Author Archives: terraluft

About terraluft

Unknown's avatar
Writer; wife, mother, survivor, and impulsive bitch rarely capable of saying no. Fueled by coffee, yoga and sarcasm. (She/Her)
April 25, 2011

Rolling with the punches

By terraluft

Ever have one of those kind of weeks where at the end of it you have nothing clean to wear and your to-do list has grown rather than shrunk even though you were so busy you are sleep deprived?  No?  If you haven’t let me share what you are missing out on!

Mine started on Wednesday as I drove home from the gym on a night I am usually driving the dance taxi for Big Sister blissfully enjoying our week of Spring Break from both dance and school.  I’d just done a killer uphill run and felt amazing with both girls in the car headed for home and bed.  And then my phone rang the sexy ringtone for Hubby who was calling with week-changing news.  His Dad, who lives hundreds of miles away, is delivering trailers all over the country to satisfy his gypsy blood without having to sacrifice his homestead or retirement and would be arriving at our place in about twelve hours on his way to Oregon.  Awesome!  We rarely get to see him… wait, what did you say?  “I’m going with him” is what he had said.  Those four little words almost destroyed my sanity and did destroy everything that resembled a schedule for the rest of the weekend.

Hubby’s been working the grave shift this month which means I’ve gotten to see him for about fifteen minutes each morning and each evening for three to four days a week as we cross one another on our way to and from work.  Just the thought of getting to see him and have a two-parent household in the evenings for the rest of the week was the only thing keeping me together at that point of the week.  And now he’s leaving in the morning with no notice?  I immediately went into psycho troubleshooting mode which came across as me being a total bitch about this amazing opportunity for him to get to spend a few days on the road with just him and his dad.  Strike one for me.

After salvaging that mis-communication and getting us both into troubleshooting mode, it became even more apparent how this was going to play out for me…. Thursday I had to work, and it was book club night, and Friday I had to work – which is the day Hubby never works so we don’t have daycare, and Friday is the day I am supposed to run not once but twice as part of my Ragnar training, and it is Easter weekend…  and now you can imagine the extent of the chaos that ensued with no Hubby to help out.

Luckily my Mom is retired and loves spending time with my girls.  I feel like I use and abuse her sometimes because I know she is always available at the drop of the hat when I need her.  She was willing to extend her normal babysitting hours with the girls on Thursday to all day with a small break to go to dinner with my Dad and then come back to watch the girls until all hours of the night while I went to book club.  And our amazing nanny rearranged her schedule – two weeks before her own wedding – to spend all day with the girls on Friday so I could work. 

At that point, however, all good things planned like a nazi and executed on schedule came to a grinding halt.  Friday I got up at the ass-crack of dawn to run my first run before work with plans to rush home and rush to the gym for the second run before the daycare center at the gym closes early on Friday.  That of course didn’t happen because let’s face it, trying to put a 15-month old on that tight of schedule was never going to work.  My morning run sucked – apparently I have no stamina at zero dark thirty when normal people are sleeping.  Go figure.  After work, I got a rare twenty minutes of just chatting with my nanny about wedding plans that I took advantage of which put us behind schedule.  Still salvageable until my mom called with an invite to dinner which turned into “why don’t you take the girls and then I won’t be rushed at the gym” which took me out of rush mode.  Except then she called back saying “just kidding, I didn’t know Dad had other plans”.  At that point I no longer had time to get to the gym and get a run of any distance in before the kid’s center closed for the evening so why bother.

Have I expressed yet how much I HATE that the kid’s center closes early on Friday night?  Don’t dictate to me when I should be spending time outside the gym with my kids!

We spent Friday night instead shopping for new clothes for Big Sister to wear for Easter and shoes for the nanny’s wedding to match the flower girl dresses, and crap for the Easter baskets.  I guess the one good thing about Big Sister having figured out the truth behind Santa and subsequently the Easter Bunny is that – combined with Little Sister being too young to understand or remember much – I got to shop for stuff for their baskets with both of them in tow – something I wouldn’t have been able to do without Hubby home that night otherwise.

The rest of the weekend rolled smoothly through and I even enlisted Big Sister to babysit for an hour while I did my missed run from Friday night on Saturday while Little Sister had her nap.  Hubby and his Dad drove sixteen hundred miles and arrived back home mid-day Saturday to sleep for about eight hours straight.  Enough for them to be well-rested and ready for dinner out followed by Easter festivities on Sunday.

Even with the second weekend in a row of doing no laundry, and no grocery shopping, I still survived the week with my sanity mostly in check thanks to the efforts of others and their willingness to step in and roll with the punches with me. Now it is time to get back to normal day to day activities which is still no easy task for this busy girl on the best of days. If you need me this week, I’ll be digging myself out of piles of dirty laundry and hoping to discover hidden snippets of time to work on my damn novel… if I’m lucky!  Know what I didn’t even miss once?  Facebook!

1 Comment | posted in Everyday Life

April 12, 2011

Salvaging and re-working

By terraluft

Work on the novel continues at the slow speed of life with two kids and a full time job… but it IS continuing which is the only thing that matters!  This week I’ve gone back and taken the almost finished draft from before I decided to start over and began deconstructing it into outline form.  The basic story was pretty much hammered out in that draft – at least to the end of the middle – regardless of how poorly it was written in my early days of training to be a good writer.  That is the easy part!  Then I can outline the key points that have always been swimming around in my head about where the story has to go to reach the end.

But then comes the hard part…

I’ve been grappling with some massive changes that must be worked out because of some new directions I already know are in store.  For instance, I’ve decided that a different character is going to be kidnapped instead of my main character’s daughter.  The kidnapping itself was merely a means to an end to get her to follow her daughter’s kidnappers and once she got there I never wrote her authentically enough to have a missing daughter; nor could I because there were more important reasons for her to be where I had sent her.  So, no daughter kidnapped.  Solves the characterization issue but creates a whole bunch of new things to work out.  Does she even need a daughter?  I don’t think so now.  But, the daughter is key to several pieces of the puzzle – like the two main characters initial meeting happens because the daughter stumbles across him in the woods and takes him home.  If she doesn’t exist, how do they meet now without dissolving the believability of one of my favorite scenes written to date?  Okay, then maybe the daughter can stay but she isn’t the main character’s daughter.  Maybe she’s a niece?  But then that requires there to be more than a string of only-children which is how the family dynamics have already been written with an important tie to the matriarchal grandmother who is the key to everything at the end.  *sigh* 

Like I said, the hard part!

