On Moving, Cats, and Finally Being Healed.

Okay, so we moved into the new house last week. Here are some pictures, from the web site. I haven't taken my own pictures yet. The furniture in the pictures isn't ours, and the Darth Vader fridge has been replaced with a white one.

The guy that sold us the house left us a bottle of champagne and a note that said, "Welcome home, we hope you'll be as happy here as we have been." They also left us a map of the back yard, and where all the stuff is planted. How nice is that?

So. We're living here temporarily while Mini Baboo is in Texas. When he returns, we have to return to the other house and stay there until he 1) graduates, or 2) I find someone in his school district who doesn't mind having a surly teenager staying with them. Uh-huh. Good luck with all that.

In any case, we moved starting last Saturday, and the second trip included me, my Honda Fit, assorted small boxes and bags and such, and THREE COMPLETELY FREAKED OUT CATS. Oh, yes.

Have you had the joy of traveling with three cats in a tiny little car? Then, my friend, you haven't lived. We had one cat carrier, and Hissy went in there. The smallest cat, Whitney, hid in the litter box in the back and mewed quietly, continuously, and desperately. And then Lily. Lily the Hysteric, the largest and heaviest cat screamed at the top of her lungs: a loud, desperately hysterical scream that was like a car alarm going off while she climbed on my head and tried to figure out WHY she was stuck inside this tiny, moving box with me.

When we got to the house I let them out into the master bedroom and closed the door for a while so that they could calm down. They ran under the bed and didn't come out for nearly 12 hours. Yikes.

Our new house abuts open space and the Cibola forest and every once in a while, the cats suddenly all look up and out toward the back yard, ears perked, listening intently, and then I think to myself, what's out there? never mind. maybe I don't want to know what's out there.

<-- Now, this is an aerial view of the house. This map is maybe 3/4 mile long. See the red A? That's our house. See the area to the right? That's open space, for about 1/4 mile, and then there's the Cibola National Forest boundary. See all those paths? Those are running and mountain biking paths, which is how we found the house: they put a "For Sale" sign out facing the path.

It's at about 6000 feet above sea level, and climbs up within a mile of the house to about 7000 feet, unless you count Sandia Peak, which is a couple miles off, and goes up to 10,000 feet. I'm not converting any of that to meters today. I'm feeling lazy.

We've been living here all week with the cats. I bought a bag of cereal. Frosted Mini Wheats. This is a tremendous thing - I rarely buy cold cereal because Mini-Baboo will pour it all at once into a large mixing bowl and eat it in front of the TV and then it's gone, so what's the point? But I bought some, and it was with no small amount of glee that I got home and--it was still there.

Wow. And the peace, my God, the peace. I won't go on and on. But my God. The. Peace.

I did an 8-mile pavement run, the longest run on pavement that I've done since August when I was injured. There is a wide, paved running path about 1/4 from the new house that goes upgrade for several miles, and I ran it for 4 and then turned around and ran back. I felt fine, no pain, no worries. Finally! We have a 4-day weekend coming up, and I'm planning a long combination trail/pavement run as I ramp up for the Ghost Town in - ulp - three weeks! The only question left is, did I heal in time? Will I be able to do this 38.5-mile run??

Famouser: I will say Happy New Year on Bigun and Tacboy's Podcast. I'll post a link when I get one. I have no Internet at the new house so I'm out of a lot of loops.

So I started doing the 5 or 6 small meals a day thing, which helps me control my eating more. I'm less likely to eat impulsively if I have a small amount of food throughout the day, and my willpower is stronger. I know it's healthier, but I've never been able to pull it off because I'd be teaching classes all day, so it was HUGE breakfast, small fast midday meal, HUGE FATTENING and DESPERATELY LARGE AFTER WORK SNACK, and then supper. I could maintain this crappy eating style because I was on my feet all day. Now I'm on my butt all day.


So far, the scale hasn't budged. But I feel thinner. Maybe that's just hunger. Couple of things.

1) There are two required meetings that I go to each week and so far, everytime I've gone they've had some sort of food there. It's not, like, low-fat yogurt and granola. No, it's like muffins, or bagels and Shmear or birthday cake. Yikes. I've found that if I eat a quick snack before the meeting it's much easier to say, "No thanks," I'm tempted to say, if asked, for my birthday, I'd like a nice tofu salad and bowls so that everyone can share.

