gardening

Spring Daffodils

The two bunches of daffodils I had ordered from the American Cancer Society for Daffodil Days arrived this morning, delivered to my desk at work. I wasn’t sure if they were going to arrive in pots or cut — turns out they were cut flowers, which was a slight disappointment. (The ones from the University were potted bulbs, as I recall.) This morning, they were completely closed buds; by lunch, half of them had started to open, and by the time I left work today, all but a few were starting to open.

That made me wonder how the mini daffodils I planted last year are faring. Once I got home, and after Aaron left for work, I went outside to take a peek — and they’re growing! I had planted them in six or seven clumps, and it looks like all but one clump have a good inch of leafy growth popping up. Yaye!

I feel all springy and excited now. I have the windows open, even though it’s cooling down outside, and I’m pumped to do my new Push workout that arrived today. Yeah!

Too bad it’s going to be 30’s and flurries for the next week. 😛

weight loss

Diet & Fitness Update, Week #8

Well, I’d lost half a pound by mid-week, but managed to gain that back in the second half of the week. I know it was from eating too many carbs too late in the day, mainly — I’ve been lazy and opted to microwave some “reduced-carb” pasta in the evenings, instead of cooking meat and veggies. For those of you keeping score, that means I’m still at 210, after having flirted briefly with 209.5 on Wednesday.

I haven’t mentioned what I’ve been eating lately, so I guess I’ll throw that in, since it’s been fairly consistent. Breakfast = 3/4 cup oats with Splenda Brown Sugar Blend. Morning Snack = cottage cheese with blueberries. Lunch = lettuce salad with 2 Tbsp dressing (low-fat, low-carb). Afternoon snack = one large Golden Delicious apple. Dinner varies. Should be meat and veggies or salad. Ends up being low-carb pasta, which is what put my half-pound back on.

I also still haven’t really been exercising regularly. I take a few minutes here and there to do a wall-sit, or ten girly pushups, or some glute kickbacks, and I’m still taking my regular lunchtime walks, of course.

Now, this may or may not have been a poor late-night decision, but I did sign up with PUSH. With PUSH, you select a personal trainer, and PUSH sends you one DVD a month with two workouts by said trainer. The workouts are tailored to your fitness level and the equipment you have on hand, and each workout builds off the previous. The DVD also includes a cardio workout of your choice, of which you’re supposed to do 100 minutes a week.

PUSH costs $25 a month (plus shipping of one two resistance bands). I signed up for the shortest stint possible: three months. Hopefully, having my very own tailored workout by a supposedly light-hearted trainer will get me back into working out in the evenings after work. I’ve finally got the meals spaced out properly, so I’m not starving when I come home — in fact, I’m not even hungry until around 7pm. So, I should have plenty of non-hungry alone time to do these workouts during the week.

It does seem a little pricey… but Adam from Burning Twenty totally talked them up on his podcast, so I’m willing to give it a shot. We’ll see.

Incidentally, the Early To Bed and Early To Rise thing did not happen at ALL this week, for various reasons. I’m going to give that another go this week. I know I felt so much better during the first week of my diet, when I was actually getting up when my alarm went off, eating breakfast at home, actually applying some makeup (because I had the time), and generally waking up before I had to head out the door. If I could make myself get up even earlier, I could do some morning cardio, like going for a walk (or a walk/jog) when it gets warmer out. I remember that I used to secretly enjoy our pre-breakfast calisthenics in the Bluecoats. 🙂

So, that’s the latest, for anyone who’s interested.

memories

Long Lost Media

I finally located some tapes I’d been missing for a while: the very first mixtape Aaron ever made for me, back in 1996, and three 8mm videotapes from 1999-2000.

As soon as I finish compiling mp3s to correspond with all the songs on Aaron’s Music Sampler, you can expect to find a zip file of 90 minutes’ worth of mp3s for your listening pleasure. You, too, can be introduced to fantastic 90’s alternative like Frank Black, Sebadoh, The Afghan Whigs, the Pixies, Man or Astroman?, Catherine Wheel, and many more.

Eventually, you can also expect to find some mini-montages of the video footage from 1999 and 2000. Old RCC buds will appreciate RCC Fun Day 2000, and family will (possibly) appreciate Thanksgiving and Christmas 1999, including me telling CC Snyder’s “Archibald Barasol” joke, Gary reading the infamous forward about The Best Fruitcake Ever, and general fun with decorations and snowball fights.

I’m tempted to plug the camera into the TV and watch them right now.

What the hell… I think I will. 😀

Update, 1:20am: Damn… I was one sloppy bitch six and seven years ago. I look *much* better now at age almost-30 than I did back then at 23-24. Same with Aaron (no offense, honey).

Even so, I think I’ll be able to edit this stuff into something fun and amusing to watch later. Yeah.

ruminations 1 Comment

Disconnect

Have you ever sat at the computer and reloaded LiveJournal and checked out all your friends’ and acquaintances’ blogs and looked at Flickr hoping for new pics from your contacts… just because you wanted human interaction?

Ironic, isn’t it? Or maybe just stupid.

I wish more of my friends had blogs. I’m rarely into chatting online anymore, but I still want to feel connected. I’m not always keen on spending my evenings alone, but I’m not always interested in talking on the phone or doing Instant Messenger. You know?

Evenings like these would be good for walking around BG, stopping into Grounds For Thought, maybe reading a book or writing in a journal about something seemingly profound, maybe doing some BG low-light street photography. The idea kind of loses its charm when it requires a 20-minute drive, though, instead of walking out your door and three minutes down the street.

Enough of this. I’ve gotta go do some dishes, put together my lunch, and go to bed. *sigh*

I’m really not this depressed. I don’t think. I think I’m just tired and lonely right now. And, for once in my life, I feel like a fit person trapped in a fat person’s body. But that’s another blog entry entirely.