Exercise of Late

As I mentioned before, my exercise right now is packing and getting ready for our move. We pack and pack and pack some more. The apartment is completely trashed, but I swear all of the cabinets and drawers are empty, whereas before they were jam-packed full of stuff. Given the amount of sweat I have shed in the past few days of heat and humidity, I really think it counts for something.

I feel like I should be taking advantage of the fact that we live across the street from the Y while we still live across the street from the Y. After our move, I'll have to drive to the gym, which is a definite bummer and not conducive to wintry early morning workouts AT ALL. However, in our new place, I'll have more space to try out my fitness DVDs, which I'm looking forward to. My few feet of space in front of the TV right now is constantly being encroached upon by electronics and cat toys. I think the exercise DVDs will be just the ticket when there's too much snow, or it's -10 degrees out and I just can't bring myself to go outside

I'll tell you something, though. I am definitely feeling doughy. Do not like! My muscle definition is fading away and I'm starting to hate all of our take-out food options. I will be so happy to be in a new house, cooking again, and back on a regular workout schedule.

Farm Share Weeks 3 & 4

Rather than double-post, I'll just tell you that the Farm Share latest is over here.

Chaos

I feel like everything is pretty chaotic right now. We're moving in a couple of weeks and while I am thrilled beyond belief with the house we're moving to and the extra space we'll have and the nice neighborhood and our so far fantastic new landlords, I'm a little stressed by the big pile of mess that is our home.

I've learned that we have many, many books. MANY books. Books have to be packed in small to medium boxes so that each box doesn't weigh 500 pounds, and those little boxes fill up so fast. The stacks of boxes are officially taking over the living room. Despite the number of boxes we've already filled, there's still a lot more to pack. Well, there's still the kitchen and the dining room china cabinet to pack, which are going to take awhile, what with the number of breakables that have to be wrapped and packed securely.

In the meantime, work is CRAZY. We have several filings with the Department of Health that I'm working on, and one of our clients is under investigation and I'm organizing the documents they're sending to the government. One of our clients is totally breathing down my neck about the filing I'm doing for them. It would really help if they would actually read the documents I've sent them and realize this isn't going to be a quick process, despite them wanting it done right this second. I've been the first one to the office every morning for the past few weeks. I make myself take a little time off for lunch every day just to decompress a bit. I really do prefer to be busy, but I'm starting to feel it. Particularly in my right shoulder, where I store my stress.

Then I have to leave a little on the early side because there's so much to get done outside of work. By "early" I mean 6 or 6:30.

And in the meantime, the Young Women's President has left for the summer and I'm kind of in charge. There's another counselor, and she's a great help, but she works nights and is often unavailable, and I really feel like if things are going to get done and organized, it's up to me to take the initiative.

So, for instance, yesterday I worked from 8-6, pretty much straight. Then I went to the grocery store to buy food for the Young Women's camp fundraiser this Sunday (PS Since this is the only Sunday between now and camp that me and the other counselor will both be at church, we're doing it this week. However, the girls are at a retreat until Saturday night and the other counselor is working Saturday night, so I'll basically be prepping the food by myself. Which I can do. It's just another thing on the list). Then I came home and we ate dinner (grocery store sushi. Not the best choice. Not the worst.) Then I dropped off 3 sleeping bags with one of the Young Women for her, another YW and her brother to use at the retreat. Then I came home and needed to pack, but instead, I went to bed.

Tonight there's Jason's lab potluck. Friday night we said we would go see a Shakespeare play with some people. Saturday is an air show that Jason looks forward to all year and that I promised I would go to with him this year. Saturday night I have to cook. Sunday is the YW fundraiser. I know I could cut out some of the social obligations, but Jason is a social animal and he was really concerned that moving would ruin our summer so I'm trying to make sure it doesn't. And I know he'll be sad if I don't go. He'll get over it, but I know he likes me to be at stuff with him.

And it's not like I don't want to be social. There's just a lot going on.

I'm writing about all of this on this blog as some sort of paltry rationale for why my only exercise lately has been packing, and why I've been eating where and when I can, without much forethought, which is the death knell for healthy eating.

So here we are. I'm trying to decide if I should cut myself some slack, or cowboy up and get to the gym already.

Exercise!

I did it! I got up early and did something moderately active!