2) There are a distressing amount of people here with large bowls of candy on their desks. It's always a huge variety of candy, too, meaning that no matter how quickly I avert my eyes, they are bound to settle on something that I truly L-L-LOVE. Everytime I see one of these bowls, I want to throttle their owner.
DON'T YOU KNOW? Can't you tell? How poor my willpower is? PUT THIS AWAY!

Or, maybe I'll just put on my big girl panties and deal with it. It's temptation. When I'm not trying to cut 15 pounds for a 64K run I might try one now and then. Meanwhile, I have to learn that not everything that tastes good has to be eaten nowNOWNOW and, I can abstain.

3) The way the small meal thing works is that you don't skip the small meals. EVER. Yesterday I was to have lunch with a friend, and she was about an hour later than I expected. By the time she showed up, I was ready to gnaw on my arm. I felt sick and angry at the world and thinking to myself, Oh, so this is hunger. Hunger sucks.

4) I had SparkPeople to make a little quick strength routine for me, using my bodyweight. It includes exercises I have traditionally avoided, like lunges. So, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I shut the door for 15 minutes in the morning and again in the afternoon, and do them in my 6 x 12 office. Everything thinks the decorative rug I put down is just pretty, but what it is is very cushiony for doing floor exercises. I've arranged furniture to do this. The routine is simple, 2 sets of 12-15 reps:

• Pushups, Plank (60 seconds hold, not reps), back extension, crunches, and crunches with a twist (morning)
• Forward lunges, squats, Calf raises, then stretching (afternoon)

Tuesdays and Thursdays, I run during lunch. M-W-F I'm going to try to speedwalk during lunch. Sweet Baboo insists that I should be running more, but I'm also running Friday evenings and Sundays, so I'm okay, I think. Occasionally, I'll probably miss a workout, and once the days get longer and start heating up I'll have to switch running to the morning before work, I guess. For now, this works.

BTW, Sweet Baboo did get the promotion. Shhhhhh. It hasn't been formally announced yet.

I bought this new oatmeal that we found at the local grocery story, it's Kroger brand Active Lifestyle Oatmeal. It had a lot of fiber and was on sale and had enticing pictures on the front. Go ahead and skip it; it's fairly bland. I'll finish what we bought, but I like Quaker's Simple Harvest oatmeal much better.

I'm learning a lot about psychotic disorders and symptoms, and pretty soon they'll begin training me on doing neuropsychological assessment, which sounds very cool. Meanwhile, I accidentally left my door open about a foot today and SMILE! guy stopped and talked to me for nearly 20 minutes. Of all the skills I've learned so far, extricating myself from conversations for which I do not have time are not one of them. Need to study this.

...

Oh, Well.

So, the people weren't ready to accept our price. They counter offered with a price that was still about 40% above market value. Their agent sent us several comps to justify what they were asking, but all her comps were custom homes, and this is a nicely updated late 80s tract home. Big difference. We said no. Their "counter" was pretty ridiculous. They'll sell it, eventually, but probably not for that price. Meanwhile, they'll be paying utilities and payments. More power to them.

So, we'll keep looking around. We are still getting this house ready for an eventual transition, and that includes 2 estimates each from roofing companies (we have a couple of broken roof tiles, no leaking or anything), and some painting and other odds and ends. Today will be a parade of workers trooping in and out to provide estimates. One of them will be answering the burning question: why is there water in the bottom of my dishwasher AND my refrigerator?

I know that appliances, "aren't made like they used to be" but these are 4 years old. I suspect that the fact that Mini-Baboo's main chores are kitchen-based this has something to do with all this. For instance, he made eggs while cleaning the kitchen, in the microwave. Didn't put anything over them. They splattered all over, and then he just left the bowl and splattered egg in their to dry. And don't get my started on his bathroom. Teenaged boys, I'm sorry to say, are disgusting. But you know, it's all good: just 6 more months and then it's "Anchors aweigh, my boys, anchors aweigh!"

Weight: 168
Mood: Cranky.
Other stuff: My back hurts and I feel old.

