Getting crafty

Confession du jour: I'm trying to learn crafty things like crochet. (Yes, I know this photo shows Cary Grant trying to knit. Stretch your imagination a bit, okay? I defy you to produce a photo of a hunk crocheting. Must be something only women do.)

I figure that spending three hours a day commuting by public transport should provide the ideal time and place to learn this craft stuff. For one thing, you can't throw the tangled yarn down and run out the door screaming. Not while the train is moving, at any rate.

If all goes as planned, I will be able to do a bit more serious exercise today. Since I worked four 10-hour days, I get today off. So I have the time to exercise... presuming I don't spend it doing chores. Are chores more important than exercise? Clearly not. Well... unless you want to be able to find clean clothes, eat off clean plates, have the electric bill paid before they cut it off... pish! Trivial things like that.

Exercise du jour: I'm figuring two hours of ellipticalling: one in the morning, one in the evening.

Note: I don't know how this will go. I've been extremely lax on the elliptical lately, so this might prove too much for Damn Knee. Six weeks ago, this would've been an easy goal to do. Let's see what happens.


Photo courtesy of Noelle Noodle.

Dashing... very dashing indeed

Quote du jour: For disappearing acts, it's hard to beat what happens to the eight hours supposedly left after eight of sleep and eight of work.
- Doug Larson

Where the frack did the week go?

Oh, right. At work.

I've been putting in a little extra time trying to come up to speed on this insanely convoluted workflow. It's all good. Or it will be all good. I think. No one else is asking me to push myself; I want to do it. I won't feel at ease until I'm able to sink my teeth into the job and rip it to shreds.

That metaphor really doesn't work. Makes me feel like I'm supposed to masticate, which is a nasty word. I mean just the way the word sounds is nasty.

I'm tired. That makes me ramble more than usual, which is saying something. Still, walked two miles yesterday, thanks to Crabby's timely comment. Plus, I've discovered the company website has walking maps. They've even got a map for walking inside. If I went around the inside perimeter of the building, it would be almost 3/4 of a mile. That might come in handy when it's absolutely stinking rotten outside in the winter. (The building doesn't have any stairs, alas.)

Best Moment in Science du jour: Best abstract ever. (From the Annals of Improbable Research.)

Exercise du jour: I have to be home early today to let in contractors. (Hence all the insane work hours to make up the time ahead of time, if that makes any sense.) So no lunch walks. I am going to find time to fit in the elliptical. Somehow. I promise.
Done! Go figure. I sit at a desk for hours at a time, and I can just *feel* the knee swelling up. But half an hour on the elliptical? If knees were kittens, this one would be purring. Very strange.

Photo courtesy of Eva Rinaldi Live Music.

Okay, maybe it was just a crazy idea

My knee is as strong as it was before, if not stronger, and it's a matter of getting my leg strong. I lost six years of strength in about six month's time, so it's going to take another year or two to get that leg back up to full strength, but I'm good to go so far.
Picabo Street

One of my faults is that I am so easily distracted by bright shiny things. Did almost no exercise last week. Other things took priority. My mindset went totally into Work Mode Only. I know it's possible to combine work and exercise. I've done it before. Can't remember how, but I know I did it. Just couldn't seem to get the balance this week.

Okay, inner slug, I'll give you the first week of work is crazy.
Enough of that.

In my defense, I really did the good girl thing re making a healthy lunch, full of vegetables and good calories, and taking it to work each day. Didn't help much, since people kept saying 'let's go out to lunch' each day. (I mean, you can't say 'no' to that sort of thing. You really can't, especially in the first week. But damn I am sick of Chinese food now.)

Another weird thing to note is that Damn Knee has gotten more cranky this week rather than less. All that complaining it was doing about doing more than an hour on the elliptical? It complains even more if I don't exercise. It's not as consistently loud complaining -- it more takes the form of suddenly it's painful to get up from a chair. Not always, sometimes it's fine. But sometimes -- ouch. I think I need to strengthen the muscles around the knee more.

