Adjusted Reality

“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.” – Mark Twain

Tag: Writing Page 1 of 3

Elsewhere…

I have been using my words in other places lately, but far be it from me to be reticent here on my little soapbox.

It’s almost time for vacation and to quote my lovely husband, “I can’t possibly check out at work, so I’m checking out with workouts.”  To be fair, I spent the greater part of this week with a cold, so I had an excuse for a while, but this weekend I’ve spent in my sweats instead of my spandex even though I feel most of the way better.  I. just. can’t. right. now.

There are two thoughts on my mind.  First, my brain is just elsewhere besides running, biking, and swimming right now, and it’s taking a lot of my mental effort and enthusiasm right now.  It’s all good.  I’m starting to find my confidence and stride in some things that felt utterly over my head before, and once I adequately conquer these things, I know it will all come back around.  Ten days away from everything should shake loose some cobwebs.

Second, if you’ve met me, you might know I have a propensity for overdoing it – *it* being anything and everything under the sun.  I’ve found some success in sport lately by not doing a whole lot of sport.  When I do venture out I’ve been doing amazing things – I kept up with people at the last brick workout who usually beat the crap out of me.  I felt a little sheepish about my bike fitness until I knocked out my best FTP test (181W) ever last weekend.  I PR’d my bench press Monday (105#).  It feels like while I’m doing a whole lot of nothing, whatever I’m doing is beneficial.  It’s really weird but, okay, let’s go with it.

I mean, I know I can’t do this forever, but as they say, stress is stress is stress and the last thing I want to do is go over the edge right now because I pushed myself too hard in too many areas.  Been there, done that, don’t want to go back and do it again.

Besides work, which is definitely a thing but not a thing I generally talk about here, I’ve dug deep into various writing projects.  I’ve actually found it very relaxing lately.  I’ve been practicing writing fiction for the first time in many, many, many years by delving into the backstory of my Dungeons and Dragons character.  I’ve been writing a recap of our adventures in a very ridiculous, overly flowery style of prose.  It’s been crazy fun to write over the top drama, looking up every third word on thesaurus.com and picking the most esoteric and enigmatic one (see what I did there?). 

I happened to connect with someone, incidentally, commiserating on the fact that we both struggle with asking for help, someone who’s writing I really respect.  I had a moment of gushing vulnerability regarding my fears and insecurities about my book draft and the whole process.  She encouraged me to send it over and I found at once ALL my old inclinations.  I almost just said no, I wasn’t ready yet.  I gave a multitude of excuses about how rough it was and how I didn’t want to waste her time.  Yet, after all that, she still wanted to read it.  

I’ve given myself until I leave on vacation to get my shit together.  And then, instead of scrambling to actually do something about that, I wrote and edited thirteen pages of my D&D character’s backstory.  I felt compelled to finish it before I could even open my book draft.  Talk about self-sabotaging tendencies…

The happy end to this story is that I did indeed open the draft a few nights ago, and I’m through a first editing pass of the intro and the first chapter.  I’m glad I found my writing voice, but man, it’s rough to go back and revise stuff I penned before that.  There’s no way I will be able to get through the entire book before I leave (yes, the irony of me wasting time here is not lost on me, but I need to decompress a little right now).  However, I figure delivering the first few chapters in a slightly-less-than embarrassing state will at least show the beginnings of my capabilities. 

I’m excited, not so much because I believe in my draft yet, but that I believe enough in myself to take this first step.  That’s been prevalent so far this year in my choices and actions, and I’m super stoked to see where it leads.

However, while performing all these terrifying feats is invigorating, it is also kind of exhausting.  I’m looking forward to just letting it all go for a while, and I hope that when I transition from life to vacation life, I can do just that.

 

Check check one two….

Hi everyone!

For various reasons, life is doing a me a crazy right now, but it looks like it will all resolve itself by the end of January, one way or another.  For now, I’m going to make this a quickie check in post and save the more involved topics for later.

I’m doing my best to take care of my health in ways that I haven’t been motivated to do in months, marking the transition from #offseason to #preseason.  I’ve cut back on booze.  I’ve been tracking my food and eating more veggies.  I’ve tried to rest, however, between allergies, things weighing on my mind both heavy and exciting, and also my body just not used to being rested (either fatigued from workouts or being an idiot), I’ve been having difficulty getting to sleep and staying asleep.