Rumors of my impending silliness are true.

Well, Sweet Baboo has announced our intention to do the Las Vegas Marathon in about a week, and after much consideration, I've decided that everything I've done this year has been way too serious. Thus, I will also be joining the Running Elvi.


However, since I am a girly girl (ironic, given my insistence on dressing like a boy when I was younger. Now I'm all, like, girly girl. A girly girl who does triathlon. ) I will be going as Priscilla.

Think of the Viva Las Vegas Elvis, but instead of pants, I'll be wearing a red mini skirt, white running tights and a white rhinestone leather belt.


There is this woman named Misty (fanTASTIC name) who makes running Elvi costumes, and she's already provided the dress.

The Elvis glasses and white leather rhinestone belt are on order.

Then, there is the wig.

Yes, yes, yes. The. Wig.

I found and ordered an auburn bouffant wig, but haven't received it yet in the mail yet, so you'll have to rely on Mr. Photoshop to do the imagining for you:

Wait for it.

That's it. No more pictures until the day of the race. (Yeah, I'm a tease)

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I'm Thankful for my Oven

Alternate title: A White Trash Thanksgiving.

The time: Thanksgiving, 1992. I was a college student, but not your ordinary one, oh, no. Despite my insistence that I, Am, Lazy, I tend toward the type of impulsive decisions and movements that really bite me in the ass and force me to work harder than I need.

And so it was that as this particular Thanksgiving day approached, I was a 26-year-old, full-time college student at the University of South Dakota. I was divorced, with a 1-year-old, a 3-year-old, and a 7-year-old. I did not receive child support, and made too much money from my 20-hour-per week, minimum-wage workstudy, to qualify for welfare payments.

To say we were poor is a significant understatment. I used part of a student loan to put $500 down on the house that we lived in. The total price on the contract-for-deed: $2,500. I was on food stamps, child care assistance, heating assistance, and every other type of assistance I could find to get me through college and DONE.

On this particular Thanksgiving, I was given a very large turkey by a local charity, along with all the basics needed to put together a good Turkey Day feast.

Except that, well, I didn't have an oven. I didn't even have a large pot to boil it in, but that was besides the point: who has boiled turkey on Thanksgiving?

I had a range, of sorts - a friend of mine had clued me into it. She found it in a vacant lot with weeds grown up around it, a 1945 model that "looked like it should work." I actually got that thing loaded and drove it home, slowly, sticking out of the trunk of my 1980 Olds Delta 88. For FREE.

I got it home and I rigged some house wiring so that it was on the same circuit as the electric dryer I'd paid $25 for that, one day, gave a huge BANG! and flames sorta, well, shot out of the back of it. Yada,yada,yada, I took the back off and found a lot of charred something, and over $15 in change. As I've said before, my life has been interesting.

Anyhoo, the range and dryer were direct-wired in to the same circuit which is kind of dangerous and definitely illegal in most places, but I was "country" so it was okay.
I could never use them at the same time or somewhere a fuse would blow, but at least I could use them. However, unfortunately once in place I found that only two of the burners worked and the oven didn't work at all, but hey! I had a stove!

Now a friend of mine had an old Coleman grill that her husband had accidentally hit with the truck, and asked if I wanted it. She swore I could cook my turkey on it, given enough foil wrapped around it. It was pretty dented and the legs were trashed, but the lid sealed and so I set it up in my front yard on cinder blocks (no, I'm not making this up) and on Thanksgiving day, 1992, I fired up the coals.

For the next 5-6 hours I tended the turkey that I had wrapped in an entire roll of heavy-duty aluminum foil. I would set a timer and go outside every 40 minutes or so in my parka and snow pants (November, South Dakota) to turn the bird and pointedly ignore any of the 200 fellow townspeople who drove by just a little too slowly to stare at that crazy woman.

But anway. My friend who swore that this would work also came by, amazed, because, well, she'd never actually done it, and was curious to see if it actually worked. There I was: occasionally turning it until juices started leaking through the foil. I guessed it must be done, and dontcha know that eventually, it was, and it was delicious. The meat was falling off the bone, it was so done. But not something I'd care to repeat. A large pan in an oven inside the house is so much more, well, civilized. But if you want to try it, more power to you.

