To do list

• Why yes Lorelei, I am enjoying having my husband home.
• We decided to give preschool a try. We thought we found one, but spoke to director yesterday and found out that she does not want to take on any more kids right now. Back to the drawing board.
• I joined Twitter. You can follow what I am doing or thinking at twitter or on my sidebar, I added a widget. Fun.
• My class is so much fun. We are learning about how to add things like a drop down menu, a guest book, or address from to a web page right now. My little brain is jumping up and down with excitement.
• I got a new haircut, something very different. I am quite pleased.
• Gotta go to the dentist, I am one of those babies who is not good with the dentist.
• Re-starting my exercise plan. Walking three days this week for thirty minutes, or riding the exercise bike in my bedroom. Three thirty minute workouts. Do you have a exercise goal for this week?
  

An Afternoon Walk from Hell

I have been feeling like crap lately. It is a physical, emotional, spiritual, bla. Don't know why. I thought I would do something to try and feel better. The first thing that came to mind was fresh air and exercise. On that note, one day last week I decided to take Lily for a walk down to the beach. Our dog really wanted to come along and I thought why not.

First I coated us with sunscreen, then mosquito repellent (while I hate doing that we have fair skins and a number of west Nile virus cases have occur ed in the local area). As we were heading out the front door Lily requested the opportunity to ride her big wheel instead of walking. Thanks, to her dad who let her ride her big wheel down to the water over the weekend.

We gathered her big wheel and proceeded to open the door. The dog shot out the door like a rocket and broke her retractable leash. Instead of just putting her back in the house, I coerced her to come back in the house with me by promising cheese. Gave cheese to the dog and to Lily. Got the other non-retractable leash and we were off.

Lily decided she did not want to peddle and was dragging her feet along the pavement to propel herself forward. I noticed she had chosen to wear her new shoes and thought we should probably change into the shoes she has already worn holes in, rather than ruining another pair of shoes. Back in the house, change shoes, back to the walk.

Lily's rides her bike without pedaling at this excruciating slow pace. The dog is pulling my arm out of the socket. It is hotter than hades. The sweat is starting to wet our hair a bit around the collar, even though we are barely moving. I start to get a bit more snippy than normal at the dog and at Lily. Lily tells me to be nice to Pixie, that she doesn't like it when I am mad. I am beginning to think that I am more grumpy now than I was before I started this remedy to feel better. No wonder I don't get out much.

From my front yard you can see the water, but there happens to be an alligator infested swampy area between my house and the actual beach. There is actually a couple of blocks between me and the alligators so no worries about alligators coming in my house and eating me in my sleep. (Even though I do have this nightmare). To get to the beach we have to walk down a block, over three blocks and down another block. Five blocks. Lily is a fast walker, but for some reason whenever we walk to the beach she becomes the world's slowest person. About two blocks into our walk Lily decides she no longer wants to shuffle her bike along and requests that I carry her bike while she walks. Which I do in hopes that we will go a bit faster. I am pretty sure it has taken at least four hours to walk these two blocks.

I am carrying the big wheel, holding the dog, and walking slower than a snail. Some how we manage to make it to the beach. We throw a couple of rocks into the water, we walk to the end of the pier, we see some pretty larks, we turn around and go home. Lily tells me she is so tired she cannot walk anymore. She begs me to carry her. She begins to that cry whine which lasts the next five hours it takes us to go home.

At one point, I shift the big wheel that I am still carrying to another position and the handle bars falls off. When I bend down to pick up the handle bars the back wheels fall off. Now I am trying to carry three pieces of the big wheel, hold the dog and I attempt to pick up Lily figuring that if I carry her this nightmare will eventually end.

A block into our walk home I ditch the three pieces of the big wheel on the side of the road, hoping that a lighter load will enable me to get home faster. I put Lily on my back and I walk as fast as I can the four remaining blocks home. By the time we get in the front door I am ready to die. Love is giving fresh cold water to the kid and the dog before yourself. We sip our water, watch the last five minutes of Teletubbies and jump in the car to retrieve the big wheel. On the way home I am thinking that cooking lunch doesn't really sound like fun, so I head the car toward McDonald's.

