I want YOU to exercise

Quote du jour: Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it. ~Plato

Walked five miles yesterday, alas rainbow-less. (How easily we become spoiled.)

Today, going for another five miles.
Done!



Yeah, I know. This is boring. No excitement here. Nothing to see, move it along.
All the same, dull as walking sounds, it feels really, really satisfying to be able to make one positive choice about my life. I choose exercise and healthy eating.

Site du jour: I don't usually dwell on the negative, but I enjoyed this blog, Hello Kitty Hell, which is devoted to describing all the different HK objects that are out in the universe. Did you know there are whole houses built around Hello Kitty themes? There's a Hello Kitty assault rifle! Geez. Makes walking in the rain, dull or not, seem a lot more wholesome.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/capital_m/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Sleep depraved

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Almost through the worst of the work situation. If I weren't so tired, I'd be done by now. I'm going slower and slower, which is dragging things out. Which is frustrating.

Exercise du jour: Walked 3-1/2 miles today.
Done!



Silver lining du jour: Alas, the walking was all done in the rain, which wasn't that much fun, but on the other hand I got to see the most beautiful rainbow ever created. I mean, this thing was huge, looked like it was a mile away, dramatically situated against a dark background. People on the street were pointing. I saw three drivers pull over to the side of the road so they could get out and take pictures. It was that dramatic.

Look, I didn't have my camera with me. Just imagine it, okay? Trust me. Worth imagining.

Still going

Summary du life: Still going. This should be the last week of Totally Crazy Work, and next week I can get back to really working out. I am still going to post my exercise up here; I want to keep the habit of exercise even if it's only walking.

Site du jour: Moose in the Kitchen wrote a post that I love, about believing that what you are is enough, and how dissatisfaction can paralyze you from getting anything done. "It helps to sit down every morning and quiet my brain until it bypasses the Squirrels of Judgment and get to the deeper knowledge that I am a good person and I do have things to contribute to the world."

Exercise du jour: Walking. Boring or exciting, it's walking and I'm going to do it.

Life in the wilderness

Not posting anything about exercise.
Just putting up pictures of my yard, which is turning into a wilderness because I'm spending all my days working.

Okay, back to work.

Well, just one more.

Wow! A Week's Worth of Walking

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Quote du jour: In times like these, it's helpful to remember that there have always been times like these. --Paul Harvey

As of today, I have walked five days in a row.

It's a sign.

I'm climbing back out of the deep pit of non-exercise and getting back to the straight and narrow path of doing good. Okay, "straight" anyway. "Narrow" might take a bit more doing.

Exercise du jour: At least two miles. Aiming for four. Depends on whether I can escape at lunch.
Done! Walked 4-1/2 miles. The last mile in the rain, damn it, without an umbrella or a hat or any sympathy. But I'm done for the day. And I managed to make it through the day without telling a single project manager to go to hell. Not out loud, anyway.

Something to add to my resume

Sometimes my job can get bizarre to the point of surreal.

I think it might be because so many people are working so much overtime that they're starting to get a little crazy.

At least, that is the only explanation I can come up with for why I spent part of a meeting today demonstrating how to make a shadow puppet silhouette of a buck-toothed bunny. Turns out that's a skill that not everyone possesses.

Exercise du jour: Another two miles walking. Hell, it's exercise. I don't care what I do so long as I move. Preferably in a direction away from work.*
Done!



[Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons]

*Oh all right. I know I keep whining about work, but it's going to get better soon. I'm just grumpy because I'll have to work another weekend. That makes two full months without a day off.

Setting the procrastinator to stun...

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I can't put it off. I have to exercise. Otherwise, I won't be able to nag Theresa into exercising. Nagging is an important skill, and I don't want to lose my edge by slacking off.

Exercise du jour: Walking. And I'm getting ambitious about it -- I'm going to put it down here in b&w that I want to walk at least 2 miles today. More would be better.
Done! 3-1/2 miles. Uphill both ways... through the glorious spring morning and evening. ..

