2011, Goodnight, Sweet Prince

UPDATE: I should clarify that the statement below calling 2011 shitty was not from the perspective that I personally think it was shitty. For me, it was a great year. I should have elaborated. The world lost a lot of big names, including Steve Jobs and Christopher Hitchens. Republicans took power in the House and proceeded to do nothing for the nation and there's a chance that someone I could meet this next year either was, or saw, a student who was peppers prayed in the face. Anyway, correction made, carry on.

Tonight we wave goodbye to 2011 in true Millennial fashion. We're going to a party we've RSVP'd to via Facebook, and will be tweeting the events of the night via our smartphones, having intellectual conversations (hopefully not too many) with young hopefuls who see 2012 as the next greatest year of their lives. They might be right, or it could just be that in retrospect, 2011 was just so shitty.

I don't think I'll know a lot of people at this party. It's an opportunity to reconnect with a friend from Placerville who just moved to Davis. Despite our efforts to connect and "do something sometime" we haven't been able to make it happen until said Facebook encounter. Social Media has changed the way we party.

If you've been following my blog, you know I haven't made very many local friends and I haven't made any I see on a regular basis. The moments I have in the Placerville area hanging out with my besties are cherished moments and the one or two times I've been able to connect with coworkers outside of the daily grind hold me over from becoming a cabin-fevered maniac, driving my poor husband insane (or, more so than usual), but on this New Year's Eve I'm reminded that I don't have to give up any connections to make new ones. (Cue cliché reference to "Auld Lang Syne). After all, should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind? Hell no, I'll see my homies in the New Year.

Please have a safe holiday, everyone, and remember there's no excuse to drink and drive. Peace.

Christmas!!

Happy Christmas, everyone! So, you'll all be jelly when you hear what Chris and I are taking home this Christmas.

First mentionable, we got a roaster. That's right. Removable lining for easy cleaning. I'm going to buy a whole damn chicken tomorrow and try that thing out.

We got tons of goodies from both sides of the fam. Yummies and coffees and things. Socks and pretty smelling shower gel. I got a mini muffin tin, a camelbak, a bike light and a bike speedometer. I also got a can of pepper spray for when I jog in the morning. I got three books. One is the fifth boom from A Song of Ice and Fire, one by Temple Grandin and the other is a book by the author of Buddhism Without Beliefs, which is awesome because he does a great job of laying out the principles of Dharma without the superstitious stuff getting in the way.

Chris got two PS3 games and A set of the Star Trek movies. I won't be seeing him for awhile, I can be assured.

Best of all, I got to spend the holidays with my awesome, quirky, fun family and my wonderful husband. That's more than I could ask for. I hope everyone had a great holiday! Merry Christmas!

Hitch

His last years after his cancer diagnosis were spent using the time he had left to do the greatest good that he could. He offered his own medical condition to doctors to test new treatments, knowing it wouldn't improve his chances. He did it for the next generation. He continued to be outspoken against the atrocities of organized religions and refused to allow any zealots to make the mistake of claiming he might have a "deathbed conversion." He was a role model for humanism and for furthering the scope of science and rational thought to the very end. He will be truly missed.

Testing the new Blogger app

Let's see how it does photos.

Bout to do dis

Cross Fiiiiiit! Fucking love Mondays and Wednesdays. Next week I get to add Tuesdays. Yayah!

And I got a bunch of Xmas shopping done. Damn, I'm fired up!

December 4th, 2011

Folks, we're just over one year away from the end of the Mayan calendar. You know what that means. Time to buy those Mayans a new desk calendar! I'm thinking one of those "joke a day" calendars, to keep them smiling into the next 5,126 year cycle.

Holidays are coming up. Who's excited? Chris and I are going to put the tree up tonight. We have tons of extra ornaments Chris's mom found under the house. Two whole boxes to go on our three-foot fake tree. Where are all the ornaments going to go, you may ask. Well, the extras will go in my mom's garage. I finally found a family member to store our stuff with. We have way too much of stuff, but we don't want to get rid of everything because it's stuff we'd like to have when we have a larger place someday. In the meantime, I don't rightly know how to slow the influx of stuff from well-meaning family members that keep us in their thoughts every time they go to the thrift store. Oh, married life.

Niner game at 1pm, then I'm taking a trip to North Highlands to help a friend out, and when I get back, CHRISTMAS TREEEEEE!!! I'm excited. Hope everyone's having a good weekend.

I Don't Want To Talk About It

I was heartbroken this time last night. I could rant about bad refs, how we weren't on top of our game this time, how we had a short week and a long ride to Baltimore, but really, I just don't even want to talk about it. Even if we beat everyone else, including the Steelers, this game will still sting. Then again, if we beat the Steelers...

No, I won't go there. Not again. We'll clinch the Division and we'll end the regular season either 14-2 or 13-3. Hell, even if we ended 12-4, we'd be doing a thousand times better than I would have expected and it would be the first time in over a decade that the hope a new coach brought wouldn't be dashed by the end of the season (as it was with Nolan and Singletary). Then, the playoffs, which I don't even want to imagine yet...

HarBowl on Thanksgiving Day

Every season, every new coach, every glimmer of hope at the beginning of the regular season have all been shot down for the last almost-decade, so I wasn't exactly putting any eggs in any basket called "Jim Harbaugh" when he was hired during the off-season. With the lock-out, I felt for sure we'd be right in the gutter again, our hopes of even making it to the playoffs still years away. I read up a little on this "Jim" guy, and what he had accomplished at Stanford, but I wasn't going to start getting my hopes up. High expectations are breeding grounds for big disappointments, after all.

If you had told me in our measly 2-2 preseason that we'd have a winning season by week 11, about to clinch our division, and would have the second best standings in the NFC, I would have told you to shut your mouth and quit lying. There was no way this Jim guy was that good. I mean, sure, we have some of the best players in the NFL, but no coach so far had been able to bring that talent together to win games. As everyone is likely finding out now, those doubts have been shot to pieces. I believe in Jim Harbaugh and I believe in this team. I even believe that Alex Smith has a future as a starting quarterback.

I know, I know, they still have things to work on. But their passion is so strong. They have worked so hard for every win. They have learned hard lessons and have been able to adjust on the fly to whatever the opposing team throws at them. We could be in the Super Bowl within a couple of years. Hell, we could even win it by then. It's too soon this season to hope that we'd even take conference championship...but damn, they are determined to make all the doubters eat their words. Our defense is amazing. Our running game is strong and even Smith's passing game improves with each week.

I wasn't even going to watch the Eagles game. I didn't want to watch us get beat by stupid Michael Vick. The first hint of the game that I got was when the Niners were down 20-3. Then Chris got a push notification on his iPad that we had won. I thought he was joking. Then we played the Lions, who were then undefeated. We won. It was an amazing game. The next big game we had where people were saying we'd probably finally lose was the Giants. Everyone thought we were a fluke. Then, we beat the Giants. Shit just got real.

Tomorrow is HarBowl, or Harbaugh v. Harbaugh. Jim and John, brothers and coaches of the Niners and the Ravens respectively, will have their teams face each other tomorrow in Baltimore. Both teams are trying to clinch their Division with these games. It's going to be a helluva match. It's so important to me that I planned where I'd be on Thanksgiving based on where I could watch the game. So, even if the Niners don't go all the way this season and walk away with the greatest turn around season of all time (in my mind, at least) and the Division, I'll be satisfied if we win Harbowl. I've got a new Niners wallpaper on my phone and I'm more excited about it than I am about cranberry sauce-and I love me some cranberry sauce. So, happy Thanksgiving everyone, hope you all enjoy your holiday. Go Niners!

Bloggedy-Blog-Blog

'Member that thing I ranted about? Yeah, turned out fine. What a surprise.

I have signed up for more Crossfit classes. I really like it and my strength and flexibility have improved immensely.

Veterans' Day, Chris and I went to the Sacramento Zoo and then met our friends Jimmy and Yazzy for some trampoline fun at Sky High on Folsom Blvd. Then we went and ate off all that hard work at Sky Sushi in El Dorado Hills, who have rolls for half price right now. Mmm mmm mmm.

Saturday was more solemn, as we went to Chris's parents' house to help bury their old kitty, Willie, who was sixteen when he passed. He was such a good cat, and near-sighted, too, which was really cute because he didn't recognize you until you got real close. He will be missed.

Later that night, we had dinner at my Dad's with Mo and Lindsay. Mo was on his internship with station 49 a few weeks ago and went on a call to my dad's. My dad had called the ambulance with severe abdominal pain. Turned out to be a kidney stone, but my dad was grateful for the level of care Mo given him, so we all had dinner. Uncle Mickey was there, complaining that Kathy, my stepmom and his sister, had said he couldn't come. I told her Uncle Mickey is always invited and neener neener neener. We had a blast.

Sunday was the Niners vs Giants game. Incredible. Read my twitter if you want to know how it went. I was standing up most the game.

We also got Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on Sunday. I only played it for six hours. I'll let you know how I like it.

Anyway, that is all for now. Oh, I uploaded a new ASL Vlog the other day. Catch it on my YouTube.

Rant.

I don't understand people's mistrust of doctors. I've been to asshole doctors before, and I've asked to change doctors once, but most are good at what they do and some even take a personal approach to their practice and take extra time with you. For every one doctor that I didn't like, I can think of ten I've seen that have been extremely helpful.

Sure, there are the horror stories you hear where the arrogant doctor kills a patient, but it's these stories that get the news because people were involved and because it is more rare than doctors doing a good job. You'll never hear how an arrogant WalMart supervisor ruined the day of all his subordinates because no one died from his mess-up. Assholes are everywhere, and yet there are people put there who claim that doctors, in general, have a "god-complex" and are just playing with their patients' lives.

