Hurricane Sandy

We're battening down the hatches here in the DCMV today. Hurricane Sandy is already whipping through the neighborhood with winds up to 30 mph. By mid-afternoon, we're expecting hurricane forces to strike. The Federal Government offices have closed, as have all the schools in the area. The chances of trees falling and power outages is large.

I was just on twitter, reading the trending #Sandy, and people in Brooklyn, Atlantic City, and others are already trapped in their high rises from flooding. Sandy's not supposed to land until 4PM.

Since, we'll probably lose power soon, I'm enjoying my electric coffeemaker and laptop while still possible. To all my friends and family, in DC, New York, and beyond: stay inside, stay safe, and I'll see you on the other side.

Running for Charity

As you know October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, and as a tribute most magazine have had huge sections dedicated to cancer education, support, and ideas. I read a motivational suggestion in one magazine (I can't remember exactly which one, but it was either Self or Women's Health). The suggestion was that for every mile you manage in your weekly workout, pledge a dollar to your favorite charity. I've donated to my favorite charities a couple of times a year, but this idea was brilliant. It means that  my donations are smaller, but more frequent. And the more I manage to make it out of this stupid chair, the more I'm giving.

With this in mind, I've decided that Wednesday is "Donation Day". Whatever my mileage for the week is on Wednesday evenings is how much I'm donating. So by yesterday, I had raised $8.50 for my favorite charity. Let's see if I can beat that this week....

What about you? Do you have a giving program for yourself? Or a exercise motivation strategy? Would love to hear them!

Wednesdays and telephone

For some reason on Wednesdays, the NoVa traffic is bad. Now, we're not talking about just typical bad here. It seems that for some reason on Wednesdays, every person and his brother around here hops in his car around 8.30AM and decides to add to his own misery. A drive that ought to take twenty minutes instead takes forty-five, and obviously it's truly a joyful thing.

I heard a rumor once about why Wednesday traffic in the suburbs is particularly atrocious. A friend's husband works contracted to the government and heard that federal employees cannot telecommute on Wednesdays. In fact, he had heard that it was the only day that all employees must physically go into the office. Hence, their explanation for the terrible Wednesday traffic. I asked someone else a few weeks later, and heard a completely different story about federal employees and Wednesdays. I can't remember what that second story was, but it sounded like another game of telephone to me.

You remember that game telephone? One kid whispers a silly sentence in another's ear, then that person passes it along. Each kid passes the whisper around the circle until the final person who's heard it blurts it out; and if the final result even mildly resembles what the first kid whispered oh-so-long ago, then the game has failed miserably. I'm beginning to think that rumors in the suburbs work like this game. People live so far apart, meet only occasionally and by chance in far apart places. There's too much time between whisperings, there's no way the rumors we're getting are quality by the time they reach our ears. Or maybe their higher quality because there's more time for them to be warped....? The point, though, is that we may never know why the traffic is so bad on Wednesday mornings. But if you can suffer through it, you're one step closer to the weekend. 

Running strong

Yesterday at the gym, I did my usual walk-run. Generally, my walk-runs feature a great deal of walking and a minute or two of running, making the ratio difference between the two somewhere around 5:1. In fact, my endurance for running has always been close to zero; at full effort, it might inch up to 0.25. But as I was saying, yesterday. Yesterday, I got on the treadmill as usual but decided to do something a little different.

I was exhausted and late (there was a ton of traffic; didn't get to the gym until like 8PM). I didn't want to spend my usual hour at the gym, so I decided to warm up for a couple of minutes with brisk walking and then run for a minute to kick-start my workout. Then I would walk (around 3.8-4.0 mph) for thirty minutes, hit the elliptical for 5, and be done for the evening. Here's what really happened.

I got on the treadmill. Did the couple of minutes of walking and one minute run. Realized I wasn't dying. So after four minutes rest (walking at 3.8mph), I ran again. I told myself I was only going to run for one minute and begin walking again. But I ran for three. Sans dying. Another four minutes of rest, and I ran again. This occurred several times, until I racked up a running time of ten minutes' worth of my 30 minute walk-run. I think we should switch that: not a walk-run. I've upgraded to a run-walk. Woot!