So the moral of the story is, I'm thankful for my oven, even if I don't eat turkey any more.

PS: Animals are friends, not food (you know I had to say it.)

PPS: Now it's your turn: tell me what weird thing are you thankful for?

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Things I just happen to know today.

1. They opened up a limited number of parking spots visitor's lot at my school for teachers. First come, first served. This is HUGE because it means I can haul my crap a much shorter distance to the classroom I don't have. So I speed in every morning to get one of these highly coveted spots. It is, at the same time, pathetic, because it means that my major perks are now a parking spot and a padded chair.

2. I'm SOOOOO not ready for Soma next weekend. I haven't been able to stay on a bike more than 40 miles at a stretch without getting completely bored, and besides, my ladyparts hurt all over again. The only thing that helps me with that is estrogen creme. But estrogen is a performance reducer, and packs on fat. So my choices are between thickening and moistening up the skin in, um, the area of interest, which makes cycling more pleasant but adds extra bodyfat and slows me down, or skip the estrogen and have a very sore hoo-hoo. I haven't decided yet. I was hoping to beat last year's time, but hope is fading. I just want to beat the cutoff.

3. I've bought a motherboard for Sweet Baboo's computer. Now I've gone and done it.

4. Now that I'm in my 40's, I don't lose pounds per week. I lose ounces per month. Being in my 40's sucks.

5. My arm hurts. Yesterday it was my lats. Today it's my bicep. The upper body stuff is new to me; on Pirate's recommendation I'm working on the assisted pullup and assisted dip thingy, and various other exercises. I can only describe them as bicept cable thingies, tricep pull-down thingies, and various bendy things on a half ball thingy. As I said, I'm new to this.

So my upper body workout goes like this: I walk over to a machine, say, the assisted dip/pullup thingy, all butch in my tank top, bandana, and m-dot tat. I set it on nearly the most assistance one can possibly get (because I'm just a T-rex. You know the ones, they have a huge rear end and legs and tiny little noodle arms? Yep, that's me.)
So, after I struggle through half of them, stop for a little while, panting, and struggle through the other half until my vision is sparkly and I feel dizzy, I get down. I drink some water and do some assisted pushups, because damned if I can do the "real" ones.
Meanwhile the 70-year old woman who's been knitting takes the machine I've abandoned, resetting it with far less assistance/more weight.
Last night I tried to swim. Nungh-unh. I did about 10oo meters and quit, because my arms were just trashed.

6. I'm enjoying my hills runs. I've started running hills around where I live. I miss the flat, beautiful bosque, but I think the hills will be good for me. My legs hurt like hell for a couple hours afterward, but then that fades and I just walk stiffly for a couple days. The mornings are crisp (30's and 40's) and it's awesome.

7. My students asked me how old I was this week, so I told them. The look of horror on their face when I said, "forty-two and a half" was priceless. As though I told them I had leprosy. One of them finally said, "Gawd, you're older than my mother!"

8. Tomorrow I'm headed over to Pirate's house of illness to do some spinning and get some saddle time in and watch a movie. Sweet baboo is worried about the illness thing, but I work around teenage germ factories all day so I'm pretty sure my blood serum is about 99% antibodies. I'll be fine. And if not, I'll have a ready-made excuse for doing poorly at Soma.

...

Busy day.

Busy day planned.

I'm taking Sweet baboo to the airport this morning so he can officiate at a triathlon in Dallas. Then, I'm taking mini-baboo over to the high school so he can go to his cross country meet. This means I'm home alone for nearly an entire day.

It's rare that I'm left with nothing but the ticking of the clock and the sound of the cats scratching in the cat box. At least, I hope it's the cat box.

But I have so much to do. I figure first, I'll take an 8-hour nap alternate between working on my paper (yes, The Paper continues to plague me and haunt my dreams in its unfinished state) while taking periodic breaks to Eat some macaroni and cheese work on cleaning my room. I vowed that I would clean this the last time Sweet Baboo was out of town, but then something terrible happened. I got lazy.

Around noon I'll wake up, maybe get dressed take a break from cleaning and the paper to head over to NMHU to see what my professor has to say about it. So far, all I've gotten is an ever-unhelpful, "your title page is not in APA format." Who gives a $hit about that? Formatting your TITLE PAGE should be the last worry or concern. I hoping that she has comments about the content when I pick it up.

