Time for Fall

So - summer has officially ended and fall has begun. I just finished my half marathon and its epic training plan. We are almost done with the half bath and mudroom projects. With lots of things finished or wrapping up, I am really ready shift gears and change things up. A couple thoughts:

1. Running the Navy Air Force Half Marathon 
I signed up for this race a couple months ago, in hopes that it would get me back in shape. Of course, as is always true for me, I had a hard time fitting in all the required runs and didn't end up training as well as I wanted. The more the mileage crept up, the hungrier I got - really throwing off my plans to eat well during this period. Old running injuries flared up, no doubt because I was adding miles too quickly while missing important strength training exercises - so I spent a good chunk of time on the couch, icing my knees with frozen vegetables (butternut squash is my new favorite). So - when the race day finally came, I finished it (which was my only real goal), and I did it much faster than I was expecting, but still slower than the last time I ran this distance 6 years ago. I was a little disappointed that I hadn't worked harder or run faster, but mostly I was just really happy to be done.

running into the finish line

in prior years - we went out to celebrate after a race. This year, I got a nap! 

2. New Exercise Plans
Whenever I finish a long race, I always feel torn between wanting to never move again, but not wanting to lose all my hard-earned progress. I'm thinking about making a mileage goal for the month of October - just enough to require me to run short distances pretty often so that I get into a more regular routine. I also know that all the running without additional strength training probably resulted in my leg muscles getting unbalanced and causing a couple typical running knee injuries, so I should spend more time building strength through other forms of exercise. (My brother would point out that another way to not get running injuries is to just not run). I'm also just so tired of running and anxious to try other things - so I'm thinking about making a goal to try new exercises and strength training classes, like boot camp or crossfit, or relaxing things like hiking or swimming. In short - I want to continue to get in better shape, but I would like it to hurt less. I want to exercise more often, but with more variety.

3. New Food Plans
I forgot that long runs make me super hungry so that I absolutely must eat everything in sight. Plus, when I was running into work and couldn't carry extra food with me - or just working through the weekend without time to prep food - I fell way off the bandwagon on home cooking, and ended up buying lots of crappy food for breakfast, lunch and so many afternoon snacks. I am really excited to get back in the kitchen. Making breakfast and lunch for myself is both healthier and cheaper than buying food at work, so I'm digging out my old favorite recipes to make in advance. But dinner has gotten interesting lately- not only does food need to be healthy and relatively cheap as always, but now we eat dinner with our son so food needs to be something he will eat (not super spicy or messy, fingerfoods are useful), as well as done before his bedtime - giving me roughly 15 minutes to get in the door before food is on the table. All of these constraints make things more challenging - so I'm kind of excited to figure out new options that will work. I think I'm finally going to tentatively embrace the slow cooker, in addition to lots of weekend prep. I have visions of roasting root vegetables and hearty soups and general scrumptiousness.

4. The Fun To-Do List
Because the weekends were spent either running or working on the house  - we didn't get to do many of the fun summery things I would've liked. Now that we're getting that time back - I am super excited to get out of the house, and start crossing fun things off the list.

• Go apple picking
• Go wine tasting
• Cook something on an outdoor fire
• Take a day hike
• Go to the zoo 
• See Mt. Vernon
• Celebrate Octoberfest 
• Halloween. 

5. House Maintenance

Ok, I get that no one else would be excited about this but me - but all the focus on finishing up the halfbath has left the rest of the house a bit disheveled and worse for the wear. There are a bunch of regular projects, like weeding the lawn, that have been completely ignored over the past few months. There are a bunch of new projects that were created by the construction - like piles and piles of displaced cookbooks, serving bowls, and pantry items that no longer have a permanent home or construction tools and debris that are strewn about the house and garage. It's time to make the fall capsule wardrobe and put summer clothes in storage. The whole house just needs some attention. I want to sort through all the stuff to empty out things we don't need for donations and trash, and then give everything that remains a good dusting/scrubbing/reorganizing. 