As much as I love some key pieces of discovery writing (where you just write and things happen and hopefully they all work out in the end) I don’t want to waste another year of just writing without knowing exactly how the story ends.  I need to work out all the background to the story, figure out the way all the characters fit with each other and the major plot points.  THEN I can start writing to fill in the blanks and flesh it out with characterization, description and tension.  I am a woman on a mission – to finally finish this damn thing!  If you need me, I’ll be writing… or staring blankly into space trying to figure out how to make it all work so I can start writing again!

1 Comment | posted in The Novel Project, Writing

April 5, 2011

Something new to keep things exciting

By terraluft

I’ve decided I’m going to start talking about my novel in detail…  Perhaps some teasers?  I have to have an outlet to keep things fresh and since this is what my blog does usually – plus give me perspective and allow me to vent – what better way to keep me on track and working toward the finish line.  So first, a recap of where I started and where I’ve been up until now…

The first version of my first draft began as my wanting to do NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in November of 2008.  And ended with me failing miserably and only writing like 5K words.  Plus, I found out that while I had a great idea for a story, I didn’t know squat about writing.  So, I read some books and I started learning more about the art and craft of being a writer.  The nuts and bolts if you will.  It was this year that my writing group was formed…

My second attempt at NaNoWriMo was the second version of my first draft in 2009 and I won that year with 50,000 words written in 30 days of November.  What a crazy year that was!  All while I was pregnant, too!  This was the best and biggest chunk of story writing to date but it wasn’t amazing yet.  After I went back and started editing and pulled it out to polish some stuff up to take with me to a writer’s convention last year, I realized that I’d written my main character all wrong.  Like completely wrong.  She’s supposed to be this kick ass woman who’s daughter gets kidnapped and she was instead this simpering little pussy who I would have hated to read about.  She didn’t even get that upset when her seven year old daughter was taken.  Instead she tags along with the other male character who is from another realm and isn’t even freaking out that much.

So, after trying to write something else (okay, anything else) for the 2010 NaNoWriMo I started over yet again – that makes third attempt at the first draft.  I wrote some really great new stuff involving the male main character and his other realm but when it came time to write the main female character scenes I stalled.  I still didn’t know exactly what she was going to be like and I didn’t want to fail yet again to capture her perfectly.

And then we had a writing prompt in the writer’s group last month which inspired me to write a scene that most likely fits somewhere in the middle of the book.  I nailed her character!  Being able to just write one scene and figure out how – in one isolated moment – she would react cemented everything for me and now I can go back and start writing her.

So, as soon as I’m done outlining and getting some basics down on where this story is heading so my discovery writing at least has a high level road map to keep me out of the weeds on the side of the road, I’ll be starting attempt number four of my first draft.  Number.  Four.  I’m glad I’m stubborn (my mamma didn’t raise no quitter!) or I might have thrown in the towel several attempts ago.  But, the story and the world I’ve uncovered within myself wants to get out so the world can read about them.  Who am I to argue and complain that it’s taking entirely too long?

Why I ever thought that writing a novel would be easy should be shot.  (Since I’ve read so many in my lifetime it should be a piece of cake, right?)  Oh wait… that would be suicide, so I guess I’ll refrain!  Stay tuned for new developments on this journey to a completed first draft which I’m hoping to happen before the end of the year… and yes, I mean THIS year.

Leave a comment | posted in The Novel Project, Writing

March 31, 2011

New inspiration

By terraluft

I, now more than ever, want to flog my stupidvisor (no, that is NOT a type-o).  I won’t bore you with all the idiocy about how many times he says he “will” {fill in the blank}, the future never actually coming to pass; or how yesterday I got to sit across a desk in a one on one meeting and be the one mentoring HIM on how better to lead our team with what I would consider common sense things.  No, instead I’m going to tell you about my amazing writer’s group who have given me the inspiration I need to *finally* finish my novel and do what I really want to do.

First, I’ve taken a semi-sabbatical from Facebook.  No, I didn’t deactivate my account but I took it out of my tabs that auto load every time I open my browser.  Now that little tab isn’t staring me in the face beckoning me to come and waste valuable time when I sit down to my computer.  It’s amazing the writing you can get done in fifteen minute chunks of time here and there which would otherwise be wasted just staring at all the links and videos people post trying to sift through to find noteworthy status updates from people you haven’t seen in years and who you probably wouldn’t recognize if you saw them on the street.

My writing group meeting with our real-life-published-author has really motivated me to get back to writing my novel.  Bottom line, the only major difference between her and any of the rest of us is that she actually finished her manuscript and edited and polished it so she could shop it around (a brutal and painful process though it was) and finally land a deal.  So, step one: finish my manuscript.  Should have been a no-brainer, I know, but hey I’ve been a busy girl!  Doing the writing exercise was amazing.  To see things I do in other people’s writing and learning from each other… it was a fun night full of learning.  And looking back at where we started and how far all of our writing has progressed shows the amount of hard work we’ve put into learning the craft.  You can’t go out and run a marathon without training and the last few years for me have been training for the marathon of writing a novel.  It’s almost race day… I can feel the anticipation.  My characters are back, swirling through my head and whispering things to me.  I just need to *gasp* outline the basics of the story (I’m a discovery writer mostly) and work out a few more things that happen in the middle to get to the ending I envision and it will be time to hit the starting line.  Wish me luck!

Leave a comment | posted in Ranting and Ravings, Writing

March 27, 2011

If you want it done right, do it yourself…

By terraluft

I’m very unsatisfied with my day job right now.  I have a supervisor who is totally disengaged from the team and is making changes that don’t make sense catering to the lowest performers at the expense of those of us who actually do the work.  Morale is so low, the only thing keeping me there right now are the amazing benefits and the fitness center which allows me to run during the workday.  Seriously, those two things.  Pretty shitty, I know.

Am I bitter because I didn’t get the job when I applied for it a year and a half ago?  I thought so in the beginning but the candidate they hired over me can only earn my respect if he actually does a better job than I would have done at managing the team.  Which he hasn’t.  I think almost two years is enough time to know for sure that he sucks.

So yeah, I guess I am bitter.  But do you blame me?

I’m coping by recommitting to my novel.  My good friend Christauna just got a publishing deal for her first book so I know it is possible.  And she learned everything in the same place as I did – our writer’s group.  How cool that it started as a few people who wanted to write and started meeting to support one another in our efforts to learn the trade and now there’s a real life published author in our midst!