I notice that the conversation that Lily and I have on the way to McDonald's is silly and fun. We are giggling and laughing about all kinds of things. We come home and eat, I shower, she has a bath. By then it is time to go and get Mandy, etc. So the rest of the afternoon and evening I notice that my mood is indeed much better. But, was it worth it? Let's just say I haven't gone for another walk and I am back to feeling funky. This walk took over an hour, I am counting it as a walking day even though it was slow, carrying a kid has to count for something.

Health

I have decided t re-start the couch potato to 10K in 20 weeks plan this week. If you are unfamiliar with the plan you can read all about it here. This week the goal is to walk for 30 minutes, three times. Here it is Wednesday, I need to get a move on.

My long term goal is to run in a 10K. My short term goal is to get out there and walk three days this week for at least 30 minutes.

What about you? Do you have any long and/or short term fitness/better health goals you would like to share?

Goodbye Spuds

Tomorrow is the first of September, and I am ready to get back on the fitness wagon. The temperatures have dropped a bit and I am hoping we are all ready to begin the couch potato to 10K in twenty weeks program. At least I am going to attempt this project.

Before we were all talking about doing this program together and running in a 10K together and having a fun girls weekend afterward. We ran into the snag of it being too hot to train. Now we are running into the snag of finding a 10K to run in together. Getting time away from family and the expense of travel is a coveted treasure for most of us and perhaps running in a 10K is not enough of an incentive to use up this coveted treasure. Especially when we have the opportunity to run in 10K's in our local area for free or for not very much money. Not everyone has enough confidence in the program that they would be able to actually run 10 Kilometers. And some of us just don't run.

Kim had a lovely suggestion, that we get together at the Mall of America. This got me to thinking that perhaps it would be fun for us to plan a get together that is not revolved around a 10K. I am not really a shopper, but the Mall of America is a fine choice. Perhaps we can have two separate things going on here. One is a get together, the other is a living more healthy support group.

For the support group, we can each of a set a goal for taking better care of ourselves. My goal will be to run in a 10K, I can do that here locally. Your goal can be something else. I can write a post about our group one day a week, say Monday. We can all talk about our progress, our setbacks, give advice, commiserate, whatever.

For the get together, it could be in celebration of meeting our goal, or it could be a completely separate thing. We can pick a place and find a way to do it for a reasonable cost and have ourselves a girls weekend.

I have fallen out of love with the Spuds Gone Wild, does anyone have a better suggestion? Does anyone like this idea of an online support group, where we each set a personal goal (fitness, eating, weightless, peace of mind)and we talk about our progress on Mondays. A little support a little accountability. It is every so embarrassing to set a goal and have to admit that you are a slacker.

Spuds Gone Wild: Week 3 revisited

I am hoping you all will be fine with having a week three re-do. If you want to move forward to the week 4 training feel free.

4 DAYS OF ACTIVITY - SUNDAY, TUESDAY, THURSDAY, AND SATURDAY AS FOLLOWS: 8 MINUTE WALK, 5 MINUTE JOG, 5 MINUTE WALK, 5 MINUTE JOG, 7 MINUTE WALK. -Hanson's Running - couch potato to 10K.

I have noticed in the comments that everyone is being very hard on themselves, me too. This training makes me feel like a failure because I am not really living up to it 100%. I noticed with your comments that we are all feeling pretty guilty about not taking better care of ourselves. We really should be putting ourselves first and taking better care of ourselves, and none of us are, in a way that makes me feel better, less alone in my inability to succeed in this one area of my life. It is a real downer.

This week in the comments, no negative talk. You must come up with one thing you did this week that you are proud of. One thing that you did for better health. Are you all up to the challenge of saying something nice about yourselves? I am thinking that reversing the way we look at ourselves in this regard might be helpful toward walking the walk and getting ourselves off the couch. It is worth a try? The calling ourselves names isn't really working. Even if you didn't get the chance to exercise at all, try to think of something nice to say about yourself in regards to taking care of yourself and your health. Maybe you drank some water? Maybe you ate a veggie, ate less sugar, got a good night's sleep, walked up some stairs? I know you can do it.

I've got my final in nine hours and have 80 hours of work to do to get ready for it, and then I have a final project due Friday that I haven't started. I have been having the hardest time with keeping up with this class. My procrastination is giving me a nervous breakdown.