Hey, it's a plan

Look, I'm just going to hide with my head under a pillow
until all the project managers
on the face of this planet
get sucked into an enormous black hole and are never seen or more importantly heard from again.

Okay then, plan b.
Exercise du jour: Walked 2-1/2 miles

Moanday

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Quote du jour: Exercise alone provides psychological and physical benefits. However, if you also adopt a strategy that engages your mind while you exercise, you can get a whole host of psychological benefits fairly quickly. - Dr. James Rippe

Okay. I'll find something to think about. How 'bout this? An article in the NY Times on exercise and how rats behaved when they fell off the wagon. "Although the treadmill exercisers regained some weight, their relapses were not as extreme."

Site du jour: I do like this new-and-improved pain chart from Hyberbole and a half. "Huh. I never knew that about giraffes."

Exercise du jour: Well, hell. If a relapsing rat can get back into walking, so can I.

Weight Loss through Brain Washing

Depressing: to come across a spreadsheet from last year and recall that I'd lost weight then too. And then gained it back again. I let myself get fat when I wasn't looking.

Well, screw that. I'll just let myself get thin while I'm paying attention to other things, like the exercise du jour.

Anti-depressing: to realize that before the March Madness work overload, I went below the lowest low of last year. Maybe I'm getting better with practice. Sure hope so.

I look at the posts from January and February, and I marvel at how focused I was on exercising and eating right. That Merry was in many ways a different person from the one typing these words. A thinner one, for instance.

The first step now is to get my mind back into the Do Good mindset. I'm going to go back and read all those diet&nutrition books that I read before. My taste buds are currently on the fast&fattening setting. Taste bud settings can be influenced by the brain. Eventually.

If I read book after book after book about how good vegetables are for me, the mind will get the picture, and pass the message along to the taste buds. Not quickly, but it will happen. Eventually.

Exercise du jour: I promised a friend that I'd return her Billy What's-his-name Tae Bo DVD on Monday. Which means I need to try it out.

Note: Picture originally published on CrankyFitness.com. Used by permission. (Well, I gave myself permission to use it 'cause I made it in the first place. But anyone else should check with Crabby McSlacker first.)

It's no Hugh, but I like this plan

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Quote du jour: Normality is a condition only arbitrarily definable. - William Golding

Oddity du jour: Apparently, having fish nibble on your feet is a trendy treatment for psoriasis in Korea. Plus, people think it's fun.

Exercise du jour: My current plan, unimaginative as it may seem, is to repeat yesterday. At least so far as exercising is concerned. (Not so much the working hard part.) A 2 mile walk. Backup plan: call in sick and spend the day lying in the hammock under a shady tree soaking up the sunshine and springtime and petting the dog.
Walked 2 miles.

After the storm

Quote du jour: Another unhappy truth that you might as well accept from the start is that life will never leave you alone. The demands of daily living will cut into your time, insist on your attention, shake you up badly, or sometimes even so delight you that you can't concentrate on writing. Or so you think. - Phyllis A. Whitney

Exercise du jour: Walking. Walking, walking, walking. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, spring-time and 70s. I'm too tired to do much -- mentally and physically -- but I will walk.
Done! Mostly because I had a friend walk with me, but wth, that's still a walk.



Oddity du jour:The H&R Block tax software walked me through the mysteries of filing taxes.
Under examples of "Other Income" that you're supposed to report, they have a bullet point listing 'illegal income' (but if it's illegal income from a business, report it under 'your own business').

Wow. Does the Mafia know they're supposed to do this?

Taking the 'ex' out of exercise

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Quote du jour:Mach-S, the speed at which stress can't keep up, is simply forward motion. But it has to be self- propelled. Note that people in cars are still stressed. -Jef Mallett

Site du jour: This is a Fat Myth Buster site. (Try clicking on any of the ads there.) Almost as good as the classic Cranky Fitness post about those Flat Stomach ads.

