I’m choosing to focus on things like these rather than the pile of boxes that try to swallow me everyday.
Progress not perfection
Written by jamie on February 7th, 2010My new favorite pastime
Written by jamie on January 31st, 2010At the start of the New Year, I made a non-verbal resolution to myself that so many others proclaim from the rooftop. I am going to get in shape! So many people look at me and tell me, “You don’t need to exercise!” Let me just say; just because I’m skinny does not mean that I am in good shape. Hear me when I say this: I am not looking to lose weight. I am looking to strengthen, tone, and gain more energy. I’m tired of feeling tired, and tired of feeling weak. I’m no wimp, but I’d love to be able to bench press more than I could now. And I have no idea what that would be, by the way.
I have no gym membership, nor do I intend to get one. It may have it’s benefits, but I prefer walking through my neighborhood than walking on a treadmill. There are days when a treadmill is great, but I prefer the fresh air. I’m still working at getting myself up early so I can take daily morning walks. The cold snap we had prevented me from starting this, and since then, my latest excuse is that my lazy butt can’t seem to get itself out of bed. I enjoy taking long walks, and I miss the days when I returned home from tour and had a couple months of rest. I would awake each morning and go to a park and take a walk for about an hour or more. Unfortunately, I don’t have an hour or more to spare each morning, so I’ll work on trying to get maybe 30 minutes or so.
Even though I haven’t gotten myself into walking again, I haven’t been a total failure. About a year ago, I discovered yoga in Comcast’s On Demand section. There was a section entitled exercisetv. I explored the yoga section and found a couple workouts that I enjoyed. They kicked my butt, but the more I did them, the easier it became. I explored different workouts, and grew to love yoga more. I liked the way I felt when I finished: relaxed, stretched out, and energized. I began to understand what it meant to sink deeper into the poses, and the crazy yoga lingo began to make more sense.
I know there is often the weird touchy feely spiritual your legs are like tree roots rooted into the ground sort of thing with yoga. I do appreciate feeling more connected with my breath, but don’t quite buy into the whole spiritual aspect of it. I do it because it feels good for my body, and it does help me relax and feel more centered.
But, as always happens, I struggled to keep up with it. I would sleep in later, say I was going to do my workout later that day, and of course that time would never come. Some of my favorite workouts disappeared from the On Demand section, and were no longer available for free. And then, we began looking for a house, and then packing up all of our belongings in our small duplex. Before I knew it, there was literally not a space big enough for me to do my downward facing dog. So, for a month or more, I did no yoga. And my body was sad.
Now, we’re settled into our new place, and although we’re still drowning in boxes, there is still a large, open space in the middle of the living room. So I began my yoga practice anew. I explored a few of the On Demand workouts, but wasn’t too impressed with what I found. Instead, I am now hooked on a yoga website. Yogatic has tons of videos, and also a list of the poses and the many benefits that each provides. Esther Eckhart, the Dutch Irishwoman with the cute accent, walks you through step by step explanations of each workout and pose. And everything on the website is FREE!
So this past week, I have gotten myself up every day and done about 20 minutes of yoga. I start with some warm up stretches, and then some sun salutations. Some of it is difficult, while some of it just feels really good. I’m usually out of breath when I’m done, but I feel energized. That “there’s no way I can move out of this bed” feeling that was there 20 minutes ago is gone. I feel awake, energized and ready to go. Another thing I have noticed is that as I go throughout the day, I feel more awake. There is still that feeling of really wanting a nap some days, but overall, I feel better. So I’m going to try my hardest to keep it up. Something is working.
Now, this morning I didn’t do any yoga with the exception of a little bit of stretching. It is Sunday. I need a day off. Plus my throat hurts a bit. But I will do my best to keep this up.
Getting Motivated
Written by drew on January 28th, 2010My boss got a flyer in the mail about the Get Motivated seminar coming to Tallahassee, and offered to treat the management team from our department. It would be a day out of the office and Bobby Bowden, Zig Zigler and Rudy Giuliani were on the list of speakers. Sure, I could use some motivating. I am the last person one of these speakers wants to see at an event, because I’m not going to cheer or clap or sing songs. But it was at the civic center, so I’d be far enough away from the stage to remain a cynic.