Yes, I am babbling. Tangent woman needs to focus. I am setting the bar low so that I can get back into the habit of exercise.

Exercise du jour: Okay, inner slug, here's the deal. All you have to do is walk two miles. Given that one of those miles is covered by walking to/from the Max, that means all the exercise you have to go out and achieve is One - Friggin' - Mile. That's all you need to do today.
Done! Walked at lunch. A bit. But hey, I set a goal and I made it. Maybe this will become a habit.

Ending the month on a good note

Good: This is the last day of my goal of doing 3 hours of daily exercise for 30 days.

Better: This is the last work day wherein I will be able to collect an unemployment check, since I start a new job on Monday.

Best: My shower still works!

Hey, don't knock it. You try going for months without a working shower. It really affects the mood. Okay, yes, I am happy/nervous about the new job, too.


Summary du 30 day push: The first two weeks were good. After I wrote a status post summarizing the good stuff I did, things went down hill. In short, I got distracted by all the hoops I had to jump through to get my new job (for example, I had to read 45 pages of paperwork and fill out, sign, and send back 20 pages) and all the things (chores, road trips, etc.) that I needed to get done before becoming a wage slave again. Still managed to get some exercise in, but not nearly as much as I hoped.

If my math skills are functioning, by the end of today I will have done a total of 66 hours of exercise this month. That's only two-thirds of the exercise I'd planned (90). Even so, if I hadn't aimed that high I would not have worked out nearly so much. So I'm tossing the calculator out the window and calling this a win.


Video clip du jour: This cracked me up. If you've ever seen A Game of Thrones (or read the books) then you'll know that whatever else the story is, it is not a comedy. And yet, a selection of carefully edited clips and a smooth-voiced announcer can make it sound like hilarity ensues.





Exercise du jour: 1 hour elliptical
Did 45 minutes before the hole-in-the-wall contractor showed up. Damn Knee is complaining again. Methinks it's time to be flexible and try something else for the rest of today's stint.
Done! After the contractor left for a while.




1 hour gardening
Done! After the wasp-killing contractor left.




1 hour gentle walking, stretching
Done! Finally. At 9:49 p.m., but who's counting. It's done. Fini. So long and thanks for all the exercise. That kind of thing. Feels very good to be done.







Photo courtesy of ravenU.

Penultimate day of the 30 day push

Masks have real social value in that they allow you privacy and space in an often brutal world. But there is a price you pay for wearing a mask. Masks cause little deaths -- little soul deaths. When you wear a mask, nobody (not even you) gets to find out what you really need. And when you wear a mask, nobody (not even you) gets to find out what you really have to offer.
- Gordon MacKenzie, Orbiting the Giant Hairball: a corporate fool's guide to surviving with grace

The quote/picture aren't relevant to the blog post; I just thought them interesting.

Penultimate day of the 30 day push. I haven't always made the goal of 3 hours of exercise each day, but just by aiming for that goal I have managed almost always to get at least 1-1/2 to 2 hours a day. This was a good goal. I don't think I will try to continue with that level once I become gainfully employed again, but I will probably be able to do at least 1-1/2 hours of daily exercise. I'll aim for 2.

This must be a bit like what life is like for celebrities or people who go on The Biggest Loser. Being able to focus my attention and my time on exercise, being able to concentrate on just that goal. I know that once I start work again, I'll get caught up in doing the job. The hours I spend exercising will be spent doing nothing more than sitting in a car or on the Max. So in a way, being out of work is useful. If only I were one of the "idle" rich, I could get so much done!

Okay, whine done. Still waiting on Mr. Hopeful to come fix the hole in the wall. He came by yesterday, told me what he could do, how much it would cost, when he could start. All straightforward and positive, except that he warned me that he'd have to take his wife to rehab sometime today. (No, not that kind of rehab.) And so I sit waiting for him to call, so I will know when he can come by.

