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Aug
12
2011
Master of Efficiency

The other day I took a little break from work to check on the Twitter. Cordelia Calls It Quits linked to an interesting-sounding post from Zen Habits, so I clicked the link.

The post was indeed interesting. It suggested doing something only once and doing it immediately when it first grabs your attention. This resonated with me like you wouldn’t believe. I definitely have issues with this. I’ll open an email and not feel like dealing with it right then, so I’ll just close it and move on. But eventually I have to deal with it and I have to read it again to do so. Waste of time.

Or the time I did hours of internet research on places to go in Belgium in my initial excitement of deciding to go there for our 10th anniversary. I told myself I was just brainstorming. I didn’t bookmark stuff or make any real notes. Then a week before our departure, I had to scramble to do all that research again. So dumb.

About halfway through reading the Zen Habits post, I started feeling guilty about checking Twitter when I should be working. Without irony, I made a mental note to finish reading that post later…you know, the post about dealing with things only once.

It would be funny if it weren’t so pitiful.

How about you? Do you put things off that you could do right then or do you take care of them right away as they come up? How do you balance your own to do list with the things other people bring to you throughout the day?

Jul
31
2011
I’m Still Yawning

I’m not in the best frame of mind to write a post, particularly about the sleep experiment. But I’ll start with the positives of week 1:

  • The first two nights, I turned off all screens by 11pm and was in bed before midnight.
  • My average bedtime (12:39am) was about 40 minutes earlier this week than last week.
  • I was generally more aware of the time at night.
  • I got out of bed before 8am (considerably so except for Friday) every day except today.

But:

  • I didn’t really get more sleep this week. I got up earlier for work, to run, etc… than usual. So I averaged 6 hours per night this week, the same as last week.
  • By Friday morning, my body revolted and I got up an hour late for work. So I had to stay late on Friday, which I hate doing.
  • I took a big step back last night. It’s tempting to blame it all on Dave, so I will! He was three hours late in getting home and didn’t call (bad Dave!) and I was worried. And the later it gets/more tired I get, the harder it is to stop picturing him in a ditch somewhere. So I didn’t get to bed until past 3am, after he was safely home (and I’d killed him).
  • I couldn’t drag my ass out of bed until after 10 this morning and I was starving, so Dave and I went out for breakfast, in lieu of my official “Happy Fun Time.” Going out was pleasant, but I hate the (oh so familiar) feeling of having burned so many daylight hours sleeping. And I’m upset with myself for screwing up my frigging Happy Fun Time the very first week (the irony of being so irritated over something I call Happy Fun Time is not lost on me).
  • Worst of all, my eye pressure/cluster headache isn’t gone, and I was more aware of feeling tired this week than I’ve been in a while.

Disturbingly, I also almost passed out at work on Thursday. I was standing for awhile at a retirement party (during which it took all my strength to stop from grabbing my soon to be ex-colleague’s pant leg and begging her to take me with her) and in the middle of a conversation with my boss, I got that tingly, hot (and not in a good way), light-headed feeling I’ve learned from embarrassing past experience means “sit the fuck down right now.” So I had to interrupt my boss to say I didn’t feel well and needed to sit. Smooth. Later when I tried to make light of it by saying “I’m a delicate little flower,” my boss’ response was “you look pretty sturdy.” If she’d said that 15 pounds ago, I probably would have cried.

In summary, I’d rate my sleep performance this first week as in need of improvement. I definitely think I can do better next week. I’d like to average 7 hours of sleep this week. Wish me luck.

Jul
26
2011
No One Likes Running, Except Maybe Me

Feeling Andy Roddick’s Pain

No one was more surprised or pleased by Andy Roddick’s run to the 2009 Wimbledon final than me. In the fifth set of the final, Andy had to serve second. With each service game, he had to hold on for dear life. 5-all, 6-all, 7-all, 8-all, 9-all, 10-all, 11-all, 12-all, 13-all, 14-all…ten times Andy held serve to stay in the match.

I played with my hair. I readjusted the pillow under my knees. I squinted at the television and willed Andy to hit another ace. I cared about the outcome too much to enjoy the match.

Finally a couple of errant forehands, Federer’s fifteenth major title, tears.

What if that was it, Andy’s last chance to win Wimbledon?

I glanced down at my elevated knee. I felt bad for Andy Roddick, but I knew my tears weren’t only for him.

Couch to Half Marathon to Couch

Nine months earlier, in October 2008, I started the Couch to 5K program for what seemed like the 800th time. In February 2009, I finally completed it.

In April 2009, I started training for my first half marathon, a goal I had set several years before. On June 14, 2009, I ran 9 miles and finally believed I could run the Presque Isle Half Marathon.