Perhaps this is true for them. They happened to be "screwed around" by doctors who have nothing better to do than make their patients feel inferior. Yet, they still go to the doctor when they are sick or in an emergency.

Perhaps, even simpler and evermore likely, they just don't like the answers they got from the doctor. Maybe the doctor, who went to school for eight years, made a decision based on the knowledge he or she has, and when questioned, tried to address the fears of the patient, who, with as little knowledge on the subject as a lay person could have challenged the doctor's decision. Maybe the patient was rude. Maybe the doctor had a long day. Maybe he became terse after that. Does that make doctors arrogant jerks playing god? I don't think so.

"But wait!" you say, "there are plenty of stories of female nurses telling doctors they are doing wrong and the doctors not listening." Congratulations! You have just hit on another problem in our society that isn't special to medicine by any means. For long time, most doctors were male. For a long time, this country had a very one-sided view of gender roles and the perception of women. In all fields that we're make dominated, you had this imbalance of power. Guess what? The balance has been shifting for years. The number of female doctors has grown by almost twenty percent in thirty years, according to the AMA. Is it time to shift our own perceptions of the fields that used to be so strictly patriarchal?

Anecdotal evidence doesn't hold up well in my mind because I simply wasn't there to see it and can't tell if the person telling the story might be embellishing, so I could hear example after example by a person about doctors treating them like crap, but in the end, if the person got through whatever medical problem they have without too many complications and their still walking around without needing to file a malpractice suit, then the asshole doctor with the god-complex was right all along. As much as that might hurt an ego to hear after they've demonized the entire practice of medicine, it's true. "oh, your doctor wouldn't listen to you about this? But the other thing he said would work worked? Well, then he was still right and you weren't." Hard to say that to someone who has been through a serious medical scare.

I will grant that every patient has a right to-and in fact should seek-a second opinion when faced with serious illness or injury. It is the patients' responsibility to do so, not the doctors', so don't think they're arrogant for not suggesting it, especially if they are a specialist in their field. They make their diagnosis and prognosis and assume you trust them if you don' ask questions or get a second opinion. A Starbuck's barista wouldn't send you a coworker to make sure you really want no whip on your mocha, right? I

t's also not up to the doctor to think of questions for you. Go to you local library and bring a list of questions to ask your doctor. Reader's Digest has been suggesting that for years. Ask questions and if you don't get an answer, ask someone else, but if you don't like the answer no matter where you get it from, think about what that might mean.

Anyway, I'm done ranting. It's not that I'm super pro-doctor. I just hate hearing generalizations about people or entire fields based on misinformation. Have a good Armistice Day, everyone.

Unsolicited Advice

When you have honest concerns about a medical condition, ask your doctor. Don't listen to anti-science nut jobs that would have you mistrust all doctors as arrogant assholes with a "god-complex." That is all.

Cross Fit

I've decided to keep doing Cross Fit. It wasn't an easy decision, because it's another monthly expense. I did, however, get a deal that I would not be able to get anywhere in the whole wide Cross Fit world.

I did a workout called Fran today. Twenty-one thrusters, twenty-one jumping pull-ups, followed by fifteen more of each, followed by nine more of each. My time was 6:49, I think, although my brain was cloudy at the end and I don't remember the time quite well. I will just stick with that.

I came home to flowers, homemade pizza and non-alcoholic beer (imported from Germany, not that O'Doul's crap) all from my sweet husband, who decided to surprise me tonight, just cuz.

Now it's time for tea and reruns of How I Met Your Mother. :) Good day.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Giant Asteroid.

There's going to be a giant asteroid flying by earth tomorrow. Everyone just chill! It's not a threat...this time. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15572634

ASL Vlog from this weekend

Once again.

I've deleted Gowalla and Foursquare for good. Gowalla rolled out their new update and got rid of every Pin I had except for the USA and California pins. All my Disney pins, gone. All the items, gone. All the foursquare badges lately have been nothing but corporate promotions that you can't even do anything to get unless you live in LA, New York or another of a very small selection of cities. Facebook places checks me in with my friends when we go to cool places and want other people to know where we've been. Other than that, the games are dead.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Crossfit 9.

It's almost over. Nine out if twelve classes. I am going to miss this place. I really like these guys. They are so sweet and encouraging, yet they make me work my butt off. I had that one day where I thought the guy was being rude, but it was only a singular incident, and every time since has been a success. I will miss them terribly if I don't get a gym membership. Let's see what my husband says.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Updates and Rants, 10-22-11

October has been as busy as September. We have had something planned every weekend since early September now and we are looking at not having a free weekend well into November. I have forgotten what it's like to wake up on a Saturday and not get showered and dressed until 1pm. Since September we've gone to Monterey, Daly City, Placerville, had people over, seen a couple of our best friends get married, had some great times. I'm not complaining, but it will be nice one of these days to just not go anywhere.

I took my ASL midterm last week and scored a 49 out of 50 points. I was seriously nervous, too! I thought for sure I had at most a C. I could have sworn my teacher looked confused half of the time, but my nerves were just playing tricks on me.

There are people in class that are just helluv rude. They talk out loud on purpose and giggle about it. Not only is it disrespectful to our Deaf teacher, but it's also distracting while we're trying to get instruction from him. One douche-ass stood in front of the class during an exercise where we were describing relationships and made something up about having a girlfriend. That's fine, but when he sat down he said so everyone could hear, "I'm actually single," just to get a laugh. They will all lose the last laugh when their grades come in. My friends and I are telling the teacher who and when the speaking is going on. Yup, I'm a snitch and I don't care.

It's one thing when people whisper to each other to help each other out, but it's another entirely to speak just because the professor can't hear. You would think that in the second level ASL class these students would have a little bit of respect for Deaf people and for the language, but no. I'm sure you've heard this rant before, but it's something that really bothers me. Anyway, that's all the rant I have for tonight.

Mom's up this weekend. We've been hanging out, going to the jazz festival downtown. We went to Davis Common to the Main stage at first. After awhile we realized there was another stage across the street. We went over and listened for awhile. We painted on their art wall in front of the Natsoulas Gallery and then went in and showed mom the staircase of art and the roof. She loved it.

Mom took Chris and I to Ali Baba's for dinner tonight and it was wonderful as ever. It's been a great day. Next weekend, Halloween party!! Weekend after that, Eid!! I'm making cake pops, chili and mulled cider. I was thinking about making a pumpkin pie, but I will probably just buy one, with all the cooking I'll already be doing. Here's to the holiday season!!!

Cross Fit 6

Ugh.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

My last blog was almost two weeks ago! How ever shall I highlight the events that took place? Busy, busy, busy, I've been!

ASL 2 class is going well. I have a final coming up next Tuesday. I feel pretty confident sometimes and other times I sit up in bed while I'm trying to go to sleep and start signing in the dark to make sure I really know what I'm doing.

Last Friday Chris and I went to the Linguistics Dept. welcome dinner and I met a lot of his professors. I also met a researcher from Center for Mind and Brain who does a lot of work with ASL. He told me he knew my professor and so I told my professor last class that I had met him. I had a whole conversation with my teacher in ASL about it and felt like a million bucks afterward. I hadn't been able to really have an impromptu conversation in ASL with any Deaf people yet. I remember the first time I spoke to someone whose native language was French, all in French. It's a good feeling.

There was also Marzipan torte there from Konditorei on 5th Street. It's the same bakery Chris and I went to on the day after we got back from our honeymoon while we waited for my flat tire to be fixed. I fell in love. It will forever be my birthday cake from now on. I had just one slice, but I didn't want to eat anything else ever again because I wanted to remember that taste. I am looking forward to February 25th.

I went back to Cross Fit. It was a lot better the next few times. I have five classes under my belt and I feel stronger each time and I'm a lot less sore the next day than I was that first week.

I went and saw my little sister Michelle, and her boyfriend Graham in Daly City last weekend. I played with her bunny, Waffle, who looooves pets and lets people hold him all day long. He's so soft and cute! I want a Holland Lop!!!

We had a great time! Sushi Saturday night and our own Star Trek original series marathon the next day, followed by The Wrath of Khan (because no one but me likes the V-ger movie), and IHOP and In and Out Burger. So, free calorie Saturday was more like Free Calorie Weekend, but it was okay because I'm still down to 150 as of today. Right on target.

I've also said before that I'm not going to let my goal to lose weight and be healthy get in the way of enjoying life and special occasions. I am able to curb the amount I eat without having to count every calorie, so I don't just completely go off the wagon, but I'm not torturing myself either. It's important to have that balance.

Steve Jobs passed away yesterday, which was very sad. I'm sure you all have heard it all over the news by now. I think that it's amazing that so many people heard the news on iDevices and that it was headlined everywhere, taking up whole pages in some newspapers. It could very well have been a little blip on the radar in the last section of the newspaper about the inventor of the Apple II if Apple hadn't taken him back in the '90's. His was the greatest comeback I've ever seen and his innovation will inspire generations. Rest in Peace, Steve.

I think I'll end this blog entry on that note. Have a good evening everyone.





-This blog entry was made on a Mac.

A Magical Weekend

This weekend Chris and I went to Monterey to celebrate the marriage of our dear friends Jimmy and Yazzy. Down 17-mile drive on a little beach, we stopped and braved the wind to witness their vows (which we couldn't actually hear due to the waves crashing on the beach, but Jimmy and Yazzy heard each other, which is what was really important). I was honored to watch my dear friends cement their commitment to each other on the shore of the mighty Pacific. It was beautiful.