I’m seeing wild variances in my weight on days where I sleep and don’t sleep well, so hopefully once things calm down and my training normalizes, I’ll start seeing some progress.  I am familiar with the process, my weight is a general collective summary of what I’ve done in the past month or so, and I still have weeks of holiday eating to temper with Snap Kitchen and a reasonable deficit.  My weight is settling in around 167-173 (post long run vs morning after eating a larger late dinner), so I’m not too far gone from where I was when I last raced.  All in all, I’m about 2-3 lbs up from Waco weight in 2 months, which is still on average about 18 lbs down from this time last year.

On a day by day basis sometime I feel like this puppers, but overall, it’s peace and I know progress will start soon if I am patient and persistent.  I need to keep tracking my goals and I’ll get there.

Also, I haven’t started the year this light since perhaps 2010, so that’s had some interesting effects on my training.  I’ve run less times since October 28th than I can count on both hands, but I’ve settled into a nice place where 10:30/mile, give or take, is my happy easy pace.  I did 10 miles there the first weekend of January and it felt like a warm hug, at least a warm hug with some muscle soreness.  My legs are lacking the strength and base to sustain a lot of miles right now.  I’m currently pursuing a crash course to meet the minimum goal of finishing a half marathon, but for each run I undertake, I seem to be as good as I once was.

On Saturday, I did all sorts of stupid shit.  First of all, the week before the race, I ran my longest training run, clocking 12 miles.  My Clifton 1s arrived a few days before, so I took on those miles in brand new shoes, which is a HUGE faux pas.  Nevertheless, with a new playlist, mind addled with WAY too many things on it, and squeaky kicks, I started to pound the pavement and found that my turnover and cadence felt AMAZING and the paces on my watch agreed.

At first, I started to pull back when I saw myself running 9 minute miles, but then I decided to have some effing confidence and stick with it.  While I won’t try to fool myself and say the entire run was easy peasy lemon squeezy, it certainly wasn’t race effort and I ran the 12 miles approximately at my half marathon PR pace, y’know, the one I’ve been trying desperately to crack since November 2010.  I spent the first half in my head working through all the various things rattling around up there, and then the last half, I let the effort surpass those mental machinations.  By the time it got hard I was so close to the end, I just stuck with it and even negative split that mother.  It was one of those magical runs that gives you the tingles when you think about it.

I’m excited to toe the line this weekend and see if there’s a second effort in there in that same zip code.  Instead of the hot and humid we had last year, the pendulum has swung the opposite direction and it should be one of the coldest mornings on record (in the 20s, possibly feels-like-teens with windchill).  I know that when I’m running, I’ll be fine, I just have to prepare properly for pre- and post-race layers.  I have no expectations on the time on the clock when I finish but I do have a little more optimism than I did a few weeks ago about heading into a race so undertrained. 

There have been swims, there have been weights (once a week each), and I did conquer a FTP (functional threshold power) last week.  My previous measurement right in the thick of training mid-summer last year was 179 watts.  Considering that test was probably the last speedwork I have done as I was ramping up for a half ironman, I absolutely knew it had faded a bit.  I decided to aim for 160 watts, and I ended up with an FTP of exactly 160 watts, knowing I could have pushed harder.  I’m pretty chill with a loss of 19 watts considering it’s pre-season.  I’m hoping that next month, my watts will be above my weight because their trajectories should be bisecting each other soon.

I’ve spent the majority of the rest of my free time focused on some nerdy shit.  I’m finished off a fantastic Sci Fi book series – Space Team – at least until more are written, which inspired me over the break to write a choose your own adventure (they’re a bit out of order but the text is there) in the same style and possibly explore penning something longer form as well.  I’m marathoning a fantastic show called Critical Role, where voice actors play Dungeons&Dragons, and I’m hooked.  I’m currently reading some books in the Lit RPG classification (books where tabletop role playing game players end up IN the game), previously Creatures&Caverns and my current books are Spells, Swords, & Stealth

I’m also leaning into the ridiculousness of my Bard character in OUR tabletop game.  I’ve started writing session recaps in my character’s voice (which is fantastic writing practice and just plain fun to do), getting really into the story’s investigations like woah, and just coming up with clever and crazy shit.  It’s amusing me to no end, and anything that makes me smile this much is something worth doing in my book.

