October 5, 2010
Life is starting to settle into a routine again (ahh, sweet sweet consistency)… just in time for the weekends to get busy with tailgates, trip to the mountains and soon enough, holiday preparations. Last week Matt had to work 12 hour shifts (night ones too) so we’ve been high fiving on the front steps as he comes home and I take off, and having about an hour together after work – sometimes long enough for dinner, sometimes not.
There’s one person who’s been quite happy about this – the Budster. After spending 8 hours asleep with me, he gets a walk and a bowl of breakfast and then he’s back in bed for another 8 hours with Matt.
After a busy Friday and Saturday – pizza/movie/vino with my friend Lauren, a 5k in the morning with Heather and her boyfriend, and rushing around getting ready for and going to the tailgate – I crashed hard on Sunday. I’d been feeling hints of tired all weekend, and then I think I got dehydrated on Saturday (running followed by Gulp-size diet coke followed by tailgate beer… not so brilliant.) Every time I tried to go vertical on Sunday, my head protested vehemently.
As delightful as spending another 8 hours in bed was to the Buddy, it was frustrating to me. Didn’t my body know I had dishes to clean?! There was remnants of artichoke dip plastered on every pot I owned. Laundry to fold! Floors to be swiffered! And then there were blogs to be written and papers to be filed – I still haven’t put away 4 years worth of an office that I brought home from WFU and dumped in my guest room. My blessed hubby has not taken up my dad’s strategy of dealing with annoying piles of crap – that is to say, I have not found my stuff dumped in the outside garbage can.
Yet.
After I roiled around for a few hours being mad at the world that the ONE DAY where I had nothing on my agenda, I couldn’t even stay upright, I finally accepted the situation and took a nap.
A five hour nap.
I know, poor me, right?
(Before I fell asleep, I desperately Googled "emergency housecleaning service" thinking MAYBE just maybe if I could find someone to clean my house while I slept MAYBE just maybe I would feel less guilty about sleeping. It’s not as my house is usually eat off the floor clean, and I’m super particular about it, but it was a bomb, y’all.)
So I slept. I slept, I slept and I slept and I woke up intermittedly to text my mom or answer a phone call from Matt and would test my upright powers.
"Can I stand up yet with no headache? Nope. Okay, back to bed."
Finally around six, I felt functional and was able to clean up the kitchen, do a few loads of laundry and blog. (Priorities… the floor can get swiffered lately, I had to blog, yall.) Matt came home a few hours later with dinner/lunch and a big ol’ Gatorade for me.
Of course, after sleeping most of the day awake I was wide awake at what should have been bedtime, so of course, I fretted about that and how I would already be starting the week with a sleep deficit if I couldn’t fall asleep soon.
Go with the flow is not really my specialty – are you picking up on that?
I finally feel like I’m starting to find into a routine with my work schedule, which is most excellent as this week somehow became jam packed with extracurriculars. I haven’t felt "ready" so to speak to take on the extras the first couple weeks, and I still feel a little bit overwhelmed, but I’m getting there. I mean, if ever there was a week to take! on! the! world! it would be right after a 5 hour nap, right?
Does everyone take so long to adjust to new routines as I do? In college, I often felt like by the time I got a hang of my schedule – it’d practically be midterms. I guess the problem isn’t so much that I take awhile to adjust to a new routine, it’s that I berate myself for *not* having adjusted yet. As if, somehow in my 28 years of routine-loving-living, one day I might wake up and find oh hey! I rock at flying by the seat of my pants now! Wouldn’t it be a whole lot easier if I just accepted that this is who I am, and anything new makes me wonky for at least a good six weeks?
Acceptance. A novel idea. Something that a life coach might encourage people to do? Weird.
January 6, 2010
Yesterday, January 4th was the worst day of the year, according to my sister’s Facebook status. Immediately after she posted this, every single teacher she is friends with agreed, including my mother and my high school English teacher.
The “dreading going back to work” statement was all over Facebook the night of January 3rd. I can’t say I was doing backflips about going back to work, especially because that meant I’d actually have to brush my hair and get out of my pajamas … but I didn’t find myself dreading it either.
I truly enjoy my job. Even the more tedious parts, like paper work and data entry, give me a sense of accomplishment when I finish them. Monday was just a typical day for me; it didn’t really feel at all like the “reality check” I was expecting. I got to the office early, treating myself to a chai latte along the way. I prepped for the week, getting my schedule ready, reviewing notes from my pre-holiday calls, and getting handouts ready for classes. Mid-day I taught my first post-holiday class, and was pleasantly surprised to find that only a small percentage of people in my group had gained any weight over the holidays. Most had either lost or stayed the same over the three week hiatus we had had.