We arrived at the rental house in Del Rey Oaks at around 9pm on Friday night and left Sunday evening. This place was huge. I put pictures up on my facebook for my friends who want to see it. Maybe when I get around to it, I'll post them on my Picasa. There was a spa in the back that we relaxed in after our long drive. Saturday morning I woke up and jogged to the beach down Canyon Del Rey and back up to the Breakfast Club for a total of three miles.

After a yummy breakfast with Chris, Morgen and Lindsay, we all went back to the house to finish centerpieces and pack up for the reception hall. Chris had to set up the stereo equipment and I was left in charge of delegating tasks to set up tables and decorate. I don't think I'm exactly a born leader, but my friend sees something in me I don't and everything went fine. The place looked gorgeous and Yazzy and Jimmy's families were super-duper helpful and very, very sweet.

We went back to the house and got ready. After the ceremony, the sun came out, which was nice, because while Yazzy and Jimmy were doing pictures, some of us (Lindsay and I especially) had decided to frolic on the beach. We got stuck on a rock as some higher waves came in with the tide and we subsequently got our dresses wet as we leapt to shore. Finally, pictures were done and we headed to the reception.

The toasts were beautiful and the dancing was lively and the entire evening was the stuff that life is made of: joy, laughter, dance-offs, cake, delicious food, and of course, love. Oh, and of course, more spa time afterward, back at the house. The next morning we cleaned up and went to First Awakenings, which also has some really awesome food. I had the Acapulco Express, an omelette with chorizo and other yummy things, which I would highly recommend to anyone. Also, the kids' menus are coloring pages and they will give them to adults who ask for them. We all colored, it was great.

We parted ways after that, wishing Jimmy and Yazzy bon voyage on their Hawaiian honeymoon. Mo and Lindsay joined Chris and I to go exploring Cannery Row and playing by the beach. They followed us back up Highway 5 (we took 5 back to avoid the Benicia toll. The difference in gas is negligible but the toll is usually cash-only and at least five dollars). We stopped by Split Pea Anderson's for dinner because Mo drove up next to our car and started yelling that we were stopping or else.

After we got back on the road, Chris missed the 5 at the 580 split and before we knew it we were on the Altamont Pass. Woops. We could have kept going, but we still would have hit the Benicia toll, so we doubled back to 205 and finally got home at 11:30 last night. Good times. I'm so tired I can't even really see straight anymore. I think I broke some laws getting to work on time this morning after stretching my snooze-button time longer than was safe. It was a really good weekend and I am extremely happy for my two friends, who are in Hawaii right now as we speak, hopefully having the time of their lives. Life is good and beautiful and wonderful as always and it's just about time for bed.

Headache

I've had the worst headache I've ever had since yesterday around 11am. I am not going to work today. I called in and tried going back to sleep, but the garbage truck and now the lanscaper leaf blowing is getting to me. I've made myself a pot of coffee and can't seem to find the energy to get off the couch and go make a cup. This is miserable and I don't know what I did. It's like all the energy has been drained from my body.

If I don't feel better by this evening, I'm not going to be doing any running. I did a mile on Sunday night after taking time off to let my legs heal from Cross Fit. I went on the treadmill at the apartment gym because it was already dark out. I had no motivation to keep going, though. When I run outside and I hit a mile, I at least have to come back, right? Not so on the tread.

I really hope I feel better soon. This gas leaf-blower guy is driving me nuts. I wish Davis would go through with the ban on those already. Ugh.

Racist and Audist Women in an ASL Class

It's been a terribly long week. Thursday ASL class was great, as always, minus the girl (I'll call her Helga) in the hallway before class talking over me and trying to belittle me while I was asking another girl (I'll call her Charro for sake of clarity), why she thought that the faults of Affirmative Action were worse than the conditions that cause the need for it (which Charro couldn't answer and only could give a, "it's my right to complain" spiel while admitting that as a woman and a Latina she would be getting the short end of the stick).  She also didn't know the first thing about Affirmative Action, not realizing that California doesn't even have Affirmative Action in place anymore and that Affirmative Action is not a "quota," but the quotas were put in place as one way to uphold Affirmative Action. Boy did she look dumb.

She looks white, talks white and is light skinned enough to "pass" for white, so I could see why she had a problem with Affirmative Action "treating her special for being Latina". If Affirmative Action gave her a better chance at fighting discrimination or getting into a better college, she would then have to admit that despite her and her family's hard work to be like the majority and forget their roots, she did have a history that didn't fit in with the White-All-American stereotype that minorities have been forced to conform to for so long. It's sad though, because I know so many people who do enjoy their heritage without the pressure to conform.

It was really hard to state my position clearly as Helga (who is, in fact white, and very angry about Affirmative Action possibly hurting one white person out of millions who constantly get treated better than their counterparts of different races) was talking over me. I finally told her to read a book. She was frustrating me so bad, I felt my tongue slipping over words. I started feeling shaky every time she interrupted me. I think ten years ago I probably would have just slapped her.

What wasn't surprising is that before this exchange, she and Charro had been complaining about having to write full paragraphs in their responses on the D2L posts for class. Helga even stated, "I wish he would have explained that in the first place," despite the fact that the syllabus we read out loud in class clearly laid out the guidelines for posting. These two have pretty clearly stated before class that they don't like the teacher. Helga felt the quiz was too hard with the teacher putting six blank spots for five possible answers (you know, so the last one isn't a freebie), because obviously she has some kind of trouble with multiple choice.

Later in the week, I went back on D2L and Charro had posted a response in that know-it-all, defender of rights way of hers to another classmate. The original classmate was responding to an article written by a political pundit that was very anti-Deaf and anti-ASL. The classmate used a rhetorical question to make a point, saying, "What right does he have..." Well, Charro thought that the classmate meant to take away this pundits right of free speech and had to mention something about that. She finally found a whole paragraph to write, though, so good for her.

Later in class, one of their friends who we'll call-what's a good crack-head name? She looks like she's been torn up by some kind of stimulant in her past-well, we'll just call her Cracky. Cracky, before class, is constantly loud and tells the entire hallway all her personal details and opinions because she needs the attention. I wrote about her earlier on this blog. Remember the girl that thought the teacher made up the No English in Class rule because he was worried about what we were saying? Yeah, her.

Anyway, she was talking during class Thursday while the teacher was teaching a lesson. So rude! So I told on her. Because she wasn't just talking to someone next to her or whispering for help from a neighbor. She was talking out loud because our teacher is Deaf. Her neighbors (Charro is one, though I don't know if she participated) were laughing at her antics.

Yes, I'm a tattle tale. I mentioned it to a classmate who pointed out Cracky's D2L post where she wrote a response to another student that said, "Wow, you really stepped it up a notch with the boring and quotes," incorrect grammar is hers. Three women in my class too stupid to live. How does this happen?

So what do I do about it? I have to go to class and be with these people until December! Well, I decided that I'd just continue tattle taling because I've never done it before (my motto in High School was 'snitches get stitches'), and it actually felt good.

Second, I decided that I'd use it as fuel. This week at Cross Fit I'm going to kick some ass. Also, I decided to write a very well researched post for this week's discussion topic. I already posted it. It's about four paragraphs, so I know Charro and Helga probably won't even read it, but I had a great time writing it.

I also should probably do some meditating, just for good measure. Eventually, I'll just forgive these three because there's really no other way they could have acted. I'm a hard determinist and they are hard wired to make the poor decisions they make. Nothing I can do about it.

So that's that. Long work week, long school week. I'll have a weekend update later.

Vlog nineonefivetwozerooneone

Crossfit, Week 1

Monday I decided to start using my Groupon. I got twelve classes for twenty-five dollars, which is a small portion of what they usually charge for that many Crossfit classes, which I can't find rates for on their website here, but it was close to my last car payment if I remember correctly.

I went in and we started with a warm up in three lines down "the track," which consisted of many different types of lunges, squats and hop-scotch like jumps. Next, he showed us different exercises that are included in Crossfit and explained the process of a Crossfit exercise. There were two sets of exercises that were done, the second being more intense than the first, which was mostly pull-ups and such. The second part involved throwing a weighted ball at a target on the wall while doing squats, doing squats while swinging a kettle bell, and doing these crazy, backward push-ups on a rigged-up PVC pipe. I don't know what these exercises are called and I have a bad memory anyway, but it doesn't really matter. I call them hard. We did as many of these reps as we could in ten minutes.

I really, really liked it. Afterward, the top of my thighs burned like crazy (what are those muscles called? I have no idea), and the next day I almost couldn't walk. I was really excited about it, and felt better today, so I went after work.

This time, there was a different trainer and, yes, there were a lot of people in the class, but I didn't think there were more than on Monday. So he felt that it was necessary to not actually have a Crossfit class and to do a basic Tabata instead. He didn't tell us that, I just overheard him talking to one of the "regulars" after he ended the class fifteen minutes early (I decided to use that fifteen minutes on their elliptical, because even though I got a discount, I still think that I deserve a full workout). The "regulars" were saying things like, "So you're not doing a real workout today?" and he glanced at me watching him and said, "Yeah, it's a real workout, we're just short on equipment." Tabata is 20 seconds of an exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest for 8 cycles.

We did squats, pushups, sit ups, and some running/walking intervals.  I asked him when the morning classes were so I could come when there were less people and possibly do some more exercises that I can't just do on my own in my own living room. After all, that's why I'm going to a GYM. In other words, I was kind of pissed off a bit. He said he never does morning classes, so I'm thinking that maybe I should start going on the Tuesday/Thursday 6am classes. That means waking up at 5am and driving to Sac, but I can do anything just 10 times, right? I got through the sit ups, didn't I?