I can’t wait for the day that one of two things happen.  1) the idiot supervisor’s plan results in a major system outage that puts his ass on the line and gets him fired (or worse, the technical lead decides she’s had enough after 30 years); or 2) I get a publishing deal of my own and I can tell them to take this job and shove it so I can just be a writer!

In the meantime, instead of focusing on the negatives and all the bullshit where they are under-utilizing my skill set and hobbling me, the overachiever, with a job I can do with both hands tied behind my back and from which I currently get no job satisfaction, I will focus on how amazing it is to get paid my salary for doing very little and use the downtime and stress-free time to finish my novel.

We’ll see how long that lasts…

1 Comment | posted in Ranting and Ravings, Writing

March 21, 2011

Spring has sprung… and I’m all over the place

By terraluft

It’s the first official day of spring today!  Which is not such a happy time for me since now I get to suffer with seasonal allergies… you’ll forgive me if I’m not overjoyed with the rest of the world to be leaving winter behind.  I added the allergy pill this weekend to the morning handful of supplements I’m taking now thanks to my nutritionist.  I don’t really have anything to bitch about today so instead I’ll regale you with what’s been happening in my crazy day to day life.

First, the nutritionist…  What a lovely and totally-worth-the-price addition to my life!  Turns out when I started actually tracking what I’m eating I was only giving my body about 800 calories a day.  That on top of working out all the time is NOT a good way to lose weight.  After a week of properly fueling my body for basic living as well as all the exercise, I not only feel better but I’ve started to see the number on the scale inching down.  No, lovely doesn’t begin to describe it – it’s fucking amazing!  Knowledge is power, people.  Remember that!

Next, running…  It’s no secret I’m in full swing of my intense training routine for my upcoming relay race.  The organizers put together two training programs and I figured they should know better than I what kinds of things I need to prepare for so I’m following them.  The first is for a beginner who “hasn’t been doing any running”.  Well, that doesn’t apply to me and good thing since it has running in MINUTE increments.  I’m used to MILE increments.  The other one, “for the runner who is already running an average of 10-20 miles a week”, was more my speed so I picked that one.  Well apparently if you slack for a week and then try to pick up where you are supposed to be, it results in strained knees.  After my disastrous attempted run last week I rested up and bitched a lot about why I was semi-injured this week.  Because I’m a data and gadget geek, I could go back to my logged data and see that I had actually doubled my mileage the week before with the warmer weather allowing me to run outdoors in the evenings instead of at work in my measly hour I’m allowed to squeeze out of my workday.  Oopsie!  Happily, I only needed to rest a bit and I felt amazing on my outdoor run yesterday.  Back on track and paying attention now.  Must stay healthy!

And finally, writing…  I haven’t been doing much writing lately unless you count my humble blog here.  Let’s face it, my life just doesn’t have enough hours in it to do much more at the moment.  My writer’s group has changed things up a bit this year and to keep up writing we are now doing writing prompts which will allow us to focus on specific tools (like dialog, description, etc.) and improve without having to commit to completing a manuscript.  I have one I have to work on this week and the thought of it makes me happy.  The one of us in said writing group who actually has been writing the past year just got signed with a publisher.  I’m ecstatic for her – and truth be told just a little bit jealous.  Knowing that the dream can be, in fact, reality if you work hard at it (and write a damn good book) makes me want to write more than I have been.  I need to find a way to multi-task my writing into my life like I did with reading.  Which, by the way, have you noticed that there are more than book club books in my list of books I’ve read so far this year?  I LOVE being a reader again – thank you audible.com!  If only I wouldn’t look (and sound) like a freak dictating a book while I’m running.  And if only voice recognition software would work with a heavy breathing runner.  A girl’s got to dream, right?

1 Comment | posted in Everyday Life, Healthy Lifestyle, Running, Writing

March 18, 2011

The Aquariums of Pyongyang

By terraluft

This was a book club selection I never would have picked up on my own but am so glad I read it.  What a horrifying account of atrocities that are happening in MY lifetime and continue to happen today.  A glimpse into the life behind the curtain of North Korea that left me disturbed and morally outraged.  This fascinating memoir by Kang Chol-Hwan tells the story of a nine year old boy who is sent to a labor camp for ten years with his family for political crimes against the state committed by his grandfather.  In the telling of his personal story – which rivals on many levels the picture we have as Westerner’s of the concentration camps of WWII Germany – he also shows the true life struggle of the everyday world under the dictatorship of North Koreans and the propaganda of their form of Communism.  I was appalled that I was not aware of the real story of North Korea and urge everyone and anyone to read this book.  Because the details of the camp are stark and horrific, it isn’t a book for young children but it is not graphic in the telling; merely sad and compelling.  I love history lessons in the form of a story I can sink into like a good novel and this is one of those rare kind of gems. 

The book club discussion last night was heated with politics that most of the time had not much to do with what was actually in the book.  Thanks to one of the outspoken ones among us, we were steered back about mid-way through the evening to the real person we had read about who had gone through these horrid things and risked much to tell the world about his ordeal.  Surprisingly, no one went away angry after the, at times, very heated discussion which is a testament of just what a great book club I have!

Leave a comment | posted in Book Reviews

March 16, 2011

Best laid plans and the destruction of serenity

By terraluft

Today was a rare day… a day just for ME!  Well, kind of… more like a couple of hours in the afternoon but hey, I’m a Mom, I’ll take what I can get, right?  Big Sister had her annual talent show at school this morning and while I tried to make it work for me to go to work AND make it to support her, logistically it just wasn’t going to happen so I took the whole day off at the last minute.  Our amazing nanny spent the day with Little Sister as planned which meant that after I got home from the talent show at noon, I had five glorious hours to do whatever I wanted.

I filled the first hour with a good lunch and a chat with the nanny who it feels like I haven’t talked to for ages except for snippets of instructions and reports as we pass each other in the morning and evening.  The plan for the afternoon was a seven mile run which I had plenty of time for and which I was going to do outside.  Until I was all dressed and ready to go and realized that was the wind howling in the eaves and banging against the windows I was hearing and decided it would be miserable.  So, I changed my running gear configuration for the indoor apparel and headed for the gym instead.  Still on schedule for a great two hours to be spent with my current audio book on the iPod and a treadmill followed by a relaxing “soak” in the sauna. 