On June 27, 2009, the back of my left knee felt a little sore after my 10 mile training run. Two days before the 2009 Wimbledon final, I went out for my last long training run of 12 miles anyway. It felt fine, great actually…until I stopped running.

Once I slowed to a walk, I had to fling my left leg out straight to the side and around in order to move forward. When I leaned back and reached out my left hand to grab my ankle for a quad stretch, no amount of effort could make my leg bend that much. Once home, climbing each stair brought an audible, mechanical, just wrong click.

What about the race?

Some Stages of Grief

While Roddick kept holding serve, anything was possible. I still had a couple of weeks. Maybe if I kept my knee elevated, iced regularly, and rested it, I’d be OK for the half.

When Roddick lost, I was filled with dread, for him and for me. My doctor confirmed several days later with the words “fluid behind the kneecap…” and “four to six weeks of rest…” and when I still wasn’t hearing it, “I’m not going to forbid you to run, but I think you would be crazy to try it.”

The evening after I saw the doctor, I tried it anyway. I limped one mile on the treadmill at the gym just to be sure. And I was sure. I cried the whole way home. The day I had planned to fly to Erie, I kept checking the status of my flight until my plane landed in Erie without me on it. I checked the weather there on the morning of the race; perfect conditions.

More tears.

I have never shed as many tears as I did during the five months I couldn’t run, particularly during the two months it took to get any real answers about how serious my injury was.

No One Likes Running

I remember reading a blog post at Bodies in Motivation before my injury that really resonated with me. It was a motivational piece arguing that no one likes running so you just have to go out and do it instead of saying you hate it and you can’t.

I’d be lying if I said I hopped out of bed for each long run bright-eyed and bushy-tailed during the nine months I ran before I hurt myself. I’m a champion complainer. I’m sure most of my friends thought I hated running and was only doing it to lose weight given my capacity for bitching and moaning about it.

I’m not sure I would have disagreed with them either. I did start running to lose weight. It was hard. I did not particularly enjoy it at first. When the alarm went off at 6am on a Saturday, when the D.C. heat and humidity wilted me like a delicate flower, when I came across a hill, when I had to go to the bathroom and there wasn’t one, I’d mutter to anyone and no one: “Why do I do this?”

Why I Do This

The five months I couldn’t run answered that question. As happy as I was to be able to start running again after physical therapy, it’s still always hard to get myself out of my comfortable bed to exert myself. I still always take my sweet time “getting ready.” I still always have to force myself out the door. But once I get going something magical happens, and once I’m done I am so pleased with myself. Why do I run?

  • Freedom: Running represents time I give myself, with nowhere else to be, nothing else I have to do;
  • Efficiency: Even the slowest jogging pace keeps my heart rate in a good aerobic zone, while the fastest walking pace I can muster without my feet going numb doesn’t even yield the low-end of my target heart rate;
  • Exploration: Running has allowed me to see much more of the area in which I live and places I have visited;
  • Movement: I’m not particularly graceful or fast, but I love the feeling of being propelled only by my own power;
  • Pride: I love the accomplishment of setting out to do something difficult and then doing it. Every time I tackle a distance I haven’t tried before, I wonder can I do this? Then I’m amazed when I can. I feel so badass with the knowledge that Dave can drop me 10 miles from our house, and I can make it home in a couple of hours;
  • Peace: Running gives my usually frantic mind a much-needed rest, it gives me clarity and focus. It is almost like meditation for me. Running also makes me feel better generally. It’s not hard to tell when I haven’t run in a few days;
  • Results: I’ve been able to go from the couch to running 13.1 miles without stopping. I’ve been able to improve my 5K pace from 13 minute miles to about 10 minute miles. And yes, running has helped me lose weight and keep it off.

Jul
24
2011
Emergency Sleep Experiment

Even though I am a night owl and love the evenings and late nights as they stretch out before me, I need sleep more.

Since I started getting up earlier a few months ago, I’ve lost focus. I’m scatterbrained (more than usual!) and have difficulty making decisions. A couple of weeks ago, I missed my metro stop on the way to work, which I never do. Later that same commute, I walked into traffic turning into me because I thought the green arrow meant I could walk. Oops.

So my brain is mush.

I’m also cranky. If you know me, you know being cranky isn’t all that unusual for me, but I’ve been especially cranky. And also sensitive–quick to turn every interaction into a rejection of me as a person. Basically, a joy to be around (if anyone ever were around which isn’t often since no one likes me–see what I did there with the example sensitiveness?!?)

