Blogging Shmogging

 

Northern Oriole (www.andersonimages.com/.../ hb_northernoriole.html)

I have been pouting instead of blogging because I can't figure out how to get my very own pictures into my entries.  However, the sight of an oriole singing his heart out in the treetops this morning has motivated me to forge forward.

It is one of the endless frustrations of my life that computer directions are consistently written in a  foreign language that bears only the slightest resemblance to English.  I use the computer A LOT.  But whenever I have to take any step that might be characterized as slightly technical, I need to call in the teenage reinforcements.

For instance, here are the instructions provided by our fearless blogger leader, Mr. Scalzi, for inserting a big photo:

"First, you need to upload the picture you want to use into your AOL Hometown Web space. Once you've done that, when you're creating an entry, click on the "Add Pictures from Hometown" button right next to the "Add Pictures" button. You'll be presented with a list of the pictures you have in your Hometown space.

Pick the one you want, then click the "Add Picture" button. Your picture will be added to the page you use to edit entries. Then you just hit "Save" when you're done writing your entry. There you are.

Alternately, you can directly FTP (AOL link) your picture into your AOL Web space. Once you've done that, just create your entry and follow the directions from the paragraph above. "

Does anyone have the vaguest idea what one word of the above actually means???

 

Walked:  Well, no, not really.  I was playing around looking for birds from the boardwalk of the Nature Center.

Thursday: Walked: 1.5 miles.

Wednesday: Walked: 2 miles.

Tuesday: Walked: 3 miles.

Monday: Walked: 3 miles.

Sunday: Walked: 2 miles

Walked in April: 89.5 miles.

Walked since beginning journal: 91.5 miles.

Springtime

 

Walked: 2 miles.

Second Favorites (Week-end Assignment #2)

This is a tough one -- could take me all day! 

(Oh.  It didn't.  I can't find my hair dryer, so I am going to work with wet hair -- but hey, that gives me more time to play!)

Movie:  There are only a few movies that I've seen more than once, and I suppose one of them is my favorite and one is my second favorite.  Today I'll vote for It's a Wonderful Life as my all time second-favorite.  I watched it this past Christmas after a hiatus of a few years, and it was fresh and full of subtleties I'd never noticed before.

Book:  Anything by Jodi Picoult.  I am just finishing the one about ghosts and eugenics and it's as good a read and as beautifully written and as thought-provoking as all of the others.  I do have one all-time favorite book that I've read probably 60 times... .

Album: Rubber Soul.

Teacher: Favorite teacher?  That one's easy.  But second-favorite?  Oh, I know: Mr. Smalley, my Religion and Society teacher senior year.  First, he taught a terrific course; we read Freud and Bonhoeffer and Frankl and all sorts of people I wouldn't know about otherwise.  More importantly, he wanted us to expand our thinking and our lives.  My most memorable conversation with him had nothing to do with religion as the opiate of the people or our ability to choose at least our reaction to our circumstances.  It involved, instead, his frustration that so many of his students limited their college applications to schools in the part of the country in which we already lived.  He wanted us to overcome our parochial attittudes and experience the world.

Ice Cream: Chocolate chip.

Sports Team:  I'm not sure that I could come up with the name of a single sports team.

Comfort Food: Mashed Potatoes.

Celebrity Crush:  Now that's a wierd one.

Cartoon Character:  You're losing me here.

Way to Relax:  OH, that's easy...oh, no, this is supposed to be SECOND favorite.  Do people have that many ways to relax?

Walk:  I have two favorites.  So I guess my second favorite is really my third?  I think it might be the path along the Yellowstone River from TowerFalls, even though I've only been there once.

 

Walked: 2.5 miles.

Great Places to Walk #1: Chicago Lakefront

  

Just east of the University of Chicago is a point jutting into Lake Michigan, from which I took this photo on a morning walk.  A bike path runs for several miles along the Lake -- my goal the next time I'm there!

Walked: 3 miles

Spring Migration

  Ruby-Crowned Kinglet (www.tekipaki.jp/~texbird/ na_bird11.htm)

I get home from work in the early afternoon on Wednesdays, so today I organized some materials for my classes tomorrow and then tossed on my sweatshirt to go for a walk, only to discover that it was pouring.  So I did some more work, and finally went out in what was an intense sprinkle. 