This probably means I'll have to do something Useful Around the House. Like cleaning it. Damn.

Luckily, this also means that I'll have time to get in exercise. Probably mostly ellipticalling. Some gardening, if the wasps don't mind. It's the time of year to plant tulips and other bulbs. I figure planting something now in the hopes that I will still be here in the spring to see them come up is an act of faith. The old woman who used to live here planted loads of bulbs; even though she's no longer around to enjoy them, maybe she's somewhere that she knows they're being appreciated.

Exercise du jour:
Morning - 1 hour elliptical
Done! And after I was finished, I -- wait for it-- took a shower! In my own bathroom! I feel so proud.




Noon - 1 hour gardening elliptical

Done! Had to fit it in around the workmen coming and going.




Night - 1 hour elliptical
half-done. I'm still putting up the star because the reason I stopped is that Damn Knee started to hurt. It's been at least three weeks since Damn Knee complained about an hour's worth of ellipticalling while it was in progress. Improvement.


Photo courtesy of iwinatcookie.

Halfway through the 30-day push

Quote du Jour:
As a real person, he wouldn't last a minute, would he? But drama is about imperfection. And we've moved away from the aspirational hero. We got tired of it, it was dull. If I was House's friend, I would hate it. How he so resolutely refuses to be happy or take the kind-hearted road. But we don't always like morally good people, do we?
- Hugh Laurie

That quote isn't especially relevant to anything. I just liked it.

I'm still pushing through on this 30-days of 3-hours-a-day exercise, even though I'm dead tired from lack of sleep. I'm halfway through now. I haven't noticed much weight loss -- a few pounds, but my weight fluctuates so much that's negligible.

What I have noticed is a change in the way the body feels. This may sound like an odd statement for a sedentary, overweight, middle-aged female to make, but I'm starting to feel like an athlete. It feels good to move, to use my muscles. I feel like I'm getting stronger. I can bend Damn Knee back almost as far as Good Knee now, and it's no longer buckling under me at odd moments. (Hope I didn't just jinx something by typing that.) I'm starting to feel like I enjoy exercise again. Not the getting up out of bed to exercise part, nor the getting started part of exercise, but the actually pushing of the body to go a little farther each time part. Damn Knee isn't quite up to the point of doing something that involves impact, such as running; I can't use the elliptical without following up with the ice pack and ibuprofen. Even so, the exercise that I am doing feels good. Satisfying.

P.S. Not that I'm becoming one of them Math people or anything hung up on numbers (much), but as of today I will have done over 40 hours of exercise this month. Unless my mad Math skillz are leading me astray, that's one friggin' work week's worth of exercise. Me. Hard to believe. (Now, if only I could figure out a way to get paid for this...)

Exercise du jour: I'm falling into a pattern of alternating one day of mostly using the elliptical, the next mostly doing core muscle DVDs. What I should be doing is including more gardening, but for some reason that seems a lot more work than the other two. Probably that's why I should be doing it. Even after all this working out, the inner slug is still trying to call the shots.

Morning: Elliptical
Done.



Noon: Elliptical Walking, gently
Done. Turns out that I kinda sorta pulled a muscle in my hip during last night's core rhythm DVD. That's always the problem -- you start feeling good, you go a little further, then you find out that you went a bit too far. Exercise is educational, at least.



Night: Gardening, damn it.
Done! Well, the 'damn it' part, anyway. The omens look good toward the prospect of my getting another job. Which concept has thrust me into a) the heights of exultation b) the depths of despair and c)the middle ground of "oh, well, it could work out okay."

That's what Knee said

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Quote du jour: I'm fine, and my hips are fine. My false knee is fine. My false hips are fine. Everything's cooking.
- Liza Minnelli

Recap: I keep bitching about Damn Knee. If you missed the saga, here's the 10-second recap:

• Two months ago, a vicious garden hose leapt up and caught my right ankle, causing me to land with all my considerable weight on my left knee and left hand.