I’m also just sick and tired of everything. While it’s quite possible that some things in my life need shaking up (I’m looking at you, work), I’d rather think about this with a brain that works instead of one that forgets the meaning of important traffic signals.

Add to all that a week-long bout of left eyelid twitching followed by a most unwelcome four-day (and counting!) cluster headache focused near my left eye, and you’d think my body is trying to tell me something…

I’m still functioning, doing my job, living my life, getting by quite well, considering, but I don’t want to get by. I don’t want to live in crisis mode when there’s no crisis other than I can’t get my ass into bed.

So even though I’ve had no luck dealing with my compulsion to stay up late for over 20 years, this is an emergency. Since I’m a social scientist, I thought I could make this fun by turning it into an experiment.

Introducing the Emergency Sleep Experiment!

What would happen if I could just make myself go to bed earlier for a couple of weeks? Would I feel better? Would I have more energy? Would my focus improve? Would I stop being so cranky and sensitive? Would I stop hating people? Would this fucking cluster headache and eye twitching go away? Would there be world peace and a baby red panda delivered to my door?

I don’t know. Let’s find out, shall we?

The rules of the Emergency Sleep Experiment:

1.) Go upstairs by 11pm.

2.) No screens after 11pm (not even you, O Delectable iPad!).

3.) Lights out by midnight.

4.) Get up by 8am, even on weekends (trying to “catch” up on sleep during weekends backfires on me)

5.) Institute “Happy Fun Time” to delay gratification from weeknights to a weekend morning.

Number 5 is the critical piece. Sheer willpower (it’s 11pm, just go to bed!) isn’t going to work. So the idea behind “Happy Fun Time” is to “bank” time I now spend watching TV, blogging, etc… during the wee hours of my weekday evenings and moving that time to a weekend morning. When I don’t want to go to bed, hopefully it will work to tell myself I’ll be able to spend Saturday or Sunday morning doing whatever I damn well please. Hopefully the promise of the “Happy Fun Time” will get my ass out of bed on weekend mornings.

Starts tonight. So I need to sign off and enjoy my last hour before my new big girl bedtime. Wish me luck. Please feel free to share any suggestions.

Jul
23
2011
How I Get My Lazy Ass Out Of Bed

I’m So Tired, I Haven’t Slept A Wink…

Staying up too late is the worst thing I do to myself and I apparently have no willpower to stop it, as evidenced by about 20 years of being unable to stop it. Ironically, I love sleep. I just don’t seem to want to do it at 11pm (or midnight, or 1am). 

The Sleep Equation: Bedtime

My Lenten promise of getting into bed earlier and thus getting more sleep was a complete bust. During Lent my plan was to attack the first, and probably most important, part of the sleep equation: my bedtime. The idea was to get into bed by 11pm. That happened exactly zero times. I got into bed before midnight four times. My average bedtime in the time period before Lent was 1:07am. My average bedtime during Lent was 1:17am. Oops.

The Sleep Equation: Wake Time

Not surprisingly, I never want to get out of bed in the morning. My late mornings affect getting to work on time, how much I can accomplish on days off, and what time I’m tired at night (perpetuating the vicious cycle of sleeping in and then staying up late). I’m sick of feeling like a deadbeat, of missing out on weekend mornings with Dave, of running when it’s already sticky hot in the summer, of feeling behind all the time.

I subjected my Twitter followers to a daily update on my Lenten promise failings and on a day when I lamented being late to work, someone suggested moving my alarm clock across the room.

Enter Tocky, The Alarm Clock That Runs Away

Tocky is advertised as an alarm clock that will “jump from your nightstand and roll away to get you out of bed.” Dave actually got it for me for Christmas. I was 95 percent amused and 5 percent offended. OK, I get it, I’m a deadbeat!

I used it a couple of times in January, but was not impressed. I revisited Tocky during Lent and now I find it much more useful.

The first few times I used Tocky, I placed it on my nightstand, as recommended. This is a very dumb idea. No one’s reflexes are too slow to stop Tocky from jumping (falling, if we are being honest here) off their nightstand. Tocky never made the plummet to my shag carpet, so I concluded I was considerably smarter than Tocky and put it away until failing at Lent.

My first Lenten attempt involved putting Tocky on the floor on the side of the bed I use to get up, but far enough away that I wouldn’t be able to grab it. When Tocky went off the next morning, it rolled right to me. Dumb ass.

So then I put Tocky on the other side of the room. Success! Having to get out of bed, walk around the bed, and reach down to turn Tocky off turned out to be sufficient most mornings to stay out of bed.

Tocky Details

Tocky is expensive, he is $69 (yes, Tocky is a “he”). And quite frankly, given the way I use him, his $69 rolling capabilities are completely unnecessary. But the novelty of it adds some fun to the horror of getting out of bed in the morning.

