Do not truffle with my affections, pseudo-chocolate!

Quote du jour:

Mrs. Slocombe — Well, I said to him, quite sternly mind you, I said "If you don't take your hands away, young man, I'm getting off this bar stool and going home!"
Miss Brahms —And did he?
Mrs. Slocombe —He did not.
Miss Brahms —And did you go home?
Mrs. Slocombe —Eventually.
- Are you being served?

WTH du jour: They had an open box of “chocolate” truffles in the kitchen at work. I took one, even though I could see by the label on the box that the main ingredient was palm oil. It tasted rather gross.

I then had two more, to make sure I didn’t like them.


Site du jour: Boredom Enthusiasts Discover the Pleasures of Understimulation. No, that's not a link to The Onion. That's from the Wall Street Journal, for pete's sake. A conference on boredom. There's something out there for everybody.

Exercise du jour: 20 minutes climbing stairs. Gotta work off those truffles somehow.


Real chocolate truffles courtesy of Nieuw.

That kind of day

Quote du jour: Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions.
- Ranier Maria Rilke

Do you love your job? And if so, why?

Interesting fact du jour: The new Starbucks drink, the Trenta, is actually larger than the average human stomach.

But-it-sounds-so-true du jour: U.S. renews its contract with ground squirrels.

The Department of the Interior announced this week that ongoing negotiations with the nation's population of spotted ground squirrels have been resolved and that the rodents are now contracted to continue activities on U.S. soil through Dec. 31, 2015. [Source The Onion.]

Exercise du jour: 15 minutes with my stairmeister, Fred A. Stairs. Plus, squats, walking.
Done! Total of 1056 steps.

Impressive-looking graph courtesy of Webber.

Dancing with the stairs

see more dog and puppy pictures

Quote du jour:I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Site du jour: The 20 Worst Drinks in America. I have to say I was shocked at the caloric contents in some of these drinks. I was also shocked that the Sobe Green Tea isn't really that good for you. (But gosh! It had such a healthy looking label!)

The quote and the site du jour don't have any bearing on my life as a whole. They just seemed to go well together.

Exercise du jour 15 minutes with my local staircase, Fred A. Stairs. Not dancing, really, more like plodding. But dancing sounded much better. Also, some squats. If I'm feeling better, some walking. (I'm thinking that even if I feel rotten, I could get 15 minutes worth of exercise in. Probably.)
Done! For a short exercise session, stair climbing is an excellent way to get a workout. (10 flights again. 480 steps. Well, down and then up again so 20 flights, 960 steps.)

A Fate Worse than Death

Quote du jour:
Mother: All of my friends are either dead or in assisted living.
Me: Which is worse?
Mother: Assisted living.

If ever I needed an incentive to keep fit, it's looking at the people who've gone before. My grandmother lived a full, rich* and well-traveled life until macular degeneration and osteoporosis left her blind and so afraid of falling that going down two steps while clinging to a hand rail would leave her nearly hysterical with fear. My mother took note, and took supplements, and can still see pretty well even though she's nearly at the age where my grandmother passed away. Unfortunately, she's now lost about five inches in height and is becoming extremely frail. Though the mind is as sharp as ever, the body is getting fragile.

Me, I've taken enough biology classes to know what's coming if I don't take care. Yet another incentive to load-bearing exercise and eating them vegetables.

Exercise du jour: 15 minutes stair climbing. Also, tricep dips and squats.

Done! Spent 15 minutes with Fred A. Stairs, going up and down the 48 steps 10 times. (What? Doesn't everyone name their staircase? Is it just me?) Also squats and tricep dips.

*no, not the kind of rich that you pass on to deserving grandchildren in a very material and financially profitable sense; the kind where you enjoy each new experience to the fullest.


Photo courtesy of Steve Evans. I don't know who the woman is/was, and possibly the photographer didn't either -- it's titled "Old woman of Tajikstan." I just liked the idea of a woman whose face wasn't so much lined as mapped with all the experiences she'd lived through, and who still could manage a smile for the camera.

Patterns: the obligatory end-of-the-year review post

Quote du jour: My life seemed to be a series of events and accidents. Yet when I look back I see a pattern. -Benoît Mandelbrot

Things I've learned:
Looking back from the time I've started this blog, I really have actually learned things.

- Exercise is for every day, not special occasions. If you force yourself to exercise every day, eventually, eventually, eventually it becomes a habit to do something every day.

- Vegetables aren't all bad. And I love the way I feel after I eat a salad -- light, full of energy -- as opposed to how I feel after I eat a McGreasy burger.

