Adjusted Reality

So I’ve left everything everywhere but where it is supposed to be today, so there will be no travelog just yet, sorry campers.  I do have some pictures, so I will make you just a *little* jealous today.  Since it’s a short week, I expect that I will not be tackling heavy topics until December rears it’s ugly, cold, wintery, frost-encrusted head.  Ok, so I live in Austin, but it was in the FOURTIES the other night!  That’s practically like the North Pole, right?

Anywhoo – I guess I can spoil the summary on the responsiblish stuff I was trying to do over vacation.

Goal: Not get myself sick on or before vacation.

Outcome: Success!  I did have one day I felt a little icky, but that was lady parts related and nothing that could have been prevented.  So score 1 for me!

Goal: Keep to my normal workout schedule over break.

Outcome: Almost success!  The only unscheduled day I took off was related to such as detailed above, and so not my fault.  Also, took the stairs the entire time (I think over the 5 days I took the elevator 2 times) and we walked all over creation, so that makes up for some of it, right?  Five days the week before and four days the week of vacation isn’t bad, right?

Goal: Eat like a sane human being.

Outcome: Semi-fail.  The first two days I did, the last three I ate whatever the hell I wanted whenever I felt like it.  I figure that if there is any time to let loose and do this, it’s the last 3 days of a vacation with abundant and yummy food.  My body actually somewhat liked it though – feels like there is fuel to burn when I workout instead of just running on fumes.  I cannot wait to be in maintenence mode, where my goal is to stay one weight, and eat as much as possible while doing so.  Good things though.  Unlike the burgers and pizza and fried everything and chocolate melting cake.

Goal: Weigh less than 170 at the end of the vacation.

Outcome: Success!  I won’t tell ya what the scale said the day after, because I had promised myself vacation ended today.  Today I got on the scale and I was 167.6, fully and comfortably in the okie dokie range.  I hope to be back at 165 by next Monday and all signs point to it will be so!

Goal: Not worry about work or life.

Outcome: Total success.  I can barely bring myself to worry about work today, and I’m here, tee hee.  Seriously, I’ve got some stuff to mull over and think about, but there is no use rushing it.  Right now, I think the order is to keep plugging away and keep my eyes and ears open for inspiration and opportunity.

All in all, it was a fantastic vacation.  I needed it badly.  I need to remember that while some people can go years without a real vacation, one that is not going to visit family or to a convention or whatnot, I just don’t work that way.  If I can’t lay out in the sun, read a book, splash in a pool, and just not be required to *think* about anything for at least a few days, it doesn’t count.  And I need one of those a year or I start getting all cranky-like.  Call me spoiled, but it’s required for my sanity.

Hope to be back tomorrow with at least the start of the vacation log and later in the week, pictures of my thanksgiving feast to make everyone scream with jealousy again (it’s not often you get a four star chef to cook the meal at your house for you), and a wrap up on how November’s plan to have no plan went.  Ciao, bellas!

Ok, so I just haven’t had time to really even THINK about topics, let alone actually write about them.  Between work (which has been BUSY), workouts, and getting stuff ready, I’m pretty much going to float away now early into pre-cruisedom.  I’ll be sure to post a thoroughly detailed travel log when I get back with tons of pictures.  Comments are acting weird, some go through right away and some don’t – so if you comment and it doesn’t appear, I don’t hate you, I promise.  Ok, I don’t promise, but it’s much more likely that your comment just got caught in the evil clutches of wordpress.

Anywhoo, I’ll be thinking of you lovely people when I’m eating this:

And drinking and singing here:

On this lovely boat:

Love,

Quix de Vamoooose!

I usually go on and on forever about whatever I’m talking about – but this week is going to be both busy and torturous (because on Friday, I leave for vacation so time will be passing way too quickly to get stuff done but way too slow for my liking, like this weird vortex of ironicalness).  So, for the week, I’m going to pick a topic, and spout off on it just as long or as short as I like.  Today, I’m going to marvel at all the gadgets, gizmos, and conveniences that are part of my daily life.

I always ask where my hover car is, but it’s pretty amazing that the Prius I drive makes use of both gas and a battery to get it where it needs to go.  The rear view mirror tints if the sun glares at it too hard.  The camera in the back shows me if I’m about to run over the neighbor’s dog backing out of my driveway.  Navi can show me directions anywhere I want to go, and where all the restaurants are in that area.  It’s temperature controlled (as in, I set it to 78, and it tries to keep it at 78), and doesn’t have 2 settings of AC on (Siberia) and AC off (Death Valley) like my last car.

Then, when I park it in the garage, I enter my kitchen, which contains both a robot to sweep (Roomba) and a robot to mop (Scooba).  It does not get old that all we have to is make sure they’re charged (and the mopping solution is in Scooba), set them in the middle of a room, block off anywhere we don’t want them to go, and wait an hour and *poof*, clean room.  We’re looking into adding the grass cutting robot to our little robot family someday as well.