One fun thing is you can upload MP3s to use as your alarm. You can also record a message, or you can just stick with the cute little electronic gurgling noises Tocky makes.

On the annoying side, the button used to set up Tocky is hard to press and it doesn’t always respond the first time. The dial used to change the clock and alarm times is very touchy. It either spins around uncontrollably fast or won’t respond at all.

If you really feel you need the rolling aspect of Tocky, keep in mind he doesn’t roll around very long, only for about 30 seconds. Lazy ass.

Also, the music option is misleading. While you can upload up to two hours worth of MP3s, Tocky shuts off after 10 minutes. So I suggest selecting two to three songs that will make you want to get out of bed.

Here is a video of my Tocky in action. “Run to the Hills” was an inspired choice, it seemed appropriate for a clock that’s supposed to run away from you and it’s pretty jarring first thing in the morning. As you can see, try as Tocky might, he’s no match for my shag carpet. I barely had to move my camera. He can move quite a bit more on a solid surface.

Results?

Tocky has definitely helped me get out of bed earlier. I’m no longer hitting snooze 800 times.

But I’m also getting less sleep now. I had hoped getting up earlier would eventually, naturally, push my bedtime back. That something would have to give if I were more tired. Unfortunately I’m even more stubborn than I thought. My bedtime hasn’t changed. So now instead of averaging about 7 hours of sleep per night (due mostly to hitting snooze on weekends), I’m down to an average of about 6 hours of sleep.

I miss my executive functioning.

Jul
15
2011
I Got No Patience and I Hate Waiting

Yesterday, when my dog wouldn’t come downstairs right away after I called him for his evening walk (what the hell, Chuck?), I realized the world is conspiring to make me ADD. My time management skills need work, and it is pretty easy for me to get sidetracked, I’ll admit it. But my distractibility is not all my fault. And I swear I wasn’t always like this.

I hate waiting. If I have access to anything even remotely interesting (let’s say for the sake of argument, the internet) while I wait, then I go off task.

While I waited for Chuck to get his fluffy ass downstairs yesterday, I got the idea for this post. I found some paper and a pen and started to jot down my thoughts before I forgot them. In the middle of this, Prince Charles Fluffbatten-Windsor finally decided it was time to walk. I made him wait. Apparently he doesn’t like to wait either, so he left the room. Vicious cycle perpetuated.

The ungodly slowness of my work PC has filled my soul with rage. It hates waking up in the morning even more than me. Each morning when I log on, it’s all “WHOA! You again? Back so soon? Hold up, you’re interrupting my REM sleep. I’m dreaming about crashing Outlook when you try to send an email it took you half an hour to craft.”

I hate wasting time, so waiting for my computer to respond to my commands for more than 30 seconds makes me mental. I’ve started angrily muttering to myself like a crazy person. This is charming, No really, take your time, I really don’t have time for this shit, I’d like to take you outside and beat you with a baseball bat, oh hi, Boss!

I start a task, my computer inevitably hangs, tempting me to do something else while I wait. Next thing I know, it’s an hour and a half later and my chai is cold, I have 12 browser tabs open, my iPad on my lap, and a finally-opened window on my PC I can’t remember the purpose of opening.

I wonder how much efficiency is lost due to whatever in the hell gremlin causes technology to screw with us. I guess I could make more effort to stay focused on the task at hand, but I just don’t believe anyone should have to focus on waiting.  Plus, they pay me too much to stare at the hourglass on my PC and seeth.

My home computer is starting to behave like this too (Macs, they just work!), only instead of an hourglass I get the spinning beach ball of death. I worked from home today and the beach ball spun in Firefox for 30 minutes when I tried to check my work email.

Maybe my computers are trying to tell me something about work?

Jun
7
2011
Of Picnics And Plateaus

Before I got married, my work colleagues threw me a party. One of the gifts was an insulated picnic backpack, which we never used until years later, after we adopted Chuck. Our first Memorial Day with Chuck, Dave suggested we have a picnic by the Potomac. The first picnic consisted of a very long walk to the picnic site, Dave’s homemade goopy brownies, and lots of Rolling Thunder.

Since 2005, the Memorial Day weekend picnic has been a tradition.

Dave’s picnic idea was brilliant. You see, I have a problem. I’m very good at planning, but I’m not so good at being in the moment. Several years ago I remember laughing out loud while watching an episode of “Inside the Actors Studio.” I think Ed Harris was talking about what it was like to work with Marcia Gay Harden in “Pollock” and he said that she was a great actress because “she was present.” That seemed like the stupidest thing I’d ever heard, of course she was present, how else could she have been in the movie? But now I sort of know what he meant.

