As you may have read in an earlier post, I am going against my body's natural instincts and attempting to be athletic. I am doing this so that I can join my sister in a 5k in honor of her daughter Addie who was born an angel last year. If I was being chased by zombies, I still probably wouldn't run. But I would run for Addie.
For the past two weeks, I have been attempting the dreaded "mile run" that seems piddly to most, but for those kids who were in the back of the pack in gym class, you can understand the hardship. Today, I kicked it up a notch and attempted a two mile run. This is unprecedented. Never in my life have I run two miles. I'll be honest, I was kind of hoping that after running the mile a few times on a consistent basis that my body would step up and make two miles a little easier for me. Shockingly, I have been told by more than one person in my life that I "have the body of a runner". These poor, naive people were unable to see the limited lung capacity or my uncanny ability to overheat in even the coldest of circumstances, but their words did give me hope that maybe my body was meant to do this and I just had to give it the chance. Well, based on today's results, this is not true. The struggle continues. I will point out that I did run two miles (minus the walking, of course) and I did run my fastest average mile yet at 12 minutes, 14 seconds. I mean, that's pretty awesome. But it wasn't a joy ride. At precisely 1.59 miles, I started moaning in a way that would have caused passersby to believe that I was having contractions. I was sore all over, including my teeth. And when I finally stomped out the last few yards (and I really was stomping), I started to breathe so hard that, for a brief second, I thought that I might genuinely need to call someone for help. There are some people who can say that they "like running". I'm not sure at this point that I will ever be able to say that I "like running". But I like that I run. And I guess that's a start.
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Alright, so this is a project that I've been working on for a while, but here's something I've learned about myself. I'm pretty great at starting a project and not so great at finishing it. In a single night, I came up with an idea for a children's book, wrote a first draft of the text, and drew up a few concepts for illustrations. Seriously, I was a beast. I was thinking that at that rate, I could probably publish a book a week. I figured that in a month I'd probably be on Ellen, talking about the Time Magazine cover that was calling me "The Dr. Seuss of the New Generation" and promoting the major motion picture that my book had already inspired.
But that didn't exactly happen. And things aren't looking promising for next month either. The mistake that I made is that I stopped working on it. I told myself that I would finish the rest over the summer when I had more time to work on it. Stupid. I should have known myself better. I should have known that once I put something down, it is nearly impossible for me to pick it back up. However, I am trying. I am working at trying. I am making an effort to want to try. And I have come ridiculously close to finishing the book. I just have a few more illustrations to go and I'm anxious to see it all done. So that's what I worked on today. I may not have finished it, but I finally dusted off the pages that had been tucked away for so many months and made a little bit of an effort. And that, my friends, was a giant hurdle to climb. I've never been a big "napper". I will sleep in til the cows come home, but for some reason stopping midday for a nap feels like an utter waste of a day. Go figure. But anyway, it's only Tuesday and already this week has left me completely spent. I'll tell you how I know I'm exhausted.
Last night around midnight, I opened my eyes to the sight of a 5-inch-long cricket-type creature on the ceiling directly over my bed. Faster than lightning, I leapt from my bed and fled from the room in a panic. From the doorway, I woke my husband, insisting that he take care of it. When he said it wasn't there, I started to legitimately lose my mind cause I'm thinking this thing is now in my sheets. IT IS IN MY BED. But as my husband makes a drowsy attempt to coax me back to bed, I start to realize that there was no cricket-type creature. I started to realize that I made the whole flipping thing up. The whole gosh darn thing. Seriously. This girl needs a nap. Get this girl a nap. So, today, after trying to fit in summer school, appointments, running a mile, and then eating a whole box of macaroni & cheese to counteract the positive effects of that mile I was exhausted and ready to cash in on that nap. I got myself all cozy on the couch, listened as the landscapers started up their noisiest machines right on cue, and drifted off to a blissful hour of unscheduled sleep. Because of my French Canadian heritage, I was one of the few kids who thought it necessary to learn French rather than Spanish in high school. I have no regrets, but I do encounter Spanish far more in my day-to-day life so the Spanish words are slowly taking the place of the French in my mind. As a result, any attempt at speaking another language in recent years comes out as a sort of Frenchspañol. But through working summer school, I have encountered the sweetest little second grader who just moved here with her family from Puerto Rico and tries her darndest to communicate stories about her dog using four English words and facial expressions. The effort that she puts forth to communicate with me is inspiring, so I want to make sure that I'm working just as hard. Cause I can tell you right now that Frenchspañol is not gonna cut it.
