Looks like it's time for... Fitbit!

Well folks, it's confession time.

Over the past 8 or so months of job stress, new medications with the side effect of exhaustion, hip angst, and then a month of delicious holiday eating and slovenly habits, I've gained almost 20 pounds from my lowest point.  And no, it's not all muscle:  I have a new muffin top, which was cute enough at first, but it has since become embarrassing. 

My exercise habits have been sporadic... hiking too late in the afternoon and running out of daylight, only remembering weight lifting every few days, forgetting that I haven't done yoga for a week.  After consistently logging 5-8 miles a day just being on my feet at work, I've dropped to just 3 miles a day.

I've also been having issues with getting out of bed in the morning.  The bed is so warm, and the outside so cold!  And I don't really have to get up until the puppy needs to be let out.  And did I mention the seductive warmth that only an early-morning bed provides?  Sleeping has never been so easy, so deep, and so relaxingly free of horrifying themes... and I have a decade or two of sleep deprivation to work off.  But really, spending up to 12 hours a day means I am slacking a bit on my morning goals.  Goals like blogging daily.  Ahem.

Something must change!

I know that the best thing for me to do is get up at a reasonable hour, and immediately head for the hills with Stormy to get in a nice hike while the sun is not sunburny and the air is freshest.  Starting the day off like that does wonders for my motivation, energy, and satisfaction for the rest of the day.

Plus, let's be completely honest here, Elder Scrolls Online is coming out March 30th, so I need to get my exercise habits solidified NOW before the game consumes my life.  

After a month of hibernation, I'm extremely well-rested, refreshed, and ready for a new start.  And so, I committed to using a Fitbit One.  It has many features which will help maintain my motivation:

• I'll wear it all the time... it's a constant reminder to get active.
• Tracks steps, miles, calories, altitude (in the form of floors), and has a stopwatch.  The last half of my main hike path is super steep (750 feet elevation), so knowing I get altitude recorded may be the final push that gets my tired bum up that hill.
• Puts everything online, and updates whenever I am near the computer.  I adore graphs, statistics, and seeing trends in improvement.  The fitbit makes it mostly automatic, so if I miss recording stuff for a few days it is no big deal.
• Has a wristband to track my sleep depth/length so I can study and optimize it, and also has a gentle vibrating alarm.
• Social benefits... whoever else has a Fitbit can be my fitness buddy!  It also hooks up with RunKeeper and a few other websites for people that like to track more in-depth.
• Makes money to help pay for itself?  (More on this in a later post.)

The good thing is, 20 pounds is far from being the end of the world.

Despite what I weigh now, I'm still 78 pounds less than I used to weigh 10 years ago.  I'm not a scale nazi or numbers-obsessed, but my pants are undoubtedly giving me a warning sign.  The trick to large weight loss that actually sticks long-term is slow, steady progress with permanent life changes, and catching yourself when you start to slide too far.

And sometimes, you just gotta mix it up with something fun.  Well, fun just arrived in the mail.  I am about to go hike it up!


Want to be my Fitbit buddy?  Friend me! 

Rorschach Blot

Stormy looks so tiny now.

Not so sure what she thinks about this new haircut thing.

It was an epic shaving, a shaving that took 3 trimmings to get through all that hair.  I weighed the hair afterward... 0.6 pounds!  The good news is that most of her hair still has that puppy softness.  Turns out it was mostly around the neck and under the ears that's become more stiff and curly like adult fur (and impossible to get the clippers through, I had to scissors the area).  There's still some puppy cuddle time left!

This is the face she gives me when I do not feed her cheese.

She looks even more like a deer when she runs now... dang, those long legs!

And now, the Rorschach Blot test...

... what do you see?

Poodle Curls Battle

The shaving went late into the night.  It was quite difficult to get the clippers to go through her hair because it is curlier than usual... after an hour and a half of fighting the clippers she and I both needed a break.

Now that it's morning, I can see that my shaving job was very, um, roughly done.  I'll go over her again after the hike.  In the meantime, enjoy a picture of a pre-haircut drenched Stormy.  She is not fond of baths.

What did I do to deserve this??

Ripping off the Bandaid of Puppyhood

I have been delaying trimming Stormy for months (well, besides necessary stuff like her face), at first because winter was coming. 

Now my excuse is that the surface is puppy hair, and the underside feels more like adult hair.  The puppy stuff is straighter and ridiculously soft, and the adult stuff is more tangly and coarse.  I've spent the last year cuddling up to that mesmerizing puppy fuzz.

The last of the puppy hair?!

Yeah, I know, she is quite the fluffball.  Her hair is nearly 4 inches long when stretched out, but the curliness and her endless energy means that daily brushings are not quite keeping the mats at bay.  It is time!

Facing her fate with dignity.

Well, I'm off to bathe her and then shave it all off.  Tune in tomorrow for photos of the new sleek Stormy.

