Reading Resolutions

I don’t usually make New Year’s Resolution – I prefer to make them all year round, just to keep things interesting. But happenstance was that I made a resolution, it was in early January and thus, I decided it would be my NYR. It’s a bit of an odd one. I decided that I was going to make it my goal to stay out of the library until I have finished reading all the books I have borrowed (and returned them to their rightful owner… two I admit I have had since 2008), swapped or bought this year.

This may not sound like something that requires a resolution, but I tell you I have an insatiable weakness for library books. I’ll get a notion of a book I want in my head, I’ll look it up on the catalog and put it on hold. They call me to tell me it’s ready and I “dash” in to pick it up. Thirty minutes later, I am checking out with a good dozen other books. I don’t know what happens to me in those thirty minutes but I become overcome with something akin to binge-reading. Because they have a due date, they take precedence over the books that are sitting on my shelf, neglected and humble. So this year, I pledge to finish all my borrowed, swapped and bought books before I set foot in Reynolda Manor Library again. You heard it here first. I’m 2 months in, and making good progress.

Here’s the breakdown:

Borrowed, To Read:

• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (just finished)
• Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (just finished)
• Alice Waters and Chez Panisse by Thomas McNamee
• Food Matters by Mark Bittman
• Fat Like Us by Jean Renfro Anspaugh
• Captivating by John & Stasi Eldredge
• Wild at Heart by John Eldredge

Swapped, To Read:

• Get Out of the Boat by John Ortberg (currently reading)
• Mindless Eating by Brian Wasnick
• Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
• A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle

Bought, To Read:

• The Master Key System by Charles Haanel
• The Writer’s Home Companion by Joan Bolker
• The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

Already Read Once, but Want to Read Again:

• Master your Metabolism by Jillian Michaels
• End of Overeating by David Kessler

And then…. THEN…. my reward. Here are the books that are accumulating on my library list. Feel free to lend them to me if you have them, I’ll make sure to return them by 2013.

• Real Food by Nina Plank
• Inside A Dog by Alexandra Horowitz
• Better by Atul Gawande
• The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson
• Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby
• Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro
• Stones into Schools by Greg Mortenson
• The Wrong Mother by Sophie Hannah

Have you read any of these? What did you think? Are there any I must add to my list?

In the meantime, should you see me approach a library, book store, or your own bookshelf, please feel free to dive in front of me to stop me. I know not what I do.

Cabin Fever

I am so sick of this cold weather here, and the wind, my gosh, the wind. Every time I step outside, I can hear my mother’s voice: “Where is your hat?” (I hate to admit, but she poses a good question.) My poor little pupdog has not gotten a decent walk in about 3 month. It is sunny outside and looks so tempting… but it is just so darn windy.

Oh hey, I’m complainy today. Let me think of something nice to say. I’ve tried yoga – twice now! I am taking a super beginner class (the kind that involves lots of blocks, straps and generous time in child’s pose) and it was really nice – I have never had anyone break down the poses and explain them so well before, as well as take the time to correct form. It is a 5 week class that my friend has talked me into it, so I’m encouraged to see how it goes. I also keep noticing today how many times I’ve realized my shoulders are up at my ears when I write. That could have something to do with the reason my back and neck always hurt. DUH.

Speaking of writing, I got up extra early today and spent a few hours on my book… I’m making a good dent in it and I’m kind of excited about it. It’s like my little garden, I just keep doing little bits and bits at a time. I’ve got about 2/3rds of the content done, and want to finish the bulk of the content by my wine trip at the end of March. Then I want to go back through and insert some research and more case studies. And then…. I have no idea what to do with it. What does one do with a book? Stand on the street corner and sell it like the newspaper guys do? Print it off at Kinkos and make your mom buy 500 copies? Send serial letters to Oprah until she gets a restraining order on you? Put a tent on the front step of the Rodale offices? Sigh. Guess we’ll tackle that step when it actually gets DUNZO.

But really, the wind? It can go now, and in it’s place, I’d like to order up some sunshine and green grass. Hurry, Spring, Hurry.

Mom, I’m booooooooooooooooooored.

Middle Sister

I wish I drank red wine solely so I could purchase this bottle. I love judging bottles by their labels.

