Checking In - July!

OK - time to check in.  As regular readers know, at the start of this year, I set five goals for myself, with the intention of making 2014 a true "makeover year" and I post these "check ins" once a month (generally on the very last day of the month or the very first day of the month) to both show how things are going and to keep myself accountable for these goals I set.  And make no mistake, these were some LARGE goals. The road hasn't always been smooth, but looking back, I can see progress, often in some unexpected ways. So - the goals were:

1. Believing that a sense of calm would come from a neater house, I wanted to get organized and stop doing "crisis cleaning" on the weekends. FlyLady had helped me get rid of (maybe literally) a ton of clutter, so I decided to take that system a little deeper and add "zone cleaning."
2. Money's tight, but I wanted to stop using credit cards and live frugally, with the idea of whittling away at the household debt.
3. I decided to watch 24 "good movies" that I really should have already seen, from a variety of genres, ranging from foreign classics to comedies.
4. I wanted to read six "good books" that had slipped by me.
5. I wanted to feel stronger, so I decided to train to participate in a 5K race this year. Thus, the "Dancing Sloth" was born.

Whew! Taken all at once, these goals were intimidating. But I've stuck to it (mostly) and can report the following as we head into the "dog days" of August:

July was interesting, since I was back in the classroom with my summer school classes. They're fun classes (at least I think so) and they went well, but boy howdy! do they take time. (I had two sections to teach, each of which met for three days a week for  just over three hours a session - yike!) Now that FryDaddy is home from graduate school for good, we're working through our "delayed honeymoon" period, which is an occasion for much YAY! but it also means we've been sorting through things that most couples would have sorted out at the beginning of the marriage. One thing I can thoroughly recommend for those in such situations (although I think this might be a good general rule) is to schedule "date time." We've been doing that, but we took it to a new level today and made all of today "date day" and it's been just lovely. We ran on our own schedules, ate out so no one had to cook or clean, saw a matinee (we chose Guardians of the Galaxy, which we loved, but pick whatever suits you), and took advantage of a rainy, unseasonably-cold day to lounge and snooze. It doesn't really matter what you do, it matters that you make time to do it together.

1. As to the housework routines, we're nearly there. I have a few things I do every morning and a few things in the evening to get things ready for the next day, pretty much without fail. I'm working to add just 15 minutes to that on the weekdays, usually just after I get home. I spend those few minutes in the "zone room" for that week, using the FlyLady "daily mission" and zone checklist for that day as a starting point. Hey - the living room windows got cleaned this week, which has to count for something!
2. We're back on the budget horse this month, making a strict budget using the Dave Ramsey system. (Yeah, he shoots his mouth off about the poor and makes some downright dumb statements, but his "debt snowball" system is sound. Take what works, leave the rest.) We'd used it before, but we were running off two budgets, since FryDaddy was at school and I was here. Now we're consolidated, which should make things easier. Fewer meals out, though - that's for sure!
3. The movie challenge -  I marked one off my list in July; the amazing classic Western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. If you haven't seen this one - even if you're not a fan of Westerns - you owe it to yourself to see it. Incredible performances from Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne and a story that'll just yank you in.
4. The book challenge - well, I picked heavy books for that list and I sort of fell into a crevasse about it. I've been reading (I actually finished five books this month, all nonfiction, ranging from a short series of vignettes about women explorers to a fascinating examination of the origin on modern forensic science), and I'm determined to start Faulkner's Light in August since it's, well, August. Check back in a few weeks to see how I'm doing on that.
5. As for the 5K challenge - I've had surgery to clear my airway (read about that in my previous post) and am back to running. A good thing, since I agreed with a friend - we'll call her "Bawlmer Hon" here at the Nest - to participate in next summer's Ramblin' Rose mini-triathlon. It'll be a hoot getting ready for that, let me tell you!

Huh. Looking back, I'd say it's been a good month. It hasn't always felt like that (surgery, school, chores, uncertainty), which is why these posts matter. There are days that are great, days that are good, and some days that are pretty much meh. The trick is to look at the overall pattern.

And hey - it's still summer!  Go enjoy it!

Checking In - June!

First off, let's review - at the start of this year, I set five goals for myself, with the intention of making 2014 a true "makeover year." What were those again?

1. I wanted to keep a neater house, feeling that cleanliness was next to impossible. I reasoned that my life would be calmer if I wasn't frantically searching for "stuff" in the morning.  And I hated spending the weekend cleaning the house or feeling guilty for not cleaning the house.
2. Money's tight, but I wanted to stop using credit cards and live frugally, with the idea of whittling away at the household debt.
3. I decided to watch 24 "good movies" that I really should have already seen.
4. I wanted to read six "good books" that had slipped by me.
5. I wanted to feel stronger, so I decided to train to participate in a 5K race this year. Thus, the "Dancing Sloth" was born.

Well, it's good to have goals and I have no shortage of them. But a funny thing happened this month. I got way off my goals and I discovered something that might just border on the profound.  See what you think.

The goals are going okay, I suppose. My summer classes begin next week, which means that my days become far more structured than June has been - a month during which I didn't work a single full week - so in a strange way, it's a good time to re-evaluate and re-commit. This past month, Ensley and I took a brief "staycation" and there was the gorgeous Slayage conference out in California (read about that here), among other life-affirming jaunts.  I wouldn't trade this past month for a gold monkey, but it's time to get back on the horse, so to speak. So where am I?

