming factor is the cut at the top.  This bra is very low and wide.  Anybody with anything more than a C probably shouldn't wear this bra.  I am narrow in the shoulders, so the straps were too far out and very uncomfortable.  Tightening the straps only made the bra ride up in the back.  This is NEVER a problem for me.

I have been professionally fitted for a bra many times, so I know what to look for.  This was just a mistake on my part because it's a beautiful well-made bra worth every penny they are asking.  I only suggest big girls skip the lure of the tag when it says "full figure" because it's not.

The "t-shirt" bras feature is outstanding.  If I had more than two thumbs I would put them up.  This is a smooth bra that camouflages all those things that breasts do when we're in t-shirts.  I am sending this bra back.  I will probably look for their version of a bra that come straight up and to the side.

Where to Begin? #4 Getting to Know Me

The last two weeks were pretty traumatic.  It was my parent's 50th wedding anniversary and a family reunion of sorts was scheduled for the following day.  My mom expected 75 people to be at the event.  I was very nervous about seeing people I hadn't seen in as much as 35 years.  People that knew me in another time.  I had no desire to return to this time in my life, but it seemed like it was bearing down on me faster than I was prepared.

I woke up the morning of the party aggitated.  Luckily, my husband just left me alone and let me get ready.  I wore a dress I didn't plan on wearing--another subject--and stuffed myself in a body shaper in hopes of hiding the extra 75 pounds I was carrying.  I let my hair curl and wore matching sandals.  I felt old, fat and ugly.

The upside of all this is only 43 people showed and none of them were "old friends" from my past.  My favorite aunt and uncle were there with my cousin.  We spent both days hanging around with them.

The irony of the very arduous day is that my mom said she didn't enjoy feeling like she was on display and this whole weekend was her idea!  Whatever.

Where to Begin? #3 Fitness

I signed up for a new obstacle course race, Iron Mudder.  It's 3.5 miles and scheduled for October 22.  I did a lot of walking while I was out of town--which I will talk about in a later blog--and when I get over this rediculous cold, I plan on returning to the weights, treadmill and doing some other things to improve my performance over the next two months.

I noted when I walked while on vacation that I am getting stronger and my balance is much better than it was a year ago.  Seems like I could take the stairs at my parents two story home much more confidently and we walked four miles in some very hilly terrain.  A was able to break a comfortable sweat and work some of my large muscle groups.  I am returning to my original plan for the treadmill to be able to jog four miles by the race.

I'm encouraged by my performance while on vacation and I'm looking forward to the next two months.  I will definitely keep you posted as to my progress.

Books and Movies: The Girl Who Played With Fire

Among everything else that's going on, I managed to finish Stieg Larson's The Girl Who Played With Fire.  I definitely give this a thumbs up.  Before I reached the end of the book I found myself looking for the last book in the series.  This book was much better written than the first book, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  With the first book, I had to watch the movie to fully understand what had happened and I read it faster than the second.  It took me a little longer to "get around" to finishing the second book.  It was much easier to follow what was happening and I thought the suspense at the end was much more meritous than the first book.

A few twists concerning Salander's family might have seemed a little contrived or manipulated to me, but that's the beauty of fiction.  Getting the reader to accept and I definitely accepted! 

This book is out on paperback now, so it's pretty cheap in the old style paperback--something like $7.99.  I recommend the Tattoo book first because that's the way I am, but if you want to start with Fire, I don't think it will make that much of a difference.

Where to begin? #1 Back to School

I can't believe it has been so long since I posted something.  Anything.  Then, the last time I posted was this whiny paragraph about how terrible my life has been.  The truth is, it has been challenging.  It's been more challenging than is probably fair, but life is not fair.

I switched schools.  I don't know if I posted it here, but my school lost its regional accreditation.  I had decided to stay because it was a technical school and I didn't care about the regional accreditation.  Well, the more I read, the more I realized it was important and like so many other things, I decided to change somewhat on a whim and found that transferring and applying for a federal loan was so much easier than I thought it would be.

My first class in my new school starts tomorrow, so I guess I can post about it after it begins.  I did peek at the roster and found 17 names on the list.  This is a difference in that the most people that were ever in my classes was eight.  I know that I feel a sense of excitement I did not feel before.  I am happy that this school has a real campus and real teachers and even though this sounds silly.  Real clothes.  Isn't that silly?

