Plugging the time sink

Quote du jour: I named my iPhone 'The Titanic.' Now, every time I plug in the phone I see the message 'The Titanic is syncing.' - from Twitter.

Word du jour: Dalliance: Waste of time in frivolous action or in dawdling.

More and more, it seems to me that what's holding me back has changed. I'm no longer facing the challenge of overcoming my Inner Slug so I can get out there and exercise. The I.S. seems to have accepted the fact that most of the time it's going to lose. What I now have to wrestle with is the peril of time sinks.

You know the sort of thing. People* who hang out on Facebook talk about Farmville. Gamers have to deal with World of Warcraft. And there's always online Scrabble games. You just open the computer/phone/iPad up for one minute... and then look up an hour later to realize you've stepped into another time sink. Even something as simple as answering a few emails can cost you more time than you realize.

I've conditioned my mind and my body to accept exercise, but I find that I can get sideswiped by Life coming along and demanding my attention Right Away. If I had been more conscious of the time I frittered away, I could have gotten the exercise in first and not had to postpone it for another day.

Managing time is like managing a budget; it's one of those thing that I always have trouble with. I'm going to try to fix this with going on an Internet diet.

Goal of the week: The computer is going to be turned off promptly at 7:07 pm in the evening, and not turned on again until the following afternoon. Hell, I'm online all day at work; I can answer an emergency email if I have to. But no playtime for Merry. (Wah)

I'm going to try that for one week and see if there are any improvements to the a)weight b)exercising c)house organizing d)life.
Done! Yes, I know it's actually 7:09 but I am out of here!




Exercise du jour: 2 miles jogging. I need to do this earlier rather than later. No putting it off until the evening... 'cause 99% of the time that means 'never.'

Done! Not brilliantly, not briskly, but done. Why do my knees hurt? For that matter, I'm getting a headache. I wish being virtuous was more rewarding.

*i.e. everyone on the planet besides myself, my mother, and one of my brothers.

Photo courtesy of Fotologic.

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

Yesterday while eating lunch I looked down and realized an awful truth: I was eating tofu and bean sprouts. It was a bit embarrassing to realize that I was living up to the stereotype of a typical Californian.

But what the hell. I am a Californian; my family has lived there for several generations. Maybe I'm just now starting to blend in. While I haven't started wearing Birkenstocks and doing macrame, I do find being Californian a wonderful excuse for any new thing I want to try.

Sample conversation

Other people: What, you're doing something new and different? Why?
Me: I'm from California.
Other people: Ohhhhhh.... I see. [Patting me on the arm.] You poor thing.

Why is this -- do people in Peoria never try doing anything new?

Exercise du jour: 2.5 miles jogging.

I don't know if it's stubborn or stupid, but I'm still trying for to jog outdoors in winter. Today is supposed to be warmer. Also wetter, but that I can deal with. I've got a towel, and I know how to use it.
Done. Finally. Didn't have any kind of pace -- I'm not feeling great -- but I told myself that sweating is a good way to kick a virus out of your system. If it turns out that it makes things worse, then I guess I'm screwed. We'll see.

A goat? I'm sure I asked for a pony...

I now own a goat.

The good news is that someone else has to feed it and milk it and deal with any cleanup. Maybe they get to walk it as well.

Some charity organization lets you sponsor a goat or other useful whatnot for people in poorer parts of the world, so instead of buying presents for all her children, my mother bought us all goats. The grandchildren got the gift-wrapped goodies; I got to listen to my brother make jokes about how "that gets my goat."

Actually it's a good thing, feeble jokes aside. Most everyone I know already has everything they need. Indeed, many of them are trying to get rid of stuff, live simply. I like the idea of giving people things that they need instead of a gift they have to unwrap, exchange, and write a thank you note for.

Plus, I'd hate to try to take a goat on the plane.

HBBC:
12/24 - Walked 6 miles
12/25 - Walked 2 miles
12/26 - Walked 2 miles

Exercise du jour: Jog 3 miles

Oh hell. I'm floundering here. The parade of feeble excuses continues:
12/27 - Skipped the jog, did 30 minutes on the elliptical instead (2 points). Told myself it was okay since I'd been up since 4 in order to catch the damn plane.
12/28 - Skipped the jog, did 10 flights of stairs instead. (1 point). Would have gone jogging, but couldn't find an iPod. Couldn't face the thought of jogging without an iPod. So easily we become spoiled.
I wonder what feeble excuse will present itself tomorrow? One of these years, as God is my witness, I'll run again.
12/29 - Well, the excuse du jour is the weather. Mother Nature couldn't decide between hail, snow, rain and sunshine, so she gave me all of them. I couldn't be expected to run in sunshine, could I? Well, I could've if it had lasted for more than three minutes at a time. Sigh. At least I ate all my veggies (1 point)
12/30 - A measly 2 mile walk. Does eating my veggies still count? (3 points)

friggatriska -- what?

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Word du jour: friggatriskaidekaphobia -- fear of Friday the 13th. Apparently also known as paraskevidekatriaphobia. I'm amazed -- both of these words are in the Urban Dictionary and neither of them have any smutty secondary meanings. I thought it was a law that any word in the U.D. have at least one perverted definition.