And maybe French Women Don't Get Fat, but apparently French Men Do. At least, they're being sold creams that they can rub on their bellies so the fat disappears. It works! (The label says so, so it must be true.)

Good/Bizarre/Quirky du jour: Scale Junkie has a friend who is doing a half marathon to raise money for breast cancer detection and recovery. What's so quirky about that? She's doing the half marathon... while hula hooping. Read more here.

Exercise du jour: Cycling. Lots and lots of cycling. Or some cycling, anyway. I've decided I don't wanna cycle. Still tired & short on sleep. But I'm going to walk, at least. Time to get back into exercise -- any kind of exercise.
Fail. I decided instead to stay out of trouble with the I.R.S. and file my taxes, and then after that I had to walk my mother through some on-the-phone computer support. I've only got one mother, and probably won't have her for more than another decade (is that too morbid? sorry), so I suppose I should put her needs above exercising this once. And I can't blame the I.R.S., for fear they'll come after me if I do. So... try again tomorrow.

"And that's when I shot him, your honor..."

Turns out I do have a backbone after all.

Friday I worked from ten in the morning until 5 the next morning so that I could get a friggin' manual out that people really, really wanted.

Saturday I slacked off, only working a couple hours. It wasn't until Sunday that I put in another decent day's work.

I was tired -- burnt out -- but I felt that at least I'd earned the right to take it easy at work on Monday.

So I felt pretty darn relaxed when I walked into the office Monday morning. Where I was told that I would have to do all the work over again.

Exercise du jour: Walked 2-1/2 miles.

Or else

It's funny, albeit not in a humorous sense.
A month ago, I thought nothing of jogging a mile or two.
Well, I thought it wasn't really such a big deal.
Doable, anyway.

Now, I'm cursing that arrogant twerp that was Merry-from-February. What on earth was she thinking? I feel as if gravity has increased within the radius of my immediate surroundings, binding me to the earth. My legs feel like they've been filled with lead rather than muscle. The streets look unfriendly, the sidewalks unfamiliar. I can't run. I can't jog. I am sedentary. I am a rock, an island, a Paul Simon lyric.

On the other hand, maybe I should stop taking myself so seriously.

I do realize that once I get a couple days of sleep and healthy food, I'll start thinking the exercise and I can exist in the same room.

Probably.

In either case, I will start doing strenuous exercise. Just not today.

Today, I'm going to -- for the 4th time this month (i.e. in the last 9 days) -- do a final give-it-all-you-got-skip-meals-and-exercise-just-write-the-damn-manual push.

Tomorrow is a different story. Or if it ain't, there will be pain. Not mine.

Exercise du jour: After work, there will be walking. Even if "after work" means 9 or 10 at night. I Have Spoken.

Update du 3:05 am: Okay, I was being optimistic in my definition of 'after work.' I'm still trying to finish up that blighted manual. The exercise du jour will have to be moved forward to today. Later. After I finish up and get some sleep.

Yes, I think the workload will ease up now. But I've thought that before. We shall see.

"No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die"

Not sure why I've got that line stuck in my head. Maybe because I feel like I'm expected to talk?
Okay, okay, I'll talk.

It's all Theresa's fault. She's been exercising, and blogging about it.
I can't let her do that kind of thing all alone. Wouldn't be polite.

Exercise du jour: Walking. I'm setting my sights low, but what the hell, sights are sights. It's exercise, and I'm going for it. You can come too. Let's start a trend.
Done! A measly two-mile walk, but I'll take it and be grateful.

Cartoon courtesy of xkcd.com

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  [A Merry Life blog]
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Time for the confession

Dear world.

It has been a week since my last post.
But I have a good excuse explanation.

Hugh and I have decided to go public with our relationship. He's come to the realization that he can no longer deny his powerful secret attraction to the short-dumpy-tech-writer type of woman, and he wants to take me away on his yacht and devote his days and nights to making me happy.



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I wouldn't want to hurt his feelings by refusing.