1. I still have my basic routines for taking care of the house and I want to work the "zone" idea back into my routines, which I've let slide.
2. Budgeting is on the list of "things to do" for next week. We've been living free and easy, which has played a bit of havoc with the budget goal, although we've been very good about keeping our hands off credit cards. (Not perfect - Slayage, don't you know - but very good.)
3. I'm doing well on the movie challenge.  This month, I marked off three - Hitchcock's Psycho, Ford's Stagecoach, and Kurosawa's Red Beard. (You can read my thoughts about those here.) Another musical, Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George, is waiting for me. I seemed to have turned a corner there - there had been a couple that I just didn't like and it soured me for a while.
4. The "good books" challenge, on the other hand, has slipped into a crevasse. I read four books in June (and one, Fannie Flagg's Fried Green Tomatoes should count, even if it's not on my list), but the heavy literature had to be put on hold while I dealt with a small brush fire of burnout. (Strangely enough, a really by-the-numbers romance novel helped a bit with that. Yeah, yeah - don't judge.)
5. The 5K challenge - while the Dancing Sloth took some time off due to throat issues (being addressed mid-July) and burnout, she's back now! And a friend has me toying with a major challenge in that area. She's suggested we participate in next summer's Ramblin' Rose Triathlon. Now, it's not a hard-core Ironman sort of thing, but it is swimming, biking, and running - all on the same day. I don't own a bike and I haven't swum laps in years.  Still . . . and the fact I'm even thinking about this is amazing to me.

Now to the breakthrough. I'm not sure if this was the result of a long-simmering process the blossomed into a revelation or was more of a "burning bush" epiphany, but either way - it's a breakthrough.  Ready?  Here it is -

I'm not a sex kitten.

Sure, other people might have known that already, but it's new to me - and what a relief! Maybe it was that clothes-buying spree I wrote about in the last post, maybe it was hearing from so many people at Slayage that they enjoy reading my running posts, but all I know is that I have turned some sort of corner in my soul. Let me tell you, keeping up with the demands of the beauty industry is hard work at the best of times and our society never wants you to admit that you're not a coltish 22-year-old. I'm not, but that being fantastic is news to me. It's like this. I want to do these things - get strong by running and read good books and watch good movies and act like a grown-up with money and taking care of my house - for me. Not for my parents, not for my conference buddies or Facebook friends, not even for my incredibly loving husband, and certainly not for society at large, a sizable segment of which measures me simply on my "hotness" factor and has found me sorely lacking since I'm not that coltish 22-year-old (heck, I'm not even two 22-year-olds!). I wasn't even aware of how much I had been fighting that battle until this year but it's a relief to decide to stop. No, I have no intention of "letting myself go" and eating Nutella from the gallon jug for dinner. (Actually, that doesn't sound so bad . . .) But I'm not as beholden to the slick Photoshopped magazine covers and Internet clickbait that promise me I can lose those final 8 pounds by Tuesday (implying that I need to) and that they'll tell me what he really wants in bed (rather personal and how do you know my husband anyway?). I can't believe how much time I've wasted fretting over the size of my waist and my hips and how much power I've given a stupid number on a scale.

So, although this wasn't one of my original goals, I think it's important enough to report. I've got a new title now. I don't know what the IRS might think of seeing it on my taxes, but I'm a . . .

Sex Kitten - Retired.

I plan on having a great deal more fun on a regular basis, now that I have that knowledge. See, once you're living for you instead of what others think you ought to be, things get mighty interesting. I might put the fuchsia back into my hair. I might get henna tattoos. I might serve on the board of a nonprofit I'm interested in (already agreed to that, actually). I might demand crayons at my next faculty meeting. I don't entirely know how things might manifest, but I'm sure of this - Tasha Tudor was right.  Life is meant to be enjoyed; not saddled with. Eat well because you want to. Get a good night's sleep because you want to. Push yourself to jog to that next mailbox before you galumph back to a huffy, puffy walk because it feels good to push your body to do what it couldn't do two months ago. Insist on treating yourself well because you deserve it. And, for the love of all that's holy - make the world better because you deserve to make a difference. The size of your heart matters far more that the size of your hips.

Meow.

Checking In - May!

Yes, this post is a little bit late and I'll let my previous post (centering on my college reunion) serve as both my explanation and my apology. But here I am, ready to check in and report on my progress through the merry month of May.

Let's recap - the ambitious goals I set to work on throughout the year were:

• Keeping a tidier, less cluttered house. I just can't stand the chaos of "where that thing?" as I'm trying to dash out of the house. But I work full-time, on top of several other large scale projects this year, so this goal involved finding a happy medium of “clean and tidy” versus “doable.”
• Money is a sore point with me – as it would be with anyone who has spent years clutching the trifecta ticket of frozen salaries, disrespect, and rising prices – so we decided (this decision had to be a “we” decision, so FryDaddy is in this one as well) to keep a realistic budget to lower our household debt.
• To strengthen my body, I decided to train to participate in a 5K race sometime this year.
• To improve my mind, I decided to read six "good books" that had slipped past me.
• Also to improve my mind, I decided to watch 24 "good movies" that had slipped past me.

      To be honest, May wasn't a very good month, goal-wise. Between FryDaddy's graduation (no, I'm not calling him "master," in spite of the fact that he's got the funny sleeves), exam week, some required travel, and a host of other activities, it was a full-out crazy month. Lots of fun stuff going on there, but it seemed that everything took precedence over the goal-keeping. So what's that mean?

     

     Well, after a bit of a breakdown - I have a nasty tendency to see things as "keeping score" instead of "this is going to make things easier, but there will be setbacks" - I think I can report some success, although it's been more in this most recent week rather than in May. Therefore, I'm not going to talk about my set goals as much as I'm interested in talking about setbacks and how to approach them. After all, this is something I know a fair amount about.  (Read as - I know A LOT about setbacks!)