6. Learn and Teach Something New 

So - it's been years since I was a student, but the return of fall still gets me excited about the return to school. I'm anxious to learn something new - maybe I can finally commit to actually practicing the piano and learning a new piece, or even taking lessons again. I have a million podcasts that are accumulating on my phone. There are a bunch of short term classes I would love to sign up for - a weekend woodworking class, an online photography class, a blog-based baking school  - that would be a fun way to get better at something I like to do but sort of suck at. I also started volunteering back in the spring, teaching a course for GED students, which ended for the summer but is starting up again for the fall. I'm excited to get back into teaching, thinking through the material, figuring out how to present it at the right level and speed, incorporating real world examples, while figuring out how to meet standard testing requirements and other constraints. I like the challenge and am looking forward to getting back to it.

Ok- so re-reading through this post makes me sound sort of crazy/overly ambitious. I know that the end of the half marathon will free up a couple hours on Sundays, but not infinite additional hours. Even so - I am excited to do more of all of these things, and look forward to figuring out how to juggle all the competing interests, as always, in order to squeeze just a bit more into the day.  

Shape Up-date: Good Habits and New Bags

Ok, so we are about a third of the way through my 15 week shape up, and have arguably gotten through the hardest part. With any new goal or resolution, the first couple of weeks are the time to either make new habits that will stick, or get derailed and go back to the old habits (which is what usually happens). So, while I have been getting moving and getting back on track, I've mostly been focused on identifying the things that will trip me up and finding solutions to make this easier on myself, so that I'm more likely to continue.

1 - Get a Plan
When I set this goal, I was planning on running a very popular, long-ago-sold-out 10 mile race in October, falsely thinking that I could get a bib through work. When a helpful colleague dropped that bomb on me, I scrambled to find a new race around the same time. I know that signing up and paying for a race is a strong incentive to keep me on track, and that I have to strike the perfect balance of long enough that I will be scared into training for it, but not so long that I set myself up to fail. There aren't a lot of races in the fall, so my only options were a 5-miler and a half marathon, which is a bit more than I wanted to do and earlier than the 10 mile race I intended to train for. So - after some noodling, I decided to go for the half and quickly googled a training plan to get moving (I'm doing the Hal Higdon one here). It is only a 12 week training plan, so I only missed the first day.  I printed it off and stuck it prominently on the fridge - a sure sign that I have to stay on track.

Once I had a plan, I added appointments to my work calendar to remind me to go run or to yoga, as specified by the plan. Now that it's a million degrees and humid like a Turkish bathhouse, I'm having to get creative about running outside. I started running to work in the morning, which comes with lots of additional complications, and trying to run on the weekends before the boy wakes up or on my sleep-in day (which sucks when I really just want to sleep in).

On the food front, my plan is to eat roughly 1200 calories per day,  making as much of my food from scratch as possible. In order to stay on track, I started working through my known downfalls:

• For breakfast, I run out of time in the morning and end up buying gross food at work, so I found some recipes and ideas for things that could be made in advance and then just grabbed quickly in the morning (Here and Here). 
• I have the same issue for lunch, and usually don't have time to even move food from a large bowl to a smaller container - so I searched for some lunch ideas to prep over the weekend or the night before that I could just grab in the morning (lots of good ideas here). 
• I know that if I eat lunch at noon, I'll be starving around 3 and make bad decisions, so I've been pushing breakfast back a couple hours so that I can push lunch back a couple hours, and not go ravenous before dinner. 
• Lastly, I know that when it's my week to cook dinner, I always completely blank on what to make - and usually end up cooking the same 3 pastas over and over or just buying takeout. So we're trying out some meal planning services in hopes that we start eating real meals that meet some nutritional goals (like being vegetarian and eating seafood once a week), instead of our recent norm of scrounging for PB&J after the kid goes to sleep.
• Very lastly, knowing that we often have too much going on during the weekend to get to the store, I finally downloaded the Instacart app, so I can just feed the grocery list right in for quick grocery delivery.  

