Chase’s birthday cake:
Nailed it!
Month: May 2013
Small World
After a tiny nervous breakdown, I spent the majority of my day yesterday laying in bed reading, sleeping, and surfing the internet while Chase took care of the children. The part where I got to ignore the kids for hours on end? Heaven. For Chase? Not so much.
So, I took the girls to the park in the evening to give my saviour of a baby-daddy a well-deserved break. As soon as we got to the playground, a little boy approached Butterbean and they played together for over an hour, following each other to different play structures and different parts of the park. It was super cute. The boy was a little older than the Bean and he was trying to teach her to do a bunch of stuff – mostly how to climb the equipment.
Naturally, because the kids were playing together, me and the boy’s dad got to chatting a bit. Parenthood small talk mostly, but he was really nice and, rather than being super awkward like, say, the interaction I had last week with a dad in a business suit who made me feel poor and uneducated (I mean, I AM poor and uneducated, but still), it was a pleasant conversation.
The dad gave his son the five-minute warning (you know, “you have 5 minutes and then it’s home time”), and in an effort to fill the 5 minutes of silence ahead of me, I asked the ultimate small-talk question, “Are you from the Toronto area?” You probably know where this is going; he told me he’s actually from my small town (okay, two small towns over, but it’s basically the same thing). He went to high school – and college, in some cases – with a shit-ton of my childhood friends, including my sister. He was in a band with a kid I had a crush on when I was in kindergarten. It was really surreal.
I left thinking our meeting was supposed to happen. Maybe not in a “we’re destined to be lifelong friends” kind of way, but in a “this cheered me up when I was having a crappy day” kind of way. I love that “it’s a small world” feeling. What are the chances I’d randomly decide to go to the park – at bedtime, no less – only to have my kid hit it off with someone I share 3 Facebook friends* with? It was weird.
* Umm… yeah. I was totally a Creepy McCreeperson. Sorry, dude.
Cookies
I think about this video all the time (like, literally, all the time):
I know exactly what Meghann means when she says everything used to be so hard. I AM that girl going for bike rides (or walks, in our case) with her husband and thinking “let’s get this over with.” It is difficult for me to get motivated to do anything. Simple tasks and requests make me irritable and angry. When I saw this video almost a year ago, I thought “Aha! She just described me!”
I wish there was a pill I could take to make me instantly happy and grateful and energetic. It would be nice for life to be effortless.
I’d see a psychiatrist if I thought there was something legitimately wrong with me. I can’t shake this feeling that it’s my fault. My constant self-betterment projects are basically me trying to find my way out of this hole. If my house was cleaner, if my diet was better, if I slept more, if I had the willpower to do all of the little things I need to do to clean, eat healthy, step away from my computer, etc., THEN maybe I can be happy and motivated.
Most likely, my problem is that I’m spoiled and immature, with a very limited interest set. They say being an adult means doing all the things you don’t want to do; it just happens I don’t want to do anything.
Dennis Leary says “Happiness comes in small doses, folks. It’s a cigarette butt, or a chocolate chip cookie or a five second orgasm. You come, you smoke the butt, you eat the cookie, you go to sleep, wake up and go back to fucking work the next morning, THAT’S IT! End of fucking list!”
Maybe I need to relish the cookies more.
Couch to 5K (C25K) – Weeks 7 & 8 and Overall Review
I finished it! I can’t believe I finished it!! C25K is my BITCH!
Weeks 7 and 8 (consisting of runs ranging from 25 to 30 minutes long) were, not surprisingly, the hardest yet. I hadn’t cheated on a single workout (unless you consider running at a snail’s pace “cheating”), until Week 8 Day 1. I woke up in a bad mood and unbeknownst to me, my app was set to silent. I didn’t realize I hit the half-way point (when I usually head back to my house) until I had blown past it, and I just said “Eff it. I’m going to walk for a little while.”
FYI – 28 minutes is a long damn time to run. I haven’t cheated since the Week 8 Day 1 fiasco, but man, I wanted to.
Soooo here’s the thing. Even though I TECHNICALLY completed the program, I am basing that completion on time (30 minutes straight running), not distance. I actually downloaded an app (Map My Walk – I didn’t think I travelled fast enough to warrant the Map My Run app) to track my kilometres and I only travelled 3.6km this morning. I am happy with that number, but I still have a ways to go before I hit 5K.
My goal now is to slowly increase my distance until I reach 5km, and from there, work on my speed.