    

      Read this until you believe it:  the bad days and weeks and months are going to come. They just will. Unexpected expenses will crop up and play merry hell with your delicate budget and you'll think you're a failure because - golly gee, you could've saved money by recycling dryer lint into creative Halloween costumes but no, you had to go off and buy something. Food that's not especially good for you is cheaper and requires less prep work and it's tempting when the busy times strike. There's no time to clean and you can't settle down enough to concentrate on a "good read" and you just want to be entertained instead of watching a movie from your list. Nothing is working, you've gained ten pounds and you wonder what happened.

      At the risk of sounding like I have things held together with peace and calm instead of duct tape and the use of Anglo-Saxon words as adjectives (look, it's been a few weeks of me yelling at the cats, okay?), when nothing you're doing is working, do nothing. Just stop. Look around. Reassess your goals (seriously - I've had three different people advise me to skip Thoreau's Walden which was my scheduled book. So I decided to read Beloved instead and still haven't started it, although I've read six other things in this period of indecision) and make course corrections as needed. Growth is not constant - that's why we have winter. It's a time in the natural year to recover from expending all the energy it takes to grow, blossom, and harvest to hunker down and consider the Next Step. If it works for carrots and bears, why shouldn't it work for people? (That made more sense before I typed it. I'm still going with it.)

      For example, I went on a shopping trip with my mother this weekend. I mean a SHOPPING TRIP, the kind where you wind up with new everything. Here's the kicker - I asked my mom when the last time was that we did a trip like that. She carefully considered the timeline and said, "Right after you finished law school and took that job in South Carolina." 

      That was in 1998.

      So the deal was that I had to go through my closet and ruthlessly get rid of clothes that no longer worked. I just did that and it was hard - I want to think I'll be that size again and/or that I'll be able to wear that style again and it's hard to be realistic about that sort of thing. (And there were a few things that are getting thrown away rather than being given away - I'd crossed the line from "frugal" into "cheap." Shame on me.)  But I'd rather wear clothes that actually fit me instead of clothes that fit me in 1998 (and yes, I had still had some of those). I'll drop them off at Goodwill in just a little bit - the clothes will work for someone else and I believe in karmic concepts enough to think that giving away creates room in my own life for more good stuff to roll in. I'll get back to drinking water instead of diet soda and my other good habits. Sometimes life demands to be noticed more than the dust bunnies.

      It's okay. Really, it is.

Checking In - April!

Back at the start of the year, I decided that 2014 was the Year to Get Calm (not as trendy as the “Year of the Horse,” but what can a girl do?) and, while that was/is a truly worthy goal, I had to figure out just what that meant.  How could I increase calm and joy in my life, which is often a madcap whirl through the backstage of the circus sideshow?  After some heavy pondering, (and you can read the reasoning behind it, along with the books and movies on my list, here), I decided on five long-term goals for the year, which are:

• Until May, I have a commuter marriage as FryDaddy finishes graduate school.  That means a lot of travelling while teaching college full time, so the house gets short shrift.  I needed to find a happy medium of “clean and tidy” versus “doable,” so I decided to work "zone cleaning" into my housekeeping.
• Money is a sore point with me – don’t get me started on frozen salaries – so I decided (this decision had to be a “we” decision, so FryDaddy is in this one as well) to keep a realistic budget to lower our household debt.
• To strengthen my body, I decided to train to participate in a 5K race sometime this year.
• To improve my mind, I decided to read six "good books" that had slipped past me.
• Also to improve my mind, I decided to watch 24 "good movies" that had slipped past me.

It’s an interesting report this month. There’s been huge success, but I’m learning that you can’t maintain everything at "Level Ultra" all the time. Here’s the valuable part of that lesson – IT’S OKAY TO SLIP! As the sportscasters say, let’s go to the tape.

The 5K goal has been reached!  (Yay, cheer, crowd goes wild!) About two weeks ago, I “jobbled” my first 5K and had a blast – please read the previous post for details. I plan to keep running, but this was also my first lesson in “Level Ultra.” Truly, there’s only so much time in the day and, while I’m MUCH better about carving out a sliver or two to take better care of myself, some days you just can’t fit in a run. That is especially true as the end of the semester nears. Also, while reaching this goal has given me the kick I needed to make some changes to my diet as well – again, you can’t always live at Level Ultra.  I hate that a number on a scale has so much power over me, so I finally (with FryDaddy’s loving assistance) got up the courage to try saying, “Take a hike!” to the scale. This will probably be an ongoing issue with me, as it feels almost weird to not be freaking out over scales and numbers and lists, but I’m really trying to focus on eating real food, drinking plenty of fresh water, and exercising regularly, while remembering that food is more than mere fuel.

Also a lesson in “Level Ultra” – just after the 5K challenge wrapped up, FryDaddy and I were thrust into book launch madness.  (Oh, you didn’t know we wrote a book?  Allow me to enlighten you – click here, buy the book, then tell all your friends who enjoyed Breaking Bad that they need the book, too!  And tweet about it!  And write a nice review!) Remember, while all of this is going on, we’re both still swamped in our everyday responsibilities.  Yeah, April’s been nutso.  

So with all that going on - how did the housekeeping challenge come out?  Well . . . really good, in a way.  Because I’d been working at this for the better part of a year, routines were (mostly) in place, so when I had days where I had to skip things, the house didn’t fall apart.  Mind you, it needs a solid clean and I’ll do that in my usual FlyLady 15 minutes a day, five days a week, once things calm down next week. No, it’s not perfect, but I’m not flipping out over it, which I view as a triumphant success.