2 - Get ALL the Gear
Once I had a plan and got started, I realized I was missing lots of important things. Though I'm generally a minimalist in everything else I do, when it comes to healthy stuff, I want all of the gear - any possible invention to make it just a bit easier on myself and remove an annoyance or inconvenience that will derail my good intentions. Thankfully, over the years, I've now accumulated quite a bit of gym stuff - like a running water bottle, running sunglasses, armband and earbuds, and yoga-mat-sized towel that work (but smell SO horrible). So for all that stuff that I already had, the trick was just getting it all to the right place - remembering to haul it to work for the week and back home for the weekend.

For the stuff that I didn't have, I did some quick shopping. I got a new pair of running shoes from Amazon and raided the cheap gym clothes section at Target to ensure that I had enough stuff to get me through the week without needing to do laundry. Similarly, on the food front, I bought a new lunch box that's big enough to hold all the food I need for the day, nice glass food containers that won't leak, and some reusable ice packs. I just got a nice, new coffee thermos for Christmas, so I'm all set on that front.

3 - Make Backup Plans
As soon as I made a plan and got started, I quickly got derailed. Planning to run over my lunch hour - forgot my shoes. Brought my boring lunch to work - colleague invites me to join her at a tasty restaurant. Planning to run outside - we're having a "heat emergency" caused by something called a heat dome. Thing after thing keeps occurring, totally derailing me and throwing my good intentions out the window. So, even though the goal is still to stay on the plan, I came up with some backup plans for the just in cases. For food - I scouted out some healthy lunch options in case I need to buy food, and picked up some decent frozen things for the days when I'm too lazy to cook dinner that should prevent me from getting much-worse takeout. For exercise - I set up my old yoga dvd for the days I fail to make it to class, and brought a spare pair of clothes and shoes to the office as a backup.  I start each week with my weather app, looking for the days that it'll be cool enough to run into work, and adjust the schedule as needed.  On days that it's too hot to run outside, I can do short stints on the treadmill.

4 - Make New Tote Bags
If it isn't already apparent - one downside to this plan is that I'm now hauling a lot of stuff to and from work every day. Most week days, I'm carrying gym clothes, my lunch, breakfast, and coffee to and from work. Some days, I have all that, plus my gym shoes, water bottle, and yoga towel. The day before running to work, I also bring in all the work clothes I will need. In short - I'm carrying a whole lot of bulky, heavy, and often dirty stuff around.

what I carried to work today:

breakfast & lunch, gym clothes & shoes, work clothes for tomorrow

I have been using some free canvas bags, but they aren't great. They don't have pockets, so everything just falls over and gets mingled and lost at the bottom. They don't have zippers, so things can fall out and be seen by anyone. Plus, they're pretty schlubby and not particularly professional looking. So, of course, I decided to make my own. The goal was to look roughly like this fabulous one on etsy, but to be entirely machine-washable, with lots of pockets to hold stuff, and a zipper to keep things closed.

Step 1. Prep the Fabric
I bought a couple yards of sturdy canvas and drapery fabric, plus a few long zippers and matching thread. Throw all the fabric in the washer and dryer to preshrink, and then iron. Out of the exterior fabric, cut the exterior panels, handles, pockets, and zipper connectors (more on them later).

Step 2. Make the Exterior Panels
Because I wanted the exterior of the bag to be made with two different fabrics, the first thing to do is sew the two pieces together to create the exterior panels.

Step 3. Make the Pockets
Next, we make the pockets. To avoid adding too much bulk, I just added one pocket to each side. Also - pockets that are too wide will just fall open, so I cut them in half or in thirds, depending on what I wanted them to hold.

Step 4.  Make and Attach the Handles
Next we make handles, since this is a tote bag. The length of the handles should be about 28-30", so you need to sew down based on the total length of the fabric strip.

Step 5. Make the Zipper Connectors
Through trial and error I discovered that we want an extra piece of fabric to separate the zipper from the exterior fabric, otherwise the weight of the bag pulls the zipper apart. So, next we create what I'm calling "zipper connectors", which are two small pieces of fabric that will connect the zipper to the exterior panels, and look a lot like a hotdog in my picture below.