It was worth it -- the spring bird migration has begun in earnest.  In one tree at the lake: a ruby-crowned kinglet, a white-throated sparrow, and a yellow-rumped warbler (better known as a butterbutt).  It's gray and foggy and wet out there, but the birds are arriving!

Walked: 3 miles.

Missing in Action

April sunset from my porch

I have to get a handle on my week-ends.  My ability to procrastinate ranks in the "expert" category, and since I take on too much, I find myself way behind by Sunday night instead of way ahead, which is what I always anticipate on Friday afternoon.

Sunday: Walked: 3.5 miles.  I took the dog for an early morning walk in the cemetery with plans to take some photographs, but it was too hazy out.  I drove back later in the day when the sun had come out and created some nice shadows, and then the camera ran out of pictures.  I've made two trips to Office Max since, trying to purchase the right chip for the camera.  The digital scene has me a bit overwhelmed.

Monday:  Missed my walk.  On Monday I work from 9 to 4 and then take a class from 6 to 10, so if anything gets the slightest bit out of kilter, I'm sunk.  And, as it happened, my daughter stayed home from school with an intestinal virus, which didn't prevent me from needing to drive to her school (an hour's round trip) to drop off and pick up assignments.

Today: Walked 2 miles.  Maybe I can pull myself together by watching the Gilmore Girls in a  few minutes.

25 Favorite Walks (Week-end Assignment #1)

My friend Pamela (Random Thoughts) has inspired me, so here I go with 25 places, in no particular order, that I have walked or regularly walk:

1.   The small lake 1.5 miles away, spring and fall stopover for migrating warblers and loons, summer site for herons, year round home to kingfishers.

2.    Horseshoe Lake a bit further away, where orioles nested last summer.

3.    The cemetery nearby -- already wrote about that one.

4.    St. Augustine Beach.

5.    Chautauqua Institution.

6.    The Towpath Trail in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

7.    The trail to Mount Pisgah in North Carolina.

8.    Graveyard Fields Trail off the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina.

9.    Devil's Courthouse Trail near Highlands and Cashiers, North Carolina.

10.  The trail to The Rock at Gwynn Valley Camp in Brevard, North Carolina.

11.   The Point off Hyde Park south of Chicago.

12.   Sleeping Bear Dunes in Michigan. 

13.  The Tower Falls and Yellowstone River Trail in Yellowstone National Park.

14.  The Jenny Lake Trail in Grand Teton National Park.

15.  The Greenstone Ridge Trail on Isle Royale (National Park).

16.  The trail behind Mile-Hi, the Nature Conservancy spot in Sierra Vista, Arizona.

17.  Rocky Falls near Heart Lake in the Adirondacks.

18.  The Cinque Terre along the coast of Italy.

19.  Florence, Italy.

20.  Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge.

21.  Crane Creek State Park (on Lake Erie in Ohio) during spring bird migration.

22.  Jack Island near Vero Beach, Florida.

23.  The Mall in Washington, D.C.

24.  Pompeii.

25.  The Champs-Elysees in Paris on New Year's Eve.

Walked: 5 miles.  It's spring! -- actually, it's practically summer today.

Pretty in Pink

How did you feel about yourself at sixteen?

At all of 115 pounds, with long brown hair and a closet full of miniskirts (hey, it was the 60s!), I felt hideously fat and ugly.  I was painfully aware of every physical flaw and I can't think of one single time that I felt genuinely attractive.  A friend told me once that I looked like Olivia Hussey (Juliet in Zefferelli's R&J) and I was flabbergasted.  It certainly never occurred to me to believe her.

It seems that teenage girls today are playing in a whole new ballgame.  The current style -- tight hiphugger jeans, short and skimpy tops -- looks attractive on a small minority of young women, but that doesn't seem to bother the rest of them in the least.  They seem so much more relaxed and comfortable in their physical selves than we ever were, and not in the least concerned about third party commentary.

This afternoon I took my daughter prom shopping.  Dress, shoes, jewelry -- all accomplished in less than three hours.  All pink.  She is going to look truly lovely, and I hope she knows it and enjoys every single second.

Walked: 3 miles on a warm spring evening.

