Category: Daily Life

It occurred to me the other day that I follow a very strict diet and exercise regimen.  The diet portion consists of a Luna bar for breakfast every morning, followed by whatever strikes my fancy throughout the rest of the day.  My exercise routine involves extended computer sessions at home and at the office, occasionally punctuated by a stroll across the room for some life-sustaining purpose.

Every day I take stock of my progress according to how my clothes seem to fit.  Some mornings I feel a little thinner and I can get by with wearing something semi-cute.  Other mornings I need all the camouflage I can get.  I must expend, oh, dozens of calories a day wishing to be thinner.

The folly of this whole process was brought home to me last night in the course of a community service project that involved entertaining a group of children for an hour or so.  I pushed a little girl of about three or four on the swings and caught her at the bottom of the slide for at least a half hour.  By the time she tired of climbing up the ladder to the slide, my lower back was spasming enough that I wasn’t quite sure I’d be able to straighten up again.

I am getting entirely too old to keep up the "if wishing could make it so" physical fitness routine.  There’s a yoga studio five minutes from my house, and I’m going to be there at 6:15 tomorrow morning for a Vinyasa class.  (I’d go today, but I’m too out of shape for the advanced class they have at 6:15 on Wednesday mornings.)

Wish me luck!

Last week, at least four bloggers I follow celebrated their one-year blogging anniversaries:

• Toby Bloomberg of Diva Marketing
• Tom Guarriello of The TrueTalk Blog
• Stacie Penney of Raspberry Latte
• Charlie O’Shields of Always Curious

Congratulations to all of you for staying the course!  A solid year of regular blogging is a big milestone.

Also in the blog world last week, we learned that a new online blogging magazine called Blogebrity will soon make its debut.  Judging by its conceit of A-, B- and C-list blogger categorization, it sounds like the world’s most exclusive (and arbitrary) blogroll.  I imagine there will be some lively discussion about it at BlogHer.

The Blogebrity blog’s first poll asks, "Has blogging jumped the shark?"  Obviously, they’re banking on the answer being "no," but it makes me wonder why there’s so much talk about blogging being "over" already.  As I’m sure Toby, Tom, Stacie and Charlie would tell you, it’s just getting started!

Update:  Heh, I’m a sucker.  It turns out Blogebrity is a Contagious Media Showdown entry.  And here I am helping them increase their ranking…

I went out to breakfast with the hubby this morning. so that doesn’t leave me much time for a blog entry.

I have one last busy workday, and the weekend promises to be packed with a nice balance of household chores and fun activities. 

We’re taking my niece to the roller derby on Saturday night, so that should be interesting.  I’m not sure I adequately explained the game to her, because she seemed very concerned that the rollergirls might knock her down.  I think as long as I play up the excitement and popcorn aspects of the event, she’ll have fun.

The rest of the weekend will be devoted to gardening, cleaning and relaxing on the deck (I hope).  I hope you enjoy your weekend, too!

Even though I’m not completely sure how I’ll fund parts of the trip, as of yesterday I’m officially registered for BlogHer Conference ’05 and I’ve reserved the preceding Friday as a vacation day from work.

I thought of something that will help with the airfare:  the America West vouchers I received when we were bumped from our flight home from Las Vegas last December.  At the time I thought, "Ooh!  Two $100 vouchers, isn’t that nice?" 

Now, of course, I’m thinking sarcastically, "Ooh, two hundred bucks.  Can you spare it?"

Still, that’s almost half the cost of the flight, so I guess I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

The hard part will be deciding which workshops to attend.  Each of the four sessions is divided into four appealing topics.

This is going to be awesome!

Remember that nice weather I spoke of yesterday?  We’re not having that so much anymore.

It started raining last night around 6:00 p.m. (complete with flash flood warnings, tornado watches, hail reports, etc.) and the thunderstorm is still going on this morning.  I’m afraid to look in our basement; by now the cat boxes will probably have floated as far from the wall as their power cords will allow.