Overall Impression of Couch to 5K
I loved this program. It was challenging, but not so hard I wanted to quit. Sometimes I thought the workouts ramped up a little too quickly, but there was never a run I couldn’t handle (not including Week 8 Day 1, but I blame my crappy attitude). I highly recommend it.
Overall Impression of the Zen Labs C25K App
I thought the app was pretty good. It wasn’t anything special, but it didn’t need to be. It told me when to start my warm up, when to start running, when I was half-way, when I had 1 minute left to run, and when to begin my cool down. AND it let me listen to music (and YouTube and audiobooks and Map My Walk) at the same time. That’s all I needed.
Time it Took Me to Complete C25K
It took me almost exactly 8 weeks to complete C25K. I started on Tuesday, April 2nd and ended on Sunday, May 26. I’m a total slacker, so it was a surprise to finish on time.
Body Changes
I did not lose a single pound. In fact, I gained 5* and let me tell you, it ain’t muscle. I THINK my calves are a little more toned, but not noticeably so. Again, I am the slowest runner on earth, so I might have had different results if I exerted a little more energy.
* I am not saying C25K made me gain weight. I am pretty sure my cutting back on nursing the Spout did that.
Questions?
Leave a comment below. I’d be happy to answer any questions you have.
Goldy and Goldie
It turns out, all my worrying was for nought; Ohmy, my daughter’s fish, passed away Thursday night, and Butterbean barely paused to mourn his death. A few days ago, Chase told her she could get a new fish to replace him and the first thing she asked after he died was “Can I get an orange one now?” My little sociopath…
Meet the newest members of our family:
Butterbean bought them with her own money, and named them Goldy and Goldie. Her favourite is the solid orange one (Goldy).
On Becoming a Better Shopper
I am a terrible shopper; I don’t even know why I bother. I deliberate over every purchase – picking up and putting down items several times, before ultimately deciding not to buy them. Even when I have a concrete plan to get something – a specific purchase I’ve justified in my mind for DAYS – 9 times out of 10, I walk out of the store empty-handed.
I just can’t justify buying STUFF. Food, definitely. I’ll eat out with friends, buy Starbucks every day, but when it comes to STUFF, I can’t bring myself to do it.
I am not entirely sure why I’m like this – poverty, probably, plays a large factor, but it’s not like I’m saving up my money or anything. I don’t feel like I’m particularly cheap – I practically bleed cash. I was raised by a certifiable shopaholic who actually makes me feel bad about not spending money on myself. Still, I feel guilty shelling out cash for tangible objects.
I DESPERATELY need new clothes, but I don’t want to shop for them (the only thing worse than clothes shopping is shoe shopping). In addition to being cheap (I refuse to spend more than $20 an item, which limits my search when it comes to certain pieces), I am terribly picky and it makes going to the mall a chore. I hate it. Virtually everything I wear is a hand-me-down from my sister, or my friends, or well-meaning co-workers who take pity on me. I have nursing bras from my sister-in-law AND a friend of mine. I DON’T EVEN BUY MY OWN UNDERWEAR. It’s real bad, guys.
Other things I am terrible at buying: accessories (see my spiel about clothes above, but multiply it by 100 because they are, in my warped opinion, a frivolous purchase), make-up, perfume, items for my home (paint, art, furniture, etc.), and gifts for other people (I don’t mind spending money on my friends and family – it’s the one spending area, besides edible goods, I don’t feel bad about – but I analyze every purchase until it paralyzes me). Umm… basically everything except groceries and restaurant food.
It would be nice to see where my money is going, to have something I can hold or touch and say “this is the fruit of my labour” (I’d never actually say that, but you know what I mean), to be a well-dressed individual people don’t immediately mistake with a homeless person… to have a well-padded savings account, even! Instead, all I have is an ever-widening ass and a bunch of hand-me-downs that no longer fit. Clearly, I need to reorganize my priorities.
**Note: As penance for posting a day late, I’ll add an extra entry on Sunday.**
Things That Are Making Me Happy Today
I just had a stay-at-home-mommy day that was pretty near perfection. I got up early. The kids and I went to the store without incident. We spent an hour and a half at the splash pad. Butterbean unexpectedly napped (read: fell asleep on the living room floor while I was doing dishes) in the afternoon – miraculously at the same time as her sister. I baked cookies with the kids (The Bean actually helped. Sprout more or less watched while gumming a spatula). We stood on the front steps to watch a storm. I had dinner ready when Chase got home. My house was still relatively clean and put together by the end of the day. Aaaand the kiddos went to bed on time.
If every day was like this, I wouldn’t contemplate selling my children to the gypsies so often.