The budget. It’s funny how trudging along can suddenly lead to a “wow” moment.  For me, that came with the windfall of a tax refund. FryDaddy and I waited a few days, then sat down with our debt list and allocated money in several categories. Some bills were comfortably paid and another debt has a big, honking red Sharpie line drawn through it as we eradicated it from our list of burdens.  Wow, indeed! (I still want to be a brat and go dance in the rain with wads of cash, so please – buy a book or three! Available for purchase at Amazon, Books-A-Million, Barnes & Noble and any place quality books are sold!)

Good books – Finally finished Dumas' The Three Musketeers, which was a flowery romp.  His language is so florid and extreme that I skimmed a bit and sometimes had to put it down to pick up something else, but I enjoyed it.  The next book is going to be Thoreau’s Walden and I’ll start that soon.  Again – must get to the end of the semester first.

Good movies – This month I went in some interesting directions.  In addition to movies from my list (the Astaire/Rogers confection Top Hat and Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal), I also started going to a local performance space that features classic movies on Thursdays for the princely sum of two dollars.  I took in the original Tarzan and my very first Shirley Temple picture (The Little Princess).  Quite a month for movies!  Let’s see – Tarzan made me cheer for the crocodiles (seriously – that movie’s depiction of non-Europeans is just awful.  I know, I know – the time it was made, yaddayaddayah.  It’s still awful), Little Princess made me appreciate Technicolor, Top Hat has a tissue paper-thin plot, but you forgive that for its sheer loveliness, and Dark Crystal I’m just too old to see for the first time. 

A good month.  Quite possibly made better by having to acknowledge that I can’t live at “Level Ultra” and have all areas of my life run purring-smooth at all times.

On to May!

Checking In - March!

Here it is, the end of March, which means I've been working my plan for three months now.  Some things are much closer to being habits now and there's some exciting news to report, along with an update on things that haven't turned out quite the way I envisioned back in late December.

I decided that 2014 was the year to Get Calm and I had to figure out just what that meant, since I was pretty sure that a year-long escape to some tropical isle equipped with a full staff just wasn't happening.  So what could I do to Get Calm and still live in the hectic, messy, glorious, beautiful world I inhabit?  That took some thought (and you can read the reasoning behind it, along with the books and movies on my list, here), but finally, I decided on five long-term goals, which are:

1. A messy house stresses me out and costs me valuable time as I hunt for whatever-it-is I've misplaced, so I decided to work "zone cleaning" into my housekeeping.
2. Money is a sore point with me, so I decided (with FryDaddy) to keep a stringent budget to lower our household debt.
3. To strengthen my body, I decided to train to participate in a 5K race sometime this year.
4. To improve my mind, I decided to read six "good books" that had slipped past me.
5. Also to improve my mind, I decided to watch 24 "good movies" that had slipped past me.

Keep in mind that these are MY goals; it was crucial for me to not take on anything that had my happiness hinge on what someone else did.  Therefore, the budget item had to be undertaken very carefully and as a couple.

So - 90 days in, I can report *mostly* success.  Oddly enough, the housekeeping one has probably been the easiest.  I spent huge chunks of time last year de-cluttering the house - drawers, closets, cabinets, etc. and while I still have some to do, even the attic is much better than it was a year ago.  It's true what the organizing folks tell you - you can't organize clutter.  Go through that stuff a little at a time, toss and donate with glee, then take a clear look at what's left.  I spend about 15 minutes a day, five days a week, working on "house stuff" and our home is far tidier and calmer as a result.  For me, it's been all about the FlyLady system, but there are other ways to do things that won't have you weeping in a corner. I've still got my trouble spots and my chores that I dislike, but it surely is nice to come home to clear spaces.

The budget. Wow. We're making progress here - good progress, too, as my non-breakdown over unexpected car repairs this month can attest - but I still stress here. We're paying debt down, but it'd be so much more fun to spend the money on other things! Sigh. Growing up is hard and my inner child is a brat. Still - when you work two years on a book, you sort of want to celebrate that instead of putting the final advance towards student debt, you know?

The 5K training is going great! The eight-week "Couch to 5K" program I used (you can find that here) took me thirteen weeks, but yesterday I completed the final week.  My first 5K is in about two weeks and I've had so many friends offer encouragement and good wishes on this journey! I'm still very slow, but I can "jobble" for a full 30 minutes at a stretch, which was a far-away dream three months ago. And I don't think I'm going to stop after this first race. Seeing myself take strides toward making this goal has given me the *oomph!* I needed to make some other changes as well - first, I cut out sweets until race day. Last week, I added in drinking at least 80 ounces of water a day (I've had a single Diet Coke in two weeks), and I just added in eating two servings of fruit/veg at each meal. In two weeks, I've lost four pounds, which is nice. Run. You can do it and it really does feel GREAT!

Good books - I'm deep into Dumas' The Three Musketeers, which is a hoot and a half! The language is so flowery and over the top that I find myself skimming sometimes (I don't think Dumas would mind), and I've put it down to pick up other things this month.  I'm enjoying it - more so than I did the Forster I read first for this challenge.

Good movies - well, there was bound to be a misfire.  I watched Lucille Ball in Mame recently and it's just bad. I think the show itself is actually pretty strong and fun, but Lucy just didn't have a strong enough voice to carry off the role.  It's not a complete waste - Bea Arthur as Vera Charles is great fun, the costumes are gorgeously over-the-top, and grown-up Patrick is Bruce Davison (he'd grow up to be Sen. Robert Kelly in the X-Men franchise, among many, many other roles). I plan to get the non-musical Auntie Mame soon and watch Rosalind Russell instead. Also, this month, that's the only "list movie" I've seen, although I very well may watch another one tonight, which would still count for March. Then again, maybe not. So much of this whole plan is to get me over my perfectionism. No, my house isn't spotless.  No, my budget isn't zero-balanced. Nope, I'm not really a "runner" just yet. Uh-uh, my "great books" might not be someone else's great books. And my movies certainly aren't. But I'm trying hard to not let my fear of not being perfect keep me from trying.