I really want to lie in bed all day and listen to the storm, but I’ll be heading out the door to work soon.  There’s no point in trying very hard on my hairdo when there’s this much humidity.  No matter how much product I use, I’ll have a huge frizzball on my head by the time I get to my car.

Have a lovely Friday and weekend.  I’ll give you my BlogHer registration update Monday!

Yesterday I ran across this short film on Ze Frank’s blog about Bob, the singing greeter at Newark Airport.   Bob may very well be the happiest worker in the world and it’s obvious how much he loves his job.

***************************

Now that the weather’s getting warmer, I’ve cracked out my summer driving CDs.  My car has horrible speakers so that diminishes the enjoyment somewhat, but I’m still having a good time listening to such gems from my collection as:

• Scatterbrain – Here Comes Trouble (metal with humor!)
• David Lee Roth – Eat ‘Em and Smile (classic DLR with the best backup band money can buy)
• Joe Satriani – Surfing With the Alien (my favorite all-instrumental rock album)
• Mortal Kombat Annihilation Soundtrack (liable to induce speeding)
• Wayne’s World Soundtrack (too dated?  not!)
• 24-7 Spyz – This is…24-7 Spyz (awesome, grungy funk-metal)
• White Zombie – Astro-Creep 2000 (music to bang your head by)

That’s not to say I don’t have lots of other types of music in my collection, but there’s something about driving around in nice weather that calls for late 80s/early 90s hard rock.

***************************

I’ve been running across a lot of great blogs lately, but most of them are going into my Del.icio.us list rather than the blogroll.  Here are some that I find myself reading often:

• Tomato Nation – Frequent humorous essays (the one about the Roomba is a big favorite of mine) and a daily advice column, The Vine.
• Snarkywood – Mean, catty and hilarious discussions of over-hyped celebrities.
• Design*Sponge – Daily posts of beautiful housewares and accessories from a wide variety of shops and designers.
• PostSecret – Fascinating and often disturbing secrets shared anonymously via postcard by anyone who wishes to participate.

***************************

Wow, I think that was way more than 35% better than yesterday’s post!  Let’s hope I can keep that "underpromise and overdeliver" thing going throughout the week.

I don’t know why I always have such a hard time coming up with something to write about on Wednesdays.  Maybe it’s because Monday and Tuesday are usually a dull combination of busy workday and uneventful evening.  For the last two nights I’ve worked at my dad’s office for several hours after my regular work, so the burnout from that is probably a factor today.

My big triumph yesterday was the completion of a rather detailed project that I’d been putting off because I didn’t know where to start.  The answer, of course, was to turn to Nike for inspiration (the shoe company, not the goddess) and just…well, you know the rest.  That frees me up to deal with two other time consuming projects today.  By the end of the week, maybe I’ll have a handle on my workload again.

Tonight I have a board meeting for my community service organization, which will lead to my having to write some press releases later this week about our annual grants to various local not-for-profit groups.

After that, I have to meet with the latest editor of the enormous (12-24 pages, theoretically monthly) car club newsletter that I used to produce.  I’m not sure what I can tell her at this point, considering that I don’t even belong to the club anymore, but I’m willing to have a beer, eat some peanuts and review the whole process one more time if it means I don’t ever have to hear about it again.

How boring is all that?  It’s boring me and I haven’t even lived it yet.  Tomorrow’s entry will be at least 35% more interesting, I promise.

I don’t know how I’m going to manage it, but one way or another I’m determined to attend BlogHer Conference 2005 on July 30th.  The conference schedule is so event-packed that I’d have to fly in on Friday, attend BlogHer on Saturday and probably fly back out on Sunday, but it sounds like it would be so worth it.

The blog you see before you isn’t the only one I write.  I have another blog (with some friends) that centers on the attractions, restaurants and special events in my area.  Last year at work I also wrote a fun blog tie-in to a national advertising campaign.  Yes, blogging is in my blood now, and these days I’d rather meet some of the people from my "Favorite Blogs" list than some of the rock stars from my CD collection!