A few weeks before the event, I started hearing ads on the radio. This must be a bigger event that I thought. The civic center’s marquis had warnings that parking would be tight and encouraged participants to carpool. What was I getting into?
I got downtown about 45 minutes before start time, and traffic was stopped dead. I found parking a few blocks away and stuffed some granola bars into my pocket so I could save $18 on breakfast. People were streaming into the center like Metallica was going to headline. Evidently lots of people in Tallahassee were eager to get some motivating.
After finding my crew and procuring a Mountain Dew, I settled in. I didn’t get much sleep the night before and if I was going to make it I would need the caffeine. Since I haven’t had the juice in a few years, I sipped it slowly so I’d be able to repress my inner Cornholio. A perky blonde took the stage with some fireworks and we were off to the races!
Rick Belluzzo talked more about HP than Microsoft, but I would, too, if I were him. Bobby Bowden couldn’t have had a more loving crowd. He was able to throw a couple jabs around about the firing, but nothing too directly. I’ve heard him speak before and he didn’t disappoint.
Then we had our first sale of the day. Gary and I had theorized that since the tickets were so cheap that we were in for the hard sell. It started off slowly, then just transitioned into the realization that he was motivating us to buy his stuff. He was pitching stock trading tools, and since I’d traded stocks before it piqued my interest. But I wasn’t about to spend a penny on it, especially since the internet makes all of this irrevelent. Why pay for it when you can find it for free?
After a short break, out comes Tamara Lowe. Her and her husband are the ones who run these seminars, so it was time for her moment in the spotlight. She started to talk about her book and her insights into motivation. It reminded me a little of The Five Love Languages but for motivating. Each person is moved differently and knowing how helps you communicate. That part of her talk was fine, then she had this odd transition into a story about her in a beauty salon rapping to a bunch of black women about Jesus. Hmmmm. All morning people had been dropping hints about God and their Republican slants weren’t hidden during the speeches. But now Tamara is trying to flow with this thing about God. She started talking about how as soon as she knew Jesus her addiction to drugs was lifted. Then if you wanted to pray with her right now, you could know him, too.
I wasn’t expecting this at a business conference. People need to be who they are, and that’s all well and good, but an altar call? I hate drive-by altar calls, especially when there was no follow-up, no opportunity to talk to anyone about it. To top it off, she was selling Jesus in a box, that once you opened it up, you could be free from your problems. I’ve done some work with recovering alcoholics and drug addicts, and I haven’t seen it happen like that. It is a lot of work and struggle to find serenity. But what did I expect from a sales expert?
Luckily after that we had a lunch break so I could walk around and go outside. I didn’t feel like sticking around for another sales pitch in exchange for a free lunch. It helped to at least be able to see the outside.
After lunch Zig Ziglar took the stage, after an introduction by his daughter. He had a bad accident a few years prior, and since then he’s had problems with his short term memory, so now she appears with him and tries to guide the talk. In practice, however, it wasn’t so smooth. He came out and was energetic, but it only took a few minutes to see he wasn’t himself. He was making the same jokes over and over. His daughter was doing her best to try to keep him focused, but it wasn’t working. I started to feel really bad for him, then anger at this obvious exploitation. But one of the questions they asked him is “When are you going to retire?” He really loves doing what he does, even in a diminished capacity. I googled this when I got home and saw a blog by someone who attended this in September. He said that Zig did well and the assistance by his daughter really worked out. I guess he was having a bad day in Tallahassee.
In talking with my boss the next day this came up. What does it mean to retire? What is retirement for some people? Should Zig hang it up? It is easy for me to say now, in my 30’s, that he needs to bite the bullet and stop. It takes a lot of courage and strength to admit you can’t do it anymore. But when I get there, will I be able to do that? Will I throw in the towel and head for the beach? I hope I can have a retirement with dignity. The only people who should see me losing my mind are my family, who will heckle and tease me while they can hahahahaha.
Rudy Giuliani speaking during Get Motivvaazzzzzzz
After another infomercial Rudy Giuliani took the stage. I’ve never lived in the northeast, and never visited New York City. I really have no desire to, unless I can get tickets to a taping of The Daily Show. Hearing Rudy introduced as “America’s Mayor” rubbed me the wrong way. But then he starts his talk, and to boil it down, it was an encouragement to stay up on technology and to learn to use the internet. Since I work in an IT department and was there with my boss and coworkers, I was quite bored. It may have been a great high school commencement speech, and maybe some of the older sales folks in the audience got something out of it, but not us. Yawn.