Onward, Team Sloth!

Checking In - February!

My 5K team - the Dancing Sloths!

Another month has gone by, so let's see where I am with my five challenges for 2014.  To recap those challenge:

1. To give myself some "soul calm," I decided to work "zone cleaning" into my housekeeping.  An ordered house is calmer and less "hair on fire!" for me.
2. To further contribute to some "soul calm," I decided (with FryDaddy) to keep a stringent budget to lower our household debt.
3. To strengthen my body, I decided to train to participate in a 5K race sometime this year.
4. To improve my mind, I decided to read six "good books" that had slipped past me.
5. Also to improve my mind, I decided to watch 24 "good movies" that had slipped past me.

Zone cleaning, while not quite a natural part of my everyday routine, is showing signs of having staying power.  Every week, a different room is the focus and I have a checklist of things to do to give that room, if not a true "deep clean," at least a mid-range clean.  I don't hit every item on every checklist (my wooden living room floor could really stand a cleaning instead of just a thorough sweeping), but it's better than it was. Further, I spent a chunk of this past month decluttering the attic.  The trick there is (of course) Babysteps.  One box at a time and one 15-minute session at a time.  I laughed and cried and pitched and tossed.  It's not totally done yet, but I have to say, I'm really pleased with how much I did manage to accomplish.  I even got some digital photos organized - another long-term goal.

The budget continues to be a challenge.  We're doing okay in that regard, but need to get serious, especially about eating out.  We do that too frequently and almost always wind up eating food that isn't good for us, because, you know - eating out.  We can do better and we both want to do better, so we WILL do better!  Having car repairs this month didn't help, either - but what can you do?  Neither of us has a car payment to make and with the commuter marriage, travel is a necessity, so repairs just have to be dealt with.

The 5K training - well, here's the fun part for this month!  I've continued to train three times a week and am now up to three 12-minute "jobble" (that's a cross between a jog and a wobble) sessions with very brief walking recovery sessions in between.  In the last week, that's started to add up to 5K territory, so it was time to Pick a Race.  I chose the April 12 Color Vibe and paid my money down, so this is going to happen!  I'm hoping to get drenched in color as I stagger around the course (my team of one is called the "Dancing Sloths," by the way) and I might even make one of those no-sew tutus.  I'm going to look ridiculous anyway, so I figure I may as well embrace it with a tiara and tutu!  Honestly, I've been so gratified by the level of support I've gotten from Facebook friends and real-life neighbors - it's heartwarming and I mean that.  Maybe this old-ish dog has a few tricks left.

The "good book" read - I just started my second "good book" (I read other stuff in between, you see) and selected Dumas' The Three Musketeers for this one.  So far, I'm just loving this!  It's so over the top and the language is so flowery - it's like literary curlicues!  We'll see if it maintains my attention for the next 400+ pages, but so far, so good!

And lastly, the "good movie" challenge - this month was Rent and Bad Day at Black Rock. (Not a double feature, by the way!)  I wrote about Black Rock on another blog earlier, so I won't say anything here.  I watched Rent during the mid-month snowstorm.  I'd had it on my shelf for quite a while (probably picked it up when the local Blockbuster closed) and I knew it vaguely follows the outline of Puccini's La Boheme, but that was about it.  I liked it and I'm sure that if I'd seen it in my early 20s, when I was living my version of the Bohemian life, I'd have swooned over it.  Now, I'm a bit more cynical and world-weary.  Still, it's hard not to be moved at "Seasons of Love" and I've been fortunate to have known an Angel-like character and I wept that he no longer walks this earth, for the planet was a better place with him on it.

So overall - not a bad month.  Work still remains to be done and there's plenty of room for improvement, but I'm liking how things are shaping up in 2014 so far!

Checking In - January!

Near the end of December, I set five goals for 2014 (they're all laid out in this post) that are all designed to create some lasting changes in how I approach things. None of these are quick changes - I've tried those and I've never had much luck with them. I had to get very specific about what I was hoping to accomplish, so I looked at three areas that needed work (body, mind, soul) to develop my goals:

1. A cluttered house is easy to lose things in and that causes me to run late and stress out. So to give myself some "soul calm", I decided to work "zone cleaning" into my housekeeping.
2. Stressing over money causes me to fret, worry, and fail to live in the present. So to contribute to some "soul calm," I decided (with FryDaddy) to keep a stringent budget to lower our household debt.
3. Although it's inevitable, I lament the fact that I'm getting older and particularly that I don't feel strong. So to strengthen my body, I decided to train to participate in a 5K race sometime this year.
4. I have always loved to read, but (like all readers) I know I've missed many, many good books, so to improve my mind, I decided to read six "good books" that had slipped past me.
5. I love movies - I even co-host a movie show with FryDaddy on the local community college TV station - but an astonishing number of good movies had slipped by me. So to improve my mind, I decided to watch 24 "good movies" that had slipped past me.

Now that I've got a month under my belt with these resolutions, let's recap and see where things are headed.