This annual picnic is one of the few times I can think of when I just let myself be in the moment and relax–be present, if you will. We hang out on blankets, eat Dave’s delicious food, drink celebratory fizzy beverage, look at the water, watch Chuck eating his special treat, and coo over how adorable he is. For once, my mind isn’t somewhere else. I’m not watching the clock, wondering how long this is taking, worrying about my to do list and what I’m not doing because I’m doing this, or planning what I should do later.

The feeling I have during the picnic is glorious and I have to figure out how to feel this way more than a few hours per year.

Dave is a kick ass picnic provider. It’s one of our “cheat” occasions, when we don’t really worry about what we eat even though we both want to lose weight. This year, the menu consisted of:  lemon rosemary lamb with tzatziki, grilled zucchini, and Mediterranean orzo salad with feta vinaigrette (not pictured: sparkling lemonade, my Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies, and a frozen Kong for Chuck).

Here is this year’s portrait of my special little family.

Since part of the tradition is taking pictures, this means we have pictures of us around the same time every year. Given the title of this post, you may see where I’m going.

I’ll start with the good news, a set of before and after pictures. On the left is my not so glamorous before (this photo makes me cringe) at my highest adult weight ever. On the right is my glamour shot from this year.

I know these shots aren’t set up the same, but there are almost always differences in before and after pictures that aren’t related to actual weight changes. Have you ever noticed how miserable the person looks in their before photo? The before never involves good hair or a smile, while the after photo involves both. At least some of the difference is attitude.

I wasn’t at all pleased with the way I looked on the left. I threw my hair back and put on a hoodie to cover myself even though it was hot. And I gave Dave a stupid look assuming I’d just delete the picture.

In the after, I’m much happier with how I look. I bothered to do my hair and wear something a little more photo-ready. And I smiled and posed in a not totally hunched over trying to hide myself way.

But there’s also a 15 pound difference. Trust me.

So what’s the bad news? The picture on the left was taken three years ago. I lost the 15 pounds between 2008 and 2009. Since August 2009, my weight has stayed stubbornly the same.

Don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled I’ve kept the weight off for two years. But I wasn’t done. I have been actively trying to lose a little more the whole time. Since August 2009, I trained for and completed: two 5Ks, a 10K, two 10-milers, and a half marathon. While I can’t prove causality, the amount of exercise I do points to my problem being diet. Fuck.

In the weeks before Easter, Dave and I tried eating based at least loosely on the Primal Blueprint. We didn’t follow it religiously (for example, we didn’t give up dairy), but it was still a pretty drastic change, particularly the no added sugar thing. But it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be and I lost about 3 pounds pretty quickly.

But then Easter happened. I planned on having a free for all over Easter for about a week, but the Easter chocolate joyride lasted a full month, courtesy of my miscalculating how much chocolate we could consume during my Mom’s visit and my Mom bringing more than we had requested. By the time the carnage was over, those 3 pounds were back and it was time to plan the Memorial Day picnic. I made cookies and had a cookie every day for a week until they were gone.

I have a special occasion problem. And there’s a special occasion ALL. THE. TIME.

Valentine’s Day, Easter, Memorial Day, July 4th, my birthday in August, Dave’s birthday in September, our anniversary in October, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Mom’s visiting, I’m on vacation, I had a tough day at work, I had a good day, it’s a full moon on Tuesday.

I don’t want to live in a world in which I can never have another cupcake, but it’s way too easy for me to justify a treat.  There has to be a happy medium somewhere and I need to find it. Because it’s crazy to run the distances I have run over the past two years only to support a cupcake habit.

How often do you justify treats?

Apr
13
2011
My Mind On My Money And My Money On My Mind

Does this spreadsheet make me look anal?

Biggie said “mo’ money, mo’ problems,” but I say “mo’ money, earlier retirement” (unlike Jay-Z, I’m serious about retirement), so we started working with a financial planner several years ago. One of the first things he asked us to do was create a budget. At the time, he didn’t know the kind of behavior he was enabling.

(When I was younger I got a tee-shirt for my birthday that said “Does anal-retentive have a hyphen?”. Everyone at my party roared with laughter, but I wasn’t 100% sure what that term meant or how it applied to me. Didn’t sound good, so I looked it up (because, as it turns out, I am anal), and saw that the definition included the following helpful explanatory terms: meticulous, compulsive, and rigid. Yes, yes, and yet still more yes.)

You could say I’m compelled to document things. You never know when you might need information on things you did, food you ate, or money you spent several months or even years ago, right? Dave likes to tease me when I’m talking excitedly about some new idea by saying “I think you need a spreadsheet for that.” And I probably do.