That was the plan, anyway.  What actually happened only slightly resembled that plan.  I stretched, I warmed up, I was stoked for the run, the iPod was going, I was already anticipating the endorphins and the joy that comes with running and the smile to hit my face… and then I ramped up the treadmill and immediately was wincing in pain.  No matter what I did, my knees were both killing me with every step and I couldn’t run through it like I usually can after the first few minutes.  I was limping and I knew it would never happen, and actually shouldn’t or I was asking for an injury.  So I struggled through a mile – because I can’t sync my run with Nike and publish it to Facebook without at LEAST a mile, right? – and threw in the towel.  Well, I could still sit in the sauna – which I did and that was amazing but I felt like I was wasting my valuable time when I could be doing something different.  So, I grabbed my mid-afternoon snack in the cafe with a book I just happened to have tucked into my gym bag because you never know when you might need a book.

But the music at the gym is loud and piped in everywhere.  I couldn’t concentrate on my book.  My mind started wandering and thinking about how appealing tucking myself into a quiet corner of somewhere – anywhere – and just reading for an hour sounded.  Decadent, actually.  But where?

The library!  I’ll go to the library!

Actually, the first thought was a coffee shop but how insane is it that there isn’t a single coffee shop between the gym and the library which is a ten mile drive?  So, the library it is.

I don’t know about you, but the library in my mind evokes images of hushed and whispering old ladies and plastic covered books being checked out; images from childhood of my mother and every other adult around me shushing me if I even thought of raising my voice to a normal pitch instead of the whisper required for the hallowed halls of the library.  A soothing and peaceful hour with a good book in that kind of space was exactly what I was craving.

What I got was a big slap in the face of reality.

Know what I found at my neighborhood library?  People who didn’t give a shit that they were in a library.  People who were talking to each other like they were in the aisle at the Walmart or worse, their own kitchens.  People who were NOT instilling in their offspring any reverence for the building they were inside of – when you are talking to your child in a loud inside voice from halfway down the aisle, they aren’t going to think anything of using their outside voice to answer you.  I had the audacity to shush one little boy – approximate age 4 – and he glared at me with daggers shooting from his eyes.  I smiled with my finger against my lips while his Dad – who had pulled his head out of the computer screen he’d been sucked into most likely by the absence of noise from his snot-nose little brat – said “Carter, she’s just asking you to be quiet in the library.”  To which the lovely Carter responded – loudly – “I don’t like being quiet” and ran off.  Minutes later the same twosome could be heard playing their version of Marco Polo through the stacks because Dad couldn’t find Carter and apparently Carter was now scared that he’d run away and couldn’t see Dad anymore.  At the same time, the reference desk, which was about 20 feet from the chair I’d picked because of the low height of it’s seat in relation to the floor for added comfort appeal for my short legs, was manned by a woman of the appropriate old lady hair variety but without the appropriate library tone to match.  She was having a conversation with a co-worker that had nothing to do with the library and which sounded more like gossip than a conversation and they were talking so loud that I actually found myself shushing THEM.  When they didn’t notice, I left the area in search of somewhere a bit more out of the way.

Location number two I should have known better than to pick but when I approached the kids corner with the love sacks all deserted and beckoning with it’s quietness, I couldn’t resist.  That comfy spot lasted all of about five minutes until the idiot mother with her five kids in tow herded them all to the area to talk – LOUDLY – about all the books they had picked and review their selections before heading to the checkout desk.  I might have mumbled some obscenities under my breath as I leaped up and headed for another corner.  I don’t quite remember, but I hope I did!

Location three lasted a bit longer – it was a nice, quiet corner with an equally aged adult, her books sprawled across a table, clearly and intently studying and lost in thought.  I sat down, got comfy, got engaged in my book, and then there was a dog lose in the library.  I kid you not.  A. DOG.  And of course the dog ended up with me, don’t ask me why.  He must have sensed that I was looking for some peace and viewed me as a kindred spirit.  After the workers collected the dog – but not before they sat next to me trying to read the tags and made a LOT of noise – I had another few minutes of somewhat quiet where the din of the library patrons was only slightly intruding on the edges of my hearing.

And then the baby started crying.

And by crying, I really mean wailing – at the top of it’s lungs.

And didn’t stop for what seemed like ten minutes.

Enough that the other girl sitting there with her sprawled books trying to study turned to me in disgust to say “so much for a quiet library!”  (So see, I’m not over exaggerating here!)

At that point, I officially threw in the towel and headed back home to mom-land… where I proceeded to make certain that Big Sister knows that she is always supposed to be quiet in a library and can expect to be shushed and beaten if she ever isn’t.  Did I miss a memo somewhere that states since the majority of people are now  all loud Americans who never know when to shut our pie holes that we are no longer required to do so at the library?  Or was it just an off day at my neighborhood branch?  I guess it doesn’t really matter because next time I will drive out of my way to find that quiet coffee shop instead regardless of how inconvenient.

Thank you, today’s library patrons, for ruining the library for me as anything more than a place to walk in, pick up a hold from the shelf and leave.  The craziest part?  The teenagers in the ‘booths’ at the back were the best ones in the joint!  All you adults should be ashamed of yourselves!

Leave a comment | posted in Everyday Life, Ranting and Ravings, Running

March 7, 2011

Emotional setbacks and rediscovery

By terraluft

It has been a roller coaster of emotions for me the last few weeks in the physical fitness department.  Topped off with a seriously depressing climax last week.  And as I’ve said before I wouldn’t be an honest blogger if I didn’t share the bad times as well as the good.  So here goes….

Remember Hubby and I both started HCG together and quit early because neither could give up the gym and are training for the same upcoming relay race.  I’m so glad we’re both committed to living more healthily since it would be much harder to make healthy choices alone – which I’ve had to do in the past.  Plus, it is amazing to see a smile on his face now that he can play basketball again – something he thought would never happen with a bad back and recent ACL replacement.  He was always very active before his injuries and it’s no surprise that he bounced back quickly.  He’s lost thirty pounds and is back to looking like the Greek god I married sixteen years ago. 

All well and good except when I find myself comparing my slower results (which makes them feel like non-results) to his lickety-split total body transformation.  And feeling very jealous.  And resentful.  Such a girl response, I know.

Seriously, I’m happy for him.  Except I also hate him for it because it was so quick and easy while I work my ass of for less noticeable results.