Anyway, All this while an assorted of old movies and "House," season 3 uplifting music plays in the background. After I've gotten tired of watching TV for 6 hours finished the first two sections of my paper and cleaned my side of the room, I'll probably take another nap be on the trainer most of the afternoon, while waiting for Mini Baboo to call and say, "come pick me up."
If I get the first two sections done before 2, I'll watch some more TV start working on my dossier.

FYI, My "dossier" is this nightmarish thing that the state of New Mexico came up with a few years back so that anyone who has been teaching for at least 6 years and has a master's degree can prove that they can 1) read 2) write, and 3) teach. In other words, I will write a very long paper, complete with examples of student work, that I can do what I've been doing for about 8 years. I don't have to do it. Unless, that is, I want a raise. Meh.
Since it is such a big undertaking. I've taken a leave of absence from the counseling center where I work part time until after December to give me time to finish the dossier and the paper and defend my paper.

My incentive to getting all this done today is so that Sunday I can go to the Church of the Dusty Trail. In other words, after a solid breakfast at 3 am or so, I'll lay down for a couple hours and then around 6 am, head for a 15-mile run on the mean (graded, but unpaved) streets of Rio Rancho.

At some point, I'll turn east and watch the "Farewell Mass Ascension." This week has been the balloon fiesta, and Sunday is the last day. It's supposed to be clear, and in the upper 30's or low 40's. Bliss!

After all that I shall celebrate with a margarita, cookies, and a can of frosting by making myself a Recoverite smoothie. With ice creme. With sherbert.

...

More prep for the off season goals.

So, they don't call me GeekGirl for nothin'. When I was working on my first master's degree, I loved my statistics class. I loved my research class. Wanted to marry my research class.
I especially love 'elegant' social science research studies, those very simple experiments that have powerful and compelling results.

E.g., this study, which was reported on CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/diet.fitness/09/21/kd.mindless.eating/index.html?iref=newssearch where they painted chips red and watched how it affected people with the munchies.

I totally dig this! I found that whenever I pull a handfull of stuff out and put it into a bowl, I'll eat it until it's gone...and then that's it. But if I eat out of a bag, I'll eat the bag until it's gone. I just become this mindless automaton, digging handfuls out of whatever and then munching it...digging and munching...digging and munching....

So I headed for WalMart tonight and got another refill of snacks for keeping at work, my last 2-month supply having run out. If I don't have something there, I will lose my willpower and head for the school cafeteria. And you know where that leads. Nachos, cheese pizza, little debbie nutty buddies (otherwise known as, "food of the gods")...

I also picked up some Southwestern egg beaters, on advice from J-Wim, and will be trying it tomorrow. I'd already tried the Vegetable (it has bells peppers and onions in it, yum) and been eating 2-serving little "omelets" which are actually more like flavored scrambled eggs in a cup that I zap, for about 100 calories.


2 minutes in the microwave, 2 minutes to cool down, and I've got breakfasty goodness I can nosh on while I put on my makeup. I finish off with a nutrigrain cereal bar and finish with either coffee or sugar free.

(And, nooooooo, I'm not interested in hearing your opinion on the evils of caffein, no matter how well intended. I love caffein. I may start a caffein cult. It would be called "M-M-M-M-M-MORNING~!" or something like that.)
But anyway.

So the thing is, the little 100-calorie packs? Work. They totally work, at least for me, anyway. Everyone's different.

Pirate has agreed to be my Accountability Czar and I'm probably going to be following the "Body for Life" thing for the winter (My goal: strength training, lower bodyfat ratio, so that even if I weigh the same, at least what I've got is working tissue instead of jiggly, floating in the bathtub tissue) Baboo used to have this job, but I think it's unduly burdensome for him to be in that role. It's a dual role thing...ethical conflict...those of you who are involved in behavioral health understand...

I use a program called LifeForm, which I love. It's cheap and easy, as all good software should be. It doesn't nag. It just lets you record things and best of ALL, it gives you a way to make all kinds of graphs.

What GeekGirl wouldn't love that?

So, here's today's graph:

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