I just returned (a few hours ago) from my work's benefits fair. this is the annual event where I collect a new Snoopy from Met Life - I have three now in my office, one playing soccer, on driving Nascar, and this years edition playing baseball! I also get pens and clip magnets and other swag. This year's score?...a pedometer! Yup! While the flower (live) is beautiful, adn the waterbottle quenches my thirst, and I'm on a quest to collect a snoopy for each year I work here, the pedometer takes the cake!
This particular pedometer has a built in BMI/%fat indicator, like my scale at home. I enter weight, height, age, and the fact that I am, infact, female, and then I put my thumbs on the two little silver pads, and wait. Poof! Out comes percent fat and BMI. It's biased a bit because I'm wearing clothing, but it's not all that different from my scale at home, which isn't all that different from the nice doctors calculations....in fact there probably isn't much statistical significance in the difference between the numbers. They all say "high" - work on that (well, they imply it). But, I now have a pocket sized, belt attachable guilt trip! Yup, you got it. See that chocolate cake over there? SHould you eat it? Just stick your fingers on your pedometer/guilt-trip monitor...NOPE! Look at that number!
Seriously though, it's a cool toy. I have a pedometer at home, and I haven't used it. This one has more buttons, I plan to use it. I will ahve to take my number of steps with a grain of salt though...Aparently I'm bouncey enough in my office chair to have taken 7 steps since I put it on whilst sitting.
Oh, yeah, and I got really good information on benefits enrollment while I was there, too!
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
That little matter called Fitness
I have been so excited about our birds, and I feel as though I should blog even more about them. They are darned cute, and each day they develop a bit more personality. Lately, they have been sneezing, which of course made me go into 'uber-mom' mode and worry they were getting sick. And they are not even human children!
Putting that aside for a moment, though, I'd like to talk about that little matter called Fitness. Fitness is defined by Dictionary.com as health, or capability of the body of distributing inhaled oxygen to muscle tissue during increased physical effort. My body - she has no fitness! Seriously. I start to exercise, my heart rate goes up, up, up, and soon I'm panting and having little cramps here and there. It's frustrating. But maybe, just maybe, my fitness is getting better - that's the goal, anyway.
I have been swimming. I have been doing the couch to 5K training program. This weekend I added weights to my routine. I walk, I use the sit-down bike and the elliptical machines. At the end of this week, I will have gone to the Y 3 months in a row at my minimum 12 times/month (I may have gone more, but I at least hit my minimum). As a reward, I am buying myself brand new, shiny, 'real' running shoes from a 'real' running store. Probably even this weekend yet. Why is this important? Because I have a bad habit of wanting to do something so I go out and buy all brand new equipment to do it and then I don't. Or, I do it but not as much as I should. So, this time I said...baby steps. One thing at a time. You wish to lose weight. You wish to be in shape. You have some athletic shoes. They aren't the greatest, but start there. Start slowly, and build. Give yourself a reward if you can stick with this for 3 whole months. And I did - stick with this for 3 months. So off I go to get new shoes. (Last night after running 2.5 miles I had the shin splints very badly, so now I know it is time for new shoes)
The mass issue isn't progressing as I would like. I am very slowly going on a downward trend, and this is very good indeed. I need to keep reminding myself that all at once is a Bad Thing, and not sustainable. The pace I am on IS sustainable. But it is so golly-darned frustrating! Starting last week I imposed a new rule (one rule at a time, building, always building). I may only eat out 2 times in one week for all meals encompassed. This is HARD! I've fallen into the bad habit of eating out a lot, and wanting to eat out a lot. But it is so very hard to control intake of calories and even portion size when you eat out. And kids - I need only eat 1550 calories per day to maintain my current weight. That means eating about 1350 per day if I want to lose a pound a week. Of course, if I excersize 300 calories one day, I can eat 1650 that day and still lose a pound a week. This is NOT your 2000 calorie a day diet. This is a horse of a different color. I had been eating towards 2000/day, and subsequently gaining weight. Time for me to step back from my food and say "I've had enough" or "I don't need that." Too bad I'm so very much in love with food!
Summary:
Good things: I have consistantly gone down in mass. I have excersized at least 3 times/week (ave) for 3 months. I am noticing the ability to run 'a little longer' that I could 3 months ago.
Reward: New shoes!!!
Goals: Eat out maximum of 2 times/week for any and all meals. This means trying out new recipes at home, and I do like to cook. Begin training for Korteloppet. Karin...are we go for registration? If we do, there is no turning back! It's scary, and a good feeling! Rachel! Come home, ski it with us! Whee! (Also anyone else who wishes to try. Price goes up Oct 31st though.)
Putting that aside for a moment, though, I'd like to talk about that little matter called Fitness. Fitness is defined by Dictionary.com as health, or capability of the body of distributing inhaled oxygen to muscle tissue during increased physical effort. My body - she has no fitness! Seriously. I start to exercise, my heart rate goes up, up, up, and soon I'm panting and having little cramps here and there. It's frustrating. But maybe, just maybe, my fitness is getting better - that's the goal, anyway.