Last month I worked with a trainer who laid out all my workouts for me and kept me accountable with weekly communication on how I’d stuck with it.  And I made it a very conscious choice to cut out all the bad stuff that I know I shouldn’t eat – like desserts at lunch and sweets at night.  I felt like it made a huge difference.  Lifting weights has my upper body noticeably if not visibly leaner – I had to tighten my chest strap on my heart rate monitor, I can fit my upper arms in a shirt I’ve been hoarding and hoping to wear eventually and I can fit more comfortably in my bras. (Yah, less back fat!) So when it came time last week to see my trainer and do my assessment to see my progress in numbers and data I was less than happy to see that nothing had changed.  Nothing.  And according to her I’d actually gained body fat in my body composition.  How the hell does that happen?  I lifted weights three times a week, ran 15-20 miles a week on average and your numbers say that I gained fat?  What the fuck?

I won’t lie.  There were tears… There was more than one f-bomb…  There were several outbursts with the words “bull shit”.  All born from frustration since I expected it to be much better news after such efforts.  And after working this hard I want results like Hubby has, damn it!

I partially feel bad for my poor trainer who, two months in a row now, has had me in tears at our monthly assessment appointments.  Last month she talked me into signing up with her for a month of coaching.  Which didn’t work.  And this month got me scheduled for my RMR testing – Resting Metabolic Rate – which I did Saturday and led to me signed up for a 9-week program with a nutritionist. (It makes sense… I’m exercising six times a week, both cardio and weights, and I should be dropping the weight like Hubby.  Since I’m not, I have to look at the nutritional aspect of it.  Preliminary discussions with both the trainer and the nutritionist have them thinking that I’m under eating.  Lovely… then where’s the cookies?)  But I also am a bit unhappy with my trainer for not first focusing on the good things that I had to find out for myself by looking at my data AFTER I got home.  My upper body strength rating has gone from 50 to 63 in just one month.  My sit and reach rating has gone from 10 to 12 in a month.  My VO2 lung capacity has gone from 27 to 29 – in a month!  But what did we focus on?  Just the bad… I was disappointed looking back since that’s not the kind of motivation I want or need.

At the same time, something a good friend said had me wondering.  She made the comment that she thought her trainer fudged her numbers to get her to sign up for more training.  Fudged as in made them sound better than she thought they were.  I’m sure she said it in jest but the logical animal that I am started analyzing my data collecting.  The body composition number is calculated by a three-site skin fold reading with calipers.  They have a fancy shmancy one attached to a computer plus cheesy manual ones.  I’ve done these readings three times now.  The first time, sites one and two were computer read, the third manual (since I had my slippery pants on and it kept sliding off).  The second time, all three sites were computer read (no slippery pants).  This last time, all three were manual readings.  I’m thinking that the inconsistency of the data collection not ever being the exact same method has to be a factor.  Right?  Plus, why is this the only thing measured?  Oh, and two of the sites are skin to caliper but the other is over my pants?  Seems less than scientific in my mind.

It’s human to want to have some external factor to blame and I’m not discounting that this train of thought might just be rationalization.  If it is, I’m fine with that. This is just my ranting and raving and trying to deal with the shit my way anyway, right?

Thank god I’m an analytical, data-hungry girl and for years now have done basically quarterly and sometimes monthly measurements.  These measurements – in my handy dandy spreadsheet – give me valuable insight into how my efforts are actually paying off.  While I wanted to just throw in the towel, say to hell with it all and grab a pint of ice cream with a side of girl scout cookies (because either way I’m not losing weight!) instead I did my monthly measurements.  Because despite it all I was curious.

I’m so glad I did!  Guess what – I’ve lost inches everywhere except my thighs which have stayed the same.  AND, I’m thinner according to the measurements than I was at my lowest scale weight a year ago.  Which means I’ve added twenty pounds of pure muscle thanks to my efforts over the past year.  Go me!  Definitely not the dismal picture painted by the earlier skewed or at least questionable numbers.

Another aspect of my roller coaster ride came to light last week when I realized that I no longer look forward with joyous anticipation to my runs.  Really?  I love to run!  I used to wake up in the morning and immediately start thinking about when I was going to get to run that day.  Now I’ve skipped a couple due to lack of motivation.  So I started taking stock and trying to determine what is different.  The only thing that has changed is that instead of just running and concentrating on how many miles I need to run, I’ve been doing what the trainer has told me to do for heart rate zone training.  I am a short girl at five foot two inches with squatty legs, which means I can’t run very fast anyway.  And now I’m having to run slower to keep my heart rate in the “right” zone.  My legs hurt more from running slower and I’m just not having any fun when I have to worry about how high my heart rate is going.  I thought it was worth it because keeping my heart rate in the proper zone to burn more fat was the goal.  But it clearly hasn’t given me the trade off I was expecting.

Yesterday it all changed.  I headed out on an eight mile run.  Before I left I mapped out my route using the MapMyRun website.  I strapped on my heart rate monitor so I could make sure I stayed in zone two and three so I was at least aerobic in my efforts.  I charged up my iPod for an hour so it would have a full battery for the two hours it was required to play for.  And I fired up my cool new app on my Droid phone to see exactly how far I went according to GPS so I could calibrate my Nike+ foot sensor when I got back – because I don’t think it is calculating my mileage accurately lately.  Yes, I’m a gadget geek.  Are you really surprised?

Halfway through my chilly, mildly rainy run, right after it turned mostly uphill with a headwind… yeah, it was not really fun at that point… my heart rate monitor stopped registering on my watch.  I tried to fiddle with the strap through my clothes and finally gave up.  About ten minutes later my GPS lost the signal from the satellite so no data to calibrate with my foot sensor.  SHIT!  Twenty minutes later after forty minutes of sustained uphill – have I mentioned how much I hate uphill running? – with the wind strongly blowing into my face I stopped, screamed FUCK YOU into the wind at the top of my lungs, and turned around to go back the way I came instead of finishing out my loop.  About five minutes later my iPod battery died.

Seriously?  Are you kidding me?!?!  EVERY. SINGLE. GADGET.  With the exception of my Nike+ which I was questioning before I even left.

Turns out, it was the Universe talking to me… 

With no gadgets to obsess about, no hill to be running up and the wind at my back I rediscovered how much I love to run.  Just run.  Not caring about how fast my damn heart is beating.  Because guess what, if it is beating too high and I’m up in the anaerobic regions I get out of breath and I naturally slow down.  And who cares how far I go when I go except for bragging rights on Facebook and Twitter and as a way to gauge how soon I’ll need a new pair of running shoes.  Without the iPod distraction I even noticed the wheat fields and horse corrals I was running past which I have only vaguely registered before.  That horse running around the corral?  It was super pretty with it’s mane and tail swishing spiritedly.  Thank you, Universe… I’m listening.

