Suburban (in)Sanity

Healing

Getting way too touchy-feely with the reverb10 prompts. What has healed you in 2010 and how would you like to be healed in 2011?

Um.

You know, medicine when I'm actually sick. (I'm a hippie tree-hugging granola crunching yoga freak much of the time, but I believe in scientists abilities to identify and manufacture medications to treat specific illnesses.)

Good diet, adequate rest, and moderate exercise the rest of the time to stay well.

Luckily it is easier to stay well without snotty pre-schoolers in the house. No offense intended to my friends with snotty preschoolers, but my children's preschool years were really hard on my immune system, when I spent more time sick than well, I believe.

My children have blessedly exited the stage of childhood where they're sick constantly, plus they seem to have inherited their daddy's iron constitution. The youngest, age 7, has never even had the stomach flu! (by her age, the oldest had had some sort of stomach bug at least once a year from 4-7.)

A moment's pause in reflection and in honor of my husband, who during those annual ...illnesses of my son's, would set out a bed of towels and blankets on the bedroom floor, get a bucket, and tend to the wee one. He has an iron constitution but a weak stomach (at least for stomach bugs) and I think has more than a little empathy for the stomach sick. I have trouble not being stomach sick myself when someone near me is, and thus I am not the best nursemaid for those with stomach ailments. In fact, it's best if I sleep elsewhere. Like in a hotel.

Now that I think of it, it's really astonishing how much time we spend as parents tending to our sick children, and how that changes as they grow up. So there are many fewer nervous nights spent holding a coughing baby in a steamy bathroom, or waking up every hour to check a temp, or holding the hair out of the way or positioning the bucket. But instead we have lovely concerns like my friend who is wondering if her 11 year old has mono. And I spent Friday afternoon at the Orthopedist's office (another one, mark it - this is the third Friday afternoon of my life spent waiting for xray results. Thankfully this one was not an official break, a possible injury to the growth plate, we were sent home with a sling and strict instructions to NOT fall on that arm again for the next 2 weeks at which point we'll re-xray it.) And at some point puberty is going to be a growing concern. And on it goes from there.

But meanwhile, I do try to make sure we all get a good amount of rest. I find it a bit shocking when I hear of kids my kids' ages or younger who go to bed much later, and who I know have to get up early for school commitments. I think rest plays a big role, as does good diet in both maintaining and warding off illnesses. I always seem to come down with something after a stressful week of activities or a time when I've been running on lower than usual amounts of sleep. I've also added vitamin D to our supplements, though we're spotty about taking them (resolution: get better about that. We're vegetarians, we should take vitamins just for insurance.)

Do you have a plan for wellness for 2011?

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again

What do I want to try in 2011?

I've already mentioned that I'm trying running, which is so amusing because I'm so terrifically bad at it, but hey - today I ran three and a half WHOLE minutes in a ROW and I did *not* die (or if I did, the afterlife looks a lot like my regular life, just so you know.) I ran other minutes today, too, just so you don't think I'm so lame and only ran 3.5 minutes, and there was a lot of walking in-between. We'll see if my calfs lock up as tight as they did in previous attempts.

The other thing I'd like to try is really really really really really really dorky.

But I'll tell you because I consider you a close and personal friend.

I want to try rollerskating outdoors as exercise. Not rollerblading. Rollerskating. Really.

See, I told you it was dorky. My husband joked (because there's a pair of road rollerskates on my holiday wishlist) that in order to do that our insurance would have to go up so high it's not worth it.

But that's the thing, I stay balanced MUCH better on roller skates than on roller blades, and at this point I've got roller blades that are like a ticking time bomb in the garage. Don't you think it makes more sense for me to ditch those, which I always feel like a fumbling comedy routine in, and get actual skates that I know how to stay balanced on? I think it's because my feet, being inordinately ridiculous in several different anatomically defective ways, do the opposite of what most runners do. Most runners pronate, I think (roll in?) and I suppenate (or some such) which is to roll out. And on roller blades, my footbed rolling, or more accurately *tipping* out is quite a dangerous thing, at least as it relates to balance (which is one of those things you kind of need in rollerblading.)

On a four-wheeled boot, the fact that I roll out shouldn't matter as much, other than it will put more wear on those outside wheels, I imagine. See, don't I sound all educated about roller skating already?

Where would I skate, I'm sure you're wondering. I debated going for a disguise, maybe a bag over my head, but that would impede vision, so I think I'd just roller skate on the path behind our house, which is paved and runs quite a long way paved in two directions. Yes, if you like I can warn you ahead of time when I plan to skate so you can either avoid all of the crosswalks or come to laugh and point.

I can't think of anything else I want to try in 2011, I would really like some additional input though. I think I should try writing a novel sometime other than in November. I need to try more advanced prep on plot and planning for a book, because once I know what's gonig to happen I can fly through the word count. And having more books completed would be a Very Good Thing. I should try to lose some weight but I've talked about that before and I'm okay with the feeling-like-a-million-bucks result of daily workouts rather than any explicit weightloss goal. I don't want to try any new foods, I have a varied enough diet as a vegetarian. I don't want to set goals around garden growing or try salsa dancing, none of that holds any appeal for me, so I just have my really pathetic attempt at running, and my extremely dorky desire to add rollerskating to the Ten Ways I Could Land In The Hospital.