So that's the end of week one. I hope that my next ten classes are a bit more serious than Jay wanted to take them. If not, I think I might write a strongly worded blog about it (that'll show 'em). One class was good, one not so good. I'll update more later.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

I've been running two miles since last week. I ran friday night, monday night and tuesday, thursday and friday morning. I dropped to 154.8 this week after being stuck at 157 last week. I upped my water intake as well; I had been slacking a bit and started taking a refillable water bottle to work again. I still have free calorie saturdays, which is nice because I don't want to have to worry about calories tonight at my friend's bachelorette party. It's going to be an awesome party, even if I'm missing the Capitol Air Show for the first time. Chris will take pictures for me.

So, in summary, I'm eating healthy and exercising and it's still working. Down seventeen pounds now. Have a good weekend, everyone.

Thank You

My pageviews over the last month shot up from just over 700 to 1,795. Often, the traffic source is from facebook, so I'd like to thank you all for coming onto my blog. If you'd like, please leave a comment in the comments section letting me know what you like about the blog, what drew you to it, what could be improved, etc. I'll turn on anonymous comments for those who wish to remain unnamed. Thanks again for reading!

Friendship

I have the bestest, most awesome friends in the whole wide world and I already miss them. Yay for hikes and burgers and quarantine 2, and YouTube and Wal mart and coconut ice cream and jumping in pools with all my clothes on, and waterfalls and nail polish and bling and aquatic hiking shoes, and moms and stirring soap and singing loud and having the three best men in the world, and sprouts and cacao nibs and pugs and Pennie Lane cat and sleazy psychic tv detectives, and and and, just being the awesome women we are.

Morgen Day

Lindsay is not feeling well and Mo was sad that I said today was a Lindsay day, thereby excluding him, so now today is a Morgen Day. We went to Wal-Mart and now we're playing Scene It. W00t!



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Friday Update

I ran two miles today. Nonstop. Sometimes slower, sometimes faster, but I ran the whole time.

Tomorrow is Lindsay day. Sunday is Yazzy day. Labor day comes afterward.

I ride over the overpass instead of taking the tunnel to get to class. My lungs burn, but it is awesome.

I'm on book two in Song of Ice and Fire. Michelle was right about George R.R. Martin.

I have a great, comfortable pillow waiting for me now. Goodnight.


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Falling In Love

I think I'm falling in love. I don't know how Chris is going to take it. I think I love running. And I hope running loves me back.

I look in the mirror and I can see the difference that 14 pounds makes. I put on shirts I haven't worn in awhile and I don't have to pull them off right away and find something fluffier to wear. I start running and I don't want to stop. I can do over 15 minutes without stopping. Granted, I slow down and speed up, but that comes later, just like running past two minutes would come later when I was very first starting.

I went on two runs today because I wasn't really satisfied with just doing the mile I did at the track. I decided to go around my block. Halfway through, I was remembering July, in the beginning, when I was cheering myself on just to get through two minutes. I remembered the otter pops on my legs when the shin splints got too much to bear. I remembered thinking that a 5k next spring might be a reasonable goal. Now I'm considering an autumn run. In the back of my mind, I dare hope that someday I'll do a half marathon. Someday.

I noticed that when I don't know how far I'm going or how much time I'm spending, I tend to run faster. I scared myself on the track today, thinking I should pace myself lest I wear myself out before the mile, but this evening I pushed myself a little harder and came home faster than I expected. I can do this.

Tomorrow is class. I bike to ASL and I've been going over the overpasses lately instead of around or through the tunnels. It burns my lungs and my thighs, but I get through it. I'm even considering maybe doing a vegetarian diet again. It's just so refreshing. Meat is so heavy...

It's later than I should be up (one thing I haven't been able to change to a healthier habit is getting enough sleep), so I'm going to end this blog entry now. I feel good, I feel healthy, I feel beautiful. That's new for me. Goodnight everyone.

Mile

I upped my running time to three minutes and then yesterday, to four. I realized I could go longer when I would begin to run and then realize that I had forgotten to start my interval clock. So I decided to test my mile today at the Davis High track. For some reason the iMapMyRun GPS was wildly inaccurate, as you can see on the website. Their bike app seems to be pretty spot on, so I might shoot them an email and let them know. Anywho, it was a thirteen minute mile, which isn't anything special, but I did run continuously for thirteen minutes, which is freakin' amazing to me.

Now that I've done it I can't go back to three and four minute runs, though. I'm really on my way to a 5k, though.

Progress

Today I am 158.2 lbs, down 13.6 lbs. My waist is down two and a half inches from 40.5 to 38. Hips are down two inches from 41 to 39.


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ASL 2

My ASL 2 class started this evening! I rode the bike to class. :) It was a good first day of class, but I had to get a permission number because I was dropped from the class for lack of payment (which I never got an email about). When I looked up what I owed? Two-dollars and fifty freaking cents!!!

Come on, Los Rios, you can do better than that!

Evening Ride

I rode the Green Belt this evening, which is a network of trails through North Davis that goes through different parks and barely touches any streets. Chris and I have explored it before, and I've gone on my own, but it's still new enough that I can get joyfully lost and then find my way back.

The sun was going down when I reached the dirt path that runs along the corn and sunflower fields that we usually get to from F Street. The sky was golden in the west with rays reaching for the last bit of blue on the other side. Flaxen fields of cut wheat met me near the end of the dirt path after I passed the weeping sunflowers. I got back on the Green Belt and headed back toward Anderson. I'm going to miss moments like this when winter comes.

I'm going to have to start thinking about a plan of action for the winter, whether it's running through the rain or getting back into the apt. gym room. I'm going to do some consulting over the next few weeks and see what other people have done during those dark days. I don't want to lose momentum because of the cold. It's so easy for me to use that as a cop-out.

Today was a good ride through the Green Belt and a good run on the American River Bike Trail. Tomorrow I start my ASL class, which I plan on biking to, of course. I feel really bad because I haven't practiced all summer! Hopefully, the little bit I use at my job will keep me sharp enough to not look like a total failure. We'll see. Now that the day is over, it's nigh time for bed. I'm pretty worn out and it's only Monday. Goodnight, world.

21 August, 2011

I have a new scale coming. I was really tired of getting three different numbers on my scale some mornings.

My legs are going to be hurting tomorrow! Nine mile bike ride and a two and a half mile walk/run today, plus strength training. I took more measurements last night. I'm going to update the blog later to better show my progress. I may be walking tomorrow with a coworker, if not, a run by the American River is in order.

Car is needing a part right now, so I'm taking Chris's. When mine's fixed, I want to see if my bike fits in the back seat so I can take it to work with me. I really want to get on those trails with it.

As of today, I'm down over ten pounds and still going strong. Can't wait to see what this week has in store.

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It's a free Calorie day, which means I put a quick-add Calorie count of 1200 in my fit pal for the day and I don't worry about what the actual number might be. Two and a half hours of hiking is an estimated 1296 Calories burned, so it's a wash. I wouldn't have even put anything in the app, but if you log food and exercise for a certain number of days, it tells you, "You've logged in for such-and-such days in a row" and I didn't want to miss that.

It was a great hike, but a bit difficult to stay on the trail, especially after letting Jimmy navigate (wink-wink, Jimmy, just teasing). The falls are gorgeous and the scenery is magnificent. Chris took the best pictures, but here are a few from the hike:
















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161.6

I made it to my first milestone, 10 lbs. I wore my polar bear shirt today, which I had said was going to be a reward for losing this much. It's still a little snug in the arms, but hey, I'm on my way.

Good day today. My car almost didn't start out ofmthe parking lot from work, but Chris knows what it is, so it will be fixed next week. Although it's frustrating, it's okay and I'll deal with it. I got home and we went on a bike ride. I wasn't finished, so I did some running/walking intervals. Shinsplints aren't hurting nearly as much and putting a string of Otter Pops on them after my run seems to help. Otter Pops are prefect for icing. I'll never buy an ice pack again.

Tomorrow is Horsetail Falls! I'm so excited! It's going to be an awesome hike. I will update tomorrow night, probably with pictures nave a great weekend, everyone!

Thursday, 18 August, 2011

Updates for Thursday, 18 August, 2011

I am over on my calories today and under on exercise. I got home from work and all I could do was take a nap. I'm really worn out, not going to sleep early enough (my own fault), and have had a really, really rough couple of days at work. I feel fried, burnt out. I hope I feel better by tomorrow.

This weekend is Horsetail Falls with some friends. I'm excited! Can't wait to spend the day with the trees and nature and good company.

I bought chocolate milk today. Runner's World mag keeps telling me one serving is a good way to replenish and restore after a run. Rock on, I get chocolate!

I'm considering putting a bike rack on my car. There may be one available via the in-laws, but we'll have to see if my car supports it. I want to take it on the American River bike trail that I sometimes encounter on community outings at work. I just want to ride.

It's been a long day. I'm ready for bed. This week is kicking my ass. That's all for updates today, folks. I'm out of here.

The Attempt at C25k

A dollar ninety-nine isn't much in the grand scheme of things. I used to pay roughly $3.50 a day in my early twenties for a pack of smokes. During my heyday as a foolish, young, self-destructive teen, I'd throw away at least a buck fifty for a 40oz (or a "fo'ty," as us Generation-Nexters liked to call them) of Mickey's or (puke) Magnum. I just put $20 in the tank today at $3.60 a gallon so I can make it to Horsetail Falls for a hike this weekend. And, goodness knows, I would have spent at least as much on the dollar menu at McDonald's just a few weeks ago, and we're not talking side salad. So what's a dollar ninety-nine for an app?