I had originally thought paying for my schooling as I went was for the best.  I could only afford "less than part-time".  I realized that this was going to take me another five years after already going for two years just to make it through the end of my sophomore year.  Now it will be two years and I will be done.  It is going to be MUCH more expensive than I had originally anticipated by about $10,000, but I will be done sooner and I can hopefully think about a graduate degree.

Rough Week

I wanted to check in.  This has been a terrible week for me.  Lots of frustrations and disappointments.  I don't know what to do and the people that should care, don't seem to care.

Petty World: The Hot Water Heater and A Job Well Done

I alluded in another blog about our hot water heater dripping from the pipes for quite some time.  Before that, it was dripping on the floor and soaking the carpet that is on the floor in front of our washer and dryer and side door.

One that floor was a pile of boxes waiting to go to recycling.  (This is not a problem.  Sometimes I wait a little long to go, but it never piles up too much.)  In front of that pile of boxes was a box of fabric from a job I did.  The plan was to go through the scraps to see if there were any pieces left that might be salvageable for another project.

So as you might have guessed the boxes and the fabric became a smelly mess I was vaguely aware of, but inside the box the fabric was in plastic bags so I wasn't concerned about the fabric at the moment.

When my husband finally fixed the leak he just walked away from it.  The job was done.  He left everything right were it was including the bucket of water under the hot water heater, the ruined boxes and the box of fabric.

The first of the month is when I insist the recycling go, so I went to grab the boxes and realized that the job repairing the hot water heater had been left exactly where it stood when the damage was done.  Now, I will not sit here at the computer and try to tell you that this is not my fault.  The the dripping pipes were unknown to me.  I knew about the drip and I knew about the damage.  I guess I thought maybe this time he'd do whole job.  Apparently not.

So I picked up the soggy boxes and bucket of water.  Straightened up the area that had been shoved around while he did his repair work and opened up the box of fabric.  This is when I realized the water had soaked through the bags and onto the fabric.  This was $13 and up per yard fabric.  I shouldn't have left it on the floor.  I shouldn't have assumed it would be safe until I could get to it, but I did.  I took it out to the garage and assumed it would be safe until I could go through the scraps.

Now it wreaks of  mold and sour polyester and I'm not so sure if I want to take the time to try to salvage it.  Another waste of money because a job was only half done.  What am I supposed to do?  I can do everything around here.  I really can do it all.  I've done it all in the past, but I don't want to anymore.  It's time for him to be a homeowner, father and most of all a husband and he's fighting me on this.  I'm tired and I don't know what to do.

So what is a job well done?  A job well done is a job done where no one can tell you did the job.  Everything is put away, cleaned up, wiped off, etc.  If I have to come behind you after something like that and pick up, clean up, haul away, or whatever, than you haven't helped, you've hurt.

The Things I Do a.k.a. "Why I Won't Get a Full Time Job"

I have a relatively short list of things I do every day no matter what day of the week it is--no matter what my plans for the day are.

This comes to my mind because we went away for part of the day yesterday.  We left around 9:30 and go home about 6:00 so it wasn't a huge day away, but it was enough to interrupt the usual flow of things around here.

When I wake up I immediately do a handful of things that aren't necessarily all in the same order, but I do eventually get around to all these things by around 10:30:

scoop litter
feed/water outside cats
water plants
clean up kitchen/dining room area
think about lunch/dinner
ride my bike or walk on treadmill
general pick up of clutter
wash/dry/fold a load of clothes if necessary
load/run/unload dishwasher
Floors vacuum/"mop" -- I use quotes because I use a Hoover FloorMate

This does not include the things I do, weekly, monthly and so on.  There are many things I do regularly that take up other portions of my day, but that's not what this is about.

Instead I got up yesterday and did none of those things.  I toddled off with my husband for a day of whimsy.  When I got home, it was all waiting for me.  Dishes, clutter, cat poo, no exercise.  My husband on the other hand had nothing on his plate for the evening.  I told him to study his Sunday School lesson until he felt comfortable.  I had some things I could do and then we could run over to Wal-Mart to pick up some things I'd been putting off for quite some time.

Warning:  Approaching Side Note!

I desperately need something to catch the sand by the back door.  My family all but refuses to remove their shoes when they come inside.  When I say something about it, there is much eye rolling and an effort is made under my watchful eye, but soon there are mountains of sand piled up around the back door.