Any bottles you’ve bought based on labels that have turned out to be success? My two faves so far are Barefoot Pinot and Polka Dot Riesling.

It Ain’t Easy Bein’ Green

Clearly my proclivity to dry cleaning and hair dye should be a dead give away that I’m not exactly a poster girl for Green Living, but I have been trying to figure out little ways here and there to start being a little more kind to the environment. From a selfish perspective, I totally believe that the amount of chemicals and fakey-fake stuff we use in our lives (and our foods) has to negatively impact our health, so I’m all for trying out products with friendlier ingredients.

Note: This may be one of the dorkiest entrees I’ve ever written, but the best part of writing a blog is I’m author, editor and publisher. Woo.

The good thing about shopping at Wally-world is that it makes going green affordable – many of the regular cleaning products I buy now offer “green” products that are negligible in their price differences. Are they really better for the environment? I don’t know. As adamant as I am about food label reading, the whole “factual” realm of green products vs. the “you’re a big fat sucker for marketing” realm still eludes me. But, it makes the ego feel good to use them, doesn’t it?

WELL. Not if the end result is crappy. I bought Palmolive Eco dishwasher soap and was all “woohoo, I’m nice to the Earth.” HARUMPH. My warmnfuzzy feelings were short lived.

See that label? Cleans to A Sparkly Shine?
FORESHADOWING, PEOPLE, I’M FORESHADOWING…

For weeks, I kept pulling spotty glasses and silverware out of my dishwasher, and couldn’t figure out why. I finally realized it had started when I bought the new cleaner. I was home in Rochester and watched my mom pull a less than sparkly cup out of the dishwasher and lament over how their water seemed to be dirty… I looked under her sink and TA DA! Eco friendly dish cleaner letting her down too. A quick google search proves I’m not crazy – by and large, a healthy dose of white film seems to be the norm for other Palmolive Eco users out there.

Oh, hey house guests, welcome.
Don’t mind our gross dinnerware.

So, I’m going back to the Cascade that pollutes our oceans and streams, until someone can point me in the direction of a dishwasher soap that is nice to Mother Earth AND makes my dishes sparkly clean. Yea, I said it. COME AND GET ME, EPA. Ok, really, please don’t? But, is it too much to ask that a product that is eco-kind also works really good? Green homemaking FAIL.

100th Post!

Matt’s Nanta had a beautiful hydrangea bush growing her front yard and I asked if she would part with a few of the blooms. Happily, she obliged and I have a huge beautiful bouquet now sitting in my living room. (And I have not killed it! I even changed the water! Maybe there is hope for me.) It makes me happy every time I walk past it.

Of course, since I love zooming in on things, the flowers have provided a fun fodder for playing with the dials on my camera.

Want Your Wedding Done in Macro (and only in macro)?
I’d be your gal.

AND I am even learning my photo editing software – although I haven’t gotten past the “fun effects” tools. My grandma is one talented lady with the oil paints – I wonder how she’d feel about my lazy-man’s oil painting setting?

The Proper Choosing of Language

The best part of floundering in a new language is the absolute thought, care and devotion dedicated to the choosing each world. Each “please” and “thank you” is a bridge between two worlds and the look of comprehension in the recipients eyes when the right tense is combined with the right verb is like the giving of no other gift.

Tonight we met Danny and Angela, siblings from Boston, who slip easily from Spanish to English with a mere flicker of thought. At one point, I asked Angela the best way to say “I would like” when ordering – knowing one could say “Quiero,” “Pido“, “Me gustaria” and so many other choices. (Imagine: in English… I’d like, Can I have, Bring me, Yea I want the… Gimmeah….). Her answer, “Deseo“, was not one I had considered and my joy at using just the right word in the future is just so tangibly unique to any other experience.

What a strange and separate world it is to know just a sliver of a language. Enough to “act as if”, but when the waterfall of worlds tumble out in response I back away, hands up, pleading “Mas Despacio!” And then as if the water was not cold enough the first time, I plunge back in.