I’m 100% eyes wide open that this is an escape into fantasy land because real life feels kind of heavy right now.  I wrestled with it for a while, but I’ve got no shame following this path because it feels like something I should do.  In the last few months, I’ve become more engaged in my writing, enjoying “costuming” myself, and I’ve picked up music again.  I feel like some of the ludicrous things I do and plan to do during these sessions are also great exercises in confidence, taking risks, and practice in asking forgiveness not permission, which will be key in some other things I need to conquer this year.   

Actually, screw forgiveness as well.  I don’t need to be sorry for the things that I am.  I just need to forge ahead and let things fall in my wake as they may as long as my conscience is sound. 2019 is about telling the haters in my head, those negative evil voices that say that I’m taking up too much space in the world, telling all that noise and nonsense to kindly take a long walk off a short pier.

Week 2 of 70.3 training – nailed it!

On the heels of a rough week 1, I’m happy to report my sentiment for Week 2 was, “Nailed it!”

Insert peach emoji here.  If you want a nice looking peach too, you can get this kit of mine HERRRE. And use the code BRIGADELEAH for 25$ off, if you want to be part of our cycle gang!

And not even in the ironic pintrest fail sense.  Except in some instances where it was sort of that exactly. 

As for training, I’m thrilled to report it’s the first time in a long time I’ve put check marks in all the boxes.  That is, all workouts were completed, exactly as planned (if not exactly WHEN).  That’s a HUGE win for me.  I may have rescheduled some things about 23 times before completing it, but all’s well that ends well, yeah?  Even if that ending was 5pm on a Sunday walking back from the lake for a swim I put off since Monday…

Here’s the week 2 summary:

  • Monday: weights (home), 1 hour easy bike ride
  • Tuesday: 7 mile long run 10:30-11 min/mile pace
  • Wednesday: FTP test AM
  • Thursday: off
  • Friday: gym weights AM, 1500yd pool swim PM
  • Saturday: 35 mile TT bike ride/3 mile brick faster than race pace (sub-10 was the goal, I actually hit sub 9:30s!!!).
  • Sunday: 1600yd lake swim

It really is the swim practice that has been tripping me up.  I don’t have the option to swim at lunch anymore (though that changes soon! yay!) and it’s the least convenient session to get to.  I actually love doing it once I get myself there and going, it’s just the effort to get there… ugh.  It sounds so lazy, but it’s just the truth.

And it makes sense when my swimming spaces are so ugly.  Sigh…

Everything else went rather well!  An hour bike ride after work on Monday is honestly just the thing to shake the blahs.  I’m starting back a little… errr… lot lighter with some things for weights but I’m showing up and doing it.  While the swims were difficult to coordinate, I had two longest swims of the year and they felt pretty good.

The highlights of the week were my cycling and running.  I know, I haven’t said the words “highlight” and “running” in the same sentence for a long time, but it’s true.  As for cycling, I took an FTP test on Wednesday morning, and it went up 7 points, and since I’ve lost weight since my last one, my watts per kg score went up nicely as well (2.15 to 2.25).  I’m now in the middle of the cat-5 or cat-4 category, depending on which version of the chart you’re looking at, so that’s something. 

As for my run, I won’t say the paces I’m doing are effortless, but they are more comfortable than expected.  My 7 mile run at 10:40s ended before I wanted it to, I could have easily continued on another few miles at the same pace and effort if I had time.  Then, Saturday, in feels like 95 degrees in no shade, I ran a 9:28/mile pace for 3 miles off a two hour reasonably challenging bike (18 mph average/1200+ feet of elevation gain in the heat).  Again, this wasn’t EASY but it was doable and at 169 HR average, it was a little high for what I’d hold during the half marathon off the bike but it wasn’t butting up against my racing ceiling either (~175).

This next week is a stepback week, which I don’t feel like I need physically, like, at all, but mentally, I’m ready.  The next few days are already presenting challenges with life not understanding that it’s time for training to be the focus, and not other stuff. ><  However, we’ll get ‘er done, somehow, someway.  Here’s the plan.