So my goal today was to brush up on my Spanish. I quickly found a website called Duolingo that teaches me basic Spanish skills and keeps track of my progress. And so far this program believes- rather naively, of course- that I've learned 101 words today alone. As you can imagine, with 101 words under my belt, I am quickly nearing proficiency. I mean, I can say such crucial phrases as "Your horse eats salt" and "Their penguins do not read the newspaper". I can tell you that yo soy una mujer. I can tell you that no soy un hombre. Interested in my dietary preferences? Well, yo no como carne. Soy vegetariana. Escribo un blog y bebo té. Let's be honest. I'll probably be fluent by Wednesday. But anyway, even if I'm not, I'm excited to take at least a small part of this back to summer school so my new little buddy and I can talk elefantes and tortugas, and she can see that even if I don't always understand her, I am listening. Don't worry. I did go. It's just that this picture illustrates the aftermath of my endeavors at the amusement park, and it just so happens that the aftermath was very slipper-intensive. Besides, would you really want a notorious dropper like myself to carry a camera or a brand new iphone on a roller coaster? Of course you wouldn't.
So allow me to tell you about the events that led me here- sprawled helplessly on my couch in a stunning combination of owl slippers and cupcake pajama bottoms. Now, historically, roller coasters have not been a problem for me. I was a little late to the game, but once I discovered them in my teenage years, I was pretty much fearless. But as we entered the park today, it began to drizzle. This was soon followed by rain, which, of course, was followed by a complete and utter downpour. Because I am a rain magnet. Naturally, my husband and I did not plan for rain, since we didn't think to check the weather report until we were minutes from the park entrance. So the only choice we had was to embrace it. Therefore, for our first roller coaster, we sat our drenched behinds in the little puddles that they called seats, and allowed ourselves to be flown upside down and sideways through the downpour. Since we were basically the only fools on the roller coaster, it was actually a really cool experience. Just a really wet one. Our second roller coaster of the day was a much drier experience, because we decided to wait out the rain with a little lunch. I mean, we were still soaked, but at least the rest of the world wasn't. After the inevitable long wait in line, they finally loaded us into our seats. We pulled down the harness only to discover that the latching mechanism was broken. One of the seats was stuck in locked position, and until that could be fixed, none of the rest would latch. But it's okay, cause they unloaded us, sent for backup, fiddled around with a couple things, and then put us right back on. You know. As the guinea pigs. Well, let me tell you that this delay provided 20 solid minutes of thinking time, where I was able to consider all the many ways in which a roller coaster harness can fail to do its job. So when they yanked me up to the sky by seat of my pants and dropped me into a series of loops at 75,000 miles per hour, I was hanging onto that harness like a good, strong grip was the only thing between me and an untimely death. And when I went on my third roller coaster, and my harness made a small click as I plummeted toward the ground, I kind of lost my mind. So after that, I put up the white flag and crawled on my hands and knees back to the car. I worked very hard not to lose my lunch, as the car ride home felt like one continuous roller coaster, and poured myself out of the car and into my pajamas. Where I will remain until the world stops spinning. I've made it my plan this summer to find a great local spot where I can be a "regular". A staple. A local legend. Okay, maybe not all those things, but it would be nice to have a place that feels familiar and friendly. I grew up in a small town with a bit of a revolutionary twist. Meaning that, besides the quaint storefronts, you'll find an abundance of fifes, whaling ships, and historic inns. The Griswold Inn is the most well-known of them all and has been around since 1776. Inside is a tiny little bar room with the tar from 250 years worth of smoke coating the curved ceiling and a wood stove smack in the center of the creaking floorboards. It's pretty wonderful.
My husband and I love to go on Saturday nights because there is a rowdy crowd of locals there, swinging their beers in the air and playing the spoons as a piano player sings out anything from sea shanties to "Sweet Caroline". And we are slowly working our way towards "regular" status. I mean, we got seats at a table this time so that means we're pretty important. Not to mention, we got seats directly under the giant bell and anybody who's anybody knows that the bell's role in the song "Wild Rover" is one of the highlights of the night. So that's prime real estate that we were building on. And, if I do say so myself, my husband and I hit our cues pretty spot on. We knew what to yell and when to pump our fists. Like true professionals. There's still a little work to be done, but I must say that I am very pleased with our progress thus far. My last attempt at scrapbooking was when I made a book for each year of college to serve as a sort of yearbook, and was pretty much in love with the results. But I had made an effort to reel it in with the scrapbooking for a while, because not long after that I went through my pre-digital-camera album and scrapbook collection and it was large. I quickly realized that my closets and bookshelves could not tolerate it if I kept up this pace for life so I promised myself to take a little break. Well, until I set forth on today's adventure, I had no idea how much had changed in the world of scrapbooking since then. For example, there is now a new trend called "smashbooking". It's advertised as a laid-back scrapbooking technique that simplifies the process for the person who hasn't the time or creativity for traditional scrapbooking. But what I'm not sure people realize is that it was all started by a smashbook company, and the amount of smashbook "accessories" that they sell does nothing to simplify the process.