Dear Lucky Stars, Thanks. Love, Megs

Losing your camera and license in a cab is never a good idea, but it’s an especially terrible idea when you’re headed out of the country the next day. This is exactly what happened to me on my wedding night. After we were kicked out of our reception sight, the revelers from our party relocated to Foothills Brewery, and then eventually to Burke St Pizza. (Yes, wedding dress, bar sludge, pizza grease? Don’t know what I was thinking. Hey, you only wear it once, who cares what you get on it at 2 a.m.!) Somewhere in the midst of all this, I left a wristlet containing my driver’s license and camera in the backseat of a cab. Fortunately I did not have any credit cards – I guess I assumed the white dress would sort of be a “free pass” for having to pay for anything. (It was. NTS: wear more often?)

Just going for a stroll up Burke St.

The next day I frantically called around to the different cab companies. “Can you remember what cab you were in?” Um, no, they all sort of look the same from inside, BUT I’m willing to guess if you put out an APB to your cabbies and ask which one shuttled around the BRIDE last night, you’ll narrow it down to one or two. After three or four cab companies said no one could recall having an adorably sweet woman in a poufy white dress in their backseat, we gave up. My passport would suffice for my airport ID and my mom lent me her camera for our honeymoon. I wasn’t too frustrated about my ID, since I had to replace it upon returning anyway – new last name and all. And, although I was upset to lose my camera, to me the priceless part of a camera would be the pictures – so, considering I had paid someone to walk around shooting pictures of the last 10 hours of my day, I felt confident that those would be replaced. Mostly I was just mad at myself and embarrassed – I was sober after all, and who leaves things in cabs when they’re sober? I pride myself on being someone who rarely misplaces thing (one cell phone, ONE… I know Matt is going to remind me of this, so I might as well “out” myself)… so I was just super annoyed at myself for losing it. We took off the next morning for Greece , and while I had plenty of other things on my mind that week (Ancient ruins!! Jeep tours of volcanoes!! New husband!!!!!) in the back of my mind was the nagging annoyance at losing my stuff.

Judging from my happy expression, this might be right about the time I realized it was missing.

Our return trip was exhausting and after nearly 24 hours of travel, including connections from Venice to Frankfurt to Newark to Charlotte (oh my!), and then driving from Charlotte to Winston, we walked into our house at 2 a.m. There, sitting on the corner of my coffee table in full view, was MY CAMERA AND LICENSE. I literally fell to my knees in shock and gratitude and a little bit of delirium and just kept going “What the! What the!” Part of me thought it was a dream, and when I woke up the next day I had to check it was still there.

The next day when I checked my email I found out one of my sorority sisters (who I had no idea was even living in Winston) got in the cab RIGHT AFTER ME and found my wristlet. When she saw the ID inside was me, she decided to hold on to it rather than turn it into the “lost and found” of the cabbie . Thank you, thank you, thank you brilliant Chi O sister. The next day she promptly drove out to my house (conveniently listed on my ID) and delivered it to my other friend who was house-sitting, who left it on the coffee table for me to find when I returned. I could not believe my good fortune that someone I knew would get into a cab right after me! It was almost too good to be true. I still think about that day as one of the greatest “gifts” of good fortune I have ever received.

What is the luckiest things that has ever happened to you?

Ten Freaking Miles

The idea of actually going out and running the race that I signed up for, the Charlottesville 10-Miler, scared the beejeezus out of me since I didn’t train for it. AT ALL. As in, I ran once from January 1st to April 4th. And I got a cramp. Physically I assumed I was capable – I have run that distance before in my life, but I had always been training and running regularly up before those runs. So up until the night before, I still wasn’t sure about whether or not I wanted to run. I was afraid: afraid I’d get out there and not be able to finish (omg, 5 miles to the finish line…. I’m stranded, AYEEEE), or it’d hurt (umm, yes, for real), or I’d just really not enjoy it and the last thing I wanted was to start disliking running. It’s hard enough to fit it into my week, and I enjoy it so much!

I woke up the morning of the race and decided WTH. The don’t-do-it reasons were pretty arguable (especially the not finishing… hello… I can WALK.) My plan was to wear my watch that paces me and walk a mile, run a mile. Considering my run pace is just mere milliseconds faster than a walk pace, I didn’t imagine this would take me too much longer than the running (sprinting) winos.