I’m going back to basics and, other than the nutritionist, I’m not dropping any more money in personal training and gimmicks at the gym.  I’m a smart girl… I can google workouts for weight training and I can read articles on how to improve speed and endurance for my running.  Hell, there’s probably an app for that, too, I just have to look!  And without all the pressure to perform perfectly I might just relax and have some fun while I’m at it.

So while this particular roller coaster ride of emotions had me feeling more down than up, I have turned it around and am re-focused on me and the things that I want to do.  Do I still secretly hate hearing that number read off joyously every morning when Hubby steps on the scale?  Of course… I’m a chick!  But it doesn’t have to stab me in the heart anymore because I know how exciting it is to see results and I want that for him as much as I want it for me.  Maybe the stress released by this decision will free up some of my stubborn fat cells… they say stress will inhibit weight loss after all.  Either way, here’s to a much more enjoyable month ahead with more measurable results for my efforts!

1 Comment | posted in Healthy Lifestyle, Ranting and Ravings

March 1, 2011

Music fuels the soul

By terraluft

I’m not one of those people who knows a ton about all different kinds of music.  All the music I own doesn’t even fill up my 30 gig iPod (pathetic, I know!).  I listen to NPR (that’s National Public Radio for the acronym challenged since I hate bloggers who assume everyone who is reading knows exactly what their acronyms mean…)  NPR is talk radio without left or right leaning spin – you know, the news as it used to be where they could only tell you the facts and let you make your own decision about how you felt about it?  Oh wait… I digress!  We were talking music not politics or the media.  My point being that when I’m in the car, which is the only time I listen to the radio, it isn’t music I’m listening to.  I’m not one of those people who knows every band on the planet and where each is from and where they got their musical inspiration.  Although I know some people who are like that and they intimidate the hell out of me.  Hell, I usually can’t even name the band let alone the album the song was originally released on.

Even so, I have what I like to consider an eclectic mix of music.  I’m a child of the 80’s and 90’s and lots of my music hails from these time periods – from Madonna to hair bands and rock ballads.  But I also have things that I grew up listening to – I love CCR (Creedence Clearwater Revival) thanks to my Daddy (and if truth be told the Beach Boys, too although I don’t actually have any of their stuff on my iPod) and the Carpenters thank to my Mom.  I am musical myself – played piano growing up which enabled me to take up the guitar as a teen which led to a stint in a garage band in my early 20’s – so I also love classical music.  LOVE LOVE LOVE it.  So, yeah, I listen to everything – well, except country because that is not music in my book and I never understood the genre.  I even – reluctantly – like some of the music I’m hearing because of Big Sister like Selena Gomez and Miranda Cosgrove.  Don’t judge.  I like some old-school rap thanks to my younger brothers, well, mostly just Eminem which makes no sense really.  My most embarrassing resident on the iPod is Barry Manilow but god I love singing along to him.  If asked to pick my favorite I tend to like heavy and loud the best – Metallica, Kiss, Disturbed, Marilyn Manson.  But I also love Sarah McLachlan and Matchbox Twenty and Avril Levine.  I can’t get enough of bad-girl P!nk and anyone else who can belt out a great set of lyrics to heavy riffs.  I never got into show tunes – unless you count the Grease Soundtrack which is on there, too.  And the list goes on and on.  Every song representing a time in my life or a feeling it evokes when I hear it.

So, what’s the point, you ask?

Yesterday I had the most amazing thing happen. 

Work has become a cesspool of idiocy where I’m surrounded by slackers who don’t do much to actually earn the paycheck they collect every other week.  I might have mentioned this before.  Instead of work happening all around me, talking and gossiping and visiting is happening.  ALL. DAY.  It’s one of the reasons why I prefer to work with men but, alas, the team is primarily women.  It’s gotten bad lately mostly I think due to a lack of leadership from the puffed up smidgen of blow fish shit we call a supervisor.  If it isn’t the unchecked womenfolk and their quilting bee bullshit, it’s the guy on the next row over hacking up a lung and farting – not that I’m innocent of public farting occasionally myself but usually it isn’t of the trumpeting variety – or the other guy who cackles like a woman when he gets nervous.  Which seems to be all the time.  The only way I’ve found to stave off the urge to step outside my cubicle and shout “SHUT THE FUCK UP” at the top of my lungs is to escape to the heaven of my iPod and Skull Candy ear buds.  Luckily I can still concentrate on the technical details of my job with metal blaring in my ears.

So what made yesterday so different than the countless days before it?  I’ll tell you.

I had been listening to my latest audiobook on my run (which is heaven, by the way) and didn’t have the time necessary to figure out what music I was in the mood for before my top blew so I fumbled for the “shuffle songs” selection and left it up to chance.  What ensued was the most magical twenty five minutes.  Every song the iPod selected for me fit my mood like a glove.  I found myself so distracted by the music that instead of allowing me to focus on my work it had me sitting and dancing in my chair hoping I could contain my urge to sing along out loud.  The genre’s were different – Duran Duran, Violent Femmes, P!nk, KISS, 30 Seconds to Mars – but they were all songs that I loved, hadn’t listened to in ages and which , yesterday, were the exact mix of music I needed to soothe my soul.

I don’t know what it is about music that can transport me to a time or a feeling so completely but damn I’m glad it works that way for me.  And although I know my beautiful (yet old school) iPod is merely an inanimate object I love that it knows – at least some of the time – exactly what I need even when I don’t know it myself.  IPod, I love you!  And thank you for keeping me out of the HR office this week even though I just realized it’s only Tuesday…

1 Comment | posted in Everyday Life, Ranting and Ravings

February 26, 2011

Love Your Body… Challenge

By terraluft

I’ve been thinking about this post all week, prompted by a random friend of a friend who posted on Facebook about her and her sister discussing how all women hate their bodies and wondering how to turn it around with their own daughters who, when asked, couldn’t come up with a single thing they loved about their bodies.  So, this week became the Love Your Body Challenge Week – you know, like when something makes you think and then you can’t stop thinking about it?  And then it takes on the all capitals version in your head?  Yeah, like that.

First, the good news – I asked Big Sister the question and am very happy to report she had a long list of things she liked about her body which included legs and stomach and all the things that most women wouldn’t love.  I was worried she would, at the tender age of nine, already have a complex about all sorts of things.  Especially since just last week she said “I’m fat, Mommy” while patting her lean little – extremely flat – dancer tummy.  Yeah, right… NOT!  Which prompted a twenty minute discussion about how just because other girls at dance have different bodies and shapes she is definitely NOT fat.  I didn’t even have to resort to Google to find images of obesity to illustrate my point.  Thank god! *shudder*  We do watch Biggest Loser after all, maybe that is helping?