Today started off with three coaching sessions, all very motivating and fun and productive. I spent the rest of the day doing some paper work and reading, including snuggling up with a very exciting 10-journal-article packet on supplements. Not exactly the same as cuddling up with the fourth Twilight book, as I had been doing over the holidays, but Twilight doesn’t exactly pay the grocery bills.
Tonight, Matt and I are having dinner with the emergency medicine department and then I’m dropping dinner off for a girl in our resident-spouses group who just had a baby and is wrapping up maternity leave. It’s been right back into the swing of things, but I can’t say I’ve really minded. I have a lot on my plate this year and some pretty big plans for 2010, but I’m ready to see them into action.
If yesterday really was the worst day of 2010, then it can only get better from here.
Totally unrelated to post content. But a picture-less post seems so wrong.
December 18, 2009
Last night, I rolled my eyes at more than a dozen facebook statuses about getting snow today. “We’re supposed to get 10 inches!” “Snow day tomorrow!” “Mmkay”, I thought, as I went to bed… “We’ll see about that.”
I’ve lived in the South long enough to know that the promise of snow is usually much more potent than the actual delivery of snow. I’ve had days off from work that ended up demonstrating not even a hint of precipitation, and I’ve accidentally gone to Harris Teeter because I very genuinely needed a few supplies, like a box of wine,, only to be confused and then appalled at the mile deep line of people buying bread and milk. And being a New Yorker by birth, I scoffed at the panic and delight that my friends and neighbors show at “snow” here – ya’ll, if you can see grass still, it doesn’t count.
But this? This is snow.
Someone just threw a snowball at him. Hint: It was not me.
This is the kind of snow that makes me homesick for Rochester and nervous to take the car anywhere but from the driveway to the garage. Unfortunately, my dear husband is headed into work right now in this mess. There is no way our neighborhood / the road leading up to our neighborhood / the road leading to the road leading up to our neighborhood will be clear. It seems they should call a snow day for the ER … half the people who come there aren’t real emergencies anyways. If you’re reading in real time, give a little prayer for safe driving for DeacDoc, please.
Meanwhile, I am guiltily sitting on the couch with a snoring pup, a blazing fire and a seriously scrumptious glass of Gewurztraminer. (Can someone give me a phonetic pronunciation of this? Or can we all just agree to call it Gertzie?) This is the view from our second floor, down to our living room… I love how it’s practically white-out through our living room windows. It feels cozy and lovely. Yet I won’t totally enjoy this vista until I get the phone call from a certain someone that they are safe and sound in the hospital parking lot. Welp.
Update: Matt has called and is at the hospital, but none of the roads were cleared (including Highway 52 and I-40.) If you don’t have anywhere you need to be, stay home!
November 15, 2009
Is it just me or does turning the calendar page over to November suddenly start making everything go by in turbo speed? Maybe it’s the combination of more random things on the to do list (“must! put! up! Christmas! decor! NOW!) and more actual events on the calendar, but I swear there’s something about this time of year that just makes me feel busy. In a good way, but in a “where did the week go?” kind of way. Some highlights from this week:
Wednesday evening was Bunko nights with the ladies, which has quickly turned into Wine Drinking Night, since the dice hasn’t really made an appearance the last few weeks. No one seems to be complaining. We agreed we’d continue to call it Bunko night for the sake of our husband’s. (Hi, husband. I doubt you’re surprised.) Jamie, this week’s hostess, is a Southern woman if there ever is one and hosted an excellent get together. Not only was her house as sparkling as the cider in her fridge, but she had gotten together the ingredients to make caramel apples. It was the perfect fall evening activity, and of course culminated in one of my other favorite activities: eating. (Forgot to bring my good camera, so these come a la cell phone cam.)
Thursday was my wonderful hubby’s 28th birthday!. He had the day off, and I had a break in my schedule that afforded us the chance to go on a lunch date to our favorite restaurant, Village Tavern. (See, I told you that EM resident schedule had it’s perks!) VT has been our go-to for everything special in our relationship – everything from our first date to where we got engaged – so it was fitting that we were able to have a little birthday celebration there too. I always laugh to myself when the waiters ask “Is this your first time visiting us?” Once Matt and I counted out how many VT trips we had… and we estimated it to be in the 50s. I would estimate I have gotten the grilled chicken salad 47 of those times. Birthday boy had convinced me to give him his b-day present about 10 days earlier, but fortunately my mom had sent a package of cookies so there was still something to open on the official day. Both parents went in together to get him a storm door, which I believe is due to arrive any day. Yes, we’ve officially reached the age where Home Improvement gift requests top the list. Happy Birthday, honey!