In ten minutes, I ran a distance of about 0.83 miles. I don't know if you noticed, but that's over my bucket list goal, posted yesterday. Granted, the distance wasn't run all at once, which is indeed my goal, but I'd say it's a step in the right direction, wouldn't you?

As I sit here all lazily in the early morning sunrise, running seems like a breeze. Truth is obviously that that just isn't true, and I need to make sure I can run that half mile straight without a walking rest, but I might be changing the bucket list in light of this fitness that I had no idea I had.

The Year's Bucket List

A long time ago (like several weeks), I wrote that I had decided to make a bucket list for the rest of this year (which is quickly whittling down to the two months mark). Well, here we go!

First, the group of things that was on my New Year's Resolutions list that I haven't gotten to yet *sheepish grin*:
1) Consistently keep your journal
    I think the blog counts, right? Oh wait, I haven't been consistent about that either...
2) Read fifty books
     I'm on 27.... more than halfway with two months to go! Eeep....
3) Memorize a Liszt
    It's either going to be a one-pager, or switched to a Beethoven (which I've got)
4) Build Irish repertoire
    This I've actually accomplished a good deal with....
5) Finish (and get credit for) THESIS
    As I've said, I did one thing! woot!

Second, the group of things that need to be added to the bucket list for 2012:
6) Lose 20 pounds
    I've lost 10 in two months... not bad
7) Run half a mile
    Running, endurance, and strength are a few things I've been working on. A post about this soon, but I'm hoping to be able to run a half a mile without keeling over by December 31st
8) Go snowboarding
    I remember going snowboarding when I was a kid and absolutely loving it. I've decided that snowboarding would be a great hobby (obviously extremely recreational) to pick up/renew. More to come soon.
9) Write a novel
     NaNoWriMo is coming up November 1st. I think I'm going to cut my goal from the 10,000 word goal to something like 5,000. More to come soon! ;)
10) Finish scrapbooking
     I've got years worth of scrapbooking stuff sitting and waiting for me. I've run out of room in the scrapbook I've got, but that's no excuse not to finish. My goal- finish before January 1st so we can keep adding memories next year.

Pumpkin Carving Party

A friend of my hosted a Pumpkin Carving Party on Saturday night. It was such a cute idea, I wish I'd thought of it! I had to work the next morning at 8 o'clock, so I left pretty early before all the pumpkins were finished. But I grabbed some of her pictures to share with you! Check another thing of the Fall Bucket List, and a great idea for next year!

I helped this smart girl who wanted her pumpkin carving to be two hands on a person's rear-end. You can see the finished product in picture number 2. Can you figure out which one it is? ;)

Dukan Dieting

Since two days after I landed in the States two months ago, I've been dieting. No juice cleanses or Drop 10 Fast things. The diet I've been doing my best to follow (I can't just simply say the diet I've been following because, as you will see, it hasn't been that clear cut...) is called the Dukan Diet. Created by French doctor Pierre Dukan, the diet resembles Atkins in it's insistence on the importance of protein over carbohydrates. However, Dukan goes a bit further and makes it simpler. For a few days, one eats nothing but pure protein. No fat, no carbs, no fiber. Nothing but meat (or tofu, etc.). After those first few days, the kick-start for the diet, one alternates days of pure proteins and proteins with vegetables. Dukan lists 100 foods that one can eat in unlimited quantities, prescribes specific exercise and a few tablespoons of oat bran a day (which I've been turning into sweet treats to quell my sweet tooth's insatiable cravings). One follows this second phase of the diet until the desired weight is achieved. Two more relaxed stages of dieting follow, slowly reintroducing the body to the carbohydrates and sugars it has been deprived of, and  viola! For the rest of one's life, one need only commit to having one pure protein day a week forever, and Dukan says the ideal weight will be maintained.