• My left elbow (Damn Elbow) was so swollen I couldn't bend it more than 90 degrees for a week.


• Damn Knee was swollen, and a lot of pretty colors, but I could walk on it, so I didn't worry.


• Until a month went by, and I still couldn't walk without pain, or kneel down without agony, or...


• Anyway, the doctor said things like "Bone bruise" and "patience" and "exercise anyway."


• So I did, in a limited fashion, for another month.


• Which brings us up to now.

What's really weird is that it is much, much easier to spend an hour on the elliptical working up a sweat than it is to spend ten minutes doing yoga. Downward facing dog? I last maybe 90 seconds. I can't fully straighten Damn Elbow, and it can't take the weight. Child's pose? Damn Knee throws a tantrum.

A saner woman would say "screw yoga" and stick to the elliptical, but I want to stretch myself in both senses of the word. So I'm compromising by aiming for 10-minute yoga sessions and lots of pilates or belly dancing DVDs mixed in with the ellipticalling.

Exercise du jour:
Morning - 1 hour elliptical




Noon - 1 hour core-strengthening drills
Done... well, if you call 1/2 hour elliptical and 1/2 hour raking exercise.




Night - 1/2 hour elliptical, 1/2 hour mixture of what yoga poses I can manage and pilates.
Done. Except for the yoga and pilates part. 1 hour elliptical. However, I reduced the resistance to make it much less of a workout.

The Twelve and a Half Percent Solution

Quote du jour: Aerodynamically, the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway.

Something about a month filled with exactly 30 days makes me think in terms of challenges.

For instance, the internal dialogue yesterday went something like this:

Inner Self: Hmmn... did another hour on the elliptical today. Maybe I should stretch myself a bit more on the exercise front.

Damn Knee: Excuse me? What do you mean "a bit more"? Remember me?

Inner Self: Maybe I could do two hours on the elliptical. Or why stop there? Three hours sounds even better.

Damn Knee: The hell you say.

Inner Self: With ice and ibuprofen, it wouldn't be so bad.

Damn Knee: What do you mean by "not so bad", Kemosabe?


Um... to be truthful, the dialogue went on for a lot longer, with a bit more vituperation on the part of the knee joint, but in the end we argued negotiated a trial period of exercising three hours a day, in three separate segments.

Morning: 1 hour elliptical, or 1/2 hour elliptical and 1/2 hour yoga.
Noon: 1 hour running/walking (mostly walking) or 1 hour cycling.
Evening: 1 hour exercise DVD or weightlifting.

I don't actually know what the limits are with Damn Knee, so I'm trying to throw in some flexibility on the options. I'd like to alternate run/walk and cycling, but if the knee complains I'll switch to more core muscle exercises instead. The point is that for the next 30 days I want to move the body three hours a day.

If you figure that's there are 720 hours in September, and I'm only planning to exercise 90 of them (12.5%), then it doesn't sound too extreme. And I'm betting that it will get things moving. I've been laid up pampering Damn Knee for almost two full months, without stopping eating. It's time for one of those total body makeover months.

Exercise du jour:
1 hour on the elliptical
Done!




1 hour cycling
Done!



1 hour DVDing
Update du 10:20 pm: don't give up on me yet. Yes, I had to spend an hour or so on the phone with my mater explaining that MS Word masquerades as a Word Processing application but is in reality a software application designed to increase the sales of Prozac and Tequila is a non-intuitive piece of software.

Did 20 minutes, still aiming to finish that last hour. I want that star.
Update du 11:17 pm: okay, so we're not talking quality time here, right? I mean, the main thing is that the exercise was done. No matter how non-pretty, or the fact that I ended up doing a slo-mo version of the elliptical for 40 minutes. It was done. I gets my gold star.
Done!

The Kung-Fu/Jesus approach to a job search

Quote du jour: Most self-made men worship their creator.