I'll tell you what: it should at least work better than the free ones. It should work at least as well as the ninety-nine cent apps, and, damnit, it shouldn't crash every single damn time I use it.

I have recently taken up running, if you haven't been following my blog, and have been trying to slowly build up intervals from two-minutes running/three minutes walking. I was supposed to move up to three minutes of running two weeks ago, but shinsplints and other factors (35 lbs overweight, fear, excuses?) have prevented me from doing so. So, I looked up interval training apps and I found the "Couch to 5k" program started by Active.com. Seemed reasonable. Their $1.99 app would let me play music while interrupting at the right times to tell me I needed to jog or walk. The intervals were pre-set to follow this specific program created by these people. "Great!" I thought, "I'll let this program decide for me when to increase my running time because I really have no idea what I'm doing!"

So how well does this app work, you might be asking. It starts out great! Whatever "trainer" you choose gets you warmed up with a five minute walk and then tells you, "Let's jog," when it's time to jog. After the interval, and before you know it, the trainer has you "walk briskly." You might even think, "Wow! I really did a whole such-and-such-time of running just now and it flew by!" And then, at least halfway through this warm, fuzzy workout when you're really starting to like Clarissa or whatever the he'll they name their voice characters, you realize you've been walking longer than you expected. You look down at your phone only to realize your app has crashed and nothing from your workout has been saved.

Thinking it a fluke, you might try it again a few days later after you've emailed their support and they've told you they haven't come across this bug before. Then it happens again. Two out of two times, your two-dollar app has failed you. You finish your workout without a timer and grit your teeth through the pain, determined to not let that flaky bitch, Clarissa who keeps quitting on you, to get the best of you. You don't need her anyway.

After this happened to me, I shot their support another email letting them know that two out of two crashes equals negative feedback and bought myself a $.99 interval timer I had previously missed in my app store search. I tested it to make sure it worked. It performed perfectly, which makes it 500 times better than Active.com's app and half as cheap. Another thing I found out on my way back tonight, abandoned and trainer-less from the C25k app, I can do more than two minutes. I can even go faster than I was going waiting for Clarissa to tell me what to do. So it wasn't a total loss after all. Next week, I may just be running for three minutes at a time. Take that, C25k.



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My iPad 2

As you know from my blog entry the other day, "iPad," I am now the proud owner of an iPad 2. You may be wondering yourself if the device is worth an investment and what kinds of features drew me to it in the first place. Well, you're in luck, as answering those questions (and more) is what I fully intend to do in this post.

My laptop is about six years old. I don't know how much longer Apple is going to keep my architecture compatible with their updates, software and even devices. The iPhone was still a dream when my PowerBook G4 was being put together somewhere in China. I almost can't watch YouTube on it anymore and opening multiple tabs in Safari will slow it to a grind. I see the colorful spinny wheel more often than I see the cursor when I'm doing things in programs with heavier loads, like iTunes or Photoshop. It's become like an old friend found on facebook: welcomingly familiar but seeing too much of him becomes awkward. It's time to upgrade, but how?

Laptops are expensive, and say what you will, I love Apple products. I love the software, the user-friendliness, the security and the stability of Mac OS in all it's forms. I love that my iPhone doesn't shut off by itself for no reason, a "feature" of every other phone I've had. I love that my wordy essays or papers for school don't disappear behind a foredooming blue wall after hours of work. I love that people online list their "free" anti-virus programs like AVG and regularly update how many trojans they found this week while I smirk and think, "Why, I don't have any such virus protection: I have a Mac." With not a lot of money to spare, however, the security and comfort of a new laptop from the brand I like seemed to be out of reach unless I wanted to go used, which is still fine, but still pricey. Damn things keep their value longer than a PC.

Chris and I decided it was time to invest in iPads. We had help. The details of the deal are confidential and strictly secret, but basically, it wasn't going to cost us an arm and a leg to get them, so we figured it was time. Despite it's horrible name, I picked out an iPad and brought it home. I turned it on and four hours later I was still messing with it.

It's faster than the iPhone 4. It makes my phone screen look so small now. The pictures it takes aren't as good as those of the iPhone and the iPhone screen is a tiny bit (almost not noticeably) higher resolution with it's Retina dispaly, but it is still worthy of awe. I realized quickly that it's best use it that of e-reader. I downloaded an app called Flipboard and it's easy-to-use, quick display is just incredible. Other apps that the iPad does better than the iPhone are Zen Brush, Kindle and BlogPress. It might just be the bigger screen, but I think it also deserves credit for being slightly more responsive than the iPhone. I'm sold on it, despite it's stupid name, (iPad. Who the f*ck names their product after a feminine hygiene product)?

My favorite apps so far have already been listed, but I need to make a shout-out to the Better Homes and Garden App that lets me download digital copies of my magazines using my subscription number. There are links to articles and things that I can just click on. Can't do that with the hardcopy, obviously. Betty Crocker Cookbook is absolutely beautiful and any online shopping app, such as eBay or Amazon, are incredibly more useful on the iPad than on the iPhone. I'm really enjoying this product.

So, if you're thinking about getting a tablet and you're wondering if you shouldn't get a Samsung or some other product instead (because we all know how uncool it is to like Apple now that it's cool to like Apple, you fuckin' technohipsters), I highly suggest looking into an iPad 2. Go to the Apple store, play around with it. Note the smooth scrolling, the responsiveness, the display, the usefulness. And if you still go with another brand for whatever reason, fine, but every time your display chokes, every time your scrolling is choppy, every time an app or a webpage loads halfway and stops, think of this blog post. I promise, you will think of me and my fanboyism and think, "Damn, I should've been a fanboy, too."

Run and Bike

This morning I went on a run with my mom around the block. She let me do my run/walk thing and supported me all the way. She's always been a runner, so she has a bit more endurance than me but understands that I have to take my progress slowly. We talked a bit and laughed a bit during the walking intervals. She told me it's probably time to push myself and try three minutes. I think I'll try that tomorrow.

I had a great weekend. It wasn't always like this with my mom. There were times when I was certain I'd never talk to her again when I was growing up. I'm glad that's not the case. As I've gotten older, my mom has become one of my best friends. She comes over and spends the night and just hangs out with us. Imparting the wisdom she's learned from her life the mistakes she's made (she's been married four times; maybe my once will be enough), she's one of the greatest sources of advice and someone whom I can just vent to about anything. I realize how much strength I have just from being her daughter. She's truly a source of inspiration for me these days.

I did about half the Davis Bike Loop today, going the opposite direction I used to, which was a nice change. I got as far as the UC before I got hungry and came home for dinner. Just in time for enchilada casserole! Chris pulled a muscle yesterday, so I'm trying to take good care of him tonight. I hope he feels better tomorrow because I want to ride some more on my new bike! Such a sweet ride...

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iPad

Yes. I have one.

UPDATE: You can read my review here

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Sunday Comes Afterwaaaaards

Yesterday was free calorie day, according to Mom and Chris. I was not allowed to count up all the ingredients in the crepes and pizza that we had and mom insisted I have a Pepperidge Farms Milano cookie. We went on a long bike ride on my new hybrid, 21-speed Marin, and I tried to keep my portions small, so I'm hoping that not much damage was done, but sometimes you just have to live and my mom coming to hang out would have been dampened by my obsessing over food and diet. So I gave in.

Today I'm going to start running again. I was fitted at Fleet Feet and they suggested some motion control shoes by Mizuno. They weren't as cushioned as the other ones they had me try on, but they felt a lot more stable. I'm going to keep doing the two-minute run, three-minute walk because I still have shin splints, which,according to Fleet Feet, is more of a results of being out of shape than the condition of my shoes. I have to keep working and the pain will go away as I get stronger. However, I can't help but remember the girl on my softball team last year that had permanent damage and scarring from shin splints. Of course, I don't know the full story and don't have all the facts of that case, so I'm just going to stay alert to what my body is telling me.

Everyone is still asleep, but it's time for breakfast so I'm going to wake these sleepyheads up! Time to get moving!

Saturday, August 13

I'm up, I'm up.

I did absolutely no exercise yesterday if you don't count the walking I did on my community outing (which was about a half hour under 3 mph, pushing a wheelchair). I stayed under my calories, but I really didn't count on my - how do I put this? My monthly curse to pull me under like this. It's not that I don't know what they are like; all the women in my family have really, really bad cycles and I've been dealing with it for years now, but I thought maybe my new exercise routine would lessen it or I would at least feel more energy to be motivated. Not so, it actually seems the opposite.

Today, my mom is coming up. She wants to go on bike rides, and thank goodness because it's feeling like another curl-up-on-the-couch kind of day. She'll be here in about an hour and I still need to take a shower. Ugh. I feel like crap today. Here goes.

August 11, 2011. Mom's Bday, Seven Pounds, Biking, and Work-out Friends.

I took it pretty easy yesterday, walking on an outing at work and then swimming with Chris. My scale at one point this morning said I was under 164, but I'm not recording it because again, the drop seems to large since my last weigh-in and after I got out of the shower, it was 164.3 which is .1 lb less than yesterday, which makes more sense. I'm just saying I've lost seven pounds, because it's close enough. I really, really need a new scale.

This weekend I'm getting running shoes, and my mom wants to get me a new bike, too! Even though it's her birthday. I've been using Chris's 21-speed Diamond Back and the gears are horrible. I can't shift to go up hills because it doesn't stay in gear or it sits there and clicks. It's all messed up. It probably just needs a new derailleur, but I want something faster, too. It just won't keep up with Chris, even in gear 21, and at that point, I'm practically standing on the thing to get it going. It's also too big; I have to have the seat so high that I am uncomfortably far from the ground when I stop or else I have to ride it with my knees in my chest. There's no happy medium.