  • Monday: 1 hour easy bike ride
  • Tuesday: AM run: 1 mile warmup, 3 miles fast (10k-ish race pace, trying to hold low 9s), 1 mile cooldown, PM home kettlebells
  • Wednesday: ~1500yd swim, lake or pool PM
  • Thursday: off
  • Friday: AM gym weights
  • Saturday: practice olympic distance (1500m swim, 25 mile bike, 10k run)
  • Sunday: off

This is a little bit of scheduling gymnastics from the plan 24 hours ago, but thankfully it’s not the myriad of two-a-days it would be if it was NOT a recovery week, so I’m thankful for a little more leeway.  I have faith all the boxes will be ticked, just not confident everything will happen exactly when it’s supposed to.  And that’s ok.

My other goals for last week continue to be goals for this week:

  • Hit all the sessions. (CHECK)
  • Get good sleep (which hopefully will start pushing me towards being more of a morning person) (CHECK)
    • My worst night of sleep was 6h43m, and I just stayed up later than normal, nothing sinister.  Saturday night, I got 6 hours and 41 minutes of DEEP sleep (for about 9 hours total), waking up at 11:30am.  My body is doing all the right things, and I’m finding waking up in the 7am hour much easier.
  • Prioritize recovery – as in use the boots, roller, or stretch once a day.
    • I didn’t hit it every day, but I stretched twice, rolled twice, and hit the boots once.  Five out of seven days isn’t bad!

Let’s see how this week goes!

As for the scale-y side of things…

Wait, that’s not what I mean… hehe…

Let’s just go to the numbers…

  • Average calorie burn: 2480
  • Average calorie intake: 1805 (-674 deficit)
  • Average weight change: 175.6 to 175.1 (-0.6)
  • Average diet quality: 22.1

I had typed this thing about making zero, zip, nada, zilch in the way of progress, but I’m going to dig a little bit into there because that’s not entirely true.  My trendweight is hovering right in the 175.somethings, where it has for pretty much all July.  Right now it’s the LOWEST it’s been with 175.1, so that’s a thing.  However, I’m not entirely sure if I’m goosing the numbers a little bit by selectively weighing on days when I think it will be a good result (I weighed Tues, Wed, Thurs, and Sunday, which coincided with either morning workouts or days I went light on dinner).

Either way, the process numbers above look in order for the last week.  I have a feeling I’m still paying for vacation week and the week after where things went all to hell with my eating.  My progress is slow.  My progress is stalled.  But, there is still progress and even if it takes me 10 weeks to lose 5 more lbs while not negatively impacting my 70.3 training, that’s fine and dandy.  I didn’t gain this particular weight overnight, so I know I’m not going to lose it that way either.

A summary of #projectraceweight in graph form.

This week, I’ve batch cooked some meals instead of just scrounging, I’m grabbing some snap kitchen for the first time in a while.  I don’t have any parties or plans this week that involve gluttonous meals.  In the monthly cycle of being a woman, this should be a week that my hormones won’t hamper my efforts.  This should be a good week for me if I can play by my old rules where I was doing well.  So I shall.

Speaking of rules… I’m trying not to break them.  I really am.  I drew my suck lines in sharpie two months ago and I’m really trying to abide by that decree.  It let me let go of a few things that while I really want to do, I don’t have the time or attention for at the moment AND THAT’S OK.  I will be a famous You Tube star, painter, jewelry designer, have a fabulously renovated and organized house, and whatever else some day when I have all the time in the world.

Trying to be legit with a watermark and everything.  However, this one got rejected by two out of the three stock sites. I still like it so I’m posting it here.

However, photography keeps creeping up above the line by nature.  I keep going places and taking pretty pictures, and that means I have photos to edit, and if I’m going to go through all that, I might as well submit them to build my stock portfolio, right?  It sounds like a natural thing to do but then it takes time, I’m estimating that the process of making it ready for the three photo sites is at least 30 minutes PER PICTURE beyond what I’d do just to put it in a personal album. 

Right now, it means that I prioritized those submissions over my Krause Springs pictures and all I’ve done with that set is narrow 500+ pictures down to about 200 that were decent. 