Friday was kind of a random day, as most Friday’s tend to be for me. I woke up early and coached one of my private clients before starting my Wake day and coaching two more research participants. I had a small break, in which I scurried over to WFU and got my swine flu shot. Then I had four more Wake calls, and I did each one in a different place: one in Benson before deciding that was too loud (and weird; flashbacks galore), then retreated to the quiet but sunny patio to do the 2nd. Then I realized I had to be across town at Starbucks to meet my coaching client at the exact time my 4th call would be ending so I did the 3rd call in my car. That one ended early and I realized I was starving, so I dashed into Fresh Market and grabbed the most gorgeous Honeycrisp Apple and a this fruit and nut bar for lunch. I did my 4th call in the call, and then walked into Starbucks a minute before I was due to meet my client. Whew!
Fridays = Phone Call Days.
Friday’s Lunch. I felt compelled to snap it, no big surprise there.
Friday night we had a dinner for the emergency medicine department. Like any event where you know approximately 1.5 people, it was a little bit awkward but I must say, I liked having faces to go with the names of the many attendings and other residents Matt talks about. I always find it strange that I have no mental picture in my head of what Matt’s day is like for 8-10 hours every day. My mom always talks about what a good feeling it is to visit us in all the various apartments, dorm rooms, homes we’ve had so that when we talk on the phone, she can picture where we are. I feel a little bit that way about Matt’s life – I wish I could be a fly on the wall at work for just one day. At the very least, getting to meet some of the people he works with and hearing the department’s updates (via PowerPoint, ohhhh academia…) was nice. The dinner was hosted at Millennium in the Courtroom, which was a little bizarre since the last time I was there was our Chi Omega formal in the spring of 2002. Guess who my date was?
Saturday morning we got up early and headed over to tailgate with our friends Anne and Locke. We had mimosas and Midtown pancakes and marveled at the fact that it was nearly 80 out in November. I didn’t have plans to go to the game; Matt had tickets so at noon we parted separate ways. I came home and put the game on TV and rolled up my sleeves for an epic house cleaning. Our house had gotten to “Broken Windows” stage … a term we use to describe that point when things are so messy you stop trying to pick up. You know how it goes… if there’s one T-shirt on the floor, what’s one more? There was so much Buddy fur in the corners you could have knit a sweater with it and I can’t even speak about the state of our shower. So I got to work cleaning and catching up on laundry. Five hours later (five!!!), the house was scoured, scrubbed and shining. I was proud. And exhausted. And there was six loads of laundry I had just dumped on the bed. Sigh. Really? I debated leaving it there and taking a break, but decided the best thing to do was just get it over with. I dove in, put a book on tape on on my ipod and folded…and folded and folded.. for another hour. Then and only then did I declare myself DUNZO, and curled up with my reward: a DVR-ed episode of Glee (such guilty pleasure) and asparagus frittata. I know it sounds like kind of a lame Saturday night, but looking around my house, I just felt such a sense of satisfaction. (Jamie, I know at least you will understand.)
After: Om-Inducing Kitchen.
Sunday morning I woke up feeling well-rested, with the buzz of sniffing household cleaners the satisfaction of my productive night still looming over me. My November newsletter is bordering on overdue, but I’ve been procrastinating writing the articles for it. As I’ve mentioned before, I love writing first thing in the morning. I took advantage of knowing Matt would be sleeping late (having worked til 1 am) and cracked open Live Writer. Not only did I crank out the two articles, but I wrote five others ones that I had been sitting on – blogs for MegEats that I had taken the pictures for and just not updated. I always notice a jump in my blog view stats after my newsletter rolls out, but the work to get it out usually results in me not posting again until, well sometimes, the next newsletter. I’m psyched to be sitting on some drafts now. The rest of the day passed in a blur of other lingering to do lists items: getting my Christmas decorations organized, posting a few things on Ebay, editing and backing up the last few months of photos, walking the Spudster and my first run in over 2 months. (It was bad. Really, really bad. You know that whole “use it or lose it?” Yea.) All I have left hanging out on my to do list is editing a PowerPoint for tomorrow, and then there’s a bath tub and a book with my name on it. That seems like a pretty perfect way to end a busy, but productive weekend.