What I don't want is a girl's bike. I don't want the curvy little wimp bikes I see all over the place. I want one with speed. I don't think I could live with one of those cruisers these college students are riding around on these days. My bikes going to have to be fast if I'm going to be happy. Unfortunately, no matter what style I get, it is looking like it's going to be over 300 dollars for a new bike. On the bright side, it should last a long time.

Tonight, my stomach isn't feeling too well, so we cut our ride short and I don't know if I'll be going to the apt. gym or not. I look some medicine and am staying hydrated, but I might just call it a night. I burned over 200 calories riding through the arboretum with Chris. We found a whole new section of it we had never explored before-didn't even know it was there (how long have we been hanging out there? Years? And we never knew). Hopefully, tomorrow, we'll get to explore some more.

What an incredible journey this is. I'm getting advice from people who have already changed their lives or who have always incorporated being active as part of who they are. I even was asked by someone at work if they could get together with me after work a couple of times a week to do something active and fun (but not exercise, because exercise sucks) and so we're looking into some of the trails in Sacramento. I'm excited! I love doing this stuff with other people because then it doesn't feel like work, it feels like fun!

So here's to another incredible week. I will post again soon.

The stairmaster was easier today. In just a couple of weeks, I went from barely getting through fifteen minutes to doing the entire thirty without stopping. That last two minutes were the longest, but it was worth it when I stepped off the machine, victorious. There's almost no greater feeling.

I also did some work on the resistance machines. Lat Pulldowns and the like. I was forced to stay away from the treadmill due to my shin splints, but I did some more crunches on my fitness ball, as well as some other work. I'm really thinking about Yoga lately, and despite my own lack of confidence after having only taken one class two years ago, I think I should start doing some at home. I could use the stretches. Simple stretching isn't really doing it for me.

I may take tomorrow off to give my body a day to rest. I'm down almost seven pounds since I started. It's incredible, it hasn't even been a month yet. All I want to do is more. As soon as I'm done working out, I want to go back. It's like a high, but I have to be careful because overdoing can cause injury and throw a wrench in the whole thing. Pushing myself too hard could have contributed to my shin splints, after all.

Mom's coming up to visit this weekend, so that will be fun. I am getting new running shoes and I might have to see how much money I have for some more work-out pants. It might be time for a trip to Ross. It's going to be a good week.

Shin Splints and Progress

I've tried to be careful and keep away the shin splints I was getting last summer when I was playing softball in the crappy New Balance shoes I have, but alas, they have returned in full force today. It's cut my run/walk to ten to fifteen minutes, but has pushed me to get my cardio done bike riding and on the stairmaster, (warning, Pokemon joke imminent): It's super effective!

I worked out on my exercise ball yesterday, the majority of the time spent doing crunches. I could feel it today, but not so bad as to be irritating or painful. I'm going to do those every other day and probably stick to biking this week until I get new shoes this weekend. Mom's coming up! Yay!

I was looking at myself in the mirror tonight while I was working out and I thought I looked slimmer. Wondering for a second if maybe my own self-image, improving due to my following my commitment and reaching my goals, had caused my mind to think I looked slimmer, but I realized I can actually feel it in my work-out pants. I had to be sure, so Chris measured me and sure enough, a half-inch off of my neck and waste and a whole inch from my hips.

This is progress, even more so than the numbers on the scale, because muscle mass can add pounds. I've now been at this for about three weeks and I'm still not slowing down. I'm encouraged and inspired, determined and committed. I'm already considering trying a 5k sometime this spring. Even with the progress I've made, though, I don't want to lose sight and say, "good enough," or start slacking because I feel confident. This is a life-long goal, not just a new diet and exercise routine. My goal to be 135 in January isn't the end, but the beginning. I'm ready.

A Wonderfully Active Weekend

This weekend I went on a hike with Chris and my friend Yazzy around Jenkinson Lake at Sly Park. The trail is nine miles, but we were hungry and Chris was in flip-flops, so after an hour and some swimming, we decided to hike back. We got about two hours total of hiking, which put me so far in the deficit, I was able to have some glorious macaroni salad at 300 calories for less than a cup. I still exercised restraint and kept away from the dip for the chips. Yazzy and her mom cooked Kosher beef hot dogs and chicken hot dogs, which were really good. I think I prefer the chicken, which were only 90 calories each, almost half that of regular franks.

Before our hike, we had had a breakfast of fruit, gluten and dairy-free pastries from Azna Gluten Free bakery in Cameron Park, and some plain yogurt with a bit of honey. I even found a couple of the pastries listed on My Fitness Pal. I was glad someone had taken the time to put it up.

Dinner with the MIL was a little harder. We went to one of the local Mexican Restaurants in Placerville and I ordered a two-item combo, saving half of my black beans and the second item for lunch today.

Today was also productive. I did cardio at the apartment gym and then came home and did work on the ball for forty minutes and did some hand weights. Fitpal doesn't record calories for strength training because so many factors go into how many calories are burned that the creators didn't feel comfortable giving numbers that couldn't be very accurate. Afterward, I went on a bike ride with Chris and did over 30 minutes.

I've calculated that I need to lose six pounds a month. I was 166 at the beginning of August and so I need to be 160 by the end of the month to stay on track. I need to get a new scale, as well, as the one that I have doesn't always give me the same number if I step on it twice in the same morning within minutes. I had a feeling something was wrong with it when Chris was using it and he got upset that he was going up and down two-five pounds every day, which just isn't realistic. I tried Yazzy's scale yesterday and it gave me 164. I think I'm going to go and buy one just like it. :) I need an accurate scale.

This week I have my lunches already planned and a few dinners, as well. I hope to be (if I go by my scale) under 165 by next sunday. Today I got 165.4 and 166.2 on the scale, just stepping on it twice in a row, so we'll see if I will even be able to tell if anything has changed at the end of the week if the scale really isn't working. Here's to a good week!

New Equipment

I get two ten minute breaks at work now, so I'm using them to stay active. I can get partway around the block and back in ten minutes. It's a lovely little neighborhood away from the busy streets that surround it. There's a park and everything.

I bought myself goggles for swimming. It's hard to do the crawl (my absolute favorite) wearing contacts because I try not to open my eyes under water, so I splurged for some eye protection. I also bought myself a medium fitness ball to do crunches and other back and leg work.

I'm ready to start picking up the pace of my running. I'm either going to change my intervals to three and three (it was suggested I start with two min run and three min walk) or start pushing myself to run faster. I haven't decided yet. I know I have to start slow-blah blah blah. I don't like slow, but I don't want to hurt myself.

The ball feels great. I played around on it today without doing any real exercise, just getting the feel for it and I can tell you that it felt good, stable and I was actually excited to start adding abs to my regimen. No, really. I was shocked that it actually felt good.

Next thing to get is some good running shoes. I'm starting to get some minor pain in my shins and I don't want shin splints. That will seriously impede my progress.

I'm a little worried about going to a friend's house this weekend. I want to have control over my calories but I don't know how well I can handle temptation yet. Then again, I quit drinking a long time ago surrounded by alcoholic family members and am still clean and sober to this day. If I can work half as hard at this as I did for my sobriety, I will have no problem. I just have to be willing to do the work and run through the consequences before I make that choice that one will be okay. Wish me luck!

Travel Bug

So, we can save up a good amount of money for a decent overseas trip by next summer. We just have to choose where. On the list: Vienna, Prague, Amsterdam, Munich, Berlin, Geneva, among others. Italy is pretty much out of the picture, the flights are as high as flights to Greece, but the cost to sleep and eat there is exorbitant. Tokyo also has cheap flights, but hotels are a bit pricey and we'd probably have a better time in another city, like Kyoto, where there is more historic things to do. South and Central America are still on the table, but not on the forefront.

We're also throwing around the idea of going to visit Chris's cousins in Hawaii. With no hotel expenses, we wouldn't have to spend too much for that trip. They live in Maui, which everyone says is the most beautiful of the islands. I just want to sit on the beach and hike through the forest with my new husband and my new family. I think it would be awesome.

It's amazing to me that although Chris and I don't make a lot, we have a great cushion and the discipline to save up for things that we want to do. I get frustrated at the fact that I don't have as many options to go to school because I have to work mon-fri from 8-3:30 in order to pay bills and save up that money. Jobs that generally work nights and weekends are usually the lowest paid, like retail and fast food, so I'm not complaining that I have to work mon-fri, I'm complaining that not enough classes are offered outside of those hours. It's a real failure of the higher education system to make classes available to the most amount of people. Anyway, enough of that, I'm ready to go on a bike ride.

I wish

I wish I was one of those fucks with rich parents who don't do shit with their lives. Because I would have quit working years ago and just gone to school. Less and less classes are available on nights and weekends. Paris Hilton is GED dumb and daddy probably paid for that, too. Love how this society works, really.

Punch Line Part 2

Chris won the Dimple drawing last week for ten tickets to the Punch Line is Sacramento. We saw Jim Jefferies, who was absolutely hysterically funny. This week, I was the lucky winner, so we went and saw Dov Davidson, who was also very funny, but Jim Jefferies ruined stand-up for me and I'll forever compare other acts to his. That's saying a lot, because Dov Davidson was flippin' hilarious, but Jim is still at the top in my book. My mom also won tickets, so we're going back in August. She's busy next week when Dat Phan will be there, so we will miss his show (boo hoo) but I'm convinced that any show at the Punch Line is going to be a good one, especially if it's free. A good night with good friends.

