So last night's dog jog turned into 15 minutes of dancing with my four-year-old friend Kathleen. Not the 30 minutes of my goal, but it was something and I'll take it.
Tonight: Wii Fit. Finally got it figured out, even with the 12-year-old sleeping. (OK, fine: The truth is that he and I were playing Wii Sports tennis after school and the thing was still on when I went down to exercise.)
After a couple of borderline days, I feel like I'm on the upswing.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Project 40 to 41: Day 10
Never did figure out the Wii last night without the 12-year-old to help. The Plan B: Jumping rope.
Guess what? Jumping rope is really, really tiring. I did it for about one minute and then I did yoga poses while watching an episode of Mad Men.
I really need to pick up the pace here.
Tonight's plan: A jog with the dog. A dog jog, so to speak.
Guess what? Jumping rope is really, really tiring. I did it for about one minute and then I did yoga poses while watching an episode of Mad Men.
I really need to pick up the pace here.
Tonight's plan: A jog with the dog. A dog jog, so to speak.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Project 40 to 41: Day 9
OK, these are the days when I wonder if I'm going to be able to pull this thing off.
After yesterday's late night, there was no getting up early for a workout. Not that I'm a get-up-early-for-a-workout kind of girl. But I can recognize the benefits.
For instance, if I'd gotten up for a 7 a.m. jog this morning, I wouldn't be sitting here I am at 10:15 p.m. wondering if I can figure out how to get Wii Fit up and working without waking my 12-year-old to help me.
Instead, I was sleeping at 7 a.m. And then I was getting kiddos off to school. And then I was picking up Daisy at the kennel, working at the Rochester Magazine office, stuck in meetings, and suddenly serving after-school snacks to after-school kiddos before hitting homework duty. A friend's birthday dinner. The Vikings game. Bedtime reading. Volunteer editing. The balancing of a checkbook.
Wham, bam, 10:15 p.m.
The bottom line is that I'm going to have to make exercise more of a priority -- and not leave it to the last item on my to-do list. Maybe tomorrow. Until then, I've got some late-night Wii Fit hula-hooping on my agenda.
After yesterday's late night, there was no getting up early for a workout. Not that I'm a get-up-early-for-a-workout kind of girl. But I can recognize the benefits.
For instance, if I'd gotten up for a 7 a.m. jog this morning, I wouldn't be sitting here I am at 10:15 p.m. wondering if I can figure out how to get Wii Fit up and working without waking my 12-year-old to help me.
Instead, I was sleeping at 7 a.m. And then I was getting kiddos off to school. And then I was picking up Daisy at the kennel, working at the Rochester Magazine office, stuck in meetings, and suddenly serving after-school snacks to after-school kiddos before hitting homework duty. A friend's birthday dinner. The Vikings game. Bedtime reading. Volunteer editing. The balancing of a checkbook.
Wham, bam, 10:15 p.m.
The bottom line is that I'm going to have to make exercise more of a priority -- and not leave it to the last item on my to-do list. Maybe tomorrow. Until then, I've got some late-night Wii Fit hula-hooping on my agenda.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Project 40 to 41: Week 1
Well, the project started before the blogging. I sit here in my basement with a fistful of M&Ms at 10:55 p.m., preparing to squeeze in Day 8's workout. (The Day 8 workout, I should add, is probably going to consist of jumping jacks and yoga poses in front of a Redbox rental of "Something Borrowed." This is yet an imperfect science.)
I don't want to exercise tonight. I don't. I spent the morning in a waterpark hotel with the family and our friends. I spent the afternoon driving back home to Rochester. I spent the evening grocery shopping, overseeing homework, sorting three (count 'em, three) containers of widowed socks, unpacking a ridiculous amount of crap considering we were only gone two days, and finishing up a writing assignment due tomorrow.
I don't want to exercise. But I'm going to. Because this is what I've vowed to do. I've vowed to exercise every single day for the 365 days between my 40th and 41st birthdays with a specific goal: Feel and look better at 41 than I do at 40.
Here's where I started:
Day 1: November 6
"Jay," I say. "You need to take a 'before' picture." I want a record of where I was on my 40th birthday--an image I can compare to 41.
I stand against the living room wall in my bra and underwear. I lift my arms, holding one hand in a "4" and the other in a "0". I smile. He shoots.
"OK, let me see it," I say. I'm not all that nervous to look at a flabby, near-naked picture of myself. This is, after all, the point. We have to start somewhere. Must have an unfortunate "before" in order to have a kick-ass "after."