Ghostly Beep

Early this morning, the smoke alarm began to beep... that incredibly annoying high-pitched beep that says the battery is dead.

I replaced the battery of course, but that did not stop the beep.  Since it was malfunctioning, I looked it up online, and somewhere it said that if you figure out which breaker is connected to the smoke alarm, you can turn it off, remove the battery, hold the test button for 15 seconds, and that would reset it.

I didn't have time to fix it before leaving for the day, so I worked on it once I got home after 1 am.

I spent forever trying to figure out which breaker in the house was feeding the smoke alarm.  Finally, I decided that I just had to rip it out of the ceiling because it was driving me mad.  Surprisingly, it was not even hooked into the house electricity.  I held it to my ear and waited... yep, there was the beep.  I put it outside.

Happy with myself, I began preparing for bed... and heard the beep again.  Coming from the same area.  I searched all the ceilings for other fire alarms, to no avail (hey, it's a somewhat new house, there could have been one I missed).  I began to think maybe I was going crazy, hearing a beep that was not there at 2am.  It was incredibly creepy to hear a beep from an empty ceiling.

Turns out that directly under that original smoke alarm, we had put the supposedly broken CO2 alarm in a drawer over a year ago, and then never opened the drawer again.  It was the one beeping.

Now the CO2 alarm and the smoke alarm are both outside.  All is well.  I am not crazy yet.

Back to the Grind - Nevermind.

Here it is, 10pm on a Sunday night.

I keep having random moments of panic because I haven't prepared for the workweek... did I do laundry?  Did I make lunches?  Do I remember what my order of priorities is going to be for Monday and the rest of the week?  Do I need to go in extra early tomorrow for any special cultures or last-minute requests?  Right now is the time I should be going to bed.

It appears that it has not yet sunk in that I'm not going back to work.  I don't have to worry about any of that stuff, but my subconscious is totally trained to constantly worry about it.  If I always worry, then I won't forget anything important... or so goes the theory.

And so, in a blatant refusal to give in to the instinct to prep for the workweek, I went for a small hike with the puppy and spent the rest of the day playing a new video game and eating the last of the Christmas fudge.  It was glorious.

~~~~

As I was writing this, there was loud deep thumping outside right as lights flashed from the front yard into the house.  Stormy went nuts, and I wondered if aliens had landed on our lawn.

Turns out a neighbor had just knocked over their recycling bin whilst wildly flailing a flashlight.  Oops, I guess I do have one responsibility today... Sunday is trash night.

~~~~

Here's hoping the reality of my life's major transition sinks in soon.  And that aliens don't land on the front lawn, unless they're friendly.

Planning for 456 Pounds of Produce

My goal this year is to grow half our fruit and veggie needs:  456 pounds!

I have 430 square feet to work with... but only 200 sq ft of that is in nicely-located raised beds with optimal soil.  Other areas need a lot of soil amending, and are partially shaded.  Areas under the trees have great soil but are very shaded, and it'll be challenging to find what grows there.

The available space also includes 6 half wine barrels and numerous pots in half-shade which might be moved to more ideal locations.  The previous owners of the house had large pots lined up all around the pool, which is a fantastic idea if I can find some cheap matching pots.

I'd been planning on another 20 square feet of space to round it out to a smooth 450, but as a surprise my husband put in a huge yin-yang of inedible light green and dark green plants, and it is too sweet to remove.

Anyway, here is what I plan on growing over the year!

2013 Harvest Tally: 150 Pounds!

 Let's see what 2013's garden brought in...

• Tomatoes:  109.2lb (plus the ones I didn't weigh, maybe another 10lb.  Oops.)
• Lemon Boy (7oz):  147, 64.3lb
• Sunsugar (1/2oz):  497, 15.5lb
• Early Girl (5oz):  54, 16.9lb
• Celebration or Early Girl (couldn't tell the difference later in the season when smaller):  77, 12.5lb
• Yellow pear:  0.  Died before it flowered, after the puppy dug grubs out from the roots.

• Greens:  ~ 2lb
• Chard, chocolate mint, radish, beet, mustard, kale, parsley, garlic greens:  2lb
• Mint, rosemary, marjoram, basil:  ? 

• Fruit:  Did a bad job of weighing this year, and the trees were cut so severely by the landscapers that they didn't produce much.  ~ 13lb as an underestimate
• Plum:  ~ 8lb  (Currently have 4lb still in the freezer)
• Apple:  ~ 5lb   

• Roots:  7lb
• Sweet potato:  7lb
• Radishes:  not enough to count

• Squash:  21.4lb
• Yellow papaya squash (~1.5lb... 2 were 3.2lbs!):  10 large squash, 21.4lb
• Zuccini:  0.  They all died or didn't grow.

Total:  152.6 lbs of produce!