Speaking of friends, Chris and I are trying to save up money for a trip next year with a couple of our good friends. If we can save enough, Greece; that would be best case scenario. Other possible destinations include Belize, Panama or even New Orleans or somewhere on the East Coast, like Boston. Anyway, we all have the travel bug and we really want to go out of the country so we're looking at all our options. Anyway, it's been a good night and I'm ready for bed now.

There I was, all week working hard at running, biking, being active. There was the scale, mocking me, hovering between 167 and 168. I didn't have the energy yesterday to keep it up. I was staying up too late on work nights finishing books I had put off so I could get ready for when I get Song of Ice and Fire, so I crashed and took a nap. I had done at least a half hour of exercise all week and had begun my beginners' running regimen on Sunday and I didn't see any change between Tuesday and Thursday.

Stuck there, my doubts began to creep in, telling me that I had overshot my goal. Despite the Calorie counts and the exercise, I had reached my plateau and lost some water weight and would be stuck there for the rest of my life. The calculations were all wrong and I was losing momentum. Then, this morning I stepped on the scale nervously. Finally, I had lost .4 lbs. I can probably reach 167 even by Monday. That would make my progress five pounds in two weeks. That's over a pound over my goal. I finally heard myself say, louder than ever, "You can do this."

I did a half hour of my run/walk training, fifteen minutes on stairs (Oh my GOD, that machine is hard), and twenty minutes of stationary bike. I also rode my bike downtown twice today and walked on my outing at work. I was sweating, burning, and loving it. I imagined what I would look like in the same workout clothes in January. I looked myself right in the eyes in the mirror at the gym room and challenged myself to keep going until the picture in my mind matched the picture in the mirror. I know I can do this. The time is now.

Created by MyFitnessPal - Free Weight Loss Tools

Day 9

I've been under my Calories every day. I am becoming more and more inspired by the large group of fitness gurus on Pinterest (how many of them are actually heeding their own advice or slogans is still up for debate), and have created a board of my own for inspirational work-out quotes. Today, I had a mini peanut butter cup. It was 55 Calories and it was worth it. I burned 183 doing my intervals on the treadmill.

I still have plenty of Calories left for dinner. I've finally found a balance. I was coming home from work after having breakfast and lunch and having to settle for a tiny dinner because I had used up so many of my allotted Calories. I've cut the bread from my sandwich (I always eat them dry anyway) and have forgone snack crackers and instead bring a fruit, a veggie and a low-fat yogurt.

It's said that when people make public statements, they tend to stick by those statements more because retraction in front of a large group of people is hard for humans to do. So I'm saying on the web right now that I will be 135 pounds by January. I'm going to take "before" pictures tonight and put them up. Ugh. Yes, put them on the internet. I haven't decided if I'm going to put them up on here or wait until I have the "after" pictures, but they are for sure going on facebook.

Speaking of facebook, if you are a friend of mine or Chris's, or a friend of our friends, you can go see our Europe Trip documentary that Chris made out of the footage we took when we went "Over There!" (Please excuse the geeky WWI reference, I just can't help myself). It's on Chris's page in three parts so you don't have to watch them all at once (in fact, you probably don't even have to watch them in order). The trip was two weeks and the total film was forty or so minutes, so it's not everything, but we got some really good stuff in. Anyone planning on going to Europe might be interested in my "Advice for Future Travelers" pieces. Enjoy!

Song of Ice and Fire

I've ordered the first four books from half.com. What convinced me was that my sister's boyfriend, Graham, who reads a ton of fantasy fiction, told me that George R.R. Martin ruined fantasy for him. The books are so good that his expectations of the genre are now so high that he doesn't think he'll be able to enjoy another fantasy book by another fantasy author as much as he has enjoyed the Song of Ice and Fire series. So here goes, it's in the mail.

I have a couple of books to finish still. The Beautiful and the Damned, is still on my kindle app about a third of the way through. I like Fitzgerald, but I can also put him off for a long time and pick back up where I left off without having to backtrack to remember what was going on. The plot isn't super complicated. (I'm not saying that's a bad thing; there's a way to tell a story simply and beautifully that is a mark of the style of his time).

I am still reading Into Thin Air that I borrowed from Chris's mom before I moved and then shelved and didn't pull back down again (maybe I'm just not the adventure type). I also started A Farewell to Arms. I don't read as much as I used to. I watch TV or blog or read internet news or play video games. I would love to be able to sit down for hours like I used to and just relax with a book, but there's always something that it seems I need to be doing. Perhaps it's time to concentrate more on giving myself that time. So I'll end this blog entry pretty quick here.

Maybe swimming today, but no running because, despite stretching, I am a bit sore in the legs. I'm under my calories and saved enough to have a hamburger for dinner. Chris is cooking. Hopefully I can fill up more on the salad than the mayonnaise and greasy ground beef! I'll check in again tomorrow to tell you all how I did.

I Am Not A Runner

But I want what runners have. I want endurance and I want pride. Biking is awesome, but I don't have the money or equipment to take it to the level that it takes to get really fit on a bike. Running just requires shoes. Swimming and biking are my faves, but I can't do them in the winter due to my ears being extremely sensitive to cold from being prone to childhood ear infections so many years ago. There's a tread at the gym at my apartments. I can even time my intervals easily until I get to a point where I can run continuously.

Beginning is the hardest part and today was day one. Two minute sprint and three minute walk for thirty minutes. I burned 170 Calories. This is the second day in a row I've had over half my calories left before dinner time and that's rare. I feel good. I feel accomplished. The last two minute run interval I was screaming at myself in my head, "Do it for you." It was beautiful, one of those magical moments that people talk about.

Tomorrow I have another date with myself. Give my body the food it deserves and release it from the years of disinterest and laziness, procrastination and excuses. This is the beginning.

Putah Creek and Sophia's

What a beautiful day! We started it by going on a hike down the Putah Creek Riparian Reserve in west Davis. All the land on the North side of the creek is owned and maintained by the University. It's protected, so there's a ton of wildlife scurrying about and it's very peaceful without any motor vehicles or cyclists. It does pass under 80/113 and one of the railroad bridges, so you do hear cars eventually, but otherwise it's just a valley hiking trail.

I used to think the valley was ugly and hot, but getting to know the wildlife and the ecosystem, I'm starting to like it more and more. Hawks screech in the distance, hares dart out of the way, reeds grow as tall as your head near the creek while grass grows sideways from being blown by the wind. It smells like baked dirt. It reminds me of romping around Tracy where I grew up.

We got home, got cleaned up and did our shopping and then went on a bike ride. We stopped by Borders for their going out of business sale, but the place had tables marked "30% off" full of books that were only 10% off, which you only find out at the register after waiting in a long line. The only thing to say at that point is, "No wonder you people are going out of business."

We went to see a couple bands at Sophia's Thai Kitchen tonight. Tha Dirt Feelin followed Wooster. The first was great! I had to find their website and explore some more. Wooster was also very good, but the patio area got so crowded that I started feeling uncomfortable and a bit headache-y so we went home and did some reading of our travel journals for Chris's movie montage about Europe. If he can finish up a few things and complete rendering tonight, we'll be able to watch it tomorrow! I can't wait!

Today was a very good Saturday. I'm in Happily Ever After mode, just loving my husband and exploring my town. I look forward to our adventures tomorrow, but now I think it's about time for bed. Goodnight world.

Amy Winehouse is Dead

Big surprise. Her doctor told her her liver couldn't handle her lifestyle. There are more important things going on in the world than a junkie that happened to have a record deal. Cue the overnight bandwagon Winehouse fans screaming about it being a tragedy. Happens every time someone famous dies. Doesn't mean their life really meant shit.

Google, Why Do You Make Shit Out of Good Ideas?

Google News personalization is useless to me if I can't go to my sections and remove sources and articles I don't want to hear from. Why can't I remove Christian Post from my Atheism section? I even added it to the "adjust sources" bar and it's still showing up! Before this last remodel, I could click on an "x" and choose to not see stories from whoever published the story.

Does anyone know of a better news aggregator that will lay out everything in topics like Google News? Twitter is almost useless because I have to scroll through my feed to see the stories I want and most News profiles tweet all the fucking time with shit that's useless to me. I need News! I need better News! Give me News or give me death!

It's just tiring that Google does this stuff. I'm really not all that excited about Google+ being more than a place for people who already hate facebook or aren't on facebook to go and talk about how much they hate facebook. In the way that Google changes things, changes privacy settings and tries to constantly show me content I could give a shit about, they are definitely, definitely the New Facebook.

Jim Jefferies at the Punch Line

Chris won the Dimple drawing for the Punchline show for him and nine other friends. My mom and step dad were going to go, but ended up being busy, but I don't know if I would have been comfortable with my mom being there with the things that Jim Jefferies was joking about. So Chris and I picked up Maho and Sean and met Sarah and Lindsay at the Punchline. I told Sarah to be there at 7:15 because I knew she'd be late. I was getting worried at 7:40 that she'd actually be late, but they finally showed up. I love my friends, they are so funny.

Maho is from Japan and hasn't lived in the US for more than a few years. Sean is pretty good at explaining idioms and nuances of English to her, but Jefferies' Aussie accent was a little hard to pick up. There were some things that couldn't be translated, however, and can only be found funny in a cultural sense. God wading through dead babies was not really getting to her funny bone. I don't know if we'll ever be able to explain that one.

I'm a complete fan of this comic now. He's intelligent, funny and says things that people don't want to hear but need to be said. The crowd was roaring all night. I would pay to see him again. I had a blast.