Off the Wagon

Well, I just sort of lost it on Monday, and went right back to my old eating habits.  Then Tuesday it poured, so I stayed inside and ate some more.  And then Wednesday I said, "Yikes!  Pull yourself together, girl!"  So I'm working on it.  I realize that I really did feel better when I was eating less -- but it is so stressful to be focused on food so much of the time.  Or rather, on limiting food.

Wednesday: Walked : 3 miles.  Stretched: Nope.  Food:  Let's not discuss it.

Today: Walked: 3 miles.  It's a beautiful afternoon!  Stretched:  Forgot.  Food:  Still too much Easter candy around.

Walking

(www.maths.qmw.ac.uk/~pjc/ pictures/walking.jpg)

I really do love to walk.  My daughter said in wonderment the other day, "You can't do anything that could be called a real stretch, but you could walk for miles!" I'm not sure about an unlimited number of miles -- but I think that I could go a long way.  It gives me time to unwind, to plan, to pray, to daydream -- all critical to my mental health.

The downside is that it's hard for me to focus on anything that might approach a real aerobic walk -- I hate having to withdraw my attention from what's going on in my mind and focus on my physical effort.  But my son, who was into working out in a  big way during high school, tells me that my walks will be much more effective if I move faster.  So I'm going to try to insert periods of speed into my much more desirable periods of reverie.

Walked: 3.5 miles in the sunshine.

Final Trip

At least for awhile: I'm home, after three week-ends away, and I have a ton of work to do before I go back to teaching on Thursday.

I spent the week-end in rural southern Ohio, which meant long walks on country roads and respites in my brother's hot tub.  It's a good thing I don't have a hot tub; I wouldn't get anything done, ever.

Saturday: Walked: 5 miles all at once! Stretched:  Nope, forget it.  I spent an hour in the hot tub instead.  Two, actually, if you add both times together.  Food:  There's Easter candy all over the place.  I'm doing the best that I can.

Today: Walked: 4 miles. Stretched: 5 minutes.  Food: Junk food for dinner -- no one had been shopping over the week-end.  At least I put a limit on it.

Little Kindnesses

(www.bloomington.in.us/ ~cdowd/daffodils.jpg)

I frequently walk in a cemetery a few blocks from home -- nearly 300 acres of arboretum and burial ground for both the elite and ordinary citizens of our city.  It's full of birds and full of history.  When I got derailed from my usual walk to a small lake by a carpool cancellation and the need to drive my daughter to school, adding an extra hour to my morning, I decided to go to the cemetery instead.  It's a beautiful pre-Easter morning: geese honking, woodpeckers pounding away, daffodils beginning to emerge in sunny spots, and lilies all over the place already.

As I rounded a small lake, I noticed a woman carting Easter lilies from her car to a gravesite and asked if she wanted me to carry the last one.  She directed me to the spot next to the one she was working on and asked me to set it behind the marker.  "That lady always puts flowers on my stone, so this morning I wanted to put some out for her," she said.

I imagined her rising early this morning to reach the cemetery before the woman who visits the spot next to hers, and I imagined that woman showing up later today to find an anonymous gift already in place.  It was a nice way to start the day.

Walked: 4 miles in the warm sunshine -- well, it seems warm at 40 degrees, since there's lots of sun and no wind!  Stretched: 20 minutes.  Food: I did fine, except for the brownies... .

Little Success: I've lost 3 pounds since I started this journal, 6 pounds in the last month.

It's That Boring?

I wish someone would write a comment.  Anything!  Hey -- I know you're out there.

 

Walked: 3 miles; made it just before it began to pour. Stretched: Minimally.  Food: Not bad. We had Chinese, so I pretty much skipped dinner.

Discouraged

Weeellllll................if yesterday had been a weigh-in day, I could have said that I had lost some weight, but today I'm about back to ground zero.  It's very discouraging, after having paid such close attention to my diet and walked 25 miles in a week.

A few years ago I walked EVERY SINGLE DAY for a year and lost exactly ZERO pounds.  Of course, once I stopped walking, I added anouther 20, so at least the exercise kept my weight stabilized, albeit at a depressing level.  A friend was complaining a few weeks ago that she has been working out at the gym regularly for several months and yet not seen her weight budge.  And another friend on the South Beach diet lost 11 pounds in the first week!

It really seems to be about input much more than about output.  Too bad -- I would much prefer to walk several miles a day than have to think about what I'm eating.