People started to leave after Giuliani left, and I didn’t blame them. There was another infomercial by someone who was going to show us how to make money using the internet, but I have an ebay account and know how to sell stuff. I was out of there! They were having a drawing for $10,000, but you had to be present to win, and the drawing was at the very end, but I didn’t care. Let me out! It was worth $10,000 to go home. My boss stayed, and my ticket wasn’t drawn, so I felt even better.
It was an interesting day, and I thanked my boss for buying us tickets. Was I more motivated afterwards? Not really. But I learned a little and got to see several good speakers in one place for free. And I got a blog post out of it.
I think I’m gonna like this place
Written by jamie on January 25th, 2010I just took my first walk in my new neighborhood. Well, technically third walk, but the first one was a morning walk in the bitter cold snap we had, and I didn’t make it too far before turning around and retreating into the heat of my home. The second was at night, and again, I didn’t venture far, as it was dark and I didn’t want to get lost. I am still learning the streets.
This morning I took a nice long walk, exploring the new streets where I live. I really like this place. I love the trees that cover almost every corner. I love the way that each house looks unique. Some neighborhoods are what I call “cookie cutter” neighborhoods, where there are about three or four house designs and they repeat throughout the neighborhood. When I was younger, I used to say that I never wanted to live in one of those neighborhoods. I thought they were boring. Well, then I grew up and realized that when you’re looking for a house and have a certain budget to stick to, those cookie cutter houses don’t look so bad. Initially, Drew and I were considering one of those cookie cutter neighborhoods. It was close to our budget (we would have had to do some negotiating) and the interior of the houses were really nice. But, in the end, God provided an awesome house in a non cookie cutter neighborhood. And as I walked through it this morning, I had to thank Him for that.
In our old neighborhood, we were surrounded by disrespectful kids that left bikes and toys in our driveway and wouldn’t move out of the way when you were trying to get home at night. So far, every kid that I’ve experienced in the new neighborhood has been respectful and pleasant. As I walked this morning, a bus was arriving to pick up the middle school kids that were waiting. Often, when I see groups of adolescent kids, it reminds me of my adolescent days and some of the jerky boys that would make fun of me. Some days I want to turn around and walk the other day. Then I remind myself that they are 12 year olds and I am a 30 year old woman. Today, some of them were talking loudly as they were climbing on the bus, and I realized they were motioning in my direction. My instinct was that they were being cruel and making fun of me over something (why do some memories stick with us so strongly?) but then I realized they were commenting on my sweatshirt. I had pulled on my zip up sweatshirt that has Australia emblazoned across the front. It was the souvenir I proudly acquired on my trip there. I glanced across the street and noticed one of the boys had a shirt on that looked identical. The others were proclaiming to him, “Dude! It SAYS Australia!” One of them yelled across the street at me, “Doesn’t your shirt say Australia?” I said, “Yes it does…” and they laughed and told the other boy, “You have a twin!” and pointed him out to me. I smiled, flashed a thumbs up, and kept walking. It was refreshing to not have boys making some smart remark towards me.
As I kept walking, I encountered another young girl with her bag strapped to her, on her way to the bus stop. She smiled at me with a big, beautiful smile and greeted me. Oh, how lovely to have civil neighbors, who know how to act right.
So now I’m back home, in my cozy little home with boxes surrounding me. I’m trying to not get caught up in all that still needs to be done, and instead be in the current moment. If I get overwhelmed with the to do list, I should instead think of all that’s been crossed off. Each day we accomplish a little bit more, and that’s a good feeling.
I sat on the couch last night while Drew was making dinner, and it hit me. I’m in my new home with my husband. Life is good. A little later that night, as we got ready for bed, I tried to push Drew over and wrestle with him. I should have learned by now that that never goes well for me. He practically body slammed me on the bed, and proceeded to try to zerbert me. I screamed, laughed hysterically, and finally got him to stop. But in those goofy little moments, especially in those goofy little moments, life is really good.