Do you have anything you want to try in 2011? Can you please share so I can get some more ideas??

Lesson(s) Learned in 2010

Again I'm feeling limited by the constraints of the prompt, so as I often do in writer's group, I'll just ignore the constraints that I don't care for and write what I want. It's all about GETTING yourself writing, really. Once you're running it's all good.

Lessons learned about myself (and others) in 2010:

1. I crystallized my thinking about the introvert/extrovert thing this year. I'm an introvert. After a party or a day of socializing, I need downtime. I also need to extend this to my family, as they're made of similar ilk.

2. I am a cat person, really really deep down. New kitty still makes me smile, even at 2 AM last night when she was attacking my toes (sidenote: Is this a Universal Kitty Trait? The only other kitty we ever had this young was Selene, who as a kitten would attack toes from her safe position under the futon. That was 16 years ago, so memory is a bit hazy.)

3. I need the "call with no particular reason other than to chat" kinds of friends. I think it has to do with aforementioned introversion, that sometimes I really do need a sounding board, sometimes I do need to talk. It's easy to get into a trap of working solo, thinking solo, writing solo, but at some point I can't just live in my own head. Which brings me to...

4. I work better with deadlines, and people. I have done some work this year that's more self-directed and solitary, and it's hard hard hard. I can write solo, but at some point I need someone else to read my work and tell me if it sucks before I can do anything productive with it. Ditto for more typical "professional" work.

5. Working out often but not at particularly high intensity is really good for my system, I stay healthy and feel like a million bucks, even while the scale remains unchanged. I'll take the feel like a million bucks over weight loss any day, though.

6. I can't write when my kids are around. Love them to pieces, but something about me and the computer (not unlike the relationship of mama:phone) causes them to need frequent, brief interruptions. Painfully frequent ones, you know like just when a train of thought is coming into the station. Maybe it's ESP on the part of the kids. ;)

7. Coffee really is better for me than diet soda. I made the switch sometime early this year and am grateful to have kicked the diet soda habit for the most part (I still have one occasionally with lunch, but no longer in the AM.)

8. To that end, EVERYONE else makes a better cup of coffee than I do, even a cheap diner. Why is that? I'll except Starbucks, but recognize that it's a taste preference more than anything. I find Starbucks coffee on the whole too bitter, too acidic, too something.

9. That I can make an AWESOME loaf of bread. Unreal, never would have believed it a year ago. While I love to cook, I don't do well with baking. Too much precision needed, and very little patience on my part. Since i don't understand the food chemistry very well with baking, I can't call an audible (my husband's term for all the tweaks I make to recipes) as easily, at least without risking total ruin of the food. This bread recipe I've been making is fantastic, though, and very forgiving. Excellent fun.

10. I volunteer for too many things. Should have put THIS on my resolutions for 2011 list, but alas, in some ways I don't want to cut back on my volunteering, as I get much satisfaction out of those activities.

What about you - what have you learned in 2010 about yourself?

Make no small plans

for they have no magic to stir men's blood. (In case you were curious, it's a Daniel Burnham quote, -- at least according to this editorial in the NYT from 1999 which I am surprised to find online. I adapted it slightly. I think the real quote is "little plans" and I just didn't think the word little had the emotional resonance of "small" in the title.)

It's Action day for Reverb10. I'm not entirely sure what is meant by the prompt, but I'm going to go ahead and make this a New Year's Resolution post.

In no particular order, and with no fanfare lest I find myself on January 2 having broken every one of these, here's what I'm going to work on in 2011.

1. More home organization per my post of the other day enumerating 11 things to get rid of in 2011. There's a pack-n-play in the upstairs closet...and a cool particle-board castle that's big enough for a 3 year old to play in...and a basket of junk on my dresser from last year when we got the bedroom painted...and the summer crap is still in the laundry room and needs to be swapped out for the winter crap, etc.

2. Continue working out 20 mins every day, rain or shine, yadda yadda. I'm close to 3 months already and it's not hard, though would be harder if I were working more hours. DH is just about to round on a year of 30 minutes each and every day including the day after the marathon and days when he travels overseas and has to be creative about the definition of a "day." (If he can do it...)

3. Make money from writing. Somehow, have someone pay me for my writing. This is a many-pronged item. I will continue to submit the short stories I have to markets. I will continue to keep my main novel package in the mail. If by June it hasn't sold, I'll self-publish it both ebook and POD format. I will also put up a few more short stories in ebook form, using a psuedonym for "grown-up" work to differentiate it from my YA author name. I'd love to get some magazine articles or other non-fiction under my belt but have not had much success when I've tested the waters before. Might be going at it a bit wrong, reevaluate and figure out what to do there. Also prep novel #2 (A Star to Lead Me) for marketing, get it in the mail, too.