November 4, 2009
Matt has his first week-long vacation this week and it’s turning out to be a great week for both of us. On Monday I came home to find an award winning yard, a totally organized garage, a really happy (crate-free) dog, a clean house and a beaming husband. Um, wow? I think I like the way this vacation is going. We settled in to cooking dinner together, having a glass of wine (my first in six weeks!) and enjoying the leisurely type of evening that I imagine other couples have who both work 9-5 jobs might experience on a regular basis. We actually do have a sit-down dinner probably three or four times a week, but often I’m cooking while Matt is finishing up charts or shortly after we eat, I’m getting ready for bed while he’s putting on scrubs to heads out the door. Our weeknight routine is irregular at best, that’s for sure.
Although I must say, I really don’t mind – and in fact, enjoy many aspects of – the ED schedule. For starters, Matt’s never on call, and he’s usually home within an hour of when his shift is done. That kind of predictability is rare in medicine, and as much as I appreciate that now, I can only imagine how much more important that will be to me later on. Secondly, it provides us with a unique flexibility that other jobs don’t, especially with the work from home flexibility I have. For instance, while there might be a Friday night that he’s busy putting in central lines while I watch What Not to Wear, chances are sometime during the week there was a random Tuesday afternoon we were both home at the same time. Our time together may not be traditional, but for a medical intern’s schedule, it’s been pretty good. Nonetheless, he’s worked four very long months with sporadic days off here and there, so having a week’s vacation has been a blessing indeed. I know Home Depot is appreciating a man with free time on hands and projects to burn, as well.
On a related note, I had an eye opening moment yesterday in regards to my own vacation schedule. When I started at Wake Forest, my heart did a little backflip during orientation when I heard we got 25 days of sick/personal/vacation. 25 days? A gal could take a month off traversin’ around Spain with that kind of schedule! And, to boot, you can roll over up to half of that… in theory, accumulating 37 days of vacation in one year. Sounds great right? As it turns out, it’s been really, really difficult to use those days. Using vacation days means first finding the cajones to ask my boss for time off, inconveniencing 3 other extremely hard working people and mostly notably, coming back to more work then you left. Nonetheless, there are few things that recharge me more than traipsing around a new place with a map and my camera or a week at the beach with clams, beer and family and so I have done my best to take a few week long vacations every year.
Yesterday I worked on my PTO sheet for 2009 and found that even with a week in Myrtle in April and a week in the Dominican Republic in May and few Fridays off for weddings and other such revelry, I still I had 23.5 days left. 23.5 days!! As it turns out, I could probably much just stay home all December. I’m not sure what to do about this, since as I mentioned, burning through those days like rubber isn’t exactly encouraged or easily facilitated. But they’re my days yall, and if I don’t use at least 10 of them, I’ll lose ‘em.
To add insult to injury, I’ve also keep good records of how much extra I have worked this year. Let’s just say, I love me some Excel sheets. Last October, we had some personnel changes here at work. I won’t go into them here, but essentially a 3 man job became a 2 man job.. It was a very stressful time- there were a lot of tears, a lot of wine drinking and 4 letter words thrown around in my car in between parking spaces and garages. During the course of this event, I began keeping track of my hours in order to document how these changes had affected my work/life balance. I don’t have a punch in, punch out job – I have the kind of job where you do your work, whatever that takes. Sometimes that means reading food logs late into the evening hours, but it also means being able to slip out for doctors appointments or lunch dates without worry, or working from home on Fridays. But my job description does say 37.5 hours a week and I was curious to see with these changes, how close to accurate this was. I found that an average week for me, during this time, was about 50 hours. About 8 months later we hired a 3rd person, which greatly reduced my workload, but I continued to keep track of my hours. Mostly because I’m a little bit OCD and once I make me a good Excel tracker, I have a hard time cutting myself off from using it. In my Excel sheet, I had created a column to keep track of how many hours over my “full time” I went and how quickly those turned into extra days. Over the course of a year, and one month, I have worked an extra 33 days.
Now granted, when I plug in “6 am – 2pm” on my excel sheet, I know I’m not working a full 8 hours. I check twitter, I write wino emails, I go microwave my lunch and end up talking to a co-worker for 20 minutes about Twilight. These things happen. But let’s say – worst case scenario – I worked half of that. That means I worked extra 15 days this year. On top of my leftover 23.5 vacation days, I have nearly 7 weeks of “extra time” this year… just sitting on the back burner.