Sounds easy enough, right readers? Think again. For those of you who know me personally, you may realize that I've never cared about my weight. I've never dieted a day in my life before now, and exercise has always been something that happened along the way to other things (dance team, walking around the city on errands, etc.). Something you may not know about me, in fact it's something I'm not sure I realized myself, is that I have a huge and uncontrollable sweet tooth. Well, let me rephrase. I don't have a sweet tooth so much as I crave the comfort and relaxation that I seem to associate with sugar: midnight snacks, tea time, breakfast treats.

Needless to say, with all these diet-crushing habits sitting my personal background, I've broken the diet a few times. I have actually lost about a third of my goal weight, which surprises me a great deal. Having looked and felt the same for about six or seven years, I've grown so accustomed to my weight that I don't think I ever really thought about changing it. So clearly it's possible to change it, and I intend to keep going. But the struggle here is to find a way to get over the sweet treats!!

The key I'm learning is to be sure to treat myself to some down time with Dukan-approved treats at least once a day. If I skip out on this time, I have a much harder time controlling the desire for crazy amounts of sweets for the next day or even next few days!

You may be wondering what are some Dukan-approved treats (or maybe you don't care at all!), and I promise to share some fun recipes and facts in the coming weeks, as you join me along the last few legs of my Dukan journey (at this point I don't care if you're interested; you're coming anyway ;).  But until then, just note a couple of things.

Yep. You can lose weight. Or, if that's not your goal, you can change your eating habits, you can train and gain strength and endurance. You can lead a totally different lifestyle. If I can do it, trust so can anyone. I know it's cliché, but I really didn't think I could. Set a few small goals for yourself, such as adding cardio or stretch class twice a week, and watch as your outlook changes. Who knows? Maybe making those small lifestyle changes with give you the courage and creativity to make lifestyle overhauls. We could all use a little change, right?

 

Rainy Day October Adventures

Sunday, despite the gloom of the day, we all took a drive out to the mountains for a little R&R and a long October drive. Up in the mountains, the clouds made our car disappear into the mist. We were officially part of Brigadoon, and thus when we got home last night, we turned on Brigadoon with Gene Kelly.

There are a couple of more pictures, but I foolishly let someone else take them, which means I am at their mercy for when they decide to upload them and get organized.

We had a lovely day. The night before (Saturday night) we went to Church and out to dinner at a family favorite (an Irish place, surprise!). Sunday morning we woke up and hit the road for the next six hours. We didn't get much exercise, but we covered a lot of ground. Whatever the weather, the foliage was beautiful, and it was nice to get out of the suburbs for the day!

Blog revolution

I haven't added a post to this blog for more than a week, and I'm sure my *ahem* multitude of readers are feeling neglected. But never fear, faithful fans! I am back and promising a beautiful blogging revolution. As usual, work is perpetual and taxing; life is busy and constant. But here on my little plot of internet, we will explore some of the finer points of life together. Right now, I'm stuck in the suburbs, to steal a phrase from the Disney Channel Original Movie. Yet while the suburbs is literally a vacuum in which all sense of excitement or variety evaporated, I'm working hard to rediscover the land of my youth. So, as long as I'm here, we're going to explore the great DCMV as the Diva Abroad would, Bill Bryson-style.

That's all I've got for you tonight. I'm wiped out after a long family adventure day in the rainy October mountains (pictures and more soon!). And tomorrow is my first and longest day of the work week. So we'll all just have to wait a little bit longer for the real start of that blogging frenzy I've promised. I just wanted to post a little something to make sure you all knew (again, I'm speaking to the masses of people reading), that I haven't forgotten you yet ;)

Talk soon! Until then, codladh sámh (sleep well)

Going Pink for October

Happy October! Welcome to the first days of Fall, to the days of falling leaves and apple cider, to the warmth of hot chocolate and cozy sweater, to the chill of crisp breezes, and welcome to Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

All over the country, people are dedicating October to Breast Cancer awareness and fundraising. Join the campaign to turn the internet pink at pinkforoctober.org. Look to participate in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in your local area (the big New York City walk can be found here: http://www.avonwalk.org/new-york/). Join in the fight to end the disease, raise awareness, and hope for a future with more birthdays!