Friday, September 28, 2012

Savor Life's Joys

I feel like I covered this in four part harmony already, expressing gratitude and savoring joy aren't two sides of the same coin?

Deep happiness cannot exist without slowing down to enjoy the joy. It’s easy in a world of wild stimuli and omnipresent movement to forget to embrace life’s enjoyable experiences. When we neglect to appreciate, we rob the moment of its magic. It’s the simple things in life that can be the most rewarding if we remember to fully experience them.

Well anyway, I'm good at savoring. I get savoring. Says the girl who's written 542 posts on the same thirteen articles of clothing and eight meals that I've cycled through for the past three years.

Savoring is, what? Enjoying something, yes, if you're not enjoying anything, that might be a sign of depression and I gently hug you. Fully enjoying something, though, I think is what's implied. And further implied, I think, is fully enjoying fewer things rather than skimming over enjoying lots of things with the assumption that you can't fully enjoy lots of things because there's only so much time that you're awake.

So yeah, I'm a slow down and savor kind of gal. But I think that I've made my life into a particular project that makes me think of this quote from Michael Chabon's The Mysteries of Pittsburgh:

Something stood between me and Phlox—perhaps it was myself—which made loving her a perpetual effort; she was a massive collection of small, ardent details that I struggled always to keep in mind, in a certain order, repeating the Phlox List over and over to myself, because if I forgot one particular of her smile or speech, the whole thing came to pieces. Perhaps I did not love Phlox, after all—I just knew her by heart. I had memorized my girlfriend.
I might be trying to memorize my life, which this blog is part of, and in which case, it's easier to remember fewer things that can be organized into sets of things. Which means I am more successful at it. Which gives me a sense of calm, if not happiness. But I take that back, it does give me a sense of happiness. I think I wrote earlier about not conflating success with happiness, but now I think that success and happiness do communicate at the very far end of the spectrum where the particles of success and happiness are very small.

And of course the other thing about enjoying fewer things and simpler things is, it's cheaper. So if you think of money as an expression of work, it's less work to enjoy fewer and simpler things.

What if you enjoy work, though? What if you like variety and complexity? What if you love finding that thing that you forgot you had at the back of your closet?

See, I think it's a far leap between saying that slowing down and savoring the simple things works for me and saying that it's for everybody. Everybody works at different speeds, I feel like every body almost literally has its own timer built in. It can't be that just the slow bodies are happy, I should think that the slow bodies are happy going slow and the fast bodies are happy going fast.

So yes, but not necessarily, if you ask me.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Fall Fitness Chart

I'm pretty consistent with my five workouts per week:

SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
PASTIME
 
HOBBY
Home
WORK
 
HOBBY
Home
WORK
 
HOBBY
Home
PLAY
Climbing
PLAY
Fury
PLAY
 
WORK
 
PLAY
 
WORK
 
PLAY
 
HOBBY
Home
HOBBY
Home
PLAY
Biking
PASTIME
 
PLAY
League
PLAY
Plyos
PLAY
 
HOBBY
Systems
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 

Sunday Fury practice and Wednesday league practice are supposed to be my two key onskates practices for the week. I'm honestly not going to make a lot of Monday practices during preseason because I have training sessions with my clients (wee!) scheduled then. The session itself is not a workout for me, but I bike seven miles to get there and try to bike five-minute miles; so I'm still counting Monday as a key workout night. Plyos is a key offskates workout for the people who signed up for my class (wee!) but recovery for me who leads the class. Pooh plyos is fun, I want to play. I'm being serious though about giving people their money's worth. But for fun, breaking news, I signed up for ROCK CLIMBING LESSONS with the sweetie man on Saturday mornings. Right now it's just fun, so I'm counting that as a recovery workout.

Okay truthfully, we also get one open climb per week with our weekly lesson. So I will also probably be rock climbing on Tuesday night. And MWF I do a little bit of kettlebells before I wash up, just a little bit! To be submitted for your consideration...

[ETA: Augh, climbing Tuesday nights is ridic. Weeknights is when every nine-to-fiver can climb, it's like they expect you to climb in people's armpits and we weren't having that. The privilege of the underemployed is that weekdays we have the wall all to ourselves, so probably will climb Wednesday mornings. So sacred Tuesday taco nights have been saved!

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

16 Ways to Master Your Derby-Life Balance
 delegate your life

Man, this is how this whole thing got started. I think my eye caught "Let Go Of Fear," "Remember Your Friends," and "Delegate Your Life" and my brain went THAT'S JUST LIKE DERBY and then LET'S WRITE OUR OWN SERIES! Shut up, brain!

No no, don't shut up. I love you, brain. It's just hard to keep up with you sometimes. I missed you in April and May, you were too quiet then. I know you needed the rest, though.