But then I started thinking about my own body.  And how I don’t really love it.  And how obsessed I am about changing practically everything about it.  And how I’ve basically been on a diet for the last twenty years.  It WAS a challenge to find more than one thing that I like about my body.  The first thing was easy:  I. LOVE. MY. RACK.  Yes, that rack.  I have an awesome rack and even after two babies it still kicks ass.  But beyond that, what is there really to love?  I don’t have a flat stomach – yet.  I don’t have lean and amazing legs – yet.  I don’t even have great shoulders or upper arms – yet.  But all these things I hate are getting better slowly and I have no doubt that at some point (hopefully in the near future) my efforts at the gym will transform everything about my body that I still don’t completely love.  See, that list was effortless – which is kind of the point.

So, here are all the things that I DO love about my body – which will take you moments to read and which took me an entire week to come up with, which is kind of pathetic but hey, a step in the right direction, right?

1.  I have amazingly strong legs.  Legs that can run for 10 miles on any given Sunday and (at least once) 13.1 miles of a half-marathon.
2.  I have beautiful green eyes.
3.  I have awesome and thick naturally curly hair.  The fact that my unruly curls are in the love vs. hate column is a miracle in itself.  I spent 36 years straightening every day and loathing everything about my hair.  Now, I have embraced my curls.  I even appreciate how my long dark locks curl on their own with no effort on my part.  It literally takes me 5 minutes  in the morning now that I have found the right combination of NOT combing after the shower and the proper hair products.  It’s also a perk that my hair is thick and “big” enough with the curls that I can run 5 miles, look like a sweaty pig, take the pony tail out, shake, and go.  Voile! All the bigness covers up the inch of sweat at the scalp.  Beautiful!
4.  I have cute ears that don’t stick out.
5.  I have great lungs – hey, that’s part of my body, right?  And without them, I couldn’t run so they count.
6.  I have a nice nose – which knowing that I’m Italian and could have gotten Dad’s shnoz is much more of a perk than you might think.
7.  I already mentioned the rack, right?  My all natural D’s should be at the very top of the list but I don’t want to seem like an obsessed porn queen.
8.  I have great eye lashes – long and thick and dark.
9.  I have great lips – not too full, not too thin, and great for kissing.
10.  I have great proportions to my body.  When I tone it all up, it will be amazing.  My torso is the perfect length, my shoulders are narrow, I’m not too tall and not too short.

I challenged myself to come up with ten things.  Some are smaller things than others and I wish I could go on and on about all the great parts of my body but most of them are still covered in a thin layer of fat which has me still not loving them.  But, underneath that last twenty or so pounds my muscles are getting stronger and more defined and hopefully by summer swimsuit weather I will have a much longer list of things I love.  It is getting easier to look appreciatively in the mirror and notice the results of my efforts.  And, it’s already time for new jeans since all the ones I own are getting saggy in the butt.  And I had to tighten the chest strap on my heart rate monitor last week because it wasn’t working anymore.  Some days the proof is in the pants, some days it’s in the chest strap.  I’ll take whatever proof I can get.  The scale is still just a number that doesn’t define me – I want to be fit and muscled, not thin and waif-y after all.

So, what do you love about your body?  And if you have an easier time listing the things you hate, I challenge you to find ten things you love.  Yes, your eyes and toes can count!  Here’s to focusing on the good in all of us and leaving the super model ideal to the professionals – there are only like nine of them in the world after all so why would that be considered the norm anyway?

1 Comment | posted in Healthy Lifestyle, Society

February 14, 2011

Serves you right!

By terraluft

And just like that, we’re back to bitchy…  Last week I had a passive aggressive episode in the gym that got me thinking.  My life is so crazy that it takes having a membership at two different gyms to make my commitment to training actually workable.  Half the week I’m at THE GYM (queue angels singing) and the other I’m at the fitness center at work.  Luckily I have both, but the mix of people at work is… well, somewhat different.  There are a lot of people who only use it for 15 minute increments while on their break and still in their work clothes.  I understand that it IS better than nothing but it is a very different commitment level than those who make time to do a full workout including sweating enough we need to change clothes. I mean, it’s one thing to go for a walk during your break but to have an entire fitness center on the premises and not utilize it fully?  What a waste!

I admit I get a bit of entertainment watching them come and go on the treadmills and elliptical machines and there’s one… um… girl… in particular who stands out among the rest.  Why?  Because she comes in every day, dressed in her skirts and knee-high boots AND jacket or blazer – crazy enough by itself.  But what’s more crazy is the choice of television while she’s at it.  At a glance I’d say she’s in her twenties – early to middle – and yet she’s watching TV that my nine year old likes.  We’re talking Nickelodeon and ABC Family and even the Disney Channel.  Laughable really and at times I find it hard not to do so out loud. 

So back to last week’s episode… I’m on the treadmill sweating like a pig, jamming to some Marilyn Manson doing intervals: two minutes of “normal” running followed by a minute of sprinting.  Because I have my iPod and there were only iPod-ers there when we started I turned the television off (yes, people, there’s an off switch on those things!) and dropped the remote into the cup holder on my left.  Half an hour into my workout, teeny bop girl walks in and climbs on the treadmill to my immediate right and starts looking around for the remote for the TV hanging directly above my treadmill.  I’m watching out of the corner of my eye and I know exactly when she finds it.  Even if I hadn’t been watching, I would have known because at that point she started STARING at me.  Like craning your neck and staring at me from just within my peripheral vision is the same as asking for the fucking remote?  Seriously, it was creepy and it went on for the entire time she worked out.  I kept thinking she would ask me and after a while it became apparent that she wasn’t going to and I thought ‘Oh, you think I can’t outlast your childish stare down?  You are wrong chicky!’

Like clockwork, ten minutes later she turned off her treadmill and headed back to her time-clock punching job (God I’m glad I don’t have to do that!) until the next day.  I’m sure she was totally pissed that she’d missed out on her tween show while she went for her leisurely stroll but here’s the kicker – I would have gladly given her the remote if she’d just opened her mouth and asked me for it.  I even gave her an opening when one of my friends got finished with her cardio and headed for the locker room as I turned and said goodbye – after she’d gotten my attention from my tunes that is.