Step 6. Attach Exterior Panels to the Zipper Connectors
I'm guessing that many (most) tote bags don't have a zipper because it gets complicated at this point. However, if you go slowly and just make sure all of your fabric is facing the right way - this is not hard. This should result in all of the fabric being connected to the zipper. Make sure you leave the zipper half open at the end (or you won't be able to flip the bag at the very end).

Step 7. Sew the Panels Together
So now the panels are attached to the zipper but not each other, so we need to sew the bag together.

Step 8. Sew Box Corners
This is an extra fancy step that you can skip - but it makes the bags look much nicer and sort of stand up on their own. My little drawings aren't great at expressing 3 dimensions - so work with me on this step.

Step 9. Extras
So, as I mentioned before, it was important to me that everything be machine-washable - but I also liked the idea of having some leather accents. So I found a store on Etsy that makes leather straps and keychains, and had them make some leather pulls that could be removed when the bag needed to be washed.

closeup of a leather zipper pull

Then (as if this post weren't already long enough), I decided to make a couple more bags, following the same basic design. I made a couple smaller bags for the days I need to carry less, and then a larger bag for carrying towels to the pool (which we are now doing every week!). I also made a couple really small bags to carry my phone and cards, perfect on days I run to work and don't have my work bag with me or to throw into the diaper bag for the morning commute.

new totes and pool bag

new little bags, just big enough for my wallet and phone

So - I'm not going to say that it's going perfectly. I have definitely missed some runs and fallen off the healthy food wagon - but 5 weeks in, I'm still committed to my goal and working to stay on track. A lot of things are getting easier, I've found that yoga classes don't hurt anymore, and I'm slowly getting a bit faster - but I also have a long way to go. I will keep trucking along, and next up - we'll talk more about progress on the house.

The 15 Week Shape Up

So at some point I read that men are more likely to view their houses as the places that they live, whereas women are more likely to view their houses as a part of themselves-  which allows a messy, disorganized house to reduce a woman's self confidence, while it would have little to no impact on a man's confidence. (I can't find the article, but here's another interesting read on the gender gap of self confidence).  For sure, I feel like my house reflects on me, so it messes with my confidence when I know it's a disaster. But then again, my confidence is already kind of messed up right now anyway. There are aspects of both the house and myself that are kind of embarrassing and cringe-worthy, that I've been very slowly trying to fix up or just putting off altogether. For a variety of reasons, the time has come to get both the house and myself back in shape.

house shame 1: the plywood gap-filler between the dining room and kitchen floors

Part A: Me
So, more than a year since having a kid, I'm still carrying pregnancy weight that just won't get lost. I'm tired of not fitting into a bunch of my clothes and feeling not like myself. I have been losing weight steadily over the past 8 or 9 months, but not fast enough - so it's time to get in gear. My goal: in 15 weeks, I will lose 15 pounds. I don't want to turn this into a weight loss blog, but I'm tired of feeling crappy about myself and ready to be back to normal.

Part B: The House
If you've seen our house lately, you would think that we're in the middle of major construction - but really nothing much has happened in quite a while. After the Great Renovation of 2014, we left a bunch of half-finished spaces that we thought we could close up ourselves, but never got around to. Other spaces, like the bathroom and kitchen, have not been touched really since we moved in - more than 3 years ago. The time has come. First, the spaces are just hideously ugly and constantly filthy, which drives me crazy. Second, the kid is basically walking now, and can easily and quickly get to all of the hazardous and dangerous places - which are of course, exactly where he wants to be. He crawls over plywood floors, tries to eat bits of plaster that fall from the ceiling, and picks at the chipping paint and black mold - so, as a well-intentioned parent, I need to do something for his safety. Third, most of these spaces are completely nonfunctional - we have piles of books and office supplies in the office, and piles of trash and donations in the half bath. So, the goal is to finish up all the partially finished spaces (half bath, mudroom, dining room, kitchen, sleeping porch/office) and to redo the main bathroom - or, generally to fix anything that makes me cringe. This is a considerable amount of work to do, but not quite the entire house to-do list - these are just the big projects that have safety/health issues, or major functionality issues. I'll leave the smaller cosmetic things, like refinishing the fireplace hearth, for another time. We've already got a contractor lined up to get started on some of this, but will do most of the work ourselves.

