I'm just your average, everyday, divorced 38 year old girl -- overweight, tragically unhip,
and trying to make a life for myself. I live with two furry beasts, Dave and Abby, whose
feline mission in life is to choke me with their fur. Nothing special.
Friday morning. I'm so completed excited, humbled, and terrified, all at once. Are you ready for this? This morning, while reading my usual group of fellow bloggers, I found a link to my site! Oh my gosh. Someone likes me enough to link to me. Wow! This is going to sound incredibly dorky (like that's anything new?) but I feel accepted now, as though someone out there really likes me. OK, Sally Fields moment over, I promise.
I have to eat breakfast and get ready for work now. I'll be back later with something interesting, I hope.
Thursday morning. I think I might (slowly) be emerging from my funk. I don't seem to be as sluggish and whiny as I was earlier in the week. Gosh, I really hope it was just a lack of sleep or sleep interruption, because I don't like feeling out of sorts and I was starting to worry that it was early menopause! (One day we'll get into my hypochondria, but not today.)
In a follow up to yesterday's news story of the day, Woman sentenced to stoning freed comes to us from CNN. Bowing, no doubt, to international pressure, the appeals court overturned Lawal's sentence and freed her. This is just some random woman from a tiny village who had sex with the wrong guy and believed him when he said he would marry her, and now she's an international news story. It's really so odd sometimes how small our world can be.
I did my walking after work last night, but only 65 minutes instead of 75. Why did I not do the last ten? Because I am a slug and because the treadmill at work only allows you to do 60 minutes before it kicks into cool down mode and I just didn't feel like fighting to get it set back up for the last ten minutes. Totally sluggish!
I do, however, have a really cool, non sluggish idea that I'm going to implement starting today. (Right here, as a matter of fact.) Most of you (unless you're bored enough to have read through my archives) probably don't know it, but I am diabetic. I have what is known as Type II, non insulin dependent diabetes and I am able to control it with diet and exercise as long as I follow your basic nutritional guidelines and get regular (four or five days a week) exercise. Many diabetics are not as lucky as me and are not able to exercise regularly because of the pain from retinopathy (nerve damage that commonly affects the feet of diabetics) or because of advanced heart disease (another common "gift with purchase" for diabetics). Worse yet, of the estimated 17 million people in the United States (6.2% of the population) who have diabetes, about 5.9 million (one third) are unaware that they have this disease. How can you help? In honor of my upcoming 36th birthday and the 26.2 miles I will be walking as part of the 2004 LA Marathon, I'm asking for donations to the American Diabetes Association. You can, of course, give any amount that you're comfortable with but two suggested amounts from me are $36.00 (the number of years I've been lucky enough to be here on Earth) or $26.20 (the number of miles I'll be walking on March 7th). If you're interested in making a donation, contact me by clicking on my name under this post and I'll send you the information about how to do it. As an extra bonus, because they are a tax exempt organization, you'll get a tax write off along with your happy feeling of satisfaction at helping people that really need it.
Weeks until LA Marathon: 24 Weeks until Christmas: 13 Exercise yesterday: 65 minutes/3.5 miles of slow walking on the treadmill at work
Tuesday morning. I was talking to C last night, trying to explain what I meant when I told him I was "in a funk" and I realized that it's really hard to define this feeling that I have to anyone outside my skin. I guess you could call it a touch of depression, the blues, a funk, whatever. Basically, I just lose the motivation to do anything except the most basic things like eating, sleeping, and watching TV. I also feel very weepy, clingy, and generally over emotional, but it only seems to happen at night.
Now, some of this could be caused by the fact that my sleeping pattern is hosed up and changes from day to day. I have always been one of those lucky people that just wakes up without an alarm at the right time in the mornings. Lately, I've had to set my alarm because I'm staying up too late. This is not good. I've read a lot of research showing links between lack of sleep and diabetes (which I already have), heart disease, and other unpleasant things, so I know that it can have profound effects on your body. I wonder how much of a role that's playing in my general malaise right now?
Today's news story of the day comes to us from MSNBC. The story, U.S. may send more reservists to Iraq, just heightens the sense I already have that things just are not going well or as expected in Iraq. I believe that removing Hussein and his cronies from power was absolutely the right thing to do, I just hate the aftermath and the way that the same people who were encouraging us to do it (Ahmed Chalabi prominent among them) are now saying "thanks for the army, now go away and let us oppress these people in peace". The thought that we may have removed one nasty, oppressive dictator only to have the country overrun by religious extremists bound and determined to have the citizens longing for the days of Saddam sickens and saddens me. Also very disturbing is the trend of using our military reservists and National Guardsmen as "filler" because we don't have enough active duty military to take care of this. In my opinion, we either need to step up recruiting or reduce our commitment in other areas of the globe. Wow, this was probably one of the most political posts I've ever done...hope it doesn't put any of the three people that read me off -- I can't afford to lose a single reader. Stick with me, please!