I’m not sure what to do about this… maybe spend a little more time on twitter at work? (Maybe write blog posts at work? Check.) Unfortunately, if I put my feet up and eat bon bons the person that comes back to haunt the most is me, and then my participants. There’s no “man” to take it out on… the bane and blessing of automonous work is that you get both the responsibility of your schedule, and the responsibility of your schedule. And I guess that’s the truth of many jobs where you don’t clock in and clock out. This is probably one of those realities of being a grown up that you’d rather just not delve that deep into, like compounding interests on mortgage loans or how laundry is never really done because even when the hamper is empty you’re wearing dirty clothes. File this under: Being a Grown Up Sometimes Sucks?
What I’m learning quickly here is that if I don’t respect and nuture my time, no one else is going to. Life is a zero sum game – where you think you’re saving time one place, you’re probably burning it somewhere else. So on that note, I’m punching out at Thursday at noon and I’m not looking back. Matt and I are escaping to the mountains for a weekend – our first and only trip to the montanas this year. I’m not bringing a single food log, weight loss chart or memory or a participant who had 3 apple pies for breakfast with me.
And that is what paid time off is all about.
September 1, 2009
Last night I had a dream that I was able to turn my alarm clock off by only using my mental powers.
This would be a little less ironic if I had not, in fact, failed to turn my alarm clock ON last night in the first place. I woke up this morning and reached for my glasses to look at the clock, expecting to see that my alarm was about to go off any minute.
5:48, the blue lights blinked back at me. An HOUR late?!?
I grabbed my cell phone to be sure I wasn’t seeing things. 5:48, the screen confirmed, sending a blue glow through the room. I cursed, grabbed the phone, and stumbled into the bathroom. As I furiously tried to multi-task brushing my teeth and putting mascara on, my husband called from the next room… “what happened?”
“I forgot to turn my alarm clock on!” I yelled, as I ran through the house, grabbing coffee mug, dog leash, and my laptop.
“AGAIN?” he asked, in disbelief.
Again.
This is, in fact, the 3rd consecutive Tuesday morning, I have either not set my alarm or set it for PM instead of AM. 3 weeks in a row!
I am totally a morning person. There is no time of day I like better then 5 am – 7 am. So you would think, of all people, I would have no problem setting and using an alarm clock to get up. Yet here I am, 3rd Tuesday in a row, sporting unwashed hair and pretending the milk in my coffee is going to substitute for breakfast.
A year ago, when I was asked if I would teach a class at 6:30 am every Tuesday, I readily agreed. At the time, I was just finishing up training for the Baltimore half marathon, and I had been running every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 5 am. If I can run at that hour, I can teach at that hour, right? And in theory, if I started working around 6, I could stop working much earlier in the day, too, right?
Why do theories so rarely stick when thrown against the wall of real life?
The Tuesday class was such a success, capturing a number of full-time-workers who had never been able to do the daytime classes we previously offered, that in June we added a Thursday 6:30 am class.
Yay?
I didn’t realize how much I love my mornings… for me. I miss running during that time, tremendously. I transitioned over to running Monday & Wednesday mornings, which was formerly my early morning office hours where I did lots of planning, writing and development. (Quadrant II…. important and non urgent.) I miss my a.m. writing sessions, tremendously.
When I stop and pay attention, I realize I don’t really want to teach anymore at 6:30, and I think I’ve been, in a way, subconsciously setting myself up to do just that. I want to run, and I want to have my planning periods back on M&W. ::::insert me stomping my foot and sticking my lower lip out as far as it goes::: I know I sound whiny, and I am feeling that way, a little bit. I’m committed to Tuesday group til Feb 2010, and Thursday group til October 2010, and truthfully, I’m okay with that because I just adore the people in these groups. But will I do it again when these groups finish? N.o.p.e.
I am lucky that I have the flexibility to set my one-on-one appointments for whatever time I want – be at 10 in the morning or 4 in the afternoon. I can also read, write, and develop classes any time day or night. So in that sense, I do have a great deal of leeway with how I spend my day and have been successful if working out a schedule that works for me. But from this, I have learned a valuable lesson.
Set the alarm.
Okay two lessons. Know thy self. And thy self’s most functional hours of day. In the future, early mornings will stay on my agenda… but the only commitment I’ll make will involve sneakers or a keyboard.
