Blogountability (Blog Accountability)

I've got approximately 5 months to read all the classics I said I was going to read this year and to make my yoga passs a financially tenable purchase.

If that means forgoing a second shameful tour of Twilight, never knowing how Ron and Hermione finally get together, and driving to the Healing Tree in Quincy 4-5 times a week for the rest of 2010, so be it.

This Memorial Day Holiday, I propose 9 yoga classes and 9 hours of Wuthering Heights.

Arbitrary personal ambitions, I am your slave!

UPDATE: I completed, from Friday to Monday, 2 yoga classes, one pilates class, and 3 chapters of WH.

An interview with S

1) What do you like most about cats?

- Their eternal wisdom.

2) If you could receive 3 FedEx packages on a deserted island, what would they contain?

- Candy (lots)

- A cat plushie

- A fermentation chamber (for proteins and sugars)

3) What would your "theme song" be?

- The Rocko's Modern Life Theme

4) Which lady of history do you most admire and why?

- Probably Roma. If the creation story is true, she put her foot down, and it turned out to be a great decision (The story goes that the ancient Romans had traveled by sea to many places before setting upon Rome. However, the men of the tribe wanted to sail for new lands, but Roma had had enough, thus Rome was born) ((The other creation story, being that of the brothers Remus and Romulus)).

5) How do you hope to be spending your time in 10 years?

- With a cat. Hang on. Obviously with you too. But at this exact time in ten years, I will be spending time with the cat.

6) In 50 years?

- Happy and fat. Also, with a cat.

It Made My Day...

...To get to template this into my boss' presentation today.

The end of the year is a nice feeling.

Traffic

After much excited, scary thought and consideration, S has decided to take a job!

It's a "scientist" job, that would be his actual title, and he'll be working a lot purifying protein for a variety of different products that his life-sciences-based company manufactures. It's very exciting, and also a job that will require a nearly hour long commute from our lovely south shore home that we've both deemed too economical and pretty an area to relocate from.
So this brings me to the topic of traffic. How long is too long of a commute? My commutes 15 miles from my home to work have ranged, given the interstate I'm forced to travel on, from 17-100 or so minutes one-way. On a typical day, it's a 35-45 minute drive.

Normally, the commutes are kind of fun. I mean, I get "me" time, I love to drive, and here defensive driving is somewhat like a sport. There's always music available or interesting stories on NPR that I just don't have the energy to keep up with after returning home from a long day at work.

But the cons of are kind of obvious too. The potential for car accidents amongst some of the barely functional drivers out there at 8am, the twice weekly trips to the gas station, and the ability of construction, bumper-to-bumper traffic, and boredom to turn one's best self away in lieu of a road-rager always loom.

So we'll see how traffic plays out in this new step in the lives of S & D. What would the ideal commute look like to you? (Today, I am luxuriating in a 10-second transition from my bed to my living room. Working from home once a week makes those highways travel days even more bearable!)

Re-blog

I decided it was time to start re-blogging. I'll be loading up some pictures from the past months, and maybe jotting down some thoughts about experiences that took place then too. I've missed blogging, but it's always a bit of a struggle to distill snapshots of thoughts and moments onto this site, like a theme to a life that is mostly work, eat, sleep, grow. I guess the grow part is something fun to focus on.

These past few months - eating: Has been fun! After the kidney surgery, I didn't have appetite much. Being a classic perpetual snacker, this felt so sad to me! There I was, especially right after surgery, being literal catered to, and my tummy was like, "nuh-uh," and I could only manage about a meal a day. Once I got my hungry back, it's been all about saying money and eating in, or celebrating and eating out. At home, I eat tons of eggs, and have, as of this last shopping trip, become especially partial to cold, raw tofu with bbq sauce. It sounds disgusting, but it's like eating leftover KFC, I swear. I was sharp enough to buy nearly a year's supply of instant coffee with my Christmas money at the beginning of this year, so this allows me to make Starbuck's or Dunkin' Donuts a once-weekly treat, and for the work coffee machine to be my friend during the week. Otherwise, I could easily be whittling my savings away from caffeine. I know there is going to come a day when I want to quit caffeine, and I am trying to figure out when I will be ready for that. New Year's doesn't seem right - It's too cold and coffee is too warm and fuzzy. For now, it is delicious and I'm trying to stay moderate.

The past few months - sleeping: At first, it was hard to wake up even more so than normal. I have had the luxury of choosing me own work hours (the boss man knows I'll work overtime this way), and so I generally, as I was recovering, got to sleep into 9 or 10, and would stay at work until 6, 7, or 8. Nowadays, I vary my start times/i.e. - my mandatory wake up times, trying to get in one or two days of early work, which allows me to actually get stuff done like writing or program development done at the office, and one or two days of coming in a bit later, when H gets into the office from NH, so I can meet with others more at these times. Ideally, I'd like to set a normal working schedule for myself to start at 8:30 or so, but knowing that somedays I'll be workinh 10+ hours like this, I give myself the freedom to call it on a week-by-week basis. One the weekends, I'm still sleeping in, but trying to change that. In order to think of my life is just as full outside of work as inside work, this is the only option. To live more on the weekends for me and S and fun.

The past few months - growing: I've been first dealing with my body re-learning itself a bit, figuring out what not to do work out wise, and when it's okay to push myself. I've been reading more fiction than in awhile, and it's been inspiring just to dive into an imaginary world and think through my own relationship to creativity in this way too. I've been trying to balance work and S, really, trying to never get home too late, to work as much as more as I'm cooked for, to do my part with other chores and to plan fun activities during our free time. We've been going to the library a lot too. He likes modern war history, and I like religious history, and we both like nature documentaries, so we've been watching a lot of videos on WW2, old testament archeology, and seas creatures. I keep exploring my faith from the inside out and from the outside in. I'm going to try a new church this weekend, and I am scared it won't be a good fit, but that's why it's a "TRY." It's all exciting stuff.

I can't wait for it to be summer. Like colleges and schools, since my organization works so much with schools, we are nearing the end of our spring "semester" and will be able to focus more on brainstorming for the next year and less on the day-to-day at work. I am so ready to be innovative instead of reactive to everything happening at work. I am hoping this will de-stress us all a little too. We are all really committed people, and we are such a small organization, our lightened load this summer should really help us relax.

So that's my first re-blog of the year! I'll be pictorially editing some in the near future. Hope everyone has a nice weekend ahead of them to enjoy!!