The real winners as far as poundage this year were the Lemon Boy tomato and the Yellow Papaya Squash... 85 pounds between them!  I'll definitely have to add some form of squash and some Lemon Boys to this year's garden plan.  Lemon Boys may be a little bland, but they make for delicious salsa and a sweet tomato soup.

Not all of that produce was eaten... I canned or dehydrated 10 gallons of tomatoes, and have 4 pounds of pitted plums in the freezer still, to be made into plum gin and preserves.  There's also a lot of dried basil, marjoram, and mint.  There's still some mustard, bull's blood beet, radish, kale, chard, and parsley out there still surviving the winter in the ground as well.

How'd your garden do last year?  What would you do to improve it?

Legacy of the Chocolate Fountain

Yesterday was my last day of employment at UC Berkeley.

Since I'd been with the university for over 10 years, we had a lunchtime retirement party, and I invited several people who have impacted me the most in my time there.  Coworkers, the professor who gave me my professional start in his lab, my long-time trekkie buddy who's been there from the beginning. 

I had been asked what I wanted for a party, and was not given a limit.  What makes a good party and satisfied guests?  FOOD!  As my last gesture, at least I could get everybody fed one last time (besides the usual chai cheesecake I bake for the guys).  I suggested a taco truck, because Mexican food is darn tasty and has a wide appeal.  And if not that, perhaps fruit and dessert?  Amazon had a chocolate fountain which was probably within the budget, and it would be freaking hilarious.

Turns out I got both!  People were delighted. 

For dessert (because dessert should always come first)...

Ooooh, fancy.  And AMAZING on strawberries.

Turns out, salty chips are also really good dipped in sweet chocolate.  The recipe for the chocolate was just chocolate chips, vanilla extract, cinnamon, and enough cooking oil to keep it liquid.  I'm seriously considering getting one if I end up hosting lots of themed parties (the Doctor Who one was fun!).

The main course was Mexican food from, and I translate whilst giggling, The Spicy Donkey:

It was amazingly delicious, and not made of donkey. 

 

We nearly ate all of it, and the yummy sounds filled the conference room.

So, this is the interesting thing...

The Birthday Coconut

Every year, I get a coconut for my birthday.  I love them!

This year, I was really excited to get one that was fresh... for some reason, for the past few years I've opened them to discover they were rotten.  My friend has a theory on this.

"It is a good sign!  How long have you been getting rotten coconuts?"
"3 years."
"And how long have you been trying to quit your job?"
"3 years."
"And what recently changed?"
"I left the job."

Hmmmm... she has a point.  This coconut must be a good omen for my life path change!  I always thought divination had to involve bird or goat guts, but a coconut is a nicely vegan way of doing it.

In any case, now that most of the holiday hubbub is over, I'm starting to feel reinvigorated about the impending Etsy store.  

Busiest. Vacation. Ever.

It seems like the vacation has been a whirlwind of events and travel!

Let's tally up all the holiday gatherings that took place at separate locations and times.

1. Pre-Christmas shopping with my mom, to celebrate my first day of "retirement."
2. Christmas eve with my husband (since he had to work the holiday).
3. Christmas morning with my paternal grandparents.
4. Christmas day with my immediate family.
5. Christmas late night with my husband.
6. Christmas with my family and maternal grandparents.
7. Christmas with husband's family and friends.
8. Christmas with husband and my family.
9. New year's eve party (which was still decorated as a Doctor Who/Christmas party).
10. Jan 1st birthday at my house.
11. (Next week:  birthday visit from my brother, party for my last day of work, birthday visit to my parents' house and a drive-by gifting at friend's house.)

Next year I need to try to get everybody in the same place at the same time!  Schedules have just been really hard to blend, but I feel blessed that I got to see so much family.

The Christmas puzzle was really hard this year!

2014 Goals

Today marks several special occasions.

1. It's my birthday! 
2. It's a holiday, and the start of the new year.
3. I've now had 10 years of employment at my job, thus gaining some modest retirement benefits (technically it's over 11 years, but the first 11 months didn't count due to a technicality).
4. A change of role:  now I transition from being a full-time professional (away from home 12-14 hours a day) to being a full-time domestic goddess in training (aka, a new housewife).  Big change!
5. A change of finances:  As I leave my job, our income is reduced and our way of living is in flux.  Fewer vacations, slower savings, DIY home improvement/repair, cheaper everything.
6. A new diet plan:  The 2014 food storage plan begins. 

Basically, everything is changing, immediately.  I get to start completely fresh, from the ground up.  It's a good time for rebuilding life how we'd like it to be.

With that in mind, it's time to solidify some goals for myself for the year.  

Detailed goals are achievable goals.  Some of these are a little personal, but hey, I will be able to look back at this post to remind myself to keep on track.  It's great that I'll have a lot of time to work on all these things.  Everything that's italicized is part of my personalized version of the 2014 food storage plan.