Our financial planner wanted us to track our spending for a few months. But I created the following budget template and have entered every cent we spend into it since 2005.

The problem

This is admittedly old school and time consuming. For years, I entered transactions several times a month, sometimes during a Friday lunch break and often catching up on weekends. This worked for years, until it didn’t. Demands on my time increased and, I don’t know, maybe I got a life or something, because I just stopped feeling like spending significant chunks of my weekends catching up on this task.

Last year, I stuffed my expandable zip envelope with receipts until it no longer closed. The stack of monthly statements grew higher. At the end of each weekend without having made any progress, I moved the budget task to the next weekend in Good Todo. That is how I came to spend over 16 hours of my Christmas vacation entering our 2010 spending into the spreadsheet.

SIXTEEN HOURS. Merry Fucking Christmas.

Frustrating when I stopped to consider that’s only about 20 minutes a week if I’d just kept up with it throughout the year. But here’s the thing, it’s already April and I’ve entered only a handful of receipts and the January statements so far. So I have considered saying screw it, five years is enough, I know what we spend, we are OK, I quit. But I am compelled to keep tracking our spending, it gives us piece of mind. Our optional and incidental expenses are not very predictable, and even our regular spending sometimes surprises us, so keeping the spreadsheet helps us stay on track.

For example, did you know that although our household consists of two people and a dog, we spend a third of what the Duggars spend on food each month at the grocery store (assuming their restaurant budget is separate, otherwise we spend TWO-thirds what the Duggars spend on food each month)? Of course you didn’t know this and we didn’t either, until we tracked our spending. There is no way we would ever have guessed we spent that amount.

The key to saving money on groceries???

Which of course is the key ingredient of this…

Keeping the budget spreadsheet also helps us decide when we can splurge and how much. For example, a few weeks ago I happened upon the most adorable bag (see below, adorable right?). While it cost more than I usually spend on such a thing , we made an instant “connection” (if I were watching the Bachelor right now, Dave would tell me to take a drink). I loved it, I knew how I would use it, and I knew we could afford it. So I bought it and didn’t feel one bit guilty or anxious about it.

The Solution?

So I decided to continue to keep the budget spreadsheet, but do some research into options for making the task more efficient. Our financial advisor suggested that using an online system like Mint might make my life easier. I didn’t think that my budgeting needs were very demanding, but apparently they are because I haven’t found anything suitable.

What do I want in a budgeting service?

  1. Automatic updates for my key accounts (checking, credit cards)
  2. Customizability of budget categories
  3. Ability to retain ownership of my own data

I signed up for Mint and spent a little time setting up my key accounts and looking at the different features. I don’t need most of what they offer–fancy budgeting tools, colorful charts, or emails warning me that I spent more than usual on clothing last month (I know, I bought a purse, I was there!).

What I really want is for someone else to update my budget spreadsheet for me. In lieu of that (!), I would settle for being able to export my budget information in a way that allows me to easily recreate my spreadsheet or something close to it. But Mint is apparently the Apple of online budgeting and does not want you to be able to manipulate your own data. There isn’t an option for exporting your budget, only individual transactions. Organizing an export of transactions into a useful form (you know, by category and date) would take even longer than my current process.

Mint’s connection to my bank is also wonky. Mint wasn’t able to update my checking account transactions for over two months, but today it magically worked. So even if I were willing to give up on the exporting function, I would not be confident that Mint would have up to date bank transactions.

Unless I find a tool that meets all of my needs, I am stuck entering all of my transactions manually. Am I missing a great tool that offers all three of my critical features? What tools do you use to track your spending?

Apr
4
2011
Cherry Blossom Race Report

In December I entered the lottery for the Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run. I figured there was no way I’d get in two years in a row, but random selection is funny in its randomness. So I spent another winter training for a long distance race (10 miles is long distance for me anyway).

I think I felt more pressure this time. Last year my goal was to finish. This year I had to beat last year’s time, I wanted to be at least five minutes faster. The pre-game was a mix of excitement and anxiety.

The excitement: last year I was in the slowest of the six starting corrals, with a purple bib number. This year, my corral assignment based on my previous time was the fifth instead of the sixth, which meant my bib number would be green, my favorite color.

The anxiety: Besides the anxiety I have about getting up way earlier than I want to on a Sunday and getting to the race on time, and then, you know, having to run 10 miles, there was also this…I awoke at 4:30 Saturday morning with phantom right shoulder pain. No idea what the hell caused it, but the internet said it could be a heart attack. Couldn’t wait to run 10 miles in that condition!