Still with the phone pictures, but I miss my tree and my hammock.

Because this seems to be the thing I want to focus on/procrastinate editing my book with right now, I’ll indulge it for a little bit, if that I won’t have another big batch of pretty pictures to edit probably until October, so it won’t be a constant distraction.  My next goals are:

  • Further narrow that down to a reasonable amount of photos to take the time to run through the editor, hopefully 100 or less.
  • Upload those to facebook and do a (maybe a few) Krause Springs posts.
  • Pick the ones that are on the level of the first batch I submitted to each stock photo site (with the rejections in the second batch, I think I’ve found the edge).
  • Upload the best 10 to ONE of the sites and see if any get rejected.  If they all pass, upload them everywhere.
  • Pick the next best 10-15 if I think I have any more that are good quality.  Upload them to one site and see if any get rejected.  If they all pass, upload them everywhere and repeat the process as deep as I want to go into my stock.

If this takes me a month or two, so be it, but there’s the map and the plan.

The book editing process is going slowly, but one more session and I can probably call myself one-third of the way through the first rough pass.  That’s the benchmark I’ll focus on.  I’m hoping I can carve out some time this weekend or next but again, I’m not giving myself a set timetable for this stuff lest I get overwhelmed.

And in the spirit of not overwhelming myself, th-th-th-that’s all folks!

10 Things That Make Me Happy

Mrs. Fatass tagged me so I must oblige, and it should make for a nice, light, Friday post.   She tagged me last week but at the time I was in major back pain and nothing was making me happy.  So, in no particular order…

1.  Technology!  I love that I have a computer that sits on my lap on the couch.  My phone allows me to stay in constant communication if I chose to pay attention to it (which I often don’t but… whatevs).  My car works off a battery until it needs more power, and only then it uses gas.  When I watch TV in my living room, it might as well be a movie.

2.  Social Networking/Blogging/Internet Communication in general.  On twitter and facebook I can keep in touch VERY easily with everyone from former coworkers to my best friends from junior high school.  I’ve met some damn cool people blogging and reading blogs.  The internet in general makes the world just shrink down to nothing and puts like-minded people together.  How cool is that?

3.  Video Games.  I do believe I rekindled my affection for games this vacation.  I forgot the awesome thrill of solving a puzzle that Zliten and I had been working on over and over in Final Fantasy Crystal Defenders.  Or accidentally taking over the controller playing Brutal Legend and beating the game on the first try.  Or playing Peggle for hours.  I think I’m into slightly different games than I was a few years ago, but I need to remember to make time to play.  It is, after all, job research.

4.  Our house.  I’ve never felt so at home somewhere.  It is so us.  The kitchen is bright green and has a crayon green fairy drawing on the wall.  We have an awesome two-propellor huge silver fan that looks like it should be on an airship.  The workout room is bright orange and yellow and blue.  The light comes in the bedroom and wakes me up gently most mornings.  We have plenty of room – maybe too much, but we’re used to it now so there is no going back.  Some of my favorite days are just spent sitting outside enjoying my back patio.

5.  Austin.  I’ve loved both the places I’ve chosen to live as an adult (Reno being by default, I’m not counting it), but I think I feel more at home here in the ATX rather than San Diego.  The weather is pretty damn nice (this winter is pushing it though…), I can afford to live in a metropolitan area where I can walk to dinner and a movie, or the community pool, or the grocery store, or a place to go dancing, or clothes shopping…and the list can go on.  The amount of places I can hit on my bike?  Tenfold.

5.  My friends and family.  It’s really nice to have a group of friends locally that I hang out with on a weekly basis.  I need the reminders to just relax and have fun, and have fun we do!   And it’s nice to have my parents close enough to see on a regular basis.  Sometimes I forget I need people and it’s really super nice to never really have the chance to withdraw that often anymore.

6.  Running.  I love to have finally found something workout-wise that engages my competitive side and took me from fitness as a mechanism to lose weight to something I enjoy for it’s own sake.  Something I can do all by myself or with a big group.  Outside or inside.  Something that’s as easy as putting one foot in front of each other but can be as complicated and self-testing as I want it to be.  Something that I am incredibly proud that I can associate myself as (a runner).