10. Delegate Your Life!

“It’s great to delegate bookkeeping, marketing, and admin work, but for many who are just starting off your budget won’t necessarily allow for it. Get creative and delegate more of your “life” duties like childcare, cleaning house, and grocery shopping to a spouse. Having my husband help me out by doing some grocery shopping means I have more time to spend with him when we’re at home.” -Jennifer Donogh, Young Female Entrepreneurs

This is like the opposite of Remember Your Friends when you thought he was saying one thing but he was actually saying another thing that wasn't totally helpful, you think she's saying one thing that isn't totally helpful—oh yeah, I'll outsource in my dreams— but she's actually saying another thing that is totally helpful and also really pleasingly feminist. I mean, if you have a partner. But if you do have a partner, do you just sort of feel that the domestic work is your responsibility? Thanks to Dad, I don't. The paradigm where dad brings home the bacon and mom fries it up in a pan never held sway in our house. I mean, besides the fact that we kept kosher. Because we were Seventh Day Adventist, not Jewish if you were momentarily confused. It really never occurred to me to expect anything other than that I would always support myself and that I would get help with the housework. And honestly, I think this is probably mostly how my derby-life balance is managed. Letting go of fear and building lifestyle into your brand is smoke and mirrors next to somebody who's taking out the trash and getting the groceries and doing the laundry.

sweetie man and prawn

I don't say this to advise, because I don't know how you get somebody like that. I don't know how I got somebody like that. I say this just to recognize. Because I think that work should be recognized, and how things get done should be demystified.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

I Am A Servant Of The Secret Fire

p: i'm gandalf!

p: i'm sorry that you have to be walking with the person carrying a ten foot pvc pipe through home depot saying i'm gandalf.

Basic Chicken Stock

basic chicken stock

So how I've been doing with rotisserie chicken is, I take apart the chicken whenever I'm making my next salad: save the wings for snacking, take the meat off the thighs and drumsticks, and the breast meat generally pulls off in two big pieces. I put those pieces back into the container the chicken came in and eat them all week. The rest of the chicken carcass and bones get put into a gallon ziploc bag into the freezer, where they add up all summer. Like right now I have five gallons of chicken parts in the freezer.

Maybe ideally you would fill up two gallon bags and then make chicken stock, and keep up with it like that. But for whatever reason, God in His wisdom installed my air conditioner in the kitchen pointing at the stove. And by God in His wisdom I mean my landlord, who is really not like God except in the sense that I don't know a lot of the reasons for what he does; but at least I see my landlord, sometimes. Anyway if the air conditioner and the stove are on at the same time, the air conditioner blows out the stove. So not only do I never turn on the oven in summer, I have to turn off the air conditioner if I want to turn on the stove and I wasn't having that this summer at all.

So when it gets cool enough to turn off the air conditioner, I make a few batches of chicken stock. It's easy, it just takes five hours on the stove. When it's done and cool, I pour it right back into quart size takealong containers for the freezer again. This is heresy I know—but then again compared to what—but I don't like soup actually, I only want soup when I'm sick. Then it's stone soup time, but that's a story for later.

2 gallon bags of chicken parts
3 quarts of water
an onion
two celery stalks
two carrots
a bunch of parsley
two or three bay leaves

Put chicken parts and water into a stock pot over high heat. Bring to a simmer, then simmer uncovered over low heat for 3 hours.

Roughly chop onion, celery, and carrots and add to the pot with parsley and bay leaves. Simmer another for 2 hours.

Strain and cool. Pour into quart size takealong containers and freeze for later.

Monday, September 24, 2012

Fall Chart

Back to a simpler color scheme: silver is sleep, pink is practice, blue is recovery. Sleep is sleep, practice is getting it done, and recovery is putting it back together.

SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
HOBBY
Systems
HOBBY
Home
WORK
 
HOBBY
Home
WORK
 
HOBBY
Home
PLAY
Climbing
PLAY
Fury
PLAY
 
WORK
 
PLAY
 
WORK
 
PLAY
 
HOBBY
Home
PASTIME
 
PLAY
 
PASTIME
 
PLAY
League
PLAY
Plyos
PLAY
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PLAY
League
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 
SLEEP
 

As it happens, billable or potentially billable activities in my timetracker are practice (WORK and PLAY) and non-billable activities are recovery (HOBBY and PASTIME). So obviously my job is WORK, it pays. My personal training and plyos are PLAY, they pay, but also climbing and skating are PLAY because I'm getting something from them that could pay off later. Whereas it's something of an odd artifact that household activities like cooking and cleaning and laundry and groceries are HOBBY, with hobbies like these who needs hobbies. Whatever, language. And also obviously taking internet breaks and watching television are PASTIME.

