IRL/WIAW

Very early yesterday morning I wrote a post about the nine things I feel make up an ideal day for me in terms of making me feel my best, inside and out.  "I can totally do this today," I thought.  I'd even managed to drag myself out of bed not *much* later than I'd wanted.  Because the day's virtual summer retreat topic was about eating healthfully and mindfully, I was going to do a What I ate Wednesday post today, and you were going to see how healthful and mindful I could be.  By lunch time it was all out the window.

So I decided to just honestly recount my day yesterday- the good, the bad, the usual and the unusual.  Some may find this boring, but I actually kind of like reading about the mundane parts of other people's lives so here goes.

My Day 6/1/2011:

4:20am - Push snooze button without actually gaining consciousness
4:30am - Push snooze button and think, "Not yet."
4:40am - Drag self out of bed.  Start coffee maker.  Put in contacts, etc.
4:50am - Drink coffee, do e-mail, write blog post.

    
6:00am - Frantically finish blog post.  Get stuff together to leave for the gym/work.
6:10am - Ride bike to gym.
6:25am - Lift weights
7:20am - Shower at gym
7:22am - Dress.  Realize that- because I'm not at my normal gym (it's closed in the am when classes are out)- I don't have a hair brush.  Try to comb hair with hands.
7:30am - Ride bike to work
7:45am - Starving, inhale oatmeal + PB + applesauce + protein powder concoction while doing work e-mail

Yes, I stir it.

8:00am - Realize project that I need to finish STAT is going to take longer than I thought.  Go get Diet Mt. Dew from fridge.  Frantically work on project.
11:30am - Finish project.  Talk to boss about project.  Have nice conversation with boss about the weather.
11:45am - Report results of project to coworkers.  Everyone is happy.  Breathe sigh of relief.
12:15pm - Go eat lunch with coworkers at Pasqual's at Hilldale.  Do not take picture of veggie quesadilla (no olives, please) or two liters of Diet Coke I drank because I don't want to have to explain why I was doing it, and because I was so hungry I couldn't get it into my stomach fast enough.  Enjoy relaxing lunch catching up with everyone.
1:30pm - Back to work.  Finish putting together a dataset for a collaborator.  Feel guilty because I still haven't finished a dataset for someone who works with that collaborator who made the request months(!) ago.  I just need one more variable!
3:00pm - Start on analyses for presentation boss will give next Wednesday.
4:30pm - Feel brain dead.  Decide I will go home soon because I have errands to run in the evening and need to do laundry.  Wrap things up at work.  Figure leaving 15 min early is okay because I was at work from 8:00-5:15 yesterday with only 15 minute lunch break.
4:45pm - Ride bike home.
5:00pm - Get mail, start laundry.  Flip through catalog.  Lay on couch.  Drink Diet Sunkist.
5:20pm - Play piano.
5:30pm - Daniel comes home.  Talk about day.  Discuss plans for necessary errands.
5:50pm - Flip laundry.  Leave home.
6:00pm - Pick up 1st CSA box.  Discover there is rhubarb in box.  Discuss possibilities for pie.

    
6:15pm - Go to target.  Spend forever picking up pie ingredients, cereal (it's too hot for oatmeal anymore), and soda for co-worker's retirement potluck Friday.
6:45pm - Decide I am too hungry to make dinner when I get home.  Stop at Panera and order turkey artichoke panini and salad.  Snap picture while Daniel is in the bathroom.  Save apple for later.  Devour remainder.

 
7:30pm - Arrive at home.  Get laundry.  Fold laundry.  Put away Target stuff.  Research strawberry rhubarb pie options.
7:45pm - Chop strawberries to help Daniel make pie.  Refuse to taste rhubarb because I'm still full from dinner and hate tasting things.  Assemble pie.

8:30pm - Brush teeth.  Remember I wanted to show Daniel something on the internet.  Grouch at Daniel because I'd told him at dinner I wanted to show him something funny on the internet and if he was going to look at cats all night I would just have to show him tomorrow because I was tired.
8:31pm - Look at cute picture of baby sloth.  Mood improves slightly.