house shame 2: "mudroom"

Here's the list:

• Finish the back porch
• Close in open ceilings and floors in kitchen and dining room
• Fix the eyesores & other hazards in the kitchen
• Finish Mudroom
• Finish Half Bath
• Finish Office
• Refinish main bathroom
• Finish the entryway
• Renovate the kitchen?

For the Boy
So, obviously, this is largely for myself, but it is also hugely related to the kid (as is, basically everything we do now). On the house front, most of the projects on the list are there because they pose health or safety risks to the kid - either rough edges that he could cut himself on or flaking paint and plaster that he could choke or poison himself with.  It's impossible to make a completely hazard-free house, but it would be damn close to irresponsible if we don't fix these things. On the me front, while he isn't quite talking yet, he is already absorbing and repeating just about everything we do in front of him, so we are clearly teaching him all kinds of things right now, including both healthy and unhealthy habits. Just as I wouldn't want him eating junk food and sitting around playing video games all day, I wouldn't want him to feel self conscious about his body when he's older - and that all starts right now. So my goal is to create both healthy lifestyle and habits that he will see and repeat - like exercising and eating lots of produce, and to eliminate unhealthy body shaming and weight loss mentalities.  If we had a girl - I would be even more psycho about this, but even boys get a lot of pressure about body image, so I want to get him off to a good start.

this guy. 

The Plan
So, for me - the plan is the obvious  "exercise more, eat less bad stuff" plan. I'm signing up for a 10 mile race in October to keep me on track - so I have plenty of time to build my base before starting a 10 week training plan. I'll plan to mostly use my lunch hour at work for running and a couple yoga classes for weight training/flexibility to reduce my likelihood of injuring my bad knee. I'll have to do long runs on the weekend, so scheduling that around the boy will be a little tricky. For food,  I'm going to make an effort to bring in my lunch and snacks so that I don't have to buy food at work, and will cut back on useless calories at home.

house shame 3: the current office/sleeping porch

For the house - we have already hired a contractor to get started on some of the stuff we can't do ourselves. For the rest of the stuff, the plan will be to work  mostly during weekend nap times, with some minor work during weeknights after the boy goes to bed. We might also have to take a day off here and there. Balance will be key - since we also want to do fun summer stuff and don't want to waste the whole summer working on miserable projects.

So, a very ambitious, but hopefully doable plan to get everything back in shape by the fall. I'll report back with updates as we proceed. Wish me luck!

31 Miles in 31 Days - Results

So, at the beginning of the month I boldly laid out my plans to run 31 miles in 31 days. The plan was not to kill myself with a super intense, boot camp-esque approach to rocket myself into shape; rather, the goal was just to try to consistently run a couple miles every few days in order to start getting used to running again and begin to get back into shape.

Since I picked 31 miles as a reasonable and achievable number, it should be no surprise that I successfully met my goal. Well- actually, I am kind of surprised. I usually don't quite achieve my running goals and tend to wimp out of a couple runs or trim a few miles off of every training plan. (See this post on my failed training for the last marathon.) This time I did it - I ran 3 miles a day, for 2 or 3 days a week, consistently all month long for a grand total of 31 miles. (Technically, it was a grand total of 30.6 miles, but we round in this family.)

compared to the dotted line (which represents running 1 mile per day), I was pretty close.

The first thing I noticed was that every day it got a little easier to get started. There are so many really small hurdles to getting started, but I managed to eliminate them one-by-one. I started out each week by putting appointments to run on my calendar, and then scheduling other things around those appointments. When the reminders popped up, it was easier to just get up and go - knowing that I had given myself enough time to run, shower, and get back to my desk. Each time I ran, I would realize that I'd forgotten to bring something - glasses, headphones, whatever - and then I would remember to bring in the missing item the next day. So slowly over the course of the month, I eventually had all the gear I needed, where I needed it. Eliminating little hurdles made it easier to just get out the door and get started.