(And for the record, I have been on time for my classes, but have sacrificed a few things along the way including exercising my dog, personal hygiene and breakfast. All rather important.)
Sure, feel free to skip my walk. Just know you’ll pay for it later when I give you THESE eyes when you get home.
August 5, 2009
4:26 am. Alarm goes off. I disagree. Buddy pokes his head around the corner to see if I’m getting up. As he sees the comforter tossed back over my head, he flops down on the floor with a heavy sigh to wait ten more minutes.
4:36 am. Ten minutes goes so fast. Shoes are on, leash is in, dog is practically twirling to get outside. We walk. It is dark, it is quiet, it is peaceful and I often look up to the sky on these hushed mornings and wonder what God has in store for me that day. My contemplative state is nearly always broken by noticing that my dog is squatting somewhere, and if I don’t hurry over, I’ll be left to using my cell phone as a light to try and see where his poo is in the grass. From revelry to reality.
We walk until the leash goes slack, and that’s when I know I’ve worn him out, and then we walk a little bit more for good measure. For both of us. We return, we both get food, and then I get ready for work.
As I’m pouring my coffee, Dr. C comes home. I’m fixing an English Muffin while he’s scrounging in the freezer, heating up a Lean Cuisine or microwaving leftover She-Crab Soup. We could not be on more opposite schedules. He updates me on his night, we say good-bye, he goes to bed and I go to work.
6:25 am. My first class starts at 6:30, and they’re usually hover outside the door raring to go. No matter what time of day I hold class, there is always someone who arrives 20 minutes early. I’m very particular about my time – being late is my pet peeve, but being early infringes on my nerves nearly as much, for some reason. Perhaps it’s because those 20 minutes while I’m setting up my class are the last 20 minutes of quiet I’ll have for awhile and I savor each one. I’m teaching a class on portion control, and the front table is set up with enough fake food to delight a six year old with a Play-Skool kitchen.
8:15 am. My two classes are done with, and I begin to make the rounds picking up the room. The adrenaline rush that is with me while I am pouring my heart into each class, and answering questions that I hope will inspire and educate begins to wane. .. I sit down, and my feet scream THANK YOU. For an hour, I alternate between checking emails and following through but also losing myself in the pages of twitter, facebook or someone’s blog I may not even know.
9:05 am. “Am I too early?” My first appointment is here. The next two hours pass by in a blur. I do four 30-minute coaching session in this time. At least one will move me to tears, at least one will leave me wondering what I could have done differently to light a spark that seemed fizzled. There is nothing I like more than coaching people through their challenges, or hearing stories about the lives that go on outside my classroom. There’s little time to think about it, because my next class is gathering out in the hallway.
12:00 pm: I am walking across the tennis courts in high heels. I pray the Rec director does not come out and give me THAT look. But I am carrying a laptop bag, a purse, a backpack full of handouts, food logs, newspaper articles, and a lunchbox. I arrive in the office and have a hard time fitting through the door, without dismantling the bags from my arms and shoulders. For two hours, I enter data, read food logs or do research, updating the classes I’ll be giving tomorrow or the next day. There’s a book on tape on my ipod as I enter data and the numbers fly by as I soak in Tim Ferris, Michael Gerber or Rhonda Byrne.
2:25 pm: I am pulling into the Starbucks parking lot. I am pondering whether I will have an iced skinny vanilla or a light-java chip frap. My client’s car is already here, and I am excited for the hour that will transpire and the transformations we’ll make. Did I mention already that I love coaching?
3:55 pm: Coaching is done, so now I am hustling to the gym. Fortunately, it is 2 minutes away. I arrive and my PT client is already on the treadmill. He waves, and I have a mini heart attack that he might lose his balance. He is 72 years old, and lost 50 lbs working with me on his food intake over the course of 2 years. Now we’ve added in exercise, and for some reason, 3 years later, he’s still putting up with me. I work him through our machines – a serious of leg exercise, upper body and core. I hold my breath as he does crunches on the medicine ball and I am posed to catch him. He notices me doing this and yells at me for making him feel like an old man. I retract my hand and he immediately rolls off the balance ball. We finish his workout, and I begrudgingly say good-bye to him and drag myself over to a stair mill. 5 minutes later, I am deeply engrossed in Kate Gosselin’s bodyguard romance and the timer ticks down on the machine. I repeat the exercises I just took my client through, and leave thoroughly exhausted but happy.