But it's worse than I expect. My bra is too small. My Hanes Her Ways are too big, the sides too wide. Holy crap, I think, my husband is married to a woman in granny panties.
So now I have two items on my to-do list: (1) Exercise at least 30 minutes a day every day for the next 365 days. (2) Buy sexier underwear.
Day 2: November 7
After a slow start, I feel like the momentum starts today. Yesterday, my exercise session consisted of swimming at the gym while the kids splashed around me and ambling through the neighborhood with my friend LaNae. Not wildly successful, really. (Though I did have a giant fruit bowl instead of a birthday cake and when I blew out my birthday candles, I wished for a good, healthy year with all my boys. So there's that.)
But today! Today, I hit the gym after I pick up the boys from school and go straight to the fitness floor. I do five miles on the elliptical while listening to NPR's "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" on my iPod, followed by yoga poses and core work on the stability ball for 20 minutes. One full hour. Shazam.
Day 3: November 8
Today, I take Daisy for a run before work. It's a slow run, sure. It's a run littered with doggie potty breaks and squirrel distractions. But it's a run--the first I've done in months. By the time Daisy and I make it back up the driveway, I'm feeling mighty good. As empowered as I am fatigued. I check the time: We've been out 28 minutes. Close enough.
Day 4: November 9
It's back to the gym today: Elliptical + treadmill + yoga poses on the mat between work and dinner. I'm feeling pretty good until I call Jay from the gym. "I didn't have time to plan dinner tonight. You?"
"I'll figure something out," he says.
By the time the boys and I make it home, Jay has canned soup and sliced apples waiting on the table -- a fair job considering the contents of our pantry and the extent of my forewarning.
But my workout high is gone. I feel like a failure as a wife and mother. Why can't I manage to work and take care of myself and take care of my family? Why can't I do it all? Why do I feel I have to?
Day 5: November 10
It's another long walk for Daisy. She's lo-o-o-o-ving this. I also do some arm work with five-pound weights. The three-pounders had seemed too wimpy, but halfway through my arm raises I wish I'd started there.
Days 6 and 7: November 11, 12
We're in Wisconsin Dells with the Winklers, our family-like-friends from Green Bay. Oh, how we love them. "I have to figure out how to work out while we're here," I tell Sara. "I'm doing that Project 40 to 41 thing."
"Playing at the waterpark is exercise," she says. "Totally qualifies."
And because Sara is a fitness queen -- a yoga, Pilates, swimming master -- I jump on her logic. "Hell yeah," I say. "The waterpark IS a workout."
The thing is: She's proved right. Fighting the "tide" in the wave pool, climbing flight upon flight of stairs to the top of water slides, and screaming through "The Tornado" does get my heart beating. It doesn't feel like a cheat to claim these days as exercise days. Still, it will feel good to get a "real" workout tomorrow.
Day 8: November 13
Ah, and here we're up to speed. "Something Borrowed," jumping jacks, yoga poses. So maybe it's not the "real" workout I'd planned, but it's something. And something is better than nothing.
I don't want to exercise tonight. I don't. I spent the morning in a waterpark hotel with the family and our friends. I spent the afternoon driving back home to Rochester. I spent the evening grocery shopping, overseeing homework, sorting three (count 'em, three) containers of widowed socks, unpacking a ridiculous amount of crap considering we were only gone two days, and finishing up a writing assignment due tomorrow.
I don't want to exercise. But I'm going to. Because this is what I've vowed to do. I've vowed to exercise every single day for the 365 days between my 40th and 41st birthdays with a specific goal: Feel and look better at 41 than I do at 40.
Here's where I started:
Day 1: November 6
"Jay," I say. "You need to take a 'before' picture." I want a record of where I was on my 40th birthday--an image I can compare to 41.
I stand against the living room wall in my bra and underwear. I lift my arms, holding one hand in a "4" and the other in a "0". I smile. He shoots.
"OK, let me see it," I say. I'm not all that nervous to look at a flabby, near-naked picture of myself. This is, after all, the point. We have to start somewhere. Must have an unfortunate "before" in order to have a kick-ass "after."
But it's worse than I expect. My bra is too small. My Hanes Her Ways are too big, the sides too wide. Holy crap, I think, my husband is married to a woman in granny panties.
So now I have two items on my to-do list: (1) Exercise at least 30 minutes a day every day for the next 365 days. (2) Buy sexier underwear.
Day 2: November 7
After a slow start, I feel like the momentum starts today. Yesterday, my exercise session consisted of swimming at the gym while the kids splashed around me and ambling through the neighborhood with my friend LaNae. Not wildly successful, really. (Though I did have a giant fruit bowl instead of a birthday cake and when I blew out my birthday candles, I wished for a good, healthy year with all my boys. So there's that.)