26 Easy Steps – Step 2: Get a Jump Start on My Day
A big part of my taking on this 26 Easy Steps project was to prove to myself that I can follow through with… everything. Anything. Good god, it would be nice to follow through with something. Which is why it is so disappointing (but not at all out of character) that my first “habit” was a bust.
I was supposed to do pilates 3 times a week over the past 2 weeks, and I managed to exercise twice. Ouch.
I refuse to become pessimistic, though. I’m not going to quit. These habits are supposed to build up week-over-week, so I’m pressing on. Up is that way!
So, let’s identify what kept me from following through on completing my core exercises. One, I hate them. Two, because I hate them, I’d procrastinate and leave them to the end of the day when I would ultimately decide I was too tired to even think about Pilates. Ugh. Ab work.
This brings me to Easy Step #2: Get up early enough (6am) to tackle my workout right away without having the kids crawl all over me while I’m exercising. This *should* give me a good hour, give or take, to not only work out, but to start my day off with a little “me time”. I might even have time to shower by myself. Just the thought of taking a bath alone, with no babies playing peekaboo with the shower curtain, with the door closed and LOCKED, excites me to no end.
Week 1 was a practice week. Bring on Week 2.
Please note: I woke up at 5am today! …With a little help from Butterbean, who had been hit with asthma attacks literally all night (and all day) long. But help or not, it still counts as me following through with something. See? I’m rocking this.
Saying Goodbye to Ohmy
My daughter’s fish, Ohmy*, is on his last fins. Poor guy has been looking terrible lately, and Chase and I aren’t sure he’s going to make it through the night. He’s been more or less lying on the rocks in his tank all day. We’re hoping he will come around, but oi. So sad.
*so named because when she first got him, Butterbean kept saying “Oh my fish! Oh my fish!”
We debated whether or not to tell the Bean. Do we prepare her for the worst ahead of time? Wait til he passes away and explain it then? Don’t tell her at all and replace Ohmy with another fish?
I’m not going to lie – when our little fishy friend’s time is up, I WANT to replace him and pretend nothing happened. Butterbean loves Ohmy, and I’d like so badly to shelter her from the pain of losing him. In the end, though, Chase and I sat her down and explained that her fish is very old and he might not be here for very much longer.
It really sucks, but I think it’s important for Bean to know the truth. I don’t want to unnecessarily shelter her from negative experiences. It doesn’t do her any favours in the long run; you can’t raise your kids in a bubble, and then assume they will be able to competently cope with all of the crap the real world will hurl at them when you aren’t around to protect them (but oh man, it would be nice if you could).
Butterbean is okay with Ohmy’s situation (I don’t think she quite grasps what death is yet). She is a little sad, but she took it better than we thought. Still, I hope Ohmy goes on to live a good few months more (preferably 18 years or so), because I’d rather postpone this particular negative experience just a little bit longer.
Couch to 5K (C25K) – Weeks 5 & 6
Up until Week 5, I was doing the C25K program in silence. I was so elated to have some peace and quiet, I didn’t want to ruin it with music. When Week 5 hit, the running intervals got longer, and I needed something to distract myself from checking the clock every 10 seconds and thinking about how much it sucks to be sore and out of breath.
I started YouTubing episodes of Penn & Teller: Bullshit and speeches by Jim Rohn on my iPhone and it has made all the difference. I prefer the talk format over music because there’s no clear indication of how much time has elapsed (I find myself counting down ’til the end of each song when I’m listening to music), and it gives my brain something specific to concentrate on. Also, learning is pretty cool.
What I liked About Weeks 5 & 6
The runs vary from day to day (one day, you might be jogging for 3 and 5 minute chunks, the next 10 minutes, all the way up to 22 minute running intervals). I like the variety – especially when smaller intervals follow a day of 20 straight minutes of running.
What it Feels Like To Run for 20+ Minutes at a Time
I said my goal, from the very beginning, was to run for 20 straight minutes without dying, and it feels AMAZING to have made it to this point. It’s not easy, and for the first 7 minutes or so I kind of want to quit, but somewhere around the 8 to 10 minute mark, I get into a groove and it doesn’t seem so bad. I actually kind of like the long runs (especially with the aid of YouTube).
Keep in mind that I don’t push myself in terms of speed, which I think is what made my 20 minute intervals so bearable. I am a sloooow runner. Just to give you an accurate picture, I jog approximately 1 km in 10 minutes. Speedy Gonzales, I am not.
My Next Goal
My next goal is to run a full 5K without stopping.
Morag and Me 