What's amazing to me is that my life actually now operates according to my work/play paradigm, the things that are done as a means to an end and the things that are done as an end in themselves and so forth. Taking internet breaks and watching television is something that's done as an end in itself that's an end in itself, just for enjoyment. Cooking and cleaning and laundry and groceries is something that's done as a means to an end that's an end in itself, I have to do them but I actually enjoy doing them. Personal training and plyos and climbing and skating is something that's done as an end in itself that's a means to an end, because I do them for enjoyment but I actually get something from them i.e. a living. My job is something that's done as a means to an end that's a means to an end, although I will tell you something interesting about that. Like when I used to do all this training and head of trainers work for free—I mean, I still do head of trainers for free—the $300/week I made at my job had no meaning divided by zero as it was. Now that I'm making just a little bit of money as a trainer, I have a sense of how much work it is just to bring in $40/week and dividing that $300 by $40 is no longer undefined. So now that time, and that work, has value to me, if that makes sense. And also it's part of this game with the timetracker, where time is straw and you spin it into gold. Everything can be spun into gold! Which gives you a pretty positive attitude about straw. So I'm actually enjoying calculating finder's credits and reviewing payroll reports, which means my job is actually HOBBY and that I don't have anything in my life that's WORK. Which basically is how the game is won.

And also, it's all evenly divided between practice/recovery/sleep with fourteen silver boxes, fourteen pink boxes, and fourteen blue boxes.

It works! I feel like Doc Brown.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Six Degrees

p: omg savory rice krispie treats.

p: i guess it's not possible.

p: because you need the marshmallows.

m: somebody's probably already done bacon rice krispie treats anyway.

p: yeah.

p: if i was going to write a sci-fi story.

m: yes.

p: it would be about how bacon has been a government mind control delivery system all along.

m: yes.

p: it's so totally plausible.

p: why are people so crazy about bacon?

p: bacon and internet memes.

m: the bacon dumbs you down so they can send in the internet memes.

p: i mean, why do you think bacon is so salty?

p: so you can't taste the neurosuppressors.


reading it over

m: there was a lot of other good stuff.

m: that i would have thrown in.

p: oh, like what?

m: all of it.

p: i couldn't remember it all.

m: because of the bacon.

Friday, September 21, 2012

Fall Food Chart

So yeah, I have indeed lost ten pounds. And I think it has more to do with my diet than my workouts, so whoomp here it is.

If you remember, my basic guideline for eating around workouts slightly revised to subtly emphasize protein is:

BEFORE
light protein &
complex carbs

IMMEDIATELY BEFORE & DURING WORKOUT
simple carbs
 
IMMEDIATELY AFTER
light protein &
simple carbs
AFTER
heavy protein &
complex carbs
BETWEEN
heavy protein &
complex carbs

Immediately before/after means within 45 minutes of, before/after means within 1-3 hours of, and between means more than 3 hours before or after workouts.

My workouts are mostly in evening, so fall food is going to go like this:

  • Before - Dinner - light protein & complex carbs - vegetable and quinoa gratin, also veg pesto and sweet potato gratin what what
  • Immediately Before & During - Workout Drink - simple carbs - CocoOJ2O
  • Immediately After - Post Workout Snack - light protein & simple carbs - almonds and chocolate silk
  • After - Breakfast - heavy protein & complex carbs - scrambled eggs and fruit, and also greek yogurt and fruit
  • Between - Lunch - heavy protein & complex carbs - baked chicken and veganly beans turkey meatballs and kale salad

Which brings me ever closer to achieving my ultimate food chart, I think this fall I'm finally getting rid of oatmeal for breakfast and pasta for dinner. I pretty much only want to have starches for dinner before workouts and am limiting those starches to potatoes, quinoa, rice, and beans. Don't expect me to back this up with science, I'm not a nutritionist and am pretty much playing this by ear. Or tongue, I suppose. Really the extent of nutritional advice that I'm certified to dish out is all from Choose My Plate, get it, dish out, which I will in a bit. So anyway yeah, lunch was supposed to be baked chicken and veganly beans. But then I decided to be disciplined, I'm counting beans as starch and I'm not having starch at lunch ergo. Plus also I really like my green salads and vaguely think that raw greens are good for you, ideally I would eat salads year round. But realistically not gonna happen, I want at least to stretch salads as far as I can into the end of the year before it gets too cold. So I updated my salad recipe for fall, and it's great.

If you're just joining me now, the basic ideas are:

  1. Time your lighter, more digestible foods closer to your workouts. That means before, during, and immediately after your workouts is when you get to eat your simpler carbs.
  2. I have found that I don't need nearly as much starchy carb for fuel as I previously imagined. I don't know that I will ever entirely cut out grains and legumes, but I can certainly do with them in pretty small amounts and get most of the carbs I need from fruits and vegetables.
  3. Fruits and vegetables even more importantly are good sources of antioxidants that help with muscle recovery, so load up. Green tea also, drink up.
  4. Protein is what muscles are made from, you break down your muscles when you train and you build them back up when you eat protein. More training means more protein.

I hope to be lifting heavier weights in fall, which means more protein. Which means I will probably bulk back up again, stay tuned.

Your mileage, as always, may vary. Elves high carbs, men medium carbs, dwarves low carbs, hobbits eat whatever they want. Everybody different, you know yourself best. And also it's a process, you may be surprised how far you get from here to there.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angr--

p: can i rant??

m: okay.

p: okay so, FIRST OF ALL--

p: oh, my new fitness journal!

p: yay!

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

FTW

p: holy shit, "This action movie tells the tale of a woman who decides to recover her lower body from where it fell during a climbing accident!"

p: oh, her lover's body.