For some reason, I woke up all on my own at 5:30 this morning. So I got up, got into my workout clothes, and headed out. (I also managed to finish up by 7 and get to work early. I love this whole "getting light at 5 AM" thing. So much easier to wake up and feel alive than those cold winter mornings when it's dark until after 8 AM)

My plan was to go to the Brown stadium around the corner from our house and do stadiums. I'm trying to get my quads and knees psyched up for a summer and fall of hiking (not to mention our move in a few weeks). Only the stadium was locked up tight. I don't really understand Brown's reasoning. All last summer it was open and lots of people in the neighborhood used the track. This summer it's been hit or miss as to whether you'll actually find it unlocked.

So instead I went for a 50 minute walk around the neighborhood. It was already pretty muggy, so I worked up a nice sweat at least. Not really the workout I was hoping for, but at least I did SOMEthing.

And I just love my neighborhood. There are so many lovely houses and gardens. I'm happy we're moving into another nice little neighborhood where we can go for walks and oo and aah over the pretty. I'm also absolutely thrilled to be moving into one of the pretty houses. I feel so lucky!

Moving

So I'm not really exercising, but we are going to be moving. I think the thrill I'm feeling over the new house has to be burning at least a few calories.

Farm Share Week 2

The Farm Share bounty is pretty impressive so far. If this keeps up, I think we'll be drowning in zucchini later in the summer.

Today's haul:
1 giant head of red leaf lettuce, 1/2 pound mesclun mix, 1 pound garlic scapes, 1/3 pound of mizuna and 2/3 pound kale. I had a big salad with dinner and tried making something using scapes, mizuna, sesame oil and teryaki sauce that turned out meh. Not horrible, but not great either. I'll experiment more later.

The lettuce was as big as my head.

No, seriously

Slacker

We are going hiking and camping again this weekend, this time with Jason's lab. The hike we're going on gains about the same amount of elevation, but not quite as quickly as our last hike, and uses more switchbacks rather than going straight up as many rock faces.

My plan over the last 2 weeks was to a) break in my hiking shoes, and b) (which is related to a) walk up and down the steps in the Brown stadium to get my muscles more used to climbing and descending. The first problem was that my legs hurt for an entire week after the last hiking trip. Last Saturday I finally felt like I could walk down stairs like a normal person.

This week I have no excuse, other than being a slacker and staying up too late. Take last night. We went out to dinner with some friends who are moving and didn't get home until 10:30. Then we watched the season finale of Glee because you must have your priorities. Then I sat on the couch until almost 1 AM, just reading blogs and stuff online.

Why is it so easy to get out of a good routine? When I'm in the midst of being healthy, I can't imagine breaking that pattern because I feel so good. But over and over again, I write posts like this, talking about how I'm having a hard time getting motivated after something managed to knock me off track.

I really don't have an answer for myself. The ONLY thing to do is just get back on track already. Tomorrow is the only morning I will have before we leave for the mountains to do any exercise. I just have to do it, even if I'm feeling tired and lazy.

I will do it.

Return of the Farm Share!

(Also posted on my other blog, if you think you're seeing double)

Today was the first pick up for this year's farm share. I'm excited to see what this year has to bring, especially since (fingers crossed) there won't be any tomato blight and it won't rain for the ENTIRE month of June like last year.

(Though it's supposed to rain for the next 4 days and this had better not be a trend. You hear me, June!)

Today we got 5 farm share dollars to "spend" and two potted plants. It's the beginning of the season, so there are mostly greens. I got a head of lettuce, mesclun mix and some fava greens, as well as two black eyed susan plants that I'm going to plant outside.
Farmer John told us to try the fava greens because this is the only week he'll have them. Apparently, you use the greens like fresh spinach. I'll try throwing some in my lunch salad tomorrow and see how they taste.

Kitty wanted to get in on the farm share action:
Tonight I also planted my container plants for the season.

In the white bucket are 2 pepper plants that Sam, one of the Brown freshmen, started from seed in his dorm room, but then had to get rid of since the school year ended and he's going on a mission in August. So we got his peppers. We don't know what kind of peppers they are since Sam wasn't sure himself. They already have some blossoms on them so we'll see.

In the orange containers are a zucchini plant and a cucumber plant. I don't know which is which, because their leaves look surprisingly similar. (Despite my seed labeling, I have a sneaking suspicion they might actually be the same kind of plant...) These are the only two seedlings I got from the 12 seed starters I planted this year. They're thriving so far.

Memorial Day Weekend

We went camping and hiking. I almost considered calling in to work due to my inability to walk down stairs.