My mom also won the drawing so we're going back in August for another show. The Punchline obviously houses some great comics, so I'm looking forward to the next show.

State Fair Success

Today was a success. I was vigilant and stuck with my Calorie goal despite going to the State Fair at work and then again afterward with Chris. The smell of the fried goodies was so tempting and I even got paid today, but I kept telling myself that my long-term goals are more important than any short-lived satisfaction from a funnel cake or a maple bacon sunday. I got through both trips without going over or wasting Calories on garbage. I'm proud of myself.

I'm proud of Chris, too. He had a few more Calories available than I did. We went to Subway after the fair and he could have been slightly over his goal by eating a footlong or under it by eating a 6". When he saw me save half my sandwich he decided to save his, too, and confessed that his original plan was to just eat the whole thing. That's what doing this together has done for us. Before, I would try to do this alone and it was hard. With Chris and my sister on the same app and diet plan as me, we can all help each other. It works!

The Fair was fun. There were a lot of animal exhibits, which was nice; animals are my favorite part of any fair. We're not big fans of midways or the huge shopper's booths where people sell their knives and Sham-Wows, so we didn't spend too much time in the buildings.

The Counties Exhibit was cool, with El Dorado County being so cluttered and aesthetically skewed that I was glad I didn't have to admit to living there. Yolo's was quaint and incorporated Davis's recreational favorites like hiking, biking, etc as well as the rest of Yolo's agricultural roots. San Joaquin County was just weird, with an Alice floating near the top of the booth and a hand of playing cards in the background and a table full of wine bottles. San Joaquin County sucks. Period. I lived there for fourteen years, I know. Placer's was nice, so was Monterey's. I was wondering who puts these things together, though, since it seems like every county in California is going broke and some of these exhibits looked like they cost a pretty penny.

Back at home, Chris is rendering a video he put together from our Europe footage. I'll see if I can put it on YouTube, but YouTube has that stupid video length limit that's supposed to prevent people from uploading movies. It might end up on Vimeo or just facebook...or even Google+

Today was a success. I'm proud of myself and proud of my husband. It's time to kick back and relax now and enjoy the summer evening.

Day Three

I'm going to call Monday "Day One" because it's easy and it's the first day I stayed under my net Calories. So today is Day Three and I was fortunate enough to have been scheduled with a walking group today. Due to the nature of the work I do, I can only tell you I was able to add thirty minutes of light walking to my exercise count today. It made a nice buffer and allowed me a burrito bowl at Chipotle for dinner.

Chris and I ride bikes and went shooting. I haven't been shooting in awhile, but I really wanted to get some ducks. That would be photography shots, by the way. No, I do not kill animals.

The problem I find with bright days is that I can't get the camera to capture the light that I see with my eye. I'm still not great at setting for the highlights and I'm beginning to like the Cannon's auto white balance less and less. Fortunately, shooting in RAW allows me to fix it up later in PS, but I always feel like that's cheating, even though all the info is in the RAW file already. It's a fine line.

My twitter was hacked last week. Nothing serious, just a link to tumblr posted that said I won a starbuck's card. But today my tumblr was hacked, and both those are linked to my facebook and twitter. I revoked tumblr's privileges and changed my password, but the thing is, my password before was pretty freakin strong. I'm looking into it now, but something is up. I don't let my laptop on public wifi, and I wonder if I have used a network on my phone that could have put me at risk. As of now, I can't think of any and I thought the exploit for this kind of tomfoolery was a firefox thing. We'll see what develops. It's just strange to me all this is starting now all if a sudden after all my carefulness.

Going to the State Fair tomorrow and then the Punch Line on Friday. Chris won tickets for him and nine friends. Lucky us! Over halfway through the week now. I'll be glad when it's over. I found out some pretty depressing news on Monday about someone, but in the end I have some really awesome friends who care a lot about me and I know I can get through the tough times so I can enjoy the good. And that's all for Day Three. Oh yeah-down four pounds from Dr's office weigh-in last week and down 1.4 since Day One. Go me!

Blog Entry: 19 July, 2011

I really like this Fitness Pal app on the iPhone. It's a really great app. Fat Secret was a great web tool, but Fit Pal is so portable, and not only has a bigger database of various Calorie values, but also has a built-in barcode scanner.

With Fat Secret, I would log my Calories and try to stay under 1500 and exercise to create a deficit, which is fine, but very stringent and hard to follow. With Fit Pal, I can earn more Calories if I exercise. If I don't reach my allotted 1200 Calories (Fat Secret told me to stay under 1500, Fit Pal told me to stay under 1200), it tells me that not eating enough is bad for me and warns me that my body can go into starvation mode.

If I exercise after I have hit my food goal, it doesn't give me that error and if I still have a net loss, I am still good for the day, even if I go above 1200. For example, today's Calorie count was 1370 Calories consumed, 533 Calories burned with various exercise for a net count of 817. Am I explaining this well?

I found out that healthy-looking cereal does not equal healthy cereal. A 1 cup serving of a cheap brand of cinnamon swirls is half the Calories of a 2/3 cup serving of the Trader Joe's brand of maple-flavored nut clusters. I also found out that original Special K is in a bigger box, but has less cereal in it than the honey oat one, with just 30 less Calories than the latter. I didn't eat much cereal last time I did the Calorie counting diet, so I am learning a lot.

Swimming laps, bike riding and frisbee today. I don't count the walking, wheelchair pushing and general up and down at work, either, so I think I'm doing pretty well in the exercise area. We do have a whole top layer of wedding cake in our freezer right now that is calling my name-but no! I will not give in to it's carrot cake, butter cream goodness! I will survive! Chris, on the other hand, has some Calories left and is now eating it. Right. Next. To. Me....

My Fitness Pal for iPhone

I did really well on fatsecret.com for awhile. I fit into a wedding dress and didn't want to mess that up, so I lost ten pounds and hovered there for awhile. Now I'm married and haven't been doing as well. I decided this weekend to hook up on my fitness pal with my little sister via iPhone. Chris is signed up now as well.

There's a million excuses for why we stopped riding and frisbeeing (frizzing, as we call it), too hot, too cold, etc...but really we just fell out of our healthy habits. It happens; unhealthy habits are way easier to maintain.

So here I am back to 1200 calories a day and mild to moderate daily exercise (don't know that I could handle anymore than that). Let's see where this takes me this time. I'm hoping next year to be fit enough to join some cycling events or maybe even do a run (even though I hate running-we'll see).

I'm 200 calories under, so I'm going to get a snack now. Did you all know a banana is 100 calories? No kidding!

Google

Switching all your google products from one email/username to another is extremely difficult. The most oft-used products don't allow for their multiple sign-in features. Picture it: Blogger, YouTube, Reader and Friend Connect all don't allow for multiple sign-in, which means you have to sign out of one account and go back into your old one in order to do anything with them. With Blogger and Friend Connect, I've simply made my new account the main one and re-followed the people I followed before (which means that those who I am following will now have two Katie's following them). I had to go to other sites and add the RSS feeds to my reader because there's no way to import them. As for YouTube, I don't want to have to re-upload all my videos and change all the links and embeds already on the blog. I don't have any idea how I'm even going to use YouTube anymore for embedding to the blog. It's a big mess.

If Google's ultimate goal is to move everything to the cloud, they are going to have to make it easier to change profile names, info, etc. Not that I'd be comfortable with storing everything on my computer in the cloud anyway, especially the sad privacy record that companies like Google hold, but it would still be nice if they made their products easier to use to accommodate things like name changes, status changes, marriages, adoptions, etc. For now, I have to juggle all these things until I eventually can phase out Katie Pope entirely or Google figures out a way to make it easier for me.

Summer Fun

This summer is turning out to be much awesomeness. I'm swimming all the time now that my only options aren't the dirty, cold waters of El Dorado County. No more fear of stepping on budweiser cans or being bothered by scruffy drunk hicks with too much ego and not enough education. (Can you tell I'm really glad I finally left that god-forsaken place after ten years)?

It's been eventful, but also very relaxing. Last summer at this time we were getting ready to go to Europe. I can't believe it's already been a year. What a wonderful trip. I still miss the Irish countryside. Friends of ours are considering the possibility of a trip to Greece or Italy next summer, but we'll see. We have some money saved up but we're trying to be very careful. We might need to wait. Plane tickets alone will be over a grand.

So no huge events this summer, but still it's been a lot of fun and I am really liking being back in the valley, despite the heat. The smells and the trees and the flowers and the atmosphere down here is a lot like Tracy where I grew up (except, no Holly Sugar plant smell on the North end of town like in Tracy)! When I go back up the Placerville, the smells and the environment are more recently familiar to me, but the smells of Davis are deeper. They remind me of rollerblades and best friends, monkey bars and long walks home from school. They remind me of sneaking out late at night without my parents knowing, sitting underneath the stars in parks, breaking my curfew. They remind me of the years between two and sixteen, the years I spent in Tracy growing up, good and bad.

This time, though, the bad memories are fading and the smells sights are being re-associated with love, friendship, joy and happiness. No more does a walk on a dark night remind me of the pain I felt when my parents split up and I had nowhere to turn. It reminds me of bike rides with Chris. I have a deep sense of home here. It's like being six again; everything is hopeful.

This summer has been great for me. I'm really enjoying downtown, the art galleries, the home-town pizza places, the UC events, the peacefulness of it all. I've started learning what some of the local plants and trees are, just like I did when I moved to Placerville. I've gotten to know Magnolia and I've even seen Magpies, which didn't come to Tracy much. It's all new and all old at the same time. I just simply love where I'm at today.