Spuds Gone Wild: Week 3

We are already on week three of twenty, don't you feel fit? Anyone found a 10 K for us to run in? Me either. This weeks plan:

4 DAYS OF ACTIVITY - SUNDAY, TUESDAY, THURSDAY, AND SATURDAY AS FOLLOWS: 8 MINUTE WALK, 5 MINUTE JOG, 5 MINUTE WALK, 5 MINUTE JOG, 7 MINUTE WALK. -Hanson's Running - couch potato to 10K

Leave a comment about how you are doing. Give me some tips.

Spuds Gone Wild: Week 2

How is the exercise going? Anyone found a 10K in your area? Sorry for the delay in posting this weeks schedule. The complete schedule can be found here.

4 DAYS OF ACTIVITY - 30 MINUTES OF EASY WALKING ON SUNDAY, TUESDAY, AND THURSDAY. SATURDAY AS FOLLOWS: 10 MINUTE WALK, 3 MINUTE JOG, 7 MINUTE WALK, 3 MINUTE JOG, 7 MINUTE WALK.

Spuds Gone Wild: Week 1

This weeks exercise plan:

3 DAYS OF ACTIVITY- 30 MINUTES OF EASY WALKING ON SUNDAY, TUESDAY AND FRIDAY.

Leave a comment to tell about your plans for this week. Do you have any tips on what to wear, what to eat, how much to drink, finding time to exercise, finding a cool enough place to exercise...be sure to share your wisdom.

Spuds Gone Wild

I read about the "Couch Potato to 10 K" program on Busy Mom's blog quite some time ago. Jeff is currently training to run in the Air Force Marathon in September. He found a marathon training program on the Internet and is following a schedule to get ready. Which is very similar to the Couch Potato program, only harder. I am the one who wrote up his schedule onto a calendar for him. I buy and prepare meals for him to lose some weight to make the running easier. While he is out running I am sitting on the couch, reading blogs or Book Worm books. Then he comes home and tells me all about his run.

I have noticed during our marriage that Jeff really enjoys life. He always has these projects, like his marathon or a hike. He has plans, accomplishments, plays team sports, etc. I am always in the background, taking care of stuff to facilitate his busy schedule. He is always happy and enthusiastic and I am a bit of a curmudgeon. What I am saying is that I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder that in our marriage Jeff is having the time of his life and I am washing his underwear.

I have been discussing this with Jeff for weeks and have really been making him mad. He is the world's best husband and does not understand what it is that he is doing wrong. Which is nothing, but I am still mad, at him for being happy.

I am making some changes in my life, trying to eat better, trying to exercise, trying to find that elusive thing called happiness. I see how happy Jeff is and think that maybe if I do some of the things he does I will be happy too. Using him as a model of how to live life to the fullest. Step one, find someone to wash my underwear. Kidding. I have delegated some of the chores around to the other members of the house. We have a chore chart. Everyone has to pitch in at dinner time, instead of me doing all the work while they watch TV and goof around. Now we are all in the kitchen getting it ready and cleaning it up and we all pitch in with the evening Lily duties as well. I like that we are working together and that divided the evening chores just take a few minutes.

Now I am in training for a 10 K. This gives me a chance to talk about my training with Jeff, while he is talking about his training. Sunday, Jeff ran 12 miles and I walked for 30 minutes, but it is similar, sort of. Now it seems that many of you are also interested in this training thing. I had an idea. Call me crazy. What if we were to do this training together, over the Internet, working toward a goal. A real life goal. What if we were to train to run a real 10 K, together. Jeff is traveling to Ohio to run a marathon, I can travel to somewhere to run a 10 K. We all could.

Are you guys interested in having a get together. We could find a way to get all of us together, run a 10 K together, somewhere/anywhere and then spend a weekend just the girls. Get aways from husbands, kids, school, jobs and have a retreat of sorts. We can discuss our books, drink wine, eat cookies. Mandy of us are military wives who have friends all over the place, friends we love but don't get to see very often. We could invite our far away friends to come too. If we make this week one, or we could make next week, week one, we will be ready by the end of November. We can look up on the Internet and find a 10 K. We can find accommodations and have ourselves a little get together. A spuds gone wild weekend. We could make t-shirts.

I'll write a Spud's Gone Wild entry every Sunday outlining our plan for that week. Everyone can recap the previous week, give pointers for finding time and places to get the job done. Whether or not we do a get together we can still do the training together virtually. I think this should be week one, but am willing to do week one again next week if that is the majority rule.

Week one: 3 days of activity - Easy walking 30 minutes.