So I don’t keep you in suspense, I’ll tell you that I didn’t suffer a heart attack during the race and I did finish. Here is my race report.

1.) I don’t think there’s going to be a next time (although I always say that in the days immediately following a race). Last year, the weather was perfect but the blossoms were gone. This year was a little chilly, but the cherry blossoms were at peak bloom. Running around East Potomac Park surrounded by puffy cherry blossoms on both sides was lovely. So I think I’ve lived it. If I keep pushing my luck, I think I’ll be sorry (the weather the day before the race this year was HAIL).

2.) I had to frantically rush to the start again this year. I seem to underestimate the length of the walk from my favored parking area–almost a mile. I made it to the starting line with only a couple of minutes to spare (they close the start at 8am). So much for being in a faster starting corral this year!

3.) Last year, my nemesis was the juggler. He passed me at one of the last water stops and I made it my goal to beat him, but I failed. Can I just tell you how demoralizing it is to get beat by someone who juggled while running? Pretty demoralizing. This year, in a race of over 15,000 people, I managed to start at the same time as the fucking juggler. After the fifth call of “yea, juggler!” from the crowd, I ran faster because there was no way I was listening to that for 10 miles.

4.) The panic of the start and the juggler turned out to be useful, because I’d gone at least a couple of miles or so before I started thinking about what I was doing.

5.) While running across the Memorial Bridge, I got to listen to a woman talking smack to her friend behind me about how the course had been changed from last year. She kept insisting that the course went over the bridge twice last year. Her friend kept arguing (correctly) that she was mistaken, but she kept insisting she was right, using such compelling arguments as “no, we were here last year, remember?”

6.) I believe that I was at mile 3 when I started daydreaming about the sour cream pancakes Dave promised to make me when we got home. I pictured myself lounging on the chaise with my feet up eating pancakes and watching Butler beat VCU (which I’d DVR’ed the night before). But I had 7 miles left.

7.) Around the 4 mile point, an ambulance had to get through the crowd of runners. I saw the woman on the stretcher and she was conscious, so hopefully she was OK.

8.) Around the 4.5 mile point, my right shoulder started to hurt a little, reminding me that I’d forgotten to pack an Advil for this possibility.

9.) I got through the next couple of miles by focusing on the blossoms around the Tidal Basin, and eating my energy chews without choking to death. When I got past the Tidal Basin area, I felt like it was almost done.

10.) It was not almost done. I was starting to feel some despair creep in when I realized I was about to reach the turnaround at the tip of Hains Point. Praise Jesus, now it was almost over.

11.) While the very last bit leading to the finish is flat, there is an annoying hill within the last 1000 meters. It was on this hill that super annoying spectators, let’s call them morons, decided to run across the course to get to the other side. Most of the morons had the good sense to stay the hell away from me, but one moron darted right into my path. Let me remind you that I was less than 1000 meters from the damn finish…and running up a hill. I really didn’t want to break-a my stride, but if I hadn’t I would have smashed right into this moron. She is lucky I didn’t have a weapon, because I would have killed her on the spot. My suggestion to the race organizers for next year–sharpshooters to take out the morons on this part of the course.

12.) At this point I started looking for Dave and making sure that I was on the right side so he could get my picture. I finally found him and he looked befuddled, as if he didn’t realize that I was running in this thing. I smiled, said “Hi!,” and waved as I passed by. “Shit,” he muttered.

13.) On to the finish. Last year, the professional photographers didn’t get a picture of me crossing the finish. This year I think I was foiled again. I came in right behind two people who turned out to be a couple (I hope) who felt the need to cross the finish line holding hands. Once I realized this I tried to get around them, but it was too late. Oh well, hopefully some of Dave’s pictures turned out OK.

14.) I met my time goal, finishing 5:35 faster this year.

15.) I beat the juggler!

We’ve come to the time in a race report for the photos. I would like to say first of all that Dave is a very generous and supportive husband. Both years, he went with me to the race, which means he had to get up as early as me. He stays the whole time and waits for me to finish, even though it takes me almost two hours to run this thing and it was cold this year. I am very grateful for the love and support.

Dave wasn’t happy with the pictures he took of me last year (although he got some great shots of the juggler and also brightly said to me after the race “did you know that a juggler beat you?”), so this year he was serious. Last year we hadn’t coordinated and I ran to the finish on the left, while he was perched on the right. This year I would run to the finish on the right side. Dave also took a lot of practice shots while he waited for me to approach. He got some great shots of the talented runners* who finished before me (about 3/4 of the field actually, reality check!).

Check out this great close up shot!