But today! Today, I hit the gym after I pick up the boys from school and go straight to the fitness floor. I do five miles on the elliptical while listening to NPR's "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" on my iPod, followed by yoga poses and core work on the stability ball for 20 minutes. One full hour. Shazam.
Day 3: November 8
Today, I take Daisy for a run before work. It's a slow run, sure. It's a run littered with doggie potty breaks and squirrel distractions. But it's a run--the first I've done in months. By the time Daisy and I make it back up the driveway, I'm feeling mighty good. As empowered as I am fatigued. I check the time: We've been out 28 minutes. Close enough.
Day 4: November 9
It's back to the gym today: Elliptical + treadmill + yoga poses on the mat between work and dinner. I'm feeling pretty good until I call Jay from the gym. "I didn't have time to plan dinner tonight. You?"
"I'll figure something out," he says.
By the time the boys and I make it home, Jay has canned soup and sliced apples waiting on the table -- a fair job considering the contents of our pantry and the extent of my forewarning.
But my workout high is gone. I feel like a failure as a wife and mother. Why can't I manage to work and take care of myself and take care of my family? Why can't I do it all? Why do I feel I have to?
Day 5: November 10
It's another long walk for Daisy. She's lo-o-o-o-ving this. I also do some arm work with five-pound weights. The three-pounders had seemed too wimpy, but halfway through my arm raises I wish I'd started there.
Days 6 and 7: November 11, 12
We're in Wisconsin Dells with the Winklers, our family-like-friends from Green Bay. Oh, how we love them. "I have to figure out how to work out while we're here," I tell Sara. "I'm doing that Project 40 to 41 thing."
"Playing at the waterpark is exercise," she says. "Totally qualifies."
And because Sara is a fitness queen -- a yoga, Pilates, swimming master -- I jump on her logic. "Hell yeah," I say. "The waterpark IS a workout."
The thing is: She's proved right. Fighting the "tide" in the wave pool, climbing flight upon flight of stairs to the top of water slides, and screaming through "The Tornado" does get my heart beating. It doesn't feel like a cheat to claim these days as exercise days. Still, it will feel good to get a "real" workout tomorrow.
Day 8: November 13
Ah, and here we're up to speed. "Something Borrowed," jumping jacks, yoga poses. So maybe it's not the "real" workout I'd planned, but it's something. And something is better than nothing.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
I am Not Middle Aged (Just in Case You're Wondering)
Sounds like last week's Jen's World is hard to find on the PB site. (Shocker, I know.) So here it is, for your reading pleasure:
* * *
One evening last week, I was spending time with a group of friends and acquaintances when a man I don’t know very well said, “Well, you know, when you’re middle aged like we are…”
What?
I shot incredulous looks at my friends. “Who the hell is HE talking to?” my expression said. “What does he mean, when you’re ‘middle aged like we are’?”
Ha. Ha ha ha.
…ha.
But I was unsettled. Was I middle aged? And, if so, why hadn’t anyone told me? I went home that night and Googled, “What is middle age?” And then I did what I’ve told my kids they must never, ever do: Used Wikipedia as my primary source.
“Middle age is the period of age beyond young adulthood but before the onset of old age,” the entry read. It went on to state that the Oxford English Dictionary gives the definition as “…the period between early adulthood and old age, usually considered as the years from about 45 to 65.” And that the U.S. Census lists middle age as including both the age categories 35 to 44 and 45 to 50.
It didn’t take me long to do the math. In roughly one month, I’m hitting the big time—a milestone birthday. 40. Which means, according to the U.S. Census, I’ve already been middle-aged for half a decade.
And that, my friends, is why you should never use Wikipedia.
I’ve always been the girl who quotes Abraham Lincoln when it comes to birthdays: “It’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” And I believe that—wholeheartedly. But I’m also beginning to see, in fits and starts, the places where I might, kind of, sort of, be entering into if not middle agedom… then at least older than young adultdom.
Here’s one example: I sat in my car in a parking lot for 10 full minutes this afternoon, riveted by what was on the radio. It was NPR. (In my defense, it was “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me,” NPR’s “weekly hour-long quiz program”—and who doesn’t find Peter Sagal and Carl Kasell irresistible? Don’t answer that.)
Here’s another: When I get up in the morning, the first thing I do is open and close my fingers in loose fists to see how my arthritis is doing. I’m not even lying. And then I shuffle—I’m shuffling, people—to my closet, where I put on my robe, which is not only flannel, but embroidered with Scottie dogs. (Once again, I feel I must defend myself by pointing out that the robe in question was actually a gift from my mother-in-law.)