6:05 pm: I arrive home and can hear the barking as soon as the garage door rolls up. I grab the leash, open the door and whisk him out the door before he can say heyyyy you’re home. Nervous energy, BE GONE. A quick lap and he’s himself again, and will spend the rest of the night testing out different spots in our living room as suitable nap locales. I drag out a cutting board and chop, pour oil in a pan, throw in, sizzle and wait. I open the plastic clamshell of triple washed greens, throw on some fruit, some cheese, some olive oil, some pepper.
8:45 pm: My energy is waning, so I pop my ipod books back on and bustle around my end of day routine. Pack gym bag, lay out clothes, pack lunch. Walk dog one last time, brush teeth, turn on TV. DVR-ed versions of Stacy & Clinton, Cesar or Joel McHale lull me into a vegetable state.
9:27 pm: “You in the bed?” When the Dr. calls from the hospital after 9, he knows where I’m at. I’m reading Dr. Kessler’s “The End of Overeating” and it doesn’t take more than six or seven pages before I start to go a little cross-eyed. Flop the book on the floor, throw the glasses on my nightstand and *click*. Lights Out.
To do it again tomorrow.
July 18, 2009
Add another check to the Home Improvement Project List. Hip, hip!
On Saturday, our neighbor came over with a whole mess of power tools and helped Matt de- and reconstruct the stoops leading into our garage. Said stoops stuck about 1″ too far to allow our garage to be a two-car. Fine now, but believe me, when both parties are leaving around 5:30 am no one wants to be stuck with the driveway parking spot, scraping us at the crack o’ dawn. The reconstruction was successful and seemed to go pretty quickly, in my non-helping opinion.
Which is sayin’ alot, cos guess what I was doing while the HIP went on? Baby-sitting.
Don’t get me wrong: I love little kids, and I was a tried and true member of the baby-sitting circuit from about 1994 right up through grad school. (Even post grad school when I first moved to Winston which made my parents proud. Look, Ma, I’m putting that Master’s degree to great use!) I consider myself someone with a well of patience and a vast tolerance for the peppering of questions that all children over the age of 3 seem to dole out.
But ya’ll, I wasn’t exactly expecting to baby-sit. I had a touch of a wine headache and plans to make my hardwood floors shiny and my laundry folded.
Enter stage left: Neighbor, age 7. “Boy, your house sure smells like a dog.”
“You look fifteen. Are you fifteen?”
“Do you have anything to eat?” “I have carrots or apples.” “YUUUUUUCK.”
“Your socks smell. Do you know how to do laundry?”
“Do you have water balloons? I have a hundred. Let’s fill them.”
All I can say is, Thank goodness for Spongebob. Whew. Good thing I’m warming up with a canine – trouble as he may be, he has never rejected my food OR asked me a single question. Wonder what happened to that vast well of patience….
June 22, 2009
It’s amazing how owning a house pretty much automatically doubles your to do list. Not that I can really complain – after doing most of the initial unpacking, I will confess that much of the follow up: picture hanging, landscaping, furniture building, has been the undertakings of Dr. C. (In my defense, I do not create the Honey Do List. Most of these projects are generated by the taskmaster himself.)
This weekend, after my flurry of productivity yesterday (you know, the ironing) Matt took on a tremendous Home Improvement Project: the big wall. We’ve been staring at this big, blank wall for 2 months trying to figure out what we could put up After a few unsuccessful go-rounds trying to find just the right thing on the interwebs, we ended up in Pottery Barn one night last week and the set of shelves came home with us.
I knew that this was a task I would be minimally involved in as it required measuring things, staying focused on one task at a time and heights. Not three of my fortes. I tried my best to be handy including standing at the bottom of the ladder handing up levels, drills, Coors Lights, nails, and holding the dust buster under the drill holes. However, there is one thing I have learned from past Home Improvement Projects and it is this:
So, although I was quite minimally involved in the actual doings of the project, the end result is so fantastic that I thought it warranted a post. We didn’t really know what we were going to put on the shelves, but it all came together in 3 different color schemes, which I love. So far, our house has mostly features the palates of Taupe, Brown, Natural and Cocoa, so this is a good addition. Hooray for Color! The only thing we purchased was the skinny painting from HomeGoods and the bamboo plant from World Market. It’s green and I can’t kill it! Yessss! Then I found the perfect colored candles at good ol’ Wally-World and the tableau is complete. (They even smell good, which wafts down right where you walk into the living room.)
End Result!
(The green from Bethpage compliments the bamboo nicely, don’t you think?)