Zone cleaning hasn't been too bad at all - regular readers here know that I discovered FlyLady last spring and I have to say that it's really turned around my concept of caring for my home. Now that the house is decluttered, it was time to add in the zones. With the zones, you concentrate on one room a week (usually - sometimes it's more, like the home office and the bathrooms) and there's even a checklist to get you started. You don't worry about doing everything at once and I haven't done all the rooms "perfectly" - there was no way I was washing windows when the wind chill was a non-balmy 8 degrees Fahrenheit! - but anything is better than the nothing I had been doing. It's off to a good start and I'm calling it a win.

Budgeting - woo, boy. January is a tough one. We muddled through and we're on track to go forward into February. On the plus side, I sat down yesterday and roughed out the bills, and we're caught up and even paid off a credit card we'd been working on! So I'm calling that a win.

The 5K training - wow. This has been hard. I wobble-jog (jobble?) during the "run" intervals. I'm using a "Couch to 5K" podcast called 5K101 that talks me through each session. I repeated Week 3 and I'm in Week 4.5 now, since I didn't feel quite ready to jump up to 8-minute intervals, so I'm using the supplement which calls for 6-minute ones instead. It's hard, but I really feel a sense of accomplishment with it and my friends have been fantastic about supporting me during this challenge. I'm slow and a little clumsy, but I'm lapping the me who was on the couch, so again - this is a win!

The book challenge - I started with E. M. Forster's A Passage to India because I've read and thoroughly enjoyed other works of his. Alas, Passage didn't work quite as well for me. Others, I'm sure, have read it and loved it beyond the telling. I found it a bit of a slog - competing narrators and nary a likable character in sight. Well, I read it, so that's a win.

The movie challenge - this month I saw both Touch of Evil and Moneyball. (I know, two very different movies - whatever; it's my list). Touch of Evil was stylistically gorgeous, but deeply flawed from a narrative standpoint. To be honest, the plot is pretty much a hot mess, and I saw the restored, this-is-what-Orson-Welles-wanted version. Well worth seeing, but I so prefer The Third Man. Now, Moneyball was a different story. Aesthetically, it can't hold a candle to Welles' work, but it's a fun, feel-good underdog story about that most American of sports - baseball. I see why Jonah Hill earned an Oscar nomination and I'd recommend it be included on any list of sports movies. A win.

And let's keep in mind that I'm also back in the full swing of the spring semester. Far from making me Wonder Woman, effortlessly juggling all these competing goals, obligations, and responsibilities, I spent a chunk of this past week just grumbly, out of sorts, and generally snappish. So - not a win there. Progress is being made, but it's in steps, not leaps.

But I can see the path.

Halfway - January!

Last year, I had a lot of success with posting "halfway through the month" check-ins to keep me accountable for my progress and my "course corrections," so I'm going to continue that - don't mess with what works, I say!  (And no, we haven't gotten that sort of ice you see in the picture; but it's been COLD!!)

For 2014, I set five goals (they're all laid out in this post) - but in brief, they are all designed to help me be calmer, happier, and healthier.  Tall orders indeed, so I got specific with these five goals:

1.  Work "zone cleaning" into my housekeeping
2.  Keep a stringent budget to lower our household debt
3.  Train to participate in a 5K race sometime this year
4.  Read six "good books" that had slipped past me
5.  Watch 24 "good movies" that had slipped past me

So - two weeks into the New Year, how's it going?

I've been told that success is rarely total in science.  The same can be said for resolutions, but there is progress to report, so yay.

I'm working in the zone cleaning, although it's going to take a while for it to become an automatic "thing."  The FlyLady system gives you a daily task to do Monday through Friday and I'd worked those in (they're easy, quick to do, and yes - you feel like you've accomplished something when you take ten minutes and tear through your overstuffed sock drawer to get rid of the orphan socks!), but I was intimidated by the longer checklists for the "deep cleaning."  Turns out - pshaw! - just keep in mind that anything you do is more than you have been doing and move on.  For instance, last week was the "kitchen week."  I did really well in there - even cleaned the baked-on gunk in the oven - but didn't get everything done.  Well, that's okay; I'll get it next month when I'm back there.  I also didn't insist that I do the whole thing in one day.  By picking a couple of small things off the checklist each day (mornings are best for me), it wasn't so bad.

The budget.  Sigh.  January is a harsh month.  There were a couple of large unplanned for expenses (such as paying my annual fee to access an unlimited amount of legal continuing education seminars - a great deal, but a limited time offer) that have set me back this month.  But there's light at the end of that tunnel.  I've been employed at my state job long enough to qualify (for the first time ever!) for something called "longevity pay."  Essentially, it's a annual bonus given to employees to reward them for not running screaming into the night before certain benchmarks have passed - in my case, ten years.  (Bureaucracy at work - last January marked my ten-year anniversary; you wait another entire year [the anniversary of your anniversary] to be awarded the bonus.)  I had hoped to put the entire thing toward bills, but that's okay.  It'll get us back on track when I receive it at the end of the month.

The 5K training - okay, here's some joy.  I started an app called "Couch to 5K" and have been huffing and puffing around my neighborhood and the college's walking track for three weeks now.  The third week was just about to kill me, so I reluctantly decided to repeat it.  At that point, I also found a similar program in podcast form, which allowed me to put down the iPad and use a much smaller iPod.  (No smartphone for this girl.)  The podcast talks me through things, instead of just serving as a glorified stopwatch and yesterday (Day 2 of the three-day session), I managed to do the entire thing without stopping.  Mind you, there's not much grace or power involved and my speed resembles a three-toed sloth much more than a lean cheetah, but I've been reassured that it'll come, it'll come.  And the support I've received with this goal has been amazing! Thank you all!