The other day, I actually saw my husband walk over to our beautiful and irreplaceable tropical print area rug and WIPE HIS BARE FEET on it!

I calmly asked him what he was doing.

"I felt something on my foot." He said.

"Did it feel anything like sand from outside and litter from the leak in the garbage bag you carried through here this morning?"  I said.

"I wasn't wiping my feet."  He said.

"That's funny.  Because this--"  I made the motion of wiping my feet on the same spot of carpet he'd just wiped his feet on.  "--looks like wiping ones feet on a carpet."

He didn't seem to care or be bothered by me pointing it out to him.  Where did this man grow up?  A grass hut?

So I made much about getting out the Floormate and doing the kitchen floor.  It was 10:30 at night.

So I am going to buy some indoor/outdoor carpet squares to try to remedy this 10 year old problem once and for all.  One for outside and one for inside.

He studied his Sunday School lesson for about an hour.   I walked on my treadmill, poured myself a glass of wine and sat down in front of the TV.  It was after 8:00 and I'd already had two glasses of wine and was eyeing a Red Velvet cake on the counter when he finally asked me if I wanted to go to Wal-Mart.

I said no.  One more night on a 10 year old problem wouldn't hurt anything.  That's how we roll.

So he eventually moved to the bed with my laptop to look at coins and I watched another hour of TV until I was in such a stupor from Red Velvet cake and Black Swan Reisling I went to bed.  He turned off the light and continued looking at coins well into the night.

Everything I didn't do yesterday was waiting for me today including a new day's worth of everything on that list.  I was up around 5:30 unable to sleep so hit the computer and looked at urban legends for several hours.  He came out around 8:30, ready to go to Sunday School.  He read through his lesson--again--and dressed for church.

He wants to go to a gun show with our son.  My son is very much into guns and I looked at it as an opportunity for them to spend some time together.  Off they went.  Three days had now gone by and he had not done a single thing to pick up behind himself or to maintain our home.  This is how he is.  If he has absolutely nothing else to do, he will pick from a myriad of possibilities and that will be his contribution for sometimes as much as a week or more.  Sometimes his "help" is nothing more than a hindrance because he leaves a wake of mess behind himself.

I'm still waiting for him to clean his mess from fixing the hot water heater over a week ago.  Hot water heater had been leaking slowly for a very long time.  A bucket--full of dryer lint--placed under it finally filled.  He just went outside and poured the water in the grass.  Plastic bag and all right there by the side door.  Where did this man grow up?

So, you still may ask, what does this have to do with me getting a full time job?  Because in my 25 years of marriage I've had a few full time jobs and I've had numerous part-time jobs.  The last full time job I had was a perfect opportunity.  I sat my husband and my then high school aged son down and told them about it.  I told them I would need help.  I wasn't going to do everything and life would cease to exist the way it had.  We'd have quite a bit of extra money, but all those things come with trade-offs.  Both of them agreed to help with keeping the house clean and pitching in with other things like meals and maintenance.  I was not going to work a full-time job and come home to everything I did around the house.

They agreed.

As you might have guessed, it didn't last.  Within a few weeks--not even months--their worlds were back to the way they always were.  I was working a 50 hour week, still teaching privately and managing to do all those things around the house.  I was worn out and burned out.  My dream of getting the same respect for a long day at work was shot down.  I just didn't understand why I didn't get the same respect when my work day ended--er, seldom ended.

I have made three attempts to work at a full time or part time job and have never got the respect a man receives from a day of work.  No matter what it was I have done, it was never as valuable as what my husband did.  There was one brief period of time that between the full time job I was working and teaching at home, I made more money than my husband.  I remember his attitude changing.  There was no way I was making more money than him.  I showed him the figures. 

He had to believe.

I had to quit. 

I couldn't keep up the pace.

I probably haven't done a very good job of explaining myself here, but I believe that's not the point here.  The point is figuring out what my next step is to be.  Where I am to go next and what I am to do next.

For now, the day I get a full time job is the day I leave my husband for good and never look back for an instance.

Well, the house is empty for a few hours and I've got to get to the things I do on the "first" of each month, but that's another list another way that I contribute around here that goes, for the most part, unnoticed until a day like yesterday.