I have to admit I have been struggling a little with a lot of very little things over the last month or two. It is almost a perfect storm:
- The kids are moving three thousand miles from home to go to college.
- My day job company is just about to deliver on the first (really hard) product so I will start on a new, big project that does not require 60-80 work weeks.
- We lost Lorena’s father(Grandpa Lauro) which did a pretty hard reset on my priorities.
- I have delivered a ton of new functionality to GaugeCam so my work there will probably just consist of bug fixes for at least a few months and probably a year or so.
- I am fatter and more unhealthy than at any point in my life.
- A few months back it seemed like a good idea to “finish” this blog and go on to something else, but I can’t bring myself to do it. The problem is I realize I do not have anything very interesting to say.
So yesterday, when I was feeling sorry for myself, I decided to try to do something about my weight and health, so I went out for a five mile walk. About half way through, I realized I was getting a sunburn on my bald head, so I stopped and got some walking tools (a ball cap and some sunglasses) displayed in their full glory in the obnoxious selfie accompanying this post. This morning, I got up early enough before Sunday morning meeting to walk to MacDonald’s for some oatmeal. Before I left, I downloaded one of those walking applications from my Samsung S3 (My Tracks by Google) and used it. It is very cool, but the only direct place to post results is to Google+. The stats, map, and graphs are cool, but Google+ is not really where I want to post them.
So, I think I got a short reprieve. It is possible to send the walking results as a CSV file to my Google Drive. So, to keep me interested in continuing to walk and for a short-term project, I think I am going to try to write an application that takes the results of the My Tracks app from my cell phone and posts them to this blog. That will give me a little more time to think about what I want to do with the blog, find some new, bigger projects on which to work, get a little healthier, and get my act together again.
Betty Blonde #132 – 01/16/2009
Click here or on the image to see full size strip.
Good on ya, mate! ????????????. So, DO????????????,?? or ???????? to keep from being a ????! (You might even get me motivated.)
Whoops I see WordPress doesn’t recognize those icons. The first ones (represented by first set of ???) were three “thumbs up”. Then DO ‘three sets of footprints’, (walking) then “rain” or “sunshine” to keep from being a “a really neat icon of a whale!!” My apologies, but know you’d’ve enjoyed it. 🙂
Jon! I am an Oregonian from the Willamette Valley! Enough said!
Best of luck on your walking program. I just recently started doing something about my weight when I found that I could not walk without immense pain at Emma’s graduation. I’ve never gone on a ‘real’ diet, but somehow I had hurt my knee and I could barely put any weight on it and decided that I had to do something about this excess baggage I’ve been carrying around for 20+ years. I purchased a Vitamix the next week and started using my juicer for healthy smoothies. 17 pounds and 1 month later my knee is just fine and I am still eating better. I can’t think of it as a diet. It has to be a lifestyle and I have yet to add cardio. I just started lifting some free weights last week. I have been reading up on eating Paleo, but I can’t do that wholeheartedly just yet. I have cut out almost all processed foods (anything in a box or bag that doesn’t look like the food it was derived from), and I am eating fresh veggies and fruits in abundance. I didn’t clean out my cupboards, I just am letting the kids and hubby finish all the stuff we have in the pantry and then I won’t replenish…unless it is a way healthier version of something they can’t live without. I shove spinach and salad greens in my morning smoothies in addition to some almond butter. My tummy feels better too and my Reflux has lessened. I still have a LONG way to go. But I have started. I try not to beat myself up if I mess up, I just don’t quit. Another added benefit, if you can call it a benefit, is that I have given up coffee. It was not intentional…I just replaced it with a morning smoothie which has been so satisfying and energy giving that I just recently realized that I have not had any coffee since I started this. It certainly takes work and forethought, and I feel as if I am spending more time in the kitchen, but that’s okay. I am not ‘punishing’ my family (yet) as I don’t have enough stuff ready for them to eat when they come home starving, so I am keeping a few of the ‘readily-available’ food available for them as I get my act together and become more organized in healthy food preparation. And I keep experimenting with better choice foods…like tonight I made cauliflower mash which is a take on a substitute for mashed potatoes. It’s been enlightening and I feel better. Something I know that I need to tackle are methods of minding my portions; I need to learn proper portion control.
Best of luck to you and Lorena, Ken, as you figure out what to do with the rest of your lives, post homeschooling… :~)
P.S. I would miss your blog if you just stopped…I enjoy popping in and seeing what you are all up to.
Wow Ruthie! That is awesome. 17 pounds in a month is VERY impressive. This is exactly what I need to do. I think the lifestyle thing (as opposed to diet) is key. Your comments about ‘readily-available” foods is good–the kids will be 3000 miles away so there is no need to have any of that around. Lorena has wanted to get a juicer for quite awhile and you are the second person that has talked about smoothies with greens. I like my walking and I like lifting weights, too, so we are headed down similar paths, I just hope I can get similar results. Coffee is going to be the hard thing for me. I write code for a living and a couple of cups per day really is a treat.
Thanks for the comments on the blog. I hope to keep writing, but I want to write about something meaningful. I just don’t know what I actually have something about which to talk that could be as fascinating as homeschool and education has been. I think I will just hang in there for a few months and see what works out.
It is great to hear about your health efforts–hope it continues and that we get to hear more of those kinds of results.
Ken,
Look into Spark People. It’s an online community of people striving to live a healthier lifestyle. Today, I was sent an email with this link. It outlines a good start:
http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/nutrition_articles.asp?id=2000
That is excellent Ruthie. Thanks!