 

Walked: 3 miles in damp and chilly morning fog; 1.5 miles in the irresistible sunshiney evening.  Stretched: 15 minutes.  Food:  I'm gaining a little more control.  I was pretty busy today, cleaning my house like a demon -- it was in a shambles after the last month of illness and travel every week-end (including the upcoming one -- yikes!) -- and although I thought countless times about taking a snack break, I only did it once.

A Girl's Gotta Dream

This is a Carolina Mountain Club poster.  It's cold here and it's hard not to eat when I'm home on vacation and still sick and so I just keep walking.

Walked: 3miles in the sunny cold. Stretched:  20 minutes.  Food:  Better than yesterday.

 

                                       

Not Easy

It's freezing outside!  Mid-20s maybe, but with a strong wind it feels much colder.  However, the sun is out and that makes for a magnificent day.

Yes, I definitely suffer from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder).  My husband commented yesterday that he continues to be amazed by my joyous response to a sunny day, regardless of the cold.  He's right; a temperature 40 degrees higher wouldn't count for much of an improvement in my book if it were accompanied by clouds.  And I despise these first few weeks of Daylight Savings Time, since we have to go back to getting up in the dark

But that isn't what I want to write about today.  I've been thinking about how to motivate myself to stick with this plan over the long -- VERY LONG -- term.  The sad truth is that I have lost substantial amounts of weight only four times in my life, and none of them under circumstances I care to repeat.

I've been pregnant twice, and I'm one of those lucky women who can vomit her way thorugh an entire pregnancy, day and night -- both both times I lost ten pounds in the first couple of months.  And twice in the past decade I've faced major life crises and virtually stopped eating.  The first time I got a real lesson in how our culture values svelteness over emotional health.  I hadn't seen my dad in six months and he raved about my 25-pound weight loss, oblivious to its having been precipitated by a period of extreme and debilitating stress.

Those experiences partly explain my calling this a journal of "healthy" recovery.  I've never lost weight in a healthy way before, and that's a goal I'd like to accomplish.

Walked: 3 miles.  Stretched: Minimally. Food:  Kind of lost it today.                                                                           

Quick Trip

 

I couldn't imagine how I was going to hold up on even a short vacation -- usually a time to snack at various stops throughout the day and to splurge on dining out.  But I did really well!  I don't think I snacked at all and, although I often found myself with a meal plate far too full for my liking, I simply stopped eating when I stopped feeling hungry.  Hyde Park is a terrific place for walking and I finally -- on this, my third trip -- figured out how to reach the lakefront on foot.  So, although it's been startlingly cold and windy, the sun was out and I got in some terrific walks.

Friday:  Walked: 5 miles in cold sun to a wind-tossed Lake Michigan.  Stretched: 20 minutes. Food:  A day of college fare.  Luckily, there are many well-prepared alternatives.

Saturday:  Walked: 5 miles in sunny but cold weather along a calmer lake. Stretched: 20 minutes. Food:  Lunch at an Asian restaurant -- otherwise nothing remarkable.

Today: Walked: 4 miles in the sunny cold, 2 in Chicago and 2 at home. Stretched: 20 minutes. Food: Not a lot.

 

 

Non-System System

One of my biggest challenges in losing weight and sticking with an exercise plan has been the constant changes in my daily schedule.  It's hard to adhere to a regimen that has no consistent framework.  So the concept of organization is one that I have to dispose of. 

I'm going to try to become aware of when and what I'm eating, limit myself to reasonable portions, and focus on protein and vegies instead of carbs.  That's all.  I would lose my mind if I had to weigh and measure food, plan meals, or even schedule meals.

And I'm going to try to walk and stretch every day.  Three miles is best for me, but if I can't always manage that, I'm not going to give up in frustration.

The next four days will be a challenge, since my daughter and I are off for a visit with her brother and a look at colleges for her.  Hyde Park is a beautiful place to walk, so I should be able to fit in some extra miles.  But I won't have a lot of control over when and where I'm eating, so I'll have to be careful about what.

Walked: 3 miles in gentle but chilly wind and rain Stretched: 20 minutes. Food:  I did all right, considering that I spent six hours driving on state turnpikes that offer minimal choice of cuisine, and had dinner in a college dining facility!