And how about this great wider-angle, multi-runner action shot, complete with cute costumed people?!

More great multi-runner action!

Dave took two pictures of me. Here is the first (I am the one in yellow).

And there’s this one, my favorite of the two.

That’s it! I guess there’s always next time…oh shit, I said I wasn’t doing this again.


——–

* I’m sharing some of the good shots Dave took because I think it adds to the post content. I obviously don’t know who any of these people are so I can’t get their permission to publish these photos first. I tried to use only those pictures that I thought wouldn’t embarrass the subject. If by some miracle you have stumbled onto my little blog, and are in one of these shots and would rather not have your photo here, please email me and I will remove the photo).

Mar
21
2011
Playlist Week 10: Never Let Me Slip, Cause If I Slip, Then I’m Slippin

I’m challenging myself to get through a whole shuffle of my music collection on my iPod without skipping. Then I write about what I heard each week.

I didn’t get through many songs this past week since I only worked three days. I took some vacation time for a visit with my Mom and to go to the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament (CBS and the NCAA want me to call these the “second and third” rounds now that there are more play-in games, but I hate change) at the Verizon Center. The two Butler games that we saw were very exciting. And I’m not going to mention how adorable Brad Stevens is because that gets on Dave’s nerves.

The title of the post this week comes from “Nuthin But A G Thang” by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. As a metro commuter, I don’t get a chance to drive much. But recently I had to drive to a friend’s house and got to rock out with Sirius on the way. I heard several great songs during that drive including “Nuthin’ But A G Thang.” I also heard Bobby Brown’s “My Prerogative” from the very beginning and was overly excited about it. That song came out during my sophomore year of high school and over 20 years later I still remembered most of the words, right down to “Yo Teddy, kick it like this.” Maybe I’ll download that song after the shuffle is over, you know, if I feel like it (I mean, I made this money, you didn’t, right Ted?). Hopefully I sounded a little better than this guy singing…

One of my favorite lines in “Nuthin But A G Thang” is the one from the post title, you know, about the slipping. When I googled the lyrics to make sure I had the line right, I found someone who called this line one of the worst in rap. I disagree, I think Dre has deeply and profoundly captured what happens to me when I allow myself to slip on something difficult. One slip, then I’m slipping, so I can’t let myself slip. This is deep, know what I’m saying? OK, I’m just very amused by this line.

So how is my sleep challenge to be in bed by 11pm going? It’s a good thing I don’t believe that doing this as a Lenten promise will get me closer to God because I’m failing (I guess I should say slippin). Almost two weeks in and I haven’t been in bed by 11 once. The first two nights I was in bed before midnight, which is a vast improvement over my usual bedtime, but lights out was basically my usual time because I messed around on my iPad for awhile. I had hoped that physically being in the bed would make it easier for me to give in to the exhaustion and go to sleep, but apparently not. The siren call of the brightly screened electronics is very seductive. Then I had to work late a lot to prepare for the vacation time and reverted right back to carving an evening for myself out of my sleep time, so I’m back to 1am again.

I hoped to get back on track during my vacation time, but with Mom visiting and late nights watching basketball, and the ability to sleep in since I didn’t have to work, I’ve been staying up just as late as before vacation and I’ve been getting out of bed later. I go back to work tomorrow and I’m going to try moving my alarm clock so that I can’t turn it off without getting out of bed.

Here is the weekly playlist summary:

* Songs listened to this week: 71

* Completed: 47%

* Number of double or triple shots: zippo

* Percentage of songs that came up during running that were so totally not helpful in motivating my running: 14%

The song “Starship Edelweiss” was very motivating to my running, except for when it made me start laughing.

Speaking of laughing while running, there was also Ween’s “Fat Lenny.” I almost used the line “Fat Lenny knows what it is to be Fat Lenny,? ’cause he’s Fat Lenny” as the post title this week.

* Song that disproves my assertion that I don’t like Peter Gabriel-era Genesis songs that I haven’t heard Phil Collins sing: “Dancing With the Moonlit Knight” At least I don’t have any memory of ever hearing Phil sing this.

* Number of songs that I’m so totally deleting:  at least 1 (LL Cool J “Cheesy Rat Blues,” I did NOT have to rip all of Mama Said Knock You Out)

* Random memory:  The Judybats “All Day Afternoon”

I don’t exactly remember when I first tried running, but I know I ran off and on in college. The Judybats’ Pain Makes You Beautiful CD fueled many a happy run and walk along the river from campus to Genesee Valley Park.  Occasionally there would be a sunny pleasant day and listening to this while being outside would make me happy. The weather on Friday this week was so lovely and running that morning reminded me of those sunny days in fall and spring during college.