7.  My own personal slice of fashion.  When I’ve got something on that makes me feel like I look damn good, I feel awesome all day.  Whether I was pushing 250 or 150, there is something to be said about clothing that makes you feel good wearing.  And I’m not talking about what you put on to putter around the house or sleep in.  I mean, the clothes you put on, look in the mirror, and want to make out with yourself.  A cute skirt, some tights, a sweater, and my new pirate boots, and I’m making eyes at myself all day in the mirror.  I’d do more fashion posts but…damn, I am lazy and forget to get pictures of myself when I look particularly nice.

8.  My Zliten – I seriously never though that it was possible to have such an awesome relationship and share such an amazing love with someone.  I seriously used to stay up at night and wish on the stars for someone like him.

9.  Writing.  Really digging in my head and finding the words to tell a story, or convey how I’m feeling.  People reading my writing is even cooler!

10.  I agree with Mrs. Fatass – me.  Even though I still have a lot to settle in my head, I am constantly amazed at things I can do.   I’ve come really far and accomplished a lot in many different aspects of my life, and I know it’s just getting started.  I used to think life was just going to go downhill at 30, and now, I know it’s so not the case.

Woohoo, there we go.  I am going to  just tag anyone reading this, because I love to learn new things about everyone!  If you do it, leave me a comment with a link to it.  Or, just leave a comment with one random thing about you, because that’s just about as fun, right?  Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

EDIT: Just realized I had 5 twice.  So I guess I have 11 things to be happy about!

EDIT 2: Also remember that I hit publish before finishing my sentences for 6/7.  It must be almost Friday! *blushes*

2009 Resolution Round Up

Now as I sit here on the last morning of 2009, I’m waxing philisophic about the year, but not quite as much as normal.  You see, it’s been a very thinky last few months.  I”ve mused on my job.  I’ve mused on my weight.  I”ve mused on my running, and come to a lot of conclusions early, so today was just really to put the proverbial pen to paper and commit to what I want to accomplish in the next year.  I feel like I”m forgetting things, but it’s not as if this is my only chance, right?  I mean there is always my annual “before 31 to do list” and mid-year check in, and all that crap.  Man, I make way too many lists.

Anyhoo, let’s get onto it.  I have a house to clean and then copious amounts of booze to drink.

Kekekekeke ^____^

Kekekekeke ^____^ 12-24-08

Last year’s resolutions:

1.  Body: Will continue to eat in a manner that is mostly healthy as I do now and improve when I can, continue improving my fitness, and work on reaching my goal weight, whatever that ends up being, in 2009.  While I’ll always work on improving my muscles and endurance, I’d like to get to the point where the scale is just a double check a few times a week that I’m not way off track, and food journals are a thing of the past, by the end of 2009.

Did I do it?  …sorta.  I’m more into measuring my progress by my running pace, and how my jeans fit now.  150-ish was not what I envisioned my goal weight, but it’s where my body wants to be.  So there.  I am no longer food tracking, and I’m only weighing about 1-2 times per week.  If you don’t count these two weeks of vacation, at least 80% of what I eat, I consider a healthy diet.  So I’m pretty happy.

2.  Fitness: I will do at least one new exercise-y thing a month.  This cannot include running, DDR, yoga, traditional weights, or Cybil the arc trainer.  By the end of the year, I would like to transition 1-2 days per week to something like dance classes or volleyball or some other competitive sport OR seriously start training distance running/triathalons.  By my 30th birthday, I need to pick ONE of these to focus on and concentrate on it (and make ancillary resolutions/goals based on what I pick).  I guess what I’m trying to say is to start working out for a reason that is not just to make the scale go down.

Did I do it?  …well, I didn’t do this exactly, but I definitely went into the year exercising solely for weight loss, and now I approach it as a sport.  If someone told me that running would never take another pound off me at the beginning of the year, I would have probably stopped.  Now, I could honestly say I would continue.  I think that’s what I was really going for here, and mission accomplished.  I also got a bike and rode it a bit, tried dance, zumba, roller skated, did some diving and swimming, and rediscovered my love for circuits.