4. I should probably be virtuous here and say I should eat less salt, drink less, or cut out the blow (kidding, kidding!) but I want to stick with resolutions I feel fairly confident I can make progress against. Goals, versus deadlines. Things that I can be working towards.

Last year I had an ill-fated resolution to "go to bed by 10:30" (which I progressively adjusted up to 11, then midnight, then dawn.) Those of you who know me well know this is really really really funny, but I was going to try! Sad thing is, my brain just doesn't want to settle until close to midnight, and putting that resolution down and then failing a few weeks in was pretty demotivating, so I want to avoid that this year.

Thus there will be no extremely-difficult-to-execute-on resolutions like salt reduction, caffeine reduction, or even weight loss. If I keep up my 20 mins of exercise a day and don't lose weight, at least I'll know I'm MUCH healthier (I already do feel healthier with my 3 months of it. I feel like a million bucks. Even when I got a cold in October, it was mild, I was able to walk each day anyway, and I felt like I got better *much* more quickly than I have in the past. Usually a cold will knock me down a few times a year but this was no big deal, so I'm going to maintain my presumption that 20 minutes (at the very least, many days it's 60, and my typical workout is at least 30) of exercise a day will contribute to a healthy me and that's the best thing I can do for myself right now. If you say "at your age" so help me god I will... :D

Okay, three resolutions, all keepable (though the household organization is going to take some discipline and quite a lot of work.) How about you? What's on your resolution list for 2011?

image again from morguefile and cracked me up, thanks!

Mind/Body and getting all metaphysical

Not a huge fan of the Reverb10 prompt for today, but I've made it this far, and heck, it's not that I can't write about this subject, it's just not my favorite.

Specifically, it asks me to talk about when I've had the best mind/body connection this year, when I've felt the most integrated with my body.

You can imagine me rolling my eyes here. I mean, I appreciate that some people view the world this way, but I'm more of a "stay in tune with your body" person versus thinking of mind and body as two separate entitites. My body belongs to me, thus my brain has full control and full connection to it. I think Yoga is really powerful for the way it helps me check in with parts of my body I don't normally think about (why yes, there are muscles that run the whole length of one's ribcage!) and that's great, but it's still alllll me.

I do talk to the kids about this kind of thing pretty often, though, so I suppose it bears mentioning. Seems that they don't come pre-programmed with a "check in with your body" routine that helps them notice things like changes in their digestive...output shall we say? (I do hope that some day they'll read my blog posts about their childhood and do my best to avoid completely overstepping the mom/child bond.) Or a new mole, how their faces get more freckles in the sun, body odor, etc.

And what I tell the kids is worthwhile for us grown-ups as well, be it digestively or elsewhere. Pay attention to YOU. Feel a funny kink in your neck? Try to notice if you're doing anything different, using a new computer/chair/did a lot of reaching the day before/slept funny/new pillows/no pillows/children stole your pillows/etc. Take those few moments to think about it, to connect.

My example from today is my calves. Me and my calves are only barely on speaking terms today. You see, I keep reading about good friends becoming runners, and invariably these friends show pictures of themselves looking all svelte and trim and otherwise making me envious. So I decided (again) to try this running thing, but only just barely. Cause you know I suck at running. But I'm plateauing at the gym w/my regular workouts (I noticed the other day that my typical interval on the elliptical doesn't actually cause me to break a sweat even with incline 10/resistance 8 alternating with 5/5s every 2 minutes.) I've been working out daily for about 10 or 12 weeks (20 mins a day, every day. My "working out" definition is broad enough to include walks with the dog, yoga, and even the occasional manual labor thing like the day I helped close down the school bookfair and was hoisting boxes and bins all morning.) I've lost pretty much no weight, though I've also just continued to eat whatever the heck I want (and appetite is up, of course, damn that metabolism!)

So long story short, I read an article a good running friend posted on FB about moving from walking into running and decided to give it a try. I need some kind of change to try to mix things up and tell my body to stop hoarding these 5 (10? 25?) pounds it decided to collect over the last year or two (or three or four or lifetime.)

I started with 5 mins warm-up, then one minute of running, a 2-3 minute break at fast walk pace, 1 minute of running. I kept it up for 25 minutes and was extremely wiped out when finished. I'm certain the calorie counter on the treadmill wasn't factoring in my non-runnage because it claimed a 125 calorie burn while my 25 - 30 mins on the elliptical is always good for at least 280-320, even when barely breaking a sweat. I was a sweaty dog after my couple minutes of running alternated with several rest periods of walking. I'm sure you wanted to know all this about me but, hey, I don't write the prompts! And besides, we're all likely to be talking about New Year's Resolutions soon enough so you might as well laugh along with me as I almost fall off the treadmill and otherwise make a bit of a fool of myself.

I have no idea if I can keep this up, but I'm going to give it a try a day or two a week and see. Hopefully my calves will resume speaking to me by tomorrow, as I plan to give them another workout...