On the book side, I've picked my first one - Forster's A Passage to India.  I'm in the middle of finishing The Round House for my book club, then I'll start on Passage.  I'm looking forward to it; I've always enjoyed Forster's work.

On the movie side, I've watched Orson Welles' Touch of Evil and I have Bad Day at Black Rock recorded (thanks, TCM!).  Honestly, Touch of Evil confounded me a bit.  Typical Welles - it's gorgeously shot, with intricate framing and (of course) that incredible opening one-take crane shot.  (We watched the restored version - Welles was famous with fighting with the studios over editing and apparently the studio wanted opening credits to roll over that crane shot - Welles was right to fight over that one.)  I have to say, though, despite the subject matter being interesting - race, corruption, border turf wars - the plot's just a mess.  Charlton Heston said that one of his biggest mistakes as an actor was not using an accent for his character in this movie - his Mexican D.A. sounds all Hollywood Hills, so I have to agree with him there.  All in all, an interesting film that I'm glad I saw, but I'm not entirely sure I'd recommend.

Not bad for two weeks in!

Building on the Foundation

Happy New Year, everybody!!  Last year was the first year I used this blog to post publicly about my personal goals.  While I know full well that the Wider World at Large probably couldn't care less than a scrawny rodent's posterior about one person's ramblings and musings, well, it's my blog. Plus, I found that posting every month on my progress was a very useful method of keeping myself accountable, so here goes for 2014.

As I worked through the "try something new every day" challenge I wrote about in the previous post, I found myself stretching beyond my usual comfort zone.  And the kicker was, I liked it.  I kept each day's "something new" on the teensy side since I believe in small, manageable, concrete goals as opposed to generic ones like "I'll eat better this year."  That's a worthy goal, to be sure, but it helps me more to say, "I'll have at least 5 servings of fruit and/or vegetables every day."  Setting specific goals like "5 servings" made me grab a handful of baby carrots and "something new every day" made me use the pretty things I so often "save" for company until they get dusty and useless.  With that foundation in place, here are my 2014 goals/resolutions/schemes:

The FlyLady system has revolutionized my approach to taking care of our home and I've made big strides in keeping the house more organized, which has had the lovely side effect of making me a calmer person.  Right now, I have my morning and evening routines and I work the daily "mission" (which every week includes family and "me" time, so more yay! there), but there are large chunks of the system I haven't managed to work into my routine.  I hope to change that this year.  So the goal is to add the weekly FlyLady "zone cleaning" to my routine of taking care of the house. 

In the same vein, FryDaddy and I got serious about our finances this year (Christmas shook us a little, but we're back on the financially-astute horse) and I plan to continue that as well in 2014.  It's great to see our debt load shrink, and I want to see that sucker get noticeably smaller this year.  So my goal is to put $5,000 toward our debt this year. (That's in addition to regular payments, of course.)

Exercising has become a much more "everyday" notion for me, and that's the third thing I plan to continue.  Just before Christmas, I started the "Couch to 5K" program and already I'm less sore and, while I still huff, puff, and gasp doing a gentle jogging lap around a flat parking lot, you start where you are, right?  So the goal is to participate in a 5K race.  (I I don't have to run the whole thing, but I have to finish.)

Now for the uncomfortable part.  See, a large chunk of my 2014 resolutions involve something that's a bit embarrassing - confessing.  See, I write about television and I co-host a movie show.  Yet, there are so many movies - really good ones - that I have never seen, at least not all the way through in one sitting.  The same goes for books.  I'm a reader - I often have two books going at the same time, and I usually read 3 - 4 books a month, but I'll also get swamped in work and not pick up a "fun book" for a couple of weeks and there are many, many classics I've never read.  In the past, it's been hard to admit that I have what I consider to be pretty massive holes in my experience, but as I've said in this post, I've come to accept that you start where you are.  Figuring movies are much, much shorter than books, I decided I can handle two movies every month and a book every two months.  (Keep in mind these are all in addition to the movies I see for the show and the books I read for my book club [wonderful group of women, BTW] or that I just come across and want to read for pleasure.)  So the goal is to read:

• Beloved (Morrison)
• Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky)
• Light in August (Faulkner)
• A Passage to India (Forster)
• The Three Musketeers (Dumas) and 
• Walden (Thoreau). 

No particular order and, please, don't bother replying that you're shocked that I haven't read these.  You start where you are, remember?

For movies, I picked classics from a number of genres, plus a few that I just really wanted to see and never have gotten around to. The goal is to see (again, no particular order and please don't gasp and clutch your pearls):

• 2001: A Space Odyssey (science fiction)
• Apocalypse Now (war drama)
• Bad Day at Black Rock (Western noir)
• The Dark Crystal (family)
• Giant (drama)
• Godfather (crime drama)
• Godfather Part 2 (crime drama)
• Harold & Maude (comedy)
• Ikiru (drama, Japan)
• The Iron Giant (family)
• Mame (musical)
• The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (Western)
• Moneyball (sports drama)
• Psycho (horror)
• Raging Bull (sports drama)
• Raise the Red Lantern (drama, China)
• Red Beard (drama, Japan)
• Rent (musical)
• Stagecoach (Western)
• Sunday in the Park with George (musical)
• Sunrise (silent drama)
• Top Hat (musical)
• Touch of Evil (film noir)
• The Wild Bunch (Western)

Ambitious, maybe.  But that's what the first week of January is all about!  I'll check in soon and I'd love to hear what goals you're setting and achieving this year!

About That Getaway . . .