8:45pm - Get ready for bed.  Lay down and start reading article in The Atlantic.  Decide baking pie smells really good but don't want to stay up for pie to finish cooking, cool, etc. so get up and eat a couple Trader Joe's dark chocolate PB cups.
8:50pm - Brush teeth again.  Lay down and read.  Curse downstairs neighbors who keep opening their squeaky screen door and slamming their regular door.
9:30pm - Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The bad (because it's always more obvious, isn't it?):

• Too much soda (yeesh!).  That's abnormal for a day.  Usually I have one, maybe two cans.
• Too much food.  How can I still be so hungry when I work out so much less than I used to?
• Not enough preparing my own food.  Only used delightful organic CSA vegetables to make pie.  Two fast food meals in one day = bad if not on vacation.
• Too much snooze button in am. 
• Stayed up too late in pm (which meant I didn't get up until 4:50 this am)
• Too lazy after work so I didn't get in time on the piano before Daniel got home.
• Didn't spend any time in devotion or prayer so I was more grouchy than usual when I was hungry and/or tired.
• Did not brush hair- other than with hands - all day.

The good:

• Did a blog post.
• Completed a project ASAP to everyone's satisfaction.
• Did not grouch at co-workers while stressed (I think).
• Had nice lunch with co-workers.  We do not go out very often.
• Kept focused during the afternoon when I actually wanted to Zzzzzzzzzz.
• Got errands and laundry completed.  Finally invited neighbor out to dinner (forgot to mention that one above!).  
• Helped make first rhubarb pie.

Arhg!  Now I'm running late again.  And I'm hungry, but I have to run and shower before I can eat breakfast (but good news, I have cereal now).  

And that's me.  In Real Life.

What works

I'm participating in Sarah's summer virtual retreat (If you're not, think about it), and the theme of this week is inside/out - what practices/habits can you cultivate to feel your best.  Having come back from vacation and then spent a busy day at work yesterday, I was thinking about the best of both worlds.  Vacation is a combination of novel and relaxing.  I usually get more sleep than usual, but I tend to eat a lot more and exercise a lot less.  Work is not alway so exciting and there are nights when I stay up waaaayyy too late for my early wake up, but I tend to eat healthier, be more active, and keep up with other activities I enjoy like playing the piano.  So if I could merge all the best of vacation with all the best of regular life, what would I end up with?  Here are the 9 things I consider essential components of an ideal day in the life of Chelsea.

1. Daily exercise - I get very crabby, very quickly when I sit around all day.  I'm like that pet that you thought you could leave in its cage while you were at work.  When you come home, I will chew your shoes, destroy two houseplants, and then use my tiny claws to cling to your head until you let me out for a walk.  As a side note, I've found that not just running but switching things up and doing yoga and lifting weights several times a week makes me look and feel my best.

2. Daily devotion - While I don't feel physically uncomfortable if I don't spend time praying and reading God's word, I feel... disconnected.  Starting my day with gratitude, learning from individuals who show good (and bad!) character through adversity and having an outlet to share my worries helps me focus on what is truly important in life.

3. Daily fruit and vegetables - To me a meal is not complete unless it contains at least one serving of produce.

Sorry, Ragu, you do not count.

 4. Daily music - Yes, 7 million Chinese 5-year-olds are better than me at the piano, but only 3 million are better than me at the first 20 measures of "I heard it Through the Grapevine".  Whether it's an hour or simply 10 minutes before I have to run out the door, I'm happier when I make music part of my day.

5. Daily desert - But not as much as what is still hiding in a sack under your kid's bed leftover from Easter (and last Halloween if you're lucky).

And not for breakfast.  Ummm, can I trade the candy
corn for some strawberry jam?

6. Daily novelty - Sometimes my life is busy and exciting.  Sometimes I feel like day after day is the same and I have nothing at all interesting to say.  Even if all I do is go to the sensory deprivation gym and sit at my desk at work and make Excel tables all day, I want to keep my eyes open for something new/interesting/novel.  It's that or use drugs.

7. Daily caffeine - This is where the drugs come in.  Now stop giving me a condescending look and pass me a Diet Mt. Dew.

I love you, too.

8. Daily (enough) sleep - On vacation, I could easily do 8-9 hours.  I think if I could sleep as much as I wanted every night, my body would naturally fluctuate between 7 and 9 hours.  In real life, I think never going below 6 and sticking some 9s in on the weekend to balance things out is pretty good.