One more step towards house –> home. Next project: table building. I say this like I’m somehow involved. Don’t worry – I just live here, I don’t work here.
(PS, Thank You Hubby. I’ll unload the diswasher now.)
June 20, 2009
This week was crappy for no apparent reason. Like, the kind of week where you’re almost trying to FIND something to pinpoint those AGGGH BLACCCH EEEKFF feelings on, because heaven knows you’re not going to be the girl who’s just complaining for no reason at all, right? Right. I don’t know what it was, the alignment of the stars, the extra half hour of sleep stolen each morning by my new furry, four-legged personal trainer, the stress of a brand-new group of 40 newbies staring eagerly at me wondering how I am magically going to make them lose weight, the fact that I still had a suitcase sitting on the bedroom floor from a vacation a week ago or WHAT. But all week long, I felt tired, I felt cranky and I felt … undeserving of those feelings. Like, who am I to feel that way when the list of blessings definitely outweighs any for-real negatives in my life? That’s so strange to feel that way – undeserving of the right to be cranky. But until I sat down to pour my heart and soul out to the internets, I didn’t even realize that sentiment was underlying that craptastic funk I was in all week. I mean, why can’t I have a week where I’m just feeling shitty for no good reason at all?
I can hear myself telling any of my coaching clients right now: it’s not good, it’s not bad, it just is. Apparently, I’m taking my role as the positivity police a little toooooo seriously if I won’t even let myself have a B.B. King kind of week. But whatever, it’s come and gone, and I’m feeling just fine and dandy and actually pretty darn accomplished after 3 hours of ironing. (Yes, 3 HOURS. We’ll get to that.) Actually, you know what I think was the root cause of all this internal foot stomping? I don’t think I’ve had a day where I really could iron since April 29th: closing day. We closed, we packed up, we moved, we unpacked, we unpacked some more, we hosted family, celebrated a graduation, packed up our bags, flew to the Dominican, (ok don’t pity me too much here), came home, unpacked, got a dog, realized said dog had some major behavioral issues, went home to Lincolnton, went to work again, went home to Rochester, went back to work again and WOW. Ok, blogging epiphany. While the last 8 weeks have been chock full of really super duper awesome stuff….
I am le tired. And I want a nap.
So this weekend, we originally planned to go to the mountains. And while I know I would be happily hiking along a huge staircase of boulders in Julian Price right now, or maybe sipping a cold brewski out of a mason jar at The Woodlands, I am really really happy to be sitting in my bonus room with a sleeping dog at my feet, a sleeping hubby in front of the TV, a big pile of ironing done, and no where to go. Staycation, yes please.
This morning, I switched out my winter and summer clothes – a task that led to me accumulating a pile of ironing about 3 feet high. I really avoid ironing at all costs – in fact most of the time, I just take it to the dry cleaners and pay $2 to get it pressed. I’m a firm believer in outsourcing. But this was probably about 20 items, so I figured I better just tackle it. I loaded up my computer with some TV I’ve wanted to catch up on – 3 episodes of Cook Yourself Thin, the season finale of The Office and 3 coaching vlogs I follow. It took me 3 hours and 60 oz of distilled water to get through that pile. No joke. And once I was on a role, I decided to iron the curtains that we need to hang in our guest room and the linen napkins I haven’t used since Valentine’s Day because they got too wrinkly after I washed them. All in all, 23 items ironed. I guarantee that’s more ironing than I have done in our entire marriage.
After I ironed, I sat down and made the first meal plan I’ve made in probably 2 months (formerly an Every Saturday Morning tradition) which now means I have a humongous Harris Teeter trip on my hands. Our house is clean, the laundry is done, the dog is snoring… it feels so good to have my house right again.
When my home is happy, I am happy.
Meal Plan for the Week:
Sunday: Flat Iron Steak with Pimiento Cheese Mashed Potatoes, Sauteed Spinach and Onions, and Green Salad (No recipes, just basics)
Monday: Everday Food’s Pork Satay with Peanut Sauce and Lo Mein Noodles
Tuesday: Cook Yourself Thin’s Pasta Bake
Wednesday: Cook Yourself Thin’s Quesadillas (If I can keep my hands off the wholly guacamole until then.)
Thursday: Sushi (picked up from Fresh Market) and Cook Yourself Thin’s Spring Rolls
Friday: Leftovers or Grilled Chicken Salad
If any of the recipes are worth repeating, I’ll post them on megeats.