I have a pretty busy summer planned with a canoe trip in early June, a trip to New Orleans in early July and a week off from work to help my dad run a seminar later in July.  It’ll be a stretch to schedule/afford BlogHer, but I’m resolved to make it happen.

See you there, I hope!

Update:  Cagey has pointed out that attending BlogHer would provide an excellent opportunity to tour the Winchester House in San Jose.  Now I’m really sold!

Our neighbor across the street is a purposeful guy.  Years ago, he owned the house next door to us and one day decided to tear off the roof and build a second story.  Presumably it was easier to obtain a building permit back then.  Anyway, he and some of his buddies completed the demolition in an afternoon and, boy, was his wife surprised when she got home – especially since he hadn’t mentioned his demolition and construction intentions to her in advance. 

He is now visiting an act of impulsive remodeling upon his current house in our neighborhood.  He’s dug out a huge pit to accommodate the foundation for a new two-car garage, and demolished the home’s foyer.  The only problem:  the house has been a rental property for many years and the tenant hasn’t had a chance to move out yet.

Watching our neighbor dig up his own yard with a backhoe must have inspired me to stop being so lazy.  I spent Saturday tidying up flower beds, trimming shrubbery, cutting down volunteer trees throughout the yard and generally beautifying our outdoor environment beyond what our lawn guy can be expected to handle.

On Sunday I decided it was time I re-sealed the slate floor in the kitchen.  It’s supposed to be done every year, but I hadn’t gotten around to it since we had the floor installed in 2002 as part of a kitchen facelift.  I scrubbed the floor thoroughly and applied two coats of sealer, which made it look dramatically better.  The cats had to spend the afternoon locked in the basement, but they got over it.

Also back in 2002, I bought an attractive, Arts and Crafts-style stained glass panel to hang above our kitchen sink.  It had been sitting in my closet ever since.  This weekend my husband and I finally managed to hang it up, although it took every bit of our combined effort.  We’re not that good with tools, measuring, etc., so there was an ever-present element of slapstick to the whole affair. 

The kitchen looks beautiful now with its gleaming floors, stained glass accent and a vase full of irises that I accidentally cut down with the WeedEater on Saturday. 

If only I had that kind of energy all the time!

According to MEXOnline:

The holiday of Cinco De Mayo, The 5th Of May, commemorates the
victory of the Mexicans over the French army at The Battle Of Puebla in
1862. It is primarily a regional holiday celebrated in the Mexican
state capital city of Puebla and throughout the state of Puebla, with
some recognition in other parts of the Mexico, and especially in U.S.
cities with a significant Mexican population.

Where I live, Cinco de Mayo has become "The Day When Every Mexican Restaurant Is Packed To The Rafters."

The maternal side of my husband’s family is Mexican, and I remember a decade ago that my husband’s mother used to take his sister out of school on Cinco de Mayo so they could go out to lunch and have a special holiday together.

That was before the liquor companies and fast food restaurants got the idea to promote Cinco de Mayo as yet another day of themed consumption.  Now, suddenly, everybody’s racing to the Mexican restaurants that day.

Yet who am I to argue?  I like tamales.  I like margaritas.  Our office had a group lunch yesterday at a popular Mexican restaurant and I jammed myself into the crowded lobby with the rest of the easily influenced diners.

You’d hope that the extra business and revenue from beefed-up Cinco de Mayo celebrations would benefit small restaurant owners, and it probably has in the short term.  Unfortunately, Hispanic business owners are still hindered by discrimination, according to the owner of our favorite neighborhood Mexican restaurant.

My husband went to buy tamales on Wednesday night and didn’t come back for more than an hour.  He was talking to the owner, Mr. Garcia, who was upset that despite the fact that he’d worked hard to triple his tiny restaurant’s business in just a few years, he had been denied a small loan he needed to grow the business further.

A friend of ours is on the board of the local Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, so we’re going to get them in touch with each other in the hope that Mr. Garcia can get assistance there.  Still, it’s a sad state of affairs when an otherwise successful entrepreneur can’t take advantage of "mainstream" funding sources just because of his accent.

That’s a problem that can’t be fixed by a few fiestas…