9. Daily unstructured family time - I'm the kind of person who likes to schedule everything, but it never feels right to interrupt a good conversation (or Futurama episode) because it's "time" to read 1.5 pages of April's The Atlantic before I zonk out for the night.  I feel better when I get everything done before the evening so I can just relax and enjoy Daniel's company without feeling like I "should" be getting other things done.

So how about you?  Are you participating in the virtual retreat?  What do you consider essential components to your life?  

I'm about to go work on number 1 right now.

PS - Good news!  The fan is staying.
 

What's up

This is another quick one.  I need to digest just enough so I can head out the door and beat the weather.  It's supposed to rain ALL DAY starting at 8am.  I want to at least get 1/2 way through my run before that happens. I'm hoping for 12 miles, but 10 would be okay, too.

Good luck to Linda from Mom Running From Cancer who is running her first race- The Madison Race for the Cure- since her comeback from a stress fracture!

What's up in EarlyRunner Land?

• I started piano lessons again with a new teacher, who I think I'm really going to like.  We're working on scales, The Joy of First Classics, and some music theory.  My goal for this fall is to learn to play Christmas Music.  
• We went to a new restaurant called Cooper's Tavern, which was recommended by a coworker.  The food was tasty, and we enjoyed walking up and down State St. afterward.  Downtown is so nice when there are no undergrads around ;).
• Since it's going to rain, I'm planning on cooking up a storm this weekend a la Eat, Drink and Be Vegan.  I'm conquering one of my cooking fears- phyllo dough- and making spinach and white bean phyllo roll-ups.          

Well, I guess I better run- literally and figuratively.  Don't want to get (too) soaked.  Have a great Saturday, all.

New Year's Resolutions 3 Months In

We've just finished the first 1/4 of 2010 (!!!!) so it's time for a resolution check in.  In a way it seems kind of silly to think about new year's resolutions after the second week of January, but because I'm semi-interested in actually keeping them, I'm doing another check in.

1. Put away everything after I use it- Hmmmm... I'd say I'm getting a C+ in this one.  For the most part I get dishes washed after I use them and I'm not leaving my clothes in a pile on the dresser.  But sometimes I do.  And that sometimes is becoming more frequent.  I need to get on this one.

2. Focus at work - Wow, this one definitely has peaks and valleys.  Some days I'm totally on.  Some days I'm a distracted child.  Playing music seems to help when I'm doing tedious stuff, but I still have the bad habit of checking "just one blog in Google Reader" while I'm waiting for a long program to run.

3. Get out of my comfort zone when it comes to exercise and eating healthy - This one deserves at least a B+.  After years of thinking I had to do cardio 6+ days a week, I've cut back to 5, and so far it's been a great decision.  Two strength training sessions a week allow me to 1. Recover from a though workout, 2. Prevent injury, and 3. Tone up a bit.  So why have I resisted doing this for so long?

4. Have more fun with more people  - I'm still an introvert, but we did have our first dinner party, and I really enjoyed it.  The next few weekends are going to be busy, but I definitely want to do more dinner parties and social stuff in general.

5. Take more pictures - Maybe, because anything greater than 0 would be an improvement.  I still don't know why I'm resistant to it.

6. Keep in touch - Boo.  Another fail.  I'm good at calling my parents once a week, but there are a few of you out (I don't think any of whom read my blog) there that I'm soooo lazy about calling.  I miss you!  I'm sorry I'm a lame friend/family member.

7. Music - Yes!!!  Piano is going well (except that I haven't practiced much this week due to feeling yucky every evening).  I really enjoy playing an instrument again.

8. Waste less time - Hmmmm... I think this has been pretty good.  I'm trying to do yoga and piano every day after work rather than... say... watch Say Yes to the Dress, but sometimes (like this past week) I just collapse on the couch in a puddle.  Oh well.

9. Read real books - I think I've also been pretty good about this one.  I read Soul Searching, which is an academic book about the sociology of teenage religion in America.   And Breakfast at Tiffany's, which is (I guess) a classic.  And I'm in Leviticus in my chapter a day Bible reading (and what's more serious than regulations on mildew?).  In fact I don't think I've read anything without any redeeming value in awhile.  So hopefully I'll get my library request for U is for Undertow soon.      

10. Do a better job on the blog - I think so.  At least this one is a work in progress.  I've changed up the layout a bit and am trying to post every day and add more color and pictures (which this post is completely lacking).