3.  Soul: I will pick something creative and establish a plan by my birthday to complete a concrete goal by the end of the year.  Decide if I’m going to pursue writing (maybe actually giving a novel or book of some sort a go), songwriting/recording, pick up drawing/painting again, acting, or work on selling my necklaces.  Maybe take up web design and flesh out this site into a pretty one like I used to do and really give blogging a go beyond just using this for personal theraputic purposes.  Realize that I need to pick ONE of these and focus on it or I’ll feel as lost as I did in 2008.

Did I do it?  …eh.  I tried to do the etsy thing and never got off the ground.  I tried to write a novel and got about 30k words in and threw a tantrum.  This blog is still just my soapbox.  I drew a christmas card for Zliten, but that’s about it.  That’s ok.  I at least stuck my toe into the waters here, that’s at least half credit, right?

4.  Get married sometime this year!  That’s about all there is to say on this one…

…hey, 100% there.  Next!

5.  Allow work to be on the back burner one more year. Of course, be open and receptive to any wonderful opportunities that fall into my lap, but work on enriching my personal life and hobbies instead of focusing on promotions, raises, extra responsibility, etc. Realize that having a 40 hour per week stable job right now that I can pretty much just leave at the office when I walk out the door is a blessing that is giving me opportunities to further the work on my body, fitness, and soul.

…hey, 100% there as well.  Maybe even too much sometimes, tee hee.

All, in all, not bad. It was a rough year in some aspects – shakeups at work, a lot of uncertainty with Zliten’s unemployment stuff, extreme frustration with my lack of weight loss.  However, I still have a job at a company with an awesome, successful, and stable product.  I made huge strides in my running, completing a half marathon and improving my pace at both slow and fast distances all year.  Zliten got a job in the industry right when it was looking grim.  We still own our house and make mortgage and the “oh crap” fund is still there.  We’re making it.  2009 was not the best year ever, but it wasn’t so bad.

So what’s up for 2010?

Need more fiber, apparently.  12-24-09

Need more fiber, apparently. 12-24-09

1.  This is the most important and different one for me – for one year, I am going to not attempt to lose weight.  As long as I maintain under 155, I’m going to put any pressure on myself to take off weight.  I’m going to focus on my running, and continuing to eat healthy.  This break really put into perspective how healthy I usually eat – I’m not eating horribly at all, but I’ve been feeling blech from eating not homecooked food for most meals and the sweet crap around the house (popcorn, almond roca, truffles, etc etc).  Now, if I *do* take off weight somehow, I’m not going to be opposed to it, but the biggest present I’m giving to myself this year is the gift of stepping on the scale, and not wanting to be less than I am, for once in my life.

2.  Running – I want to do a half marathon in under 2 hours, and I want to run a full marathon (no pace goal, just run the whole thing… well, who am I kidding, I’ll have a pace goal by the time I finish training, but anyhoo…) this year.  After that, decide what’s next.  Martial arts?  Triathlons?  More marathons?  Ultras?  Also, I want to make sure to not forget stretching and yoga.  That’s when I start getting injured like I am now with hurty butt.

3.  I will dedicate 6 hours per week to writing, revising, reading other books, or outlining.  I want to finish what I started for NaNoWriMo, and then move on to another one.  It would be peachy keen if I could do some necklaces, I would love to start songwriting, but I think this is my year of writing.

4.  I’m not sure exactly what I want to say here, but I want to figure out what’s next career-wise.  I have spent the last few years keeping my head down and trying to stay out of the way so I can support the creatives, get my check, and go on my way.  That is SO not me.  I can’t continue to do that forever.  I might not have the ability to get what I want just yet, but I want to have a direction by the end of the year.

5.  Some one liners: Travel outside the country.  Be more spontaneous.  Continue to whittle down my smoking.  Try something new with my hair.  Continue to draw things out of the magic hat.  Host some game nights at the house.   Attempt to keep a cleaner house so it’s not embarrassing when someone comes over unannounced.  Do more industry events and get over my boredom with networking for networking sake.  Play more games.  Continue to live a life where I can have at least ONE memorable thing I do each month (2009 has many more than 1 per month, but that’s my absolute minimum requirement).

So there, it looks like I have a lot to do, so I best get crackin’.  How was your 2009?  What are you most looking forward to in 2010?  What is your biggest resolution or goal for the next year?

Happy New Years, and I’ll see ya on the other side…

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