Weeks until LA Marathon: 24 Weeks until Christmas: 14 Exercise yesterday: None. The funk got the better of me and I didn't do my hour of intervals as I was supposed to. I think I'm going to have to start doing it at lunch time because I lose motivation by the end of the day.
Tuesday morning. I'm feeling terribly blah, to be honest. Not sure why. I am craving not just foods that are unhealthy for me but an old fashioned, feel sick afterwards, beat myself up for days style binge. I don't even know what, specifically, I want to eat, and I think that's probably a good thing because, if there were a specific craving involved, I'd probably be ready to give in soon. I even had a dream about eating chocolate chip cookies last night. It was so real that I woke up feeling guilty, sure that I'd actually done it instead of just dreaming it. What a relief to find that I hadn't!
My news story of the day (sort of) comes to you from Tomato Nation. OK, it's not, strictly speaking, a news story, but I saw it on Odious Woman's website and it resonated with me, so I'm passing it along. Basically, it's a story of two strangers who were thrown together on 9/11/01 in NYC and now one of them is trying to find the other, two years later. Kind of neat-o, so check it out.
I also saw something really cool on Snarky Friend's site this morning and, since I'm properly attributing it, I'm going to re-post it here.
"The Rules of Love from "The Art of Courtly Love" written by Andreas Capellanus (Andrew the Chaplain) in Latin, between 1174 & 1186, to a young Walter. It was written at the court of Marie de Champaigne, influential patroness of the arts.
1. Marriage should not be a deterrent to love. 2. Love cannot exist in the individual who cannot be jealous. 3. A double love cannot obligate an individual. 4. Love constantly waxes and wanes. 5. That which is not freely given by the object of one's love loses its savour. 6. It is necessary for a male to reach the age of maturity in order to love. 7. A lover must observe a two-year widowhood after his beloved's death. 8. Only the most urgent circumstances should deprive one of love. 9. Only the insistence of love can motivate one to love. 10. Love cannot coexist with avarice. 11. A lover should not love anyone who would be an embarrassing marriage choice. 12. True love excludes all from its embrace but the beloved. 13. Public revelation of love is deadly to love in most instances. 14. The value of love is commensurate with its difficulty of attainment. 15. The presence of one's beloved causes paleness of complexion. 16. The sign of one's beloved causes palpitation of the heart. 17. A new love brings an old one to a finish. 18. Good character is the one real requirement for worthiness of love. 19. When love grows faint its demise is usually certain. 20. Apprehension is the constant companion of the true lover. 21. Love is reinforced by jealousy. 22. Suspicion of the beloved generates jealousy and therefore intensifies love. 23. Eating and sleeping diminish greatly when one is aggravated by love. 24. The lover's every deed is performed with the thought of his beloved in mind. 25. Unless it please his beloved, no act or thought is worthy to the lover. 26. Love is powerless to withhold anything from love. 27. There is no such thing as too much of the pleasure of one's beloved. 28. Presumption on the part of the beloved causes suspicion in the lover. 29. Aggravation of excessive passion does not usually afflict the true lover. 30. Thought of the beloved never leaves the true lover. 31. Two men may love one woman or two women one man. 30. The true lover is continuously obsessed with the image of his beloved. 31. Nothing prevents a woman from being loved by two men, or a man from being loved by two women"
Pretty cool, eh? I especially like #28 because no one likes being taken for granted.
I am going to do an hour of interval training on the treadmill, either before lunch or after work. Am I excited about it? No. Will I do it anyway? Yes, I will.
Can you imagine looking at exercise as a privilege???
Monday morning. I'm starting a new feature of my site today, Denise's Favorite Headline of the Day. I was reading an article about blogs and it said that the very best of them include lots of links to, and discussion of, content on the web. In an effort to be a little more interesting (and, yes, generate a little more interest, possibly even traffic), I'm going to post a link to one article a day that strikes a chord with my imagination.
Today's article is from MSNBC. Afghan girls exercise a freedom discusses the efforts of a club in Afghanistan to organize a girls' Tae Kwon Do class for teenagers. Although all of the participants remain completely covered at all times in their traditional garb, the club has come under fire (not literally, although the club organizers were beaten) for being contrary to Islamic beliefs. At this point, they only have 13 students, possibly because of the threat to their safety. I have two associates in my department that go to Tae Kwon Do classes twice weekly on site here at VLSCI and I think nothing of it other than to admire their dedication to physical activity, while, in Afghanistan, such a class is an act of defiance and bravery. It reminds me again how many freedoms we take for granted here in the U.S. Today, I'm challenging everyone who reads this post to go out in the fresh air and move your body in some sort of exercise related way. Consider it an act of solidarity with those girls in Afghanistan (and be very glad that you can wear shorts while you're sweating).
Sunday morning. I think I've managed to get the archives properly formatted, except for a pesky problem with the title and description. I'll work on it later because I have to get out and do my lovely seven mile walk while it's still cool out. Back later with more.