Want to get online?  Well, your first instinct would probably be to head for my laptop sitting on the couch.  If not, Zliten’s got one that’s sitting on the coffee table.  If you venture into our office (read: pretty painted blue orange room that’s pretty much storage), there are two desktops as well (one isn’t hooked up, but could be up and running within 5 minutes).  Then, we’ve got our phones that can also instant message and surf the web.  Still need more connectivity?  The PS3, the PS2, the 2 PSPs, and the Wii can also connect to the internet (though the PS2’s connectivity is very limited).  I guess, technically, the two DVR boxes do as well.  Pretty soon, I imagine, my fridge will be talking with my scale and locking down access to food until I hit the gym.

It’s really easy to just take for granted all the technology and conviences you find standard in your daily life.  Just for a moment, revert back to your 5 year old self and think about what you had then (I know we didn’t even have cable TV, a microwave, a computer, or any sort of game system).  I’m pretty sure with a glimpse of their future, they’d have wide-eyed awe at our lives.

1.  I keep meaning to post some of the recipes for things we eat when we cook at home, but my mind totally goes out the window when there is food around.  Last night, for a snack I had snow peas and sesame ginger dressing, shrimp cocktail, and then the main course of chicken tacos.  Not really going for food pairing here – I needed a dose of veggies, was really craving shrimp but didn’t want to make anything out of it, and then tacos were super easy.  The night before, Zliten made his delicious and simple lemon pepper mahi mahi with rice and veggies.  These would have made fantastic blog posts.  However, the food gets wolfed down so fast, I don’t think about it until there are crumbs left.  Oh well, one of these days I’ll get it right.

2.  I was pretty down for about a week, mainly work crap but… just… nothing was right.  I skipped some gym sessions in favor of DDR and walking.  Out of my funk, I finally went back to the gym last night after a week and I felt like a freaking marshmallow.  I didn’t actually make it through my intervals, I got a wicked cramp and had to walk for a minute to get rid of it.  I had to actually reduce reps or weight on most of my exercises.  Hopefully I can make up for it today.  My goal is to set the treadmill for 60 minutes and see what I can do in that time.  I’m hoping for 5 miles.  Giving myself permission to walk if I need to though, so we will see.

3.  Only 4 more workdays after today until my vacation.  Is it super sad or what that I have had a list of clothes for each day and what shoes go with them done for 2 weeks and this weekend I am going to do a trial run to make sure everything I need fits in the smallest bag possible.  I love to pack for trips, and I love unpacking once I get to my destination.  Zliten HATES packing, so I usually pack for him.  I think it’s because it’s very symbolic – putting clothes in a suitcase, or even thinking about it, means vacation is near!

4.  This weekend is going to be a weekend of gaming.  On tap is Wizard101 and Little Big Planet.  We’ve also got 3 netflix movies, which are really random – American Graffiti, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Bridge to Terabithia.  Haven’t seen any of them, so it should be exciting.  Also, I might break out the beads to do necklaces, and maybe even take pics and post about it.

5.  It was a beautiful fall day yesterday.  I’m not that big of a fan of the season because it reminds me evil evil winter is coming.  Yes, I know that Austin winter is *NOT* cold, I lived in Reno and Chicago, places that actually snow, and I know we have it good.  Though I am a cold WUSS and start bringing out scarves and gloves at like 55 degrees.  I prefer 100 and humid to 40 and anything.  What was I saying? Anyways, work in such a beautiful area of town I almost drove off the road coming back from lunch yesterday trying to get pictures.  This was the best one – camera phone while driving for the lose.

This was supposed to post Friday but it got eaten by the internets, so happy early Monday post instead.  Posting might be a little sparse this week, time at work is being eaten by a big project, time after work is being eaten by preparing for vacation, but I’ll try to think of SOMETHING interesting and fun to ramble on about.

Speaking of change… (was going to do this as one blog entry with the last one, but I had much more to say on it than I thought and I realized it was a horrid segway, you’re welcome for that), election day and Charlotte’s blog on overexercising made me really think about how I’ve changed over the last two years.  Or at least fooled myself into how I’ve changed.