One way to tell when a man thinks he's God is if he speaks to you in parables.

The job search consultant guy is trying to be helpful, I know. And he's got a doctorate in Psychology, so I'd expect him to try to respond to questions by starting with the psyche of the questioner. The disconnect is that I expect straight answers to my specific questions, while his responses are most often in the form of stories.

I suppose I should be grateful that he's not calling me "grasshopper" and telling me to go chop planks with the edge of my hand.

Exercise du jour: I want to do a whole hour of ellipticalling. No martial arts.
Done. Now off to set up an interview between Damn Knee and Mr. Icepack

And now for something moderately different

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Quote du jour: The way you treat yourself sets the standard for others.
- Sonya Friedman

Yesterday, I managed 50 minutes on the elliptical without any complaint from Damn Knee. Today, I want to try something different. I want to see if I can jog, even just a little. Slow jogging, slogging, for a minute or so at a time with intervals of brisk walking in between. Worth a try. If it turns out to be too much for Damn Knee, then I'll go back to the elliptical for a while longer. Just so long as I get out there and move. Besides, it provides me with an excuse to ignore the housework. That's always a plus.

I figure posting this up here is the one way to guarantee that I'll actually get out there and do it. Otherwise, inertia will claim me for her own.

Done! About 15 minutes walking with some slow jogging. Plus, 20 minutes on the elliptical to warm up.

And while I'm lying on the ground being kicked, maybe you could take care of my wallet?

Quote du jour: You're never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you're never as bad as they say when you lose.
- Lou Holtz and John Heisler, The Fighting Spirit


So I submitted a résumé to a job site, as I have done many and more times before. This time, I get an email a few hours later. Not from someone who wants to hire me. This email is from someone on the job site who has been "assigned to review my résumé to see if it comes up to their standards."

Sadly, it does not. While it is clear that I have loads of experience in technical writing and editing, my résumé "does not have the sparkle and pizazz that one would look for in someone of my experience."

On the plus side, for a mere $350 they would be delighted to rewrite my résumé and make it stand out so that I would surely get hired by anyone with a pulse or a brain.

To me, this is like kicking someone when they're down, and then offering to take their money from them so that no one else will want to kick them. Purely as a kindness. Gosh.

Exercise du jour: 50 minutes on the elliptical
Done! And without any complaint from Damn Knee.

"Sell" myself? My mother warned me about that...

Hey, everybody! Look at me!

Quote du jour: Welcome to Sales! If you haven't been in Sales before, you are now.
- job seminar

Apparently, the "in" thing in Today's Job Search^TM is self-marketing. It's counter-intuitive, to put it mildly. Basically, it's taking the information from my résumé, reformatting it, then showing this to people who are not in a position to hire me, and asking them for their advice. It's supposed to increase my networking ability. What I'm thinking is that if I showed this to some former co-workers, people who are emphatically not up to the latest in Job Hunt Techniques^TM, they're going to feel like they're being put on the spot, that somehow I'm expecting them to help find me a job.

I'm sure it's a good idea to put together a marketing plan to showcase my skills, but frankly I'm not sure it would be a good idea to try to sell myself with it. I think it would be most helpful just for organizing my strengths in my own mind. That way, I would have the information readily available in case I were asked about it in a job interview, which is the place where I'd really be trying to sell myself. (Sorry, Mom.)

Yes, I know I can't just sit by the phone and wait for someone to lift their damned magic wand and flourish the ideal job into existence.

It would be nice, though...

What's that? Hugh needs a shoulder-warmer? Move aside, Nicole!

Exercise du jour: 30 minutes on the elliptical. It's not romantic, but it seems to be about my limit as far as Damn Knee is concerned.
Done! With only 20 minutes left in the day. Why is it, when I had 24 hours to get this exercise in, I waited until the 24th to get it done?


Peacock courtesy of Hypergenesb.
Hugh and what's-her-name courtesy of Gandalf (and you thought he was busy making movies).