After the first few miles, I knew I physically didn’t need to switch to a walk pace. Mentally was another question. I was fine until 7, and then the wall hit. Miles 7-8 I distracted myself with my usual reverie (one that almost always involves envisioning myself on Oprah, and/or working on the Biggest Loser… yep, that’s how I get through my mileage.) Mile 9 hit hard. I kept looking down at my watch, and the tenths of a mile ticked… on… by. Around 9.3, I started praying. “God, you pick up my legs, I’ll put ‘em down.” As my running shuffle came to an end, I put on a Jars of Clay song “Carry Me.” CHEESY. Whatever – I needed it. At 9.4, we hit a hill. A big freaking hill. Whose grand gesture was that? Thanks, Charlottesville. I prayed feverently, knowing it was not going to be me that got up this hill. Amazingly, I hit a stride and my legs became light as air. Tears pricked at my eyes as I became overwhelmed with this feeling of ceding control, yet feeling totally in control. At 9.8, Mercy Me’s “I Can Only Imagine” came on (on shuffle). Not exactly the tempo of my usual pick-me-up songs (generally Cascada and DHT are my booster songs) but I felt my speed pick up as the chorus line swelled, and the finish came into sight. As the line of those waiting came into view, I saw Jess, Jenny, Emily and Shelby jumping up and down screaming my name. I ran by yelling “I didn’t walk! I didn’t walk!” and collapsed into their arms at the finish line, overcome with surprise that my legs had kept moving the whole time.

I was way surprised at myself – I think I often times underestimate my mental toughness. Maybe it’s because I quit a few things early in life – I quit JV softball after Coach Hans yelled at me for missing a crucial pop up in right field, and I quit my job at Pontillo’s on my 2nd day after my boss got mad at me for forgetting to ask an order with “peppers” wanted sweet or hot. This idea that I don’t have stick-to-it-veness has stuck with me for a long time, despite many other scenarios in my life to the contrary. I’ve often told my coaching clients that they always have the opportunity to change the story that they tell themselves about themselves – to rewrite their character descriptions of their life. When I hear someone say “I’m soooo disorganized”, or “I’m addicted to sweets,” or “I’m a magnet for craptastic relationships” … I think to myself “Offfff course you are. Because you tell yourself you are, you find the evidence that supports this and ignore the evidence to the contrary.”

So *cue the life coach moral of the story part*…. maybe it’s time for me to start ignoring the evidence to the contrary – forget the peppers and JV softball. I ran a 10 mile race I didn’t train for WITHOUT quitting. In fact, I bet if I stopped to think of it, there are probably just as many “keep going” scenarios in my life as there are quitting scenarios. Soooo, why not make the choice today to believe that I’m way more mentally tough than I’ve given myself credit for? I just might try that, thanks. Watch out – who knows what this tough chick will do now.

Finish line. BooYAH.

Where is my inner nerd when I need her most?

I promised myself I was going to do it today: tackle the merger of my website and my weight loss blog. My wonderful friend Jack has sent me explicit instructions on how I can create a wordpress blog that will let me have all sorts of room for freedom of exploration and design and creation, and create static images and move the domain name manager and *breathe meghan breathe*… before I know it the room starts getting smaller and everything sound as if I’m listening through tin cans and I want to put my head down on the desk and breathe slow, shallow little breaths. I like a challenge. I love reading manuals and following directions. But there are two areas of expertise in which even the most clear, concise directions cause my CNS to react as if a saber tooth tiger was panting down my neck: Taxes and HTML. I really, really, really want to figure both these things out. Last night I DREAMT of my wordpress website, how beautiful my blog was with the links to my coaching website nuzzling around it…. quite a vivid dream, and I had fully expected to see Jacob and Bella in my REM cycles having just finished Eclipse. I DREAMT ABOUT BLOGGING. Yes, I think this fully conveys the nerdiness of the situation. Now, I just need a little fairly to appear out of nowhere, hold my hand through all the HTML-ing to make this happen and tell me when it’s over. It hardly seems fair that I have a memory with a cataloged index of calories, I can name the artist of almost any song from 1982-2009, I can perfectly orient myself towards a beach when in any foreign country but I have a brain that childishly refuses to even attempt to understand how to build a website. My inner dorkiness is usually so potent – why must it fail me now?

Also file under: thinly disguised plea for help to tech-savvy friends.