In my last post, I listed "say 'yes' to something spontaneous and slightly crazy" as a way to pamper myself in my continuing quest to both enjoy life more and avoid burnout.  I said I'd go into more detail about that in this post.  Well, my idea of "spontaneous and slightly crazy" was put into motion by the incomparable FryDaddy, whose talent for knowing my moods and indulging my whims is nigh-uncanny.  He'd made a few plans and we'd tweaked them a bit, due to a prior commitment I had at school (New Student Orientation and Sushi Buffet Fish Fry Open House) and off we went for a whirlwind getaway to Durham, which was the only town in North Carolina to possess a theatre showing Joss Whedon's adaptation of Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing. (Turns out we were wrong about that, but by the time we knew that, we were already having fun in Durham, so there it is.)

When I say "whirlwind," I mean it.  We got to Duke Tower around 7 pm on Thursday and left by 8 am Saturday (remember the Sushi Buffet Fish Fry Open House?), so it was a short getaway, but all hands agree - it was a successful, much-needed one.

Highlights include:

• Duke Tower itself.  This hotel/condo establishment was created from an old cotton mill - they kept one of the smokestacks and the old fire tower is now the site of a breakfast cafe.  (We slept in and missed it, but maybe next time.  And we hope there's a next time!)  The Tower caters to long-term guests - corporate execs, folks participating in various programs at Duke University Hospital, that sort of thing.  For the cost of a room, you get an apartment - good-sized living room, full kitchen and bath, and a nice-sized bedroom with plenty of closet space.  It's an older property and the shower head was low enough that I had to buckle my knees a bit and poor FryDaddy whacked his nose pretty well at least once.  All rooms overlook the central courtyard, which features a pool (very romantic on a warm summer's night), plenty of shaded sitting areas with comfy chairs, an oversized chess set (the pieces were about knee-high on an adult), shuffleboard, and even a nine-hole miniature golf course! FryDaddy had carefully packed provisions and equipment and we had a lovely flank steak dinner cooked "at home" that first night.
• Much Ado about Nothing.  I'm an unashamed Whedon fan and I was stoked for this movie!  Full review details are found here, but suffice it to say it was worth a three-hour drive.  If you think Shakespeare is not for you, I beseech you - give this one a try.  The language sounds natural and the comedy is full and rich.  Give yourself a break from the boomboomblowemup and try this screwball comedy.
• Seeing old friends - we got together with a dear friend who we don't get to see that often for dinner and the movie and (mostly) I managed to not talk about work.  Gotta continue to work on that.
• Dinner with said old friend.  The hotel recommended Pop's, an Italian-style trattoria close to both the hotel and the theatre (more on that in a moment).  It turned out to be an excellent suggestion!  Pop's is the sort of restaurant that is upscale-scrumptious without being snooty-snobbish.  They pride themselves on local ingredients and the difference is obvious.  It was so delicious that FryDaddy and I returned for dessert after the show, where we managed to convince the amused wait staff to let us talk with the chef/owner Chris Stinnett.  Our goal was not only to compliment the food and service (which richly deserved the "attaboy"), but also to ask if we could buy a couple of the heavy diner-style coffee mugs.  Duke Tower is great, but the coffee cups are smallish and we are full members of the Caffeinated Tribe.  Chef Chris was taken aback, but graciously acquiesced to our wackadoodle request.  Seriously.  Pop's.  Go there.
• The Carolina Theatre.  Much Ado was playing in a small screening room and it was marvelous to watch this movie with an audience of like-minded folk (who also understood that YOU TURN OFF YOUR PHONE DURING A MOVIE.  Sorry.  Pet peeve).  The Carolina is a theatre for movie fans.  They also have live shows, but just check out their movie offerings - and don't overlook their "special screenings."  Great stuff, picked by people who know their films.

Sure, I wish the trip had been longer - but boy-howdy! - am I glad we took what we could!

Thanks, FryDaddy.  I continue to maintain that you're the best decision I ever made.

Labor Day Weekend

Well, the Road to Hell has another paving stone, as I meant to post all last week.  However, the fall semester is just now getting into full swing - classes started two weeks ago, but my online just went live Thursday - so it's been a wee bit busy around the Nest.  And now it's the long Labor Day weekend!

I enjoy Labor Day, but I think it deserves to be more than the last day you can wear white without guilt.  Begun back in 1882, Labor Day is supposed to be a day to commemorate "the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being" of the United States.  Seriously, it's without a doubt the most "commie" holiday we have and most people don't even know it.  You should probably wear red instead of white, if you know what I mean.

Labor, especially union labor, gets a bad rap these days and I, for one, think it's about time to knock that off.   In the interest of full disclosure, I should reveal that I live in the least unionized state in America (that's according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2012).  I do not belong to a union; in fact, state law prohibits public employees from unionizing in my state - see NCGS Section 95-98.  However, I realize the benefits I reap that have come from union activity.  Unions brought us the five day work week, the 40 hour work week, safety regulations, an end to child labor, workers' compensation, and a host of other improvements to the workplace that we take for granted these days.  I mean, you didn't really think the robber barons of the 19th century and the titans of the Industrial Age just woke up one morning and said, "You know, the words of Charles Dickens really got to me.  No more five-year-olds working the looms and the mines!"  Nope, improvements in society come because enough people band together and demand change.

That's the lesson of Labor Day.  Beware those who try to sell you snake oil labelled "trust those in charge to do the right thing" when profits are threatened.  Stand strong and stand together.  Labor is not the enemy.

So go enjoy your cookout - I know I will - and let me suggest the following to add to your playlist and movie queue for this weekend:

10 Songs that Still Power Social Change

Movies about the Working (Wo)Man - ever think about Alien as a Labor Day movie?  It works when you think about why that crew is off in the middle of nowhere.