Then I noticed I was getting faster and stronger, so running was less miserable. The first time I ran, I allowed myself to go as slow as I needed to finish the 3 mile loop. Then, every day after that, I tried to walk a little less and finish a little sooner than the time before. When I could easily run past a spot where I previously needed to stop and walk - it was an awesome boost of confidence (even if I just stopped to walk a little further down the road). Sure enough, my total time to complete the distance started dropping as I walked less and less - going from an average of almost 16-minute miles down to 13-minute miles. (I'm still really slow, but that's a huge improvement). I also managed to throw in 2 yoga classes during the month, which I assumes helps with strength and flexibility and whatnot. Over the month, I also noticed that I got less winded climbing stairs and doing other exercise - which means I'm getting stronger too.

the more I ran- the faster I got. 

While the goal was really just to get moving, and hopefully to get a bit faster - I also kind of hoped to lose some weight while I was at it. Sure enough, as I covered more mileage and got faster, I started losing weight too. I'm down 3 pounds since the beginning of the month, and my pants seem to fit better. I'm also down 2% body fat, which seems like a good thing.

I still have a long way to get to get back into shape - but I'm pretty happy with my results. Clearly, setting concrete goals for myself that are both ambitious and achievable works for me. 1 month was the perfect timeline - long enough to create a new habit and see results, but short enough to stay motivated.

So, new goals for November:

• Run 40 miles (10 miles per week)
• Focus on speed, try to get to 11.5 minutes per mile
• Go to at least one weights/yoga class per week

So - the question everyone is asking - what is my current running spirit animal? Well, I'm not quite a gazelle yet, but I'm no hungry hungry hippo either. After much consideration - I think my current spirit animal is a city bus. I can pick up some speed and have some power, but I never get moving all that fast and have to make several stops. Fingers crossed - maybe I'll be a greyhound or even a chinatown bus someday!!

Pottery Classes & Creative Outlets

As a kid, I played a variety of musical instruments, took a couple types of dance classes, and went to theater and art camp over the summers. (I'm not claiming I was actually good at any of these things- just that I spent time doing them in my misspent youth). Now, like many people I know, I spend 40+ hours per week in my office, staring at my computer. Work products are made out of excel or word, and are always in black and white. While I love my job, it does leave me a little desperate for a creative outlet.

I've been getting my fix lately off of renovations, but we can't afford to redo a bathroom every month. I dabbled in paper projects, but got some harsh criticism, so I'm looking for something better.

new art in the fireplace room made out of tissue paper and a glue stick

that does not look like it was made by a very young child

a new mobile in the living room

that is absolutely appropriate for adult spaces

One of the art camps that I went to as a kid taught pottery. I wasn't very good at centering the clay, but made a few ok things and got really messy in the process. In college, I found a pottery studio where I could dabble and loved it too. A while ago I found a pottery studio in the area that I have been meaning to check out, and I finally just signed up for classes.

Pros:

• Gives me the creative outlet I've been wanting, and an opportunity to work with my hands.
• Christmas gifts for everyone!
• I've already paid for 10 classes, so I have strong incentive to actually go.
• I want something to go on our fireplace mantel and I think this is going to be it.
• It's kind of on the way home from work, so it should be easy enough to get to.
• I get to make a huge mess.

Cons:

• I have to clean up the huge mess I make.
• It's a little pricey, but what isn't in this town?
• I have to leave work a little early to get there, just hoping no one cares/notices.

My First Class
After finally signing up, I just had my first class. It went great! It took a little while for things to come back to me, but after about 2 hours I had made 3 small pots.

I apparently needed more very small bowls.

Next Steps
So I have 9 more classes to go to, in which time I hope to successfully master this whole thing and move on to bigger stuff. After that, we'll see. But generally, I think keeping a creative outlet is important and something I will always plan to do from here on.