Sunday, January 18, 2009

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Catching my breath




As you can see in the photo above, the kitchen is reaching its final stages of completion. As I type this, the granite guys are furiously working on getting all the granite in, complete with sink and my cooktop installed!

This week has been totally crazy! It started last weekend when the Eagles beat the Giants, and everyone realized that the NFC game would be played here in Arizona. Of course, my oldest son, who is a HA-UGE football fan, insisted we have to get tickets. Then a friend of ours from Denver, a HA-UGE Eagles fan, also decided he had to get tickets and wanted to know if he could stay with us. No problem. Ha. We did manage to score 4 tickets to the game and luckily, our friend brought another friend who happens to have an aunt who lives here in Mesa, so they could stay with her. I was more than happy to loan out a place somewhere on a free space of floor to him and his friend, but really, it's pretty messed up in every room of my house, including the guest house right now, so that worked out well. I spent the better part of the 1st half of the week hunting down tickets and then traveling around town to go get them. Then my stepbrother came on Wednesday with his crew to install the tile in my entire house. It took 3 days. Yes, 3 days for a crew of 4 guys, who worked from 7am to 6:30pm each day, with only 1/2 hour lunch. Almost 800 sf of tile, plus toekicks, top of the cabinets, and an entryway pattern I designed myself in about 20 minutes. It wasn't overly intricate, but did require a fair amount of cutting, as well as a different colored tile. It turned out really nice if I do say so myself (pats self on back). I feel like I'm running a marathon though with everything going on. Today is the first day in a week I feel like I can stop and catch my breath a little.

I did manage to get in a couple of workouts this week, nothing exciting enough to write about. I'm exhausted every day from the work going on around here. I'm ready for it to be done. Done.done.done.

Not much more to go now. After today, we need to paint all the baseboards and casings and get those installed, and do some cleanup painting in the living, dining, and family rooms. And the racewalking clinic is in 13 days.

Time to sprint again...

Onward.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Happy New Year... even if a bit belated..

Yes, happy New Year to everyone! We rung in 2009 at home watching TV, spiriting outdoors right at midnight to see and hear all the fireworks going off. I also got my traditional phone call from my brother in California, and we once again joked how he was 'so last year' because he's one time zone away.

So with a new year comes resolutions and all that. I decided that 2009 I will be refocusing my life on my physical fitness and specifically racewalking. It has always been a sort-of goal of mine to race in the National 5k in Tennessee held in October. However, I'd like to be in really good shape before even thinking about signing up for it. Even in the best of shape, I'd still likely come in last or darned near close to it, so I'd like to make the experience as least humiliating as possible. At least if I'm in really good shape, I can feel that I really did my all for that caliber of an event.

Today I hopped on my treadmill -- finally cleared off after a month of storing stuff on it from the kitchen remodel, which is still underway -- and did an easy 3 miles. I kept an even pace throughout the entire workout, no changes whatsoever. It felt great, no aches or pains, and didn't feel laborious at all. Tomorrow I'm planning on heading over to the Y in the morning for a weight workout. I think it's been exactly a year since I was there last. My last experience there was quite a doozy. I watched a woman on the treadmill in front of me lose her footing, have her feet fly out from under her and watched her land on her face. Then she rolled down the still moving belt of the treadmill, unconscious, before going into a full blown seizure, stopped breathing and starting turning blue. Thankfully, she was revived and was conscious and sitting up by the time I left the place. I was, and still am, very shaken by those images. Shortly after that lovely incident I came down with Valley Fever and the rest of my year was blown.

So tomorrow, it's back to the Y for a full weight workout. I expect to feel quite sore on Wednesday. I've decided on a workout schedule for this semester which should work out pretty well. MWFSu are racewalking/running days. TTh will be weight training days. Today I also discovered something fantastic! There is a full blown gym/rec center at ASU, with a swimming pool, available to me, FOR FREE!!! Since I am a student, I am automatically a member! Hot diggety! So after my class on T/Th ends at 10:15am, I'll simply walk down to the rec center, on campus, do my workout, shower there, and come home. They also have personal trainers (for a fee) and a massage therapist (also for a fee, albeit a very affordable one of $45/hr). I cannot begin to express how awesome this is for me! I can go workout, and not have to always go to the Y.

New also for 2009: stop procrastinating, or better yet, stop waiting for others to do things to start something myself. I've always been a rather impatient person. The world has always gone in slow motion for me. To me, it seems to take people F-O-R-E-V-E-R to get things done. So, I've learned to be patient, bite my tongue and not express my frustration over waiting, and not try to do everything myself. However, this has also led to some situations where, indeed, it would have been far better to take the reigns myself and just 'do it'. I'm finding that while I'm still able to hold my tongue, I feel more resentment towards people than I ever have in the past. So, for this year, I'm going to not be quite so patient, and learn to express my frustration in constructive ways. This might end up hurting some people's feelings, but I'm just tired of being patient ALL THE TIME. It's time for me to consider my own needs as important (not always more important, just important), and it's ok to 'light a fire' under someone else sometimes. This will also not leave any room for excuses for not getting something done, another bad habit I noticed I've started to get into.

For 2009: Enjoy what I enjoy, more often. Meaning, spend time on things that I like to do and wish to pursue. Photography, gardening, my degree, knitting, racewalking, traveling, skiing. All things that I haven't really been able to delve into as much as I'd have liked to in many years. These are the things I enjoy spending my time on and improving. Often life is unbalanced the other way: too much leisure, not enough focusing on responsibilities. For me, it's been the other way around and it's time to change that.

Onward, to a great 2009!