A little (not so) secret about me – I don’t just want to do things, I want to do them up CRAZY.  I find something I like, it turns into something I love, then something I obsess over and spend all my time doing and thinking about.  After spinning my little wheels way too fast on it for way too long, my motor burns out in the form of a nervous breakdown, and I have to leave it behind.  In my life, this has been epitomized in gymnastics, crushes and boyfriends (hell, people in general), hobbies, and especially jobs I love.  Before he sees this and comments – not Zliten.  He was worth obsessing over. ::grin::

My last job really gave me all the rope I wanted to hang myself with.  It had the perfect recipe for Quix-y disaster.  It was a title that was a bit of an underdog (and I love rooting for the unlikely winner if they’ve got that spark in their eyes).  I was given complete creative freedom, only limited by the tools and abilities I had at my disposal.  I could work as much or as little as I wanted, no one was keeping track, so it was my own decision.  I also got off on the fact I was the youngest and only female to take the reins of the game in my company.  Thousands of dedicated and also megamanical fans also inspired me to always do more and better.  I think most of the time, I felt more like I reported and was accountable to our players than anyone at the company.

What this meant was that I ate, slept, breathed, and spoke job every moment of the day.  Luckily my fiance (then boyfriend, I guess, if you can call “living together for 6 years” still a boyfriend) was also just getting started in game design, which is his dream job and was super into it too.  We would pretty much work til our eyes bled and then talk about work and bounce design ideas off each other and when we were frustrated with our games at work, we’d start coming up with design documents for new games to pitch.  After a while though, he got over the honeymoon period and it was a job for him, while I just ratcheted up the crazy even more.  He’d sit there and game while I worked from home (he finished an entire anime series in a few weeks, just watching while I was working at home…yeah).  He’d hug me when I bawled about being mandated to increase our subscription prices.  I’m surprised I didn’t come up with something like this picture.  I’m sure I could go on and on, but I’m sure you get the picture.  Work equaled life, and I was convinced that anyone who wasn’t like me just didn’t have a cool enough job.

Two main events made me snap out of it.  First of all, a day in December 2006, we came home from work, I was having a bad day so there was some vodka action going on.  We popped in the movie Click (with Adam Sandler) and watched and, well, it really clicked.  I was spending most of my life on fast forward, waiting for the good times.  I was always waiting for the decision to come down at work about this or that.  I was just waiting for the time when I’d get the official title and pay I though I deserved.  I could no longer spend my time just waiting for the elusive something that made my life complete, I had to make it happen.  Then, shortly after, there was the fated San Fransisco trip.  I had to buy size 24 jeans (I had been in denial for years by only wearing skirts, thxu San Diego weather), and after huffing and puffing my way through short distances of the city (I think I probably run longer on the treadmill in an hour than I covered my whole trip), I decided that enough was enough, I was going to do something about the flubber.

Of course, it wasn’t easy.  First, I made a vow to myself that I would work 8 hour days, 5 days per week, except under DIRE circumstances.  I left work at 6:45 on the button (yeah, my start time was 9:45, odd, wasn’t it), and just picked up where I left off the next day.  There was nothing so urgent that it couldn’t wait until tomorrow.  It was was weird at first, but then it was freeing.  My game didn’t suffer, I didn’t look any different in management’s eyes, my employees didn’t suffer, nothing changed except content was just a touch slower, and I chose carefully what we took on instead of trying to tackle *EVERYTHING*.  The only change was I didn’t sacrifice myself.  Crazy!  Second, I vowed to eat better, drink less booze, and exercise at least 3 days per week to lose weight.  I did Dance Dance Revolution for at least 20 mins and even tried out Yourself!Fitness, and though it took a while for me to really and truly get going (eating better meant cans and microwave meals – things of which I could count calories and judge portions easily), I at least got started establishing good habits.

After the move to Austin, I think there was about 3 months I could say I was really and truly balanced.  Then, one day I went from “meh, I want to lose more weight but whatever” to “I am going to lose weight starting TODAY” and here we are.  I’m glad I did – I was still definitely obese back then and needed that kick in the pants to get to now, but it’s almost the opposite now.  I love our product, but it doesn’t keep me up at night.  However, I do salivate and dream of the day I break a 8 minute mile.  Or run my first 5k race not on a treadmill.  Or can do a unassisted pullup.  Or hit a weight I am totally and completely in love with my body (as opposed to right now when I just sometimes want to make out with the mirror when I walk by).

I will admit, if I had the rescources to do so, I could totally be that megamanical Quix now.  I’d jump at the chance to train for some sort of sport full time.  I’d love to have a better reason to train so, so hard besides weight loss or beating my goal.  If I could hit the gym during the mid morning/early afternoon instead of the choice between yawnsville (before work) or blehsville (after work), I could totally put in such a longer and better workout.  I could run and lift and swim and dance and and and and…everything.  I just get so frustrated sitting sometimes, I just want to…DO!

Sometimes life has a way of setting you on the right path, even when it drags you kicking and screaming.  So I’ll keep to my 60-90 mins 5 days a week and figure out something else to difuse the crazy upon.

(fyi, today is a two-fer, because I meant to post the last post yesterday…see ya tomorrow!)