Exercise du jour: 3 miles jogging whilst avoiding ladders, black cats, and people who submit words to the Urban Dictionary.

Also, damn it, I'm going to do some yoga before I go to work. I am typing it here and I'm going to hit "publish." That way I'll have to do it. I've been sitting at this computer dithering for the past HOUR. Surprising how I keep doing things like this when I know it's not going to help the situation.
Done! Well, the yoga part anyway. I'll do the jogging tonight.

Done! Well, somewhat. Jogging did take place. As did walking, sweating, and swearing at myself. This is the last damn time I try a 5k when it's hot. After I finished, the temperature gauge said it was 95 degrees in the shade -- at 8 pm. When I looked at myself in the mirror, even I was shocked at how red I was, and as a fair-skinned Irish-American, I'm used to turning brick red at the slightest exertion. The only good part is that it's done.

Why yes, English Majors ARE easily amused

Funny du jour: Found an old funny that still made me smile: Millions of commas found in AP's basement.

Millions of displaced, possibly illegally hoarded commas were found on Tuesday during a routine inspection of the Associated Press building in New York, Off on a Tangent has learned. The commas were stored dangerously in cardboard boxes in a locked, underground room. This surprise find exposes the AP to increased scrutiny in the midst of a worldwide comma shortage.

What the hell. English Majors are easily amused.

Exercise du jour: 3 miles jogging
Done! Slow and sweaty wins the race. It's after 10 pm and still too hot to do a decent pace. But what the hell. It's done. Plus 3 miles walking.

3 jogging days = good week

The allergies have improved greatly. Breathing is no longer something I have to think about. Life is good. Well, life is better, anyway.

No more guilt about slacking off. Back to exercise.

Exercise du jour: Jogged 2.5 miles. Plus, 3 miles walking
Done!

How to succeed in business without really crying

Sometimes, it pays to put yourself first.

I don’t care, I told myself. Even if it will make me late for work this morning, I’m going to do the 3-mile jog before I do anything else.

Past experience has shown that if I put a workout off in the morning, the likelihood of achieving the exercise in the evening is greatly reduced. This morning, I decided: I’m going to make exercise my top priority.

So I did 3 miles this morning, then took a quickie shower and came into work. By the time I got to the office, I was in a good mood. Hell, better than that, I was in a great mood. It had been a good run, the kind where you feel like you could go a lot faster and a whole lot longer without getting tired. I felt good about the run, about my body, about myself.

Yesterday had ended on a sour note; lots of mis-communication and intra-species frustration. Today, when I got in, it was a whole different saga.

I greeted co-worker sunnily. I smiled. I was cheerful. Damn it, I even beamed. And it wasn’t a forced “I’m being cheerful damn it” grimace. The self-acceptance brought on by endorphins, or whatever, worked. Even on the first day of the cycle, when I’m not usually at my sunniest.

It was funny to watch how co-worker started out stiff and defensive, but ended the conversation by warning me -- apologetically -- that he'd gone in and left a lot of comments in my latest draft that "I might find a bit too-- a bit too -- well, I might not agree with them very much. On reflection," he said, he "might not agree with his comments 100% either."

Damn, but the man backpedals well.

And I shouldn't make fun -- he's not an evil cow-orker by any means. Still, I strongly suspect that my cheerful, bursting-with-running-endorphins attitude made a big dent in his defensive attitude.

So there's another reason to try running, if you're curious.

Exercise du jour: 3 miles jogging, with feeling.

Done!

A choice between earplugs or violence... hmmmn....

My neighbor across the street thought it would be cute to give his kids a couple of vuvuzelas.
They are loud.
I am currently re-evaluating my position on non-violence.

Too hot, only jogged 2 miles. Checked my watch ("are we there yet?") after a mere 4 minutes, breaking my previous time-checking record of 6 minutes. I'm choosing to consider that a personal record and therefore something to be celebrated.

Even though I broke my watch-checking PR and even though I got overheated, there were some positives. I found myself getting into a rhythm (once I stopped checking my watch) and even almost possibly kind of enjoying myself a little little bit of the time.

Maybe my slacktitude hasn't completely left me out of shape. And the knees didn't have any problems at all. I'm still trying to figure out why they flared up in pain so severely for those few days, but at least running jogging very slowly doesn't hurt.

Exercise du jour: jogged 2 miles
Done!

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Quote du jour:
In men whom men condemn as ill

I find so much of goodness still,
In men whom men pronounce divine

I find so much of sin and blot,
I do not dare to draw a line

Between the two, where God has not.

--Joaquin Miller


Exercise du jour: Jog 2 miles.
Done!

If it weren't for work, I could get so much done...

Tired.
Very tired.
Very, very tired.
Need to finish up last week's tasks so I can focus on this week's to do list.
Need a day off from work so I can clean the house and pet the dog and sleep.

Hey, maybe jogging will perk me up. Caffeine ain't doing it.

Inspirational story du jour: Hurdler overcomes many hurdles to win hurdle race. If it weren't for The Onion, there wouldn't be motivational stories like that.

Exericse du jour: 3 2 miles jogging
One route to success is re-defining goals. I'm called this a success.