- Even a fat chick can train to run a 5k, do 100 push ups, 200 situps, or 200 squats.

- An injury doesn't mean I need to stop exercising.

Things I still need to pound into my thick skull:

- I still react the wrong way to stress and negative things thrown at me. I want to eat bad food, drink wine, curl up in a ball under a fluffy comforter until the mean people go away. I want to be the kind of person who will get on the elliptical and sweat the anger/fear/frustration/hurt feelings away. And then go calmly confront the mean person, who probably didn't mean to be quite that mean, if you see what I mean.

- It's okay to push myself a bit more sometimes. I don't know my limits until I injure myself, but that's okay. I learn, I avoid the problem next time, and I keep going even if it's at a slower pace or through a different form of exercise.

- However, when I do injure myself, I need to stop and not try to stubborn my way through the pain.

- My exercise plan doesn't have to be followed perfectly; my diet plan doesn't have to be followed perfectly. They just have to be followed. I don't have to be perfect.

Exercise du jour: Wanna do the 3 mile jog. The sun is shining, but it's also cold out there. If the asthma kicks in and I can't jog, I can walk. Or I can whine stay indoors and lift weights. One way or another, I'm going to get a gold star up here.
Done! No, not the jog. I walked instead, but to make up for the slackness of not running I extended the walk to 5-1/2 miles instead. Very brisk walking, thanks to the cold. It was exercise, definitely. (HBBC 5)

Happy New Year!


Mandelbrot set courtesy of SiriusB.

Young unhappy cows

Quote du jour:
There are books in which the footnotes or comments scrawled by some reader's hand in the margin are more interesting than the text. The world is one of these books.
- George Santayana

Exercise du jour:
I hate trying to exercise the last two weeks of the year. Let's try 10 minutes of stair climbing. Yes, self, that's all I'm asking you to do.
Only this time, I'm going to insist that you stretch those damned calf muscles after every climb. After last week's episode, the body went around with cranky calves that complained for days.




Done! 16 floors this time. Ran the last set. (Then dutifully stretched like a good girl.) 768 steps.

HBBC: 2 (stairs and veggies)

Photo courtesy of Daniel Schwen.

2 out of 3 pictured like these sweaters

see more Poorly Dressed

Quote du jour:

Look at it from the dog’s perspective. He’s spent the bulk of the last year on a 6 foot chain in someone’s back yard because he committed the unconscionable sin of no longer being a puppy. Finally, they take him for a car-ride--dumping him in a wooded area where he can have a "fighting chance." Despite everything, he waits there for their return or tries to get back home. He raids trash cans and gets sick. If he’s extremely lucky, he survives long enough for an animal lover to find him and bring him to the shelter. Then he sits in the loud, scary shelter run, starting to lose faith that his family will ever find him.

Finally, you come to the shelter and you take him home.

You not only bring him into your house, you give him his own bed and bowl, and a crate where he feels safe. You speak quietly. You feed him regularly AND give him toys and treats and nylabones. And when he goes out in the car, he always comes back.

Your rescue dog’s biggest fear is that you will spontaneously combust.
- NosyDogs, GSD rescue

That's a long quote, but I really liked it.

Exercise du jour: 10 minutes stair climbing at lunch, 50 minutes ellipticalling at home
FAIL. I hate posting a fail, and get nervous when I post two fails in a single week. Not good. I skipped the stairs because my calf muscles are still stiff as a couple of boards. (Did climb the stairs, but not as continuous exercise.) Then I skipped the ellipticalling because the cramps came back. So instead of working out, I curled up under a blanket and drank wine. Two steps backwards. Try again tomorrow.
HBBC: Cramps 1 Merry 0

It IS polite to stair

Quote du jour: Walking stairs is one of the greatest exercises for weight loss.
- Dr. Joel Fuhrman


Okay, I've done 200 squats. Now what?


Well, it's nasty outside. (In December? Go figure.) I'm still going outside at lunch for the three runs around Nike, since the running keeps me warm, but the idea of a walk is less than appealing. I need an indoor exercise that I can do at lunch, and I've decided to try stair climbing.

The downside is that I work in a building that only has three stories. There aren't too many skyscrapers out here in the 'burbs. Not sure how silly I'll feel going up and down the same few flights; I can but try.


Exercise du jour: Walk to the Max, and stair climb 15 minutes at lunch.
Done! Well, the stair climbing anyway.
Well, actually I did 10 minutes, not 15, but I very quickly decided this was a bit on the strenuous side. Did the equivalent of 14 stories, both up and down. 672 steps, all told.


HBBC: 2 (stairs and veggies)

photo courtesy of Emasmeso.