The snotty bitch in me gloated that I had outlasted the childish stare down after I got over how creepy it all was.  But then I started thinking about the greater tragedy of the whole thing.  You see, that girl is in her twenties and still doesn’t know how to ask for what she wants.  Not the remote in the gym, probably not with her job, most likely not even with her friends – and God knows how unhappy she probably is in the sack!  Tragic, really but until she learns that life lesson she will continue to be frustrated everywhere she turns.  Unable to voice her own desires, she will continue to be thwarted in all she does – usually by bitches like me who know exactly what we want and aren’t afraid to ask – no, DEMAND – what we want both in action and in words.

I made sure to rush home and work this life lesson into a conversation with Big Sister so she hears at an early age how important it is to stand up and ask for whatever it is that you want most.  This is something big enough not to be left to that old ‘lead by example’ bullshit.  There’s too much objectivity in that approach to be trusted implicitly in all things.  Although, I have no fear she will see it enforced daily through my actions.  Later she will thank me when she has a life that she wants and everything as she likes it with her husband and her own children.  And if I see the Disney chick attempting the stare down again, I might just tell her “it serves you right for not asking!”

Leave a comment | posted in Everyday Life, Random or philosophical thoughts, Society

February 8, 2011

Friends and balance

By terraluft

You’ve heard it, I’m sure – the old adage that true friends are hard to come by, usually followed by some flowery stuff about holding onto them and how you must forward this on to prove you have them blah blah blah.  (Who ever thought up the idea of email chain letters seriously needs to be shot!)  I may not be that sappy, or gullible, but I do know the value of a true friend.  One who let’s you say whatever you are thinking – even the most bitchy of comments – and they are sitting there nodding their head in agreement or better yet saying the same thing at the same time.  Or if they didn’t say it, they love that you had the audacity to say it for them.  A friend who is as good to you as you are to them and who you can count on for anything you need, whenever you need it.

I’ve been thinking quite a lot about friends lately.

I have a ton of friends, in lots of different categories, that I’ve picked up along the journey of my life as I’m sure everyone does.  The friends from work who fade away when you no longer work together who you kind of recognize while you’re out at lunch in the area; but the more time that’s passed the less likely you are to say hello and then even when you’re tempted, like yesterday, you don’t because you can’t remember their name.  The friends you do things socially with which also changes over time since people mature (or don’t), get divorced or married, have kids (or don’t) and the things you do socially changes.  The crazy loons I used to hang out with in my twenties wouldn’t last two minutes with me now but I thought they were fun back when I didn’t know any better. Childhood and high school friends – mostly made possible by Facebook for me.  While I don’t actually see them often outside the realm of FB I do get to see them living their lives and even sometimes comment and share old memories.  Neighborhood friends, book club friends, writing friends, running friends – all sharing common interests and daily life happenings.  True friends – those who no matter how long between spending time together never miss a step.  I have a handful of these and I cherish the stolen cups of coffee bitching about life and work, cleansing lunches venting away all our troubles with our common views of life, annual poker games, conversations where we check each others sanity just to be sure it is still intact, phone calls staying in touch over the miles that separate, etc.  My favorite are the ones who serendipitously enter your life – the parents of your kid’s best friend, neighbors with so many things in common it’s like they are clones of you, and people collected along the way who, when pressed, you can’t even remember how you became friends because it feels like you just always have been.  My very best friend is Hubby – and even if I had no other, that would be enough for me.  Luckily, I also have siblings and parents and sisters-in-law I count as friends and who I couldn’t live without.  I even have friends who I didn’t really want: the wives of hubby’s buddy’s – some who I had to endure through countless nights of not being able to hold their liquor, parents of Big Sister’s friends at school who play-dates must be coordinated through, fellow dance mom’s thrown together because our kids dance on the same team – although some also fit in the other categories after the fact, too, and the list goes on and on.

I’m particularly excited for an upcoming reunion with the three friends I hung out with the most and the longest in school.  I haven’t seen any of them in years and one I haven’t seen since graduation who is returning home for a visit.  We’re getting the gang back together to catch up – fitting since I don’t believe any of us made it to the twenty year reunion last summer.  Again, thank you Facebook without whom it wouldn’t be possible!

So with all these friends, the questions of the week are:  1) why spend time with people who I can’t really be myself with?  And 2) at what point do you just say ‘No, thank you’ to invitations and never give it another thought? 

Here’s a revelation about my true nature:  I am a home body if left to my own devices.  Seriously, I hope this doesn’t surprise you.  I work eight hours a day Monday through Friday and have to come home to be Mommy – another full time job. I run around most nights driving dance studio shuttle while juggling our social life and a toddler, I work out six days a week between the fitness center at work and our amazing gym, I have a book club and a writer’s group that meet regularly, I have two different groups of women friends who make it a habit of getting together for dinner on a regular basis… you get the picture, right? And when I have a free evening or weekend what I really want to do – almost 100% of the time – is stay home with my husband and my kids AND DO NOTHING.

Lately, I haven’t had the opportunity to do this much and it’s starting to wear on my nerves.  My life is so out of whack that my kid is wearing clothes from the very back of the closet because I simply don’t have time to get the laundry done on a regular basis.  We are talking the shirts that should NOT have made it through the last clean-out but were saved either at her pleading or because she might be able to wear it camping instead of ruining a nice shirt. With no time to recharge my own inner self, I can barely communicate effectively with Hubby and I am short with my kids way too often.  So, starting today, this minute, I vow to start spending time with my favorite friend – myself – and not feeling bad about turning down invitations.  Because when I try and spread myself too thin I only wind up hurting myself and those I love.

As for people who I have little in common with, just because they are nice and around doesn’t mean that I have to spend tons of time with them.  Because for me, to find myself just going through the motions of enjoying myself and then bitching about the loss of time that I could have been doing something I really WANTED or NEEDED to do later just because I didn’t want to say “No” one more time is so not worth it.  The bitch is rearing her ugly head and screaming “NO MORE!”  Do I care that I will sound like a broken record that “sorry, we’re busy”?  Not for one second because guess what?  I am! Always!  Does this mean I won’t ever spend time with people in this category who want to spend time with me?  No.  It just means I will be more selective in accepting invitations from now on.

I consider this new commitment as my way of staying sane trying to keep up with doing everything I’ve chosen to cram into my life in order to make it a full and fulfilling one while staying balanced within myself.  Call it grounding, if you will… I’ll be finding more time for doing nothing which will make me so much happier while I’m doing everything else!

3 Comments | posted in Everyday Life