For you, more Hugh

Quote du jour:Luck is preparation meeting opportunity. - Oprah Winfrey

Another morning spent in seminars. Now I get to spend the afternoon outdoors. It's too beautiful to stay indoors. For all you office workers, I'll leave Hugh up here for you to look at.

Exercise du jour30 minutes gentle bicycling. See how Damn Knee feels about that.

Photo courtesy of CoolGuyz.

Shakespeare would never have made it as a hiring manager

Quote du jour:

Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
- Shakespeare, Julius Ceasar Act 1 scene ii

You have to look good in a job interview. The lean and hungry look is in. It's sleek, it's chic, it's ... not my style.

Went shopping for an interview outfit yesterday. Was thinking they really should post those suicide hotline numbers in dressing rooms. Maybe I should spend the next week concentrating on the three Cs: carrots, celery, and cabernet cabbage.

I’ll be glad when my knee is strong enough to do serious exercise.

Exercise du jour: 30 minutes on the elliptical. I'm getting there, damn it.
Done! Plus 10 minutes stretching Damn Knee afterward.

Wow... this company could probably tell some tales...

All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them, but this is specially true of humility. Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, "By jove! I'm being humble", and almost immediately pride - pride at his own humility - will appear. If he awakes to the danger and tries to smother this new form of pride, make him proud of his attempt - and so on, through as many stages as you please.

But don't try this too long, for fear you awake his sense of humour and proportion, in which case he will merely laugh at you and go to bed.
- C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

Applied for a job online. After I submitted my résumé, I wound up in a site where I had to answer page after page of questions about myself. At the start of the questionnaire, I was warned solemnly that I had to be careful to answer every question honestly, as they "were able to tell if someone was being untruthful." After I'd answered a few questions, I started to notice a trend. See if you can spot it:

Page 1 - Do I use illegal drugs (for example: meth, crystal, ecstasy, heroin, morphine, crack, etc.) other than marijuana [all the time, often, sometimes, never]?

Page 2 - Do I use meth [all the time, often, sometimes, never]?

Page 3 - Do I use amphetamines [all the time, often, sometimes, never]?

Page 4 - Do I use cocaine [all the time, often, sometimes, never]?

Page 5 - Do I show up at work after using illegal drugs [all the time, often, sometimes, never]?

I mean it went on and on like this. If they'd just asked once, I would have thought nothing of it. But they went on at such length that it became first insulting then absurdly funny. I learned a lot of new slang words for meth (crank, speed, crystal-meth, ice, chalk, glass). After a while, the trend of the questions changed.

Page 6 - Do I think that people who are being disrespectful to me deserve a punch [all the time, often, sometimes, never]?

Page 7 - How frequently do I punch people at work [all the time, often, sometimes, never]?

Um... y'know... I don't think I want to work at this company after all. Never mind, guys. Thanks all the same.

Exercise du jour: 20 minutes with Michael Rhoda-Bhote. See how well Damn Knee likes that instead of the elliptical. Fail. Turns out that getting onto the rower involves a certain degree of knee bendiness. Who knew.

Even if you don't see invisibility, that's no reason to suppose it isn't there

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Quote du jour: Be yourself, everybody else is already taken.
- Oscar Wilde

I'm breaking the elliptical exercising up into 10 minute intervals. It's not going to give me as much of a cardio workout, but it will help build up the strength again.

I've been resting my knee for a month, I have to build up the muscles before they become invisible. Also, I'm going to try an exercise DVD, something involving the core.

Exercise du jour: 30 minutes ellipticalling, 30 minutes of grabbing the nearest exercise DVD and doing whatever it tells me to do (so long as the instructions don't involve doing much with my left knee).

I don't know if this is a semi-win or a semi-fail. I did do the 3 sets of 10 minutes on the elliptical, with stretching, ice, and drugs afterwards. But I didn't go anywhere near an exercise DVD. I got caught up in submitting one résumé after another to different websites. Trust me when I say that there are some damn strange employment websites out there.