As I step down from my soap box, here, it is probably clear to you that I am a scrapbooking minimalist. I don't believe in buying (extremely expensive!) stickers and borders and little quotes with rhinestones. If I need a background, I get creative with magazines, souvenir maps, and construction paper. If I need a quote, well, I have a pen for that. And I find that, besides saving armloads of money, it makes the scrapbook far more personal so that when you look at the pages you see your own thoughts and memories and not just some pretty graphics. And isn't that what a scrapbook is all about? I'm a big fan of nostalgia. No one really talks about skipping rocks anymore, but I tell ya, if I was a 12-year-old boy and the year was 1939, it would be an utter shame that I don't know how to properly skip a rock. So, naturally, I put this on my list of must-do's for the summer.
You may have read that I am turning everything that we know about the world upside down by making an effort to run a 5k. To my chagrin, I ran my first mile on Monday, and today I did it again! This time I took the show to a local waterfront park, so I decided that while I was there, it would be an excellent opportunity to make that attempt at skipping stones. This was convenient because it allowed me to blame all of my less-than-successful attempts on that fact that I was still delirious from running a mile. So after I finished my run, I took to the rocky beach and got down to business. I knew that I needed flat rocks. Check. I knew that I needed a flat water surface. Check. What I did not know was how on earth I was supposed to throw the thing. So I did my best impression of a person who knows what they're doing and, from a distance, I may have fooled a few people who'd forgotten to put in their contacts. However, up-close, I wasn't fooling anyone. Needless to say, I did not come anywhere near the world record of 51 skips, but I did get some pretty great kerplunks as the rocks plummeted solidly and consistently to the bottom of the bay. While these kerplunks are a pretty good indication of failure, I take solace in the fact that they are also incredibly satisfying. Assuming that macaroni and cheese was off the table, of course, I would choose Indian food for every meal. It is ridiculously vegetarian-friendly, feels healthy even when it's not, and is pretty affordable, too. However, for me at least, Indian food is a rare treat because I am suffering from a shortage of Indian-food-loving friends. So in order to enjoy it as often as I would like to, I need to be able to cook it for myself.
Well, let me tell you something. I got this cookbook with "easy" Indian recipes, but these recipes are in no way easy. In order to make one of my favorite Indian dishes, Mutter Paneer, I need 18 different ingredients. I judge the difficulty of a recipe by the number of ingredients it has, and this one failed the simplicity test. These are no easy ingredients either. In order to make this recipe, I would need muslin cloth, Punjabi garam masala powder, and something called ghee. Unfortunately, I think I used the last of my ghee this morning. I swear I'm always out of that stuff. Today, I decided to tackle Indian food once and for all, but perhaps not in the conventional way. I went to the store and bought an 89 cent can of peas, a single serving of Minute Rice in a microwaveable cup, tofu (in place of paneer because, seriously, what the heck is paneer anyway), and Progresso's Masala Curry butternut squash soup. I know, I know. This sounds like a terrible idea. But I'd had this soup once before and was shocked at how spicy it was. It was so spicy that it felt more like a sauce than a soup. So, I took these four class-act ingredients and made my own little French Canadian version of Mutter Paneer. And, you know what? It actually did taste like Mutter Paneer. So, I may not be much of a cook, but what I lack in talent, I make up for in innovation. After running a mile, I found myself to be a bit sore and just in need of a little lovin'. So I decided it would be a good day to pamper myself. Especially if I was intending to keep up this running charade.
Now, I'm no expert on girl-style pampering. My husband and I share the same Pert Plus Two-In-One Shampoo and Conditioner and Irish Spring bar soap of my youth. I cut my own bangs, and often live to regret it. I don't wear make-up because I'm an eye-rubber and because make-up is a big, fat lie. So my definition of pampering is probably very similar to another girl's definition of simple hygiene. But anyway, here's what I did. I took a nice, hot shower. I changed into the comfiest PJ's I own. I brushed my hair 100 times like I saw Martha do on the Brady Bunch just to say that I had. I dug out the abandoned lotions that I keep hidden away under the bathroom sink. I picked out the only bottle of nail polish that hadn't dried up with age and painted my toenails with a technique that was a little more Van Gogh than Da Vinci. And I ended the pampering session with a few rounds of yoga sun salutations, promptly ruining any effort to make my toes or hair look nice. But this was an excellent step to recovery. I feel very relaxed and very girly and with afternoons like this as a reward, I would be happy to continue running. |
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August 2014
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