All in all, I think I deserve a C+ or B on resolution keeping, which is pretty good considering I'd actually forgotten what some of my resolutions were!

Did you make any resolutions this year?  Do you still remember what they were?  Have you kept up with them?    

Pretending that I can't read

that, like Jessica said, we are forecast for snow on Saturday. I just can't get over how beautiful it has been here the past few days. I guess the good thing about living through a long cold winter is that you really really appreciate the warm days (and believe me, I know the same goes for cool days after a long summer).

Lacey asked yesterday how piano lessons were going. The answer is, very good. I'm surprised at how well I've gotten into the habit (well, it's not quite a habit yet, but I've been good about it) of practicing an instrument again. I really like my teacher because he's been focusing on playing technique, which is something that you really can't get from one of those "teach yourself piano" books. We've also done some extra focus on bass clef (because I played the oboe forever I'm pretty good at trebble clef), and I think I'm improving. At least I'm not accidentally reading the notes as if they were on the trebble clef anymore.

Work is good but kind of slow. Not slow in a "nothing to do" sense but in a "this project is hard/tedious and it takes forever to get anything done" sense. I think the big boss is gone the rest of the week and for part of next week so it's going to be very quiet. It's good in some ways but kind of boring, too.

I'm planning 6mi this morning. Still running easy to recover from the race, but I'm actually feeling pretty recovered at this point. No good dinner pictures today. I met D for a quick dinner at Cosi before his exam.

Have a great Thursday, all.

Oatmeal Crack

It's so nice to feel rested and refreshed on Sunday morning. Other than fixing my mittens (which got big holes in the thumbs- what?), practicing piano and running 6mi, I did nothing of consequence yesterday. I watched some Olympics, finished 1/8 of an afghan, had a nice dinner out with D at Tex Tubbs, and finished the evening off with a scoop of ice cream from The Chocolate Shoppe.

This morning we're going to 9:00am church then back home for brunch because we are DONE with 10:45 meetings (yay!). Before I went to bed last night I put together overnight crockpot oatmeal (recipe courtesy of J+A), which D has seen referred to on the internet as oatmeal crack because it's really good. The rest of the day will involve fridge cleaning, afghan making, Olympics watching, piano practicing, baked ziti making (?), yoga posing, and youth group.

Hope you all have a great Sunday!

Better

Thanks for all the "get well" wishes yesterday. I'm definitely feeling better today. Maybe not 100%, but good enough to resume all normal activities. I'm up early and am planning to go to spinning this morning, then work, piano lesson, finish laundry, leftover beef stew for dinner, and a grocery shopping trip.

The work potluck was good yesterday, mostly because I'm down to one serving of chili that I'm taking for lunch today. Yay for coworkers who willingly eat leftovers.

That's pretty much all I've got. Anyone else think all winter Olympic sports can be divided into two categories a)Really dangerous (ski jump/luge/moguls) b)Really strange (curling)?

Field Trip

As you may or may not know, I work as a statistician for a group that does two big population studies on eye disease. We are in an exam phase for one of the studies, and today a coworker and I are driving up to see some exams and have retinal photographs taken. Sound be pretty neat- I'll have an opportunity to see a picture of the back of my eye- and it'll be nice to get out of the office and do something different for a day.

Anti-Valentines Day spinning was maybe less angst-y than it could have been, but there was definitely an Alanis Morissette track. Still a good workout as always. Today will be 6 or 7 miles on the treadmill.

I got home late-ish last night because of piano lessons, and we decided to grab a quick dinner out while we ran errands so no southwest mac n cheese. I'll either make that or chicken tikka masala tonight depending on how fast I want dinner done when I get back from the study site visit.

Otherwise I'm looking forward to the weekend. Between the church dance on Friday and seeing the Peking Acrobats on Sunday afternoon, it should be pretty fun. Have a great Thursday, all.

Always moving, never going anywhere

That's the story of my workouts for almost a month now! The last time I ran outside was when I was visiting my parents in FL from Jan 8-12- unless you count numerous sprints for the bus. This morning will be cycling in place, which I actually prefer to cycling on a road because there is music and no cars. Today's theme is supposed to be "anti-Valentines Day". Should be entertaining. The guy who teaches the Wednesday class always has a good music selection.

