So as a result of the post-holiday morass, I haven’t done other wrap-ups or much else. I had a week of good sleep and getting ready for work and then I woke up with the sniffles and was like “Oh THIS again” but it seems to be mostly at bay. Works going fine. I quit my job at the library. You can read about that decision over at librarian.net. I still feel pretty weird about it. I’m sort of at a point where if I make a big decision in my life, I’m likely to have a bunch of people being supportive (see librarian.net comments). This is lucky for me, I’m fortunate to have a large peer group of people who mostly like me, and yet it’s hard when I’m doing something that feels wrong. I wonder if they’d tell me if I was screwing it all up? Maybe I can’t screw it all up.
Unlike in the past where I’ve had a chart about swimming, last year I switched to a more maintenance approach to exercise. That is, I do it for mood balancing and if I feel I have been slacking in the fitness department, but not in the same auto-competitive way as years past. I also started running. I know, weird right? I had always assumed I couldn’t really run, both because of my mild asthma and also my “loose ankles” which means I was always spraining them. Some combination of years of swimming and better footwear seems to have mostly fixed this. I now trod along on the treadmill sometimes instead of swimming. I like this because I can listen to music and the time commitment is less and my pulse races higher. I can do a mile in 13:22. I am aiming for 12:00, for starters. Kelly’s been good at setting me up with some good habits and now I’m sort of motoring along on my own.
As a result of this, I had to buy sneakers. Since I’m paid something like adult-level wages now — and we got healthcare and assorted benefits with my job at MetaFilter this year — I figured I should invest in some decent clothes. So I now have a new winter vest, new sneakers, new “snow clogs” and a few sharp-looking pairs of second-hand pants. I agonize over spending money like this, but less than I worry about becoming some crazed Hetty Green type person, so sometimes I shop.
A few more things you should know:
– As a result of rejiggering my morning routine, I have now created a slot for brushing my teeth and do it every day. I’m dumbly proud of this, as well as embarassed that it took me this long to figure out how to do this.
– I have decided that if I’m going to eat soup every night [I love soup!] like some rooming house hotplate owner, I could at least make it myself. So there’s been some cooking going on. Man… soup!
– I’ve got a caretaker in Topsham who is paying (a little bit of) rent and that seems to be working nicely for both of us.
– The plan for this year is much less travelling-for-work. We’ll see how that goes. More to the point, I feel that there was some aspect of me that enjoyed scooting around and overprogramming myself because I was concerned about having downtime, maybe being bored? I have decided that I am never bored (even in the absence of the internet) and have set out to prove that with more opportunities for doing what my Dad calls “the nothing” We shall see.
Hetty Green fascinated me as a child, and is one of my mother’s favorite local historical figures. When I was little, we would drive out to Col. Green’s place and drive around, and I would stare at the (now, very sadly gone) radio dish and wonder if aliens were talking to it. I hope they were.
Another thing we have in common – loose ankles. The bane of my athletic existence. I have finally found a good brace that I wear to volleyball, should you decide you want/need one.
AND I just spent an ungodly amount of money on a new, very snazzy pair of boots. I almost took them back I felt so guilty, but instead have worn them every single day, thereby easing the guilt.
Soup rocks!
Here’s to a happy 2010!
Yay for running! I consulted my doctor after taking a number of tumbles while running, and was told I have loose ankles and could just wrap them. Haven’t fallen down since. Now I just have stretchy supports to pull over them. Seem to work great. Maybe we can run next week too :)
WRT the soup, I highly recommend spending some money (!) on a hand blender. This enables you to have creamy smooth velouté style soups without the inherent dangers of pouring hot liquids into a blender. I’m not usually one for kitchen gadgets but the hand blender is really useful for lots of things beyond soup (salad dressing, crushed ice drinks, pureed vegetables, etc.)
I am so proud of you! It’s fun to have a new running partner, too.