One more: I found myself using the word “persnickety” this week. Also, curmudgeon. That can’t be good.
The thing is, though, that occasional grandma-like vocabulary, a bit of arthritis, and an affinity for NPR weekend programming aside—I feel young. Like really young—like 27. Or 32. Or, hey, maybe even almost-40.
Because here’s what else I’ve discovered: No matter what the U.S. Census says, 40 is young—or at least it’s youngish, if “youngish” indicates vitality, vigor and much future promise. (And I would argue that it does.) I mean, heck: Leonardo Da Vinci painted The Last Supper at 43. Mark Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn at 49. Jack Nicklaus won a Masters, and Martina Navratilova a Grand Slam in their 40s. Even Orville Redenbacher didn’t start his popcorn company until his late 50s.
Not that I’m trying to emulate Orville Redenbacher, mind you.
This time of life, as far as I can tell, embodies the confidence of youth with a bit of the experience and wisdom of age thrown in. The truth is, most days I feel energetic, enthusiastic, and excited for the future. If that’s middle aged, I’ll take it.
* * *
One evening last week, I was spending time with a group of friends and acquaintances when a man I don’t know very well said, “Well, you know, when you’re middle aged like we are…”
What?
I shot incredulous looks at my friends. “Who the hell is HE talking to?” my expression said. “What does he mean, when you’re ‘middle aged like we are’?”
Ha. Ha ha ha.
…ha.
But I was unsettled. Was I middle aged? And, if so, why hadn’t anyone told me? I went home that night and Googled, “What is middle age?” And then I did what I’ve told my kids they must never, ever do: Used Wikipedia as my primary source.
“Middle age is the period of age beyond young adulthood but before the onset of old age,” the entry read. It went on to state that the Oxford English Dictionary gives the definition as “…the period between early adulthood and old age, usually considered as the years from about 45 to 65.” And that the U.S. Census lists middle age as including both the age categories 35 to 44 and 45 to 50.
It didn’t take me long to do the math. In roughly one month, I’m hitting the big time—a milestone birthday. 40. Which means, according to the U.S. Census, I’ve already been middle-aged for half a decade.
And that, my friends, is why you should never use Wikipedia.
I’ve always been the girl who quotes Abraham Lincoln when it comes to birthdays: “It’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” And I believe that—wholeheartedly. But I’m also beginning to see, in fits and starts, the places where I might, kind of, sort of, be entering into if not middle agedom… then at least older than young adultdom.
Here’s one example: I sat in my car in a parking lot for 10 full minutes this afternoon, riveted by what was on the radio. It was NPR. (In my defense, it was “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me,” NPR’s “weekly hour-long quiz program”—and who doesn’t find Peter Sagal and Carl Kasell irresistible? Don’t answer that.)
Here’s another: When I get up in the morning, the first thing I do is open and close my fingers in loose fists to see how my arthritis is doing. I’m not even lying. And then I shuffle—I’m shuffling, people—to my closet, where I put on my robe, which is not only flannel, but embroidered with Scottie dogs. (Once again, I feel I must defend myself by pointing out that the robe in question was actually a gift from my mother-in-law.)
One more: I found myself using the word “persnickety” this week. Also, curmudgeon. That can’t be good.
The thing is, though, that occasional grandma-like vocabulary, a bit of arthritis, and an affinity for NPR weekend programming aside—I feel young. Like really young—like 27. Or 32. Or, hey, maybe even almost-40.
Because here’s what else I’ve discovered: No matter what the U.S. Census says, 40 is young—or at least it’s youngish, if “youngish” indicates vitality, vigor and much future promise. (And I would argue that it does.) I mean, heck: Leonardo Da Vinci painted The Last Supper at 43. Mark Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn at 49. Jack Nicklaus won a Masters, and Martina Navratilova a Grand Slam in their 40s. Even Orville Redenbacher didn’t start his popcorn company until his late 50s.
Not that I’m trying to emulate Orville Redenbacher, mind you.
This time of life, as far as I can tell, embodies the confidence of youth with a bit of the experience and wisdom of age thrown in. The truth is, most days I feel energetic, enthusiastic, and excited for the future. If that’s middle aged, I’ll take it.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
More reasons VCFA (and my low-res MFA) is cool
David Jauss wrote this piece for Writer's Digest, and it's now on the Vermont College of Fine Arts blog. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy about my experience at VCFA. As if I needed more reasons to feel that way...
Monday, August 29, 2011
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