Yesterday's long run was not as peppy as last week's, but I stuck with it and got it done. Again, I really like doing my long run early in the week. It doesn't seem like it takes up much more time than a regular run on a Tuesday, but doing my long run on Saturday- maybe because I'm already getting up later- seems to eat up the whole morning. Plus I think it helps with the "I did a long run so I deserve to eat a bunch of junk food" urges I sometimes get because- yes, I eat more on my long run day- but it's more likely to be real food than a sundae.

Work and the conference call were less stressful than I'd imagined. I still have a "pressing" project I feel like will never end, but I'm fairly confident I'll have it finished this morning so I can move onto the 1000 other requests I've been ignoring to finish this. Oh! the other exciting thing is that I got to see a copy of my first journal article that will be published. All that stuff is proprietary so I can't share it on the blog (because I know you are dying to read about blood pressure and retinal vessel measurement), but it's definitely exciting for me.

Otherwise I have my third piano lesson tonight, and I'm planning to make Southwestern Mac n Cheese from An Edible Mosaic, which I saw first on Saran's blog. I have a feeling this will be a huge hit.

Stay warm out there all- and stay safe if you are in the Mid Atlantic bracing for Snowmageddon 10 or whatever number blizzard you are on for this year. Have a great Wednesday, all.

Refreshed

Yep, that's what 2.5 hours of couch time on Saturday afternoon will do for you. I hate to "waste" my Saturday afternoon sleeping or reading, but I always find that if I give in and chill out for a little bit, I feel sooooo much better. In fact I felt so much better I cleaned up all the kitchen cabinets and wiped down all the easy to miss surfaces like the top of the fridge. And I'm ready to go and in a much better mood today.

Today we have church, our last membership class (yay!) and the youth Super Bowl party. I'm also planning on getting in some yoga, piano practice, dusting, vacuuming, and going through my sewing/craft stuff. And I don't feel any resentment toward that list. YAY for rest.

Otherwise not much is going on. No run today. I feel energetic enough to do one, but I'm not sure my body is ready to handle 5 days in a row with my increased mileage. Plus my run yesterday, even though it was slow, felt unusually hard. I just need to throw myself into yoga and cleaning, and I won't feel so lumpy.

Hope you all have a great Sunday!

I need something to warm my heart

Because it is 6 degrees air temperature (-8 with windchill) right now. And in 25 minutes I get to stand out and wait for the bus. I got spoiled by the balmy spell in the 30's over the weekend, but this is a helpful reminder that we still have a lot of winter left to go.

And that something to warm my heart is that it has been confirmed that we have spinning! today. YAY! I do the spinning workout with the triathlon club so it's always HARD. And it will be especially hard today because I haven't done it in probably 6 weeks. One thing you can say about Wisconsin is that they/we are experts at making outside activities fun inside. My run went well yesterday. I did 6.75 mi with 20 min of faster running at the end. I'm always scared to move the treadmill up into the 7s, but lately I've been pleasantly surprised that "scary" paces aren't actually that bad after all. Hopefully this will translate to faster running outside when that day finally comes.

Last night's dinner at Inka Heritage was really really good. I had ceviche for my appetizer, a lasagna dish with yellow pepper sauce for the entree, and a churro with chocolate sauce and lucuma ice cream. Lucuma, which I had never heard of before, has a maple/nut flavor and was maybe the highlight of the meal. Unfortunately it only grows in subtropical climates so there goes my idea to add a tree to the garden this summer. So good. So looking forward to our other restaurant week dinner on Friday. So worth blowing 2 months worth of dining out budget on two meals, haha.

Work is kind of stressful right now, although I'm trying not to let it get to me. I have two big projects that have to be finished by Monday (and Friday would be better), and little things keep getting dropped in my lap. Plus I'm having problems with an Excel file that gets corrupted every time I try to open it with SAS. Fun stuff. But I'm making a deal with myself that I'll get as much done as I can during normal hours today and tomorrow, and if I have to stay late to finish tomorrow evening, I'll do it.

I can't stay late today because it's my first piano lesson! So excited about that. I played the oboe for about 10 years (6th grade - senior in college) and I miss playing music. The problem is that I'm in a weird place for learning to play. I'm great at all the "right hand" stuff and can read treble clef really well, but I can't read bass clef at all (actually I usually start reading it as treble clef, which obviously sounds horrible). So I'm hoping some lessons will help me figure out what to do to balance things out and give me some inspiration to practice.