I AM smiling

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Cranky? Why the heck should I be cranky?

Just got off the phone with a recruiter who wanted me to take a position... pretty good fit. Except for the fact that he wanted me to take a 40% pay cut for a job where I'd have to pay for my own benefits. That makes me cranky.

Damn knee is making me cranky as well. All I did was try to kneel down for a minute on a hard surface, and it hurt for two days. My body wants me to take a 60% reduction in exercise, with no benefits.

Argh.

Exercise du jour: Working out on the elliptical.
Done! Did 40 minutes on the elliptical. Thank goodness for drugs (i.e. pills I took to keep the swelling down, not narcotics, dude).

All is well

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All is well.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Really.
All is well.
Would I lie? To you?


Well, all right. I'm a bit worn out by the past week of highly intensive Being A Good Job Hunter sessions. It's work, being out there looking for work. Still, I can say I have not been bored, which is my criterion for a Good Week.


Exercise du jour: Today, I want to push the envelope, or at least the knee. Going to try 30 minutes on the elliptical.

Fail. Made the mistake of trying to kneel on the damn knee last night, and it's been complaining all day. Will try again tomorrow.

The trouble with being unemployed is the unreasonable boss

Quote du jour:

"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."
- Marcus Cole, Babylon 5

Now that my official job is stalking the wild and wary job opportunity in its lair, I notice that my manager has turned into a thoroughly unreasonable woman. Spent most of today in "job consultant"online seminars -- no, correction: spent most of this week in seminars on how to spruce up my résumé, shape up my networking, and in general find some kind of gainful employment.
In between the online seminars, I've been getting in a few sessions on the elliptical, ten or fifteen minutes at a time. In the evenings, I've been working on creating a kick-ass website that will sparkle and shine and knock the socks off anyone who cares to glance at it.
The pertinent phrase in that last sentence is "working on creating." It's not there yet. I've had to reach back for skills I haven't used in seven or eight years, plus it turns out that the tools have gone and went and changed while I wasn't using them.
It's a good thing this doesn't happen in other fields; I mean, what would a gardener do if he picked up a shovel one day and found that it had transmogrified into Shovel 2.0^® with Newer, Flashier Features that he never needed in the first place?
If I had been working at a "real" job (i.e. one that someone else paid me to do), then I would have taken lunch breaks & the occasional rest break to stretch my legs & hang around the coffee in the break room to chat with passersby. As it is, my boss feels like any break time is a Waste Of Time, What Do You Think I'm (not) Paying You For? Get To Work!!!
Yes, my new manager does think in initial capitals and use multiple exclamation points. It's sad.

Exercise du jour: I only managed 15 minutes on the elliptical. However, I am pleased to report that the knee hardly complained at all. (Probably was afraid of what the boss would say.)

Branding: it's not just for cattle anymore

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Things have changed. I know this, because everyone tells me so.

One older woman (i.e. older than I am, yes it's all about me) confessed, a bit wistfully, that all she was familiar with were the days when you sent out a résumé and sat by the phone.

Even since the last time that I went a-hunting, things have changed. Nowadays, apparently, you cannot hope to get a job unless you have Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. I'm hoping that I don't actually have to go on FaceBook as well.

So far, I'm not impressed with this "job consultant" guy. Either he's too busy to respond to my emails or all my emails are going into his spam filter. I would expect someone in his position to be able to handle a minor issue like that. I am frustrated with him.

Today I have a seminar on Job Search Communications. I have a feeling the word 'branding' is going to come up.

[Courtesy of Thomas Hawk]

Exercise du jour: More ellipticalling. The doctor used unfamiliar words like "patience" and "lots of time," but he also agreed that I should be exercising. So today I'm going to go a little longer on the elliptical. And I'm going to feel grateful that I have an elliptical machine to use.