I have been swimming. I have been doing the couch to 5K training program. This weekend I added weights to my routine. I walk, I use the sit-down bike and the elliptical machines. At the end of this week, I will have gone to the Y 3 months in a row at my minimum 12 times/month (I may have gone more, but I at least hit my minimum). As a reward, I am buying myself brand new, shiny, 'real' running shoes from a 'real' running store. Probably even this weekend yet. Why is this important? Because I have a bad habit of wanting to do something so I go out and buy all brand new equipment to do it and then I don't. Or, I do it but not as much as I should. So, this time I said...baby steps. One thing at a time. You wish to lose weight. You wish to be in shape. You have some athletic shoes. They aren't the greatest, but start there. Start slowly, and build. Give yourself a reward if you can stick with this for 3 whole months. And I did - stick with this for 3 months. So off I go to get new shoes. (Last night after running 2.5 miles I had the shin splints very badly, so now I know it is time for new shoes)
The mass issue isn't progressing as I would like. I am very slowly going on a downward trend, and this is very good indeed. I need to keep reminding myself that all at once is a Bad Thing, and not sustainable. The pace I am on IS sustainable. But it is so golly-darned frustrating! Starting last week I imposed a new rule (one rule at a time, building, always building). I may only eat out 2 times in one week for all meals encompassed. This is HARD! I've fallen into the bad habit of eating out a lot, and wanting to eat out a lot. But it is so very hard to control intake of calories and even portion size when you eat out. And kids - I need only eat 1550 calories per day to maintain my current weight. That means eating about 1350 per day if I want to lose a pound a week. Of course, if I excersize 300 calories one day, I can eat 1650 that day and still lose a pound a week. This is NOT your 2000 calorie a day diet. This is a horse of a different color. I had been eating towards 2000/day, and subsequently gaining weight. Time for me to step back from my food and say "I've had enough" or "I don't need that." Too bad I'm so very much in love with food!
Summary:
Good things: I have consistantly gone down in mass. I have excersized at least 3 times/week (ave) for 3 months. I am noticing the ability to run 'a little longer' that I could 3 months ago.
Reward: New shoes!!!
Goals: Eat out maximum of 2 times/week for any and all meals. This means trying out new recipes at home, and I do like to cook. Begin training for Korteloppet. Karin...are we go for registration? If we do, there is no turning back! It's scary, and a good feeling! Rachel! Come home, ski it with us! Whee! (Also anyone else who wishes to try. Price goes up Oct 31st though.)
Monday, October 13, 2008
Names, and a First Bath
The cockatiels have names. They are named Crash and Pippin. This weekend they took their first bath. Birds like baths, right? Apparently, baths are something to learn how to do. Pippin, who in the post below is sitting on my finger displaying his crest, took to bathing like a fish to water...mostly. He jumped into the small pan of water we provided for bathing, and took some drinks. When we spritzed him with a mister he opened his wings and dipped into the water and got fairly soaking wet. Crash, on the other hand, is afraid of baths. He is afraid of a lot of things, our more timid baby. But we managed to mist him mostly damp.
The problem - our babies didn't quite realize step 2 to the bath was preening. They are ALWAYS preening when dry, so it didn't occur to us they might not realize this was the logical second part of a bath. They just sat there and shivered. I finally had to take them up into the kitchin into the sun of the main window til they warmed up and dried off enough to realize they were supposed to preen. They finally figured it out.
Let's hope bath #2 goes slightly better for them :) I'll take pictures during bath two so you can see the soaking babies. They are rather alarming!
The problem - our babies didn't quite realize step 2 to the bath was preening. They are ALWAYS preening when dry, so it didn't occur to us they might not realize this was the logical second part of a bath. They just sat there and shivered. I finally had to take them up into the kitchin into the sun of the main window til they warmed up and dried off enough to realize they were supposed to preen. They finally figured it out.
Let's hope bath #2 goes slightly better for them :) I'll take pictures during bath two so you can see the soaking babies. They are rather alarming!
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Welcome Home!
Our birds have arrived. We picked them up last night, and brought them home. We played with them a bit and then let them rest in their new home. Today we took them to the birdie vet. They got a clean bill of health and their nails clipped. Here is a photo of them in their house.
Here is another photo. The pied likes going into the 'house' at the top. (he's the one w/ his tail out the cage).
Here is a close up of the pied, sitting on my finger, displaying his crest.
Here is a photo of the pearl, with a relaxed crest, on Trev's finger.
We haven't come up with names for them yet...working on it. They both know how to wolf-whistle, and to chitter, and they like doing that in the eveinings as it gets dark.
Here is another photo. The pied likes going into the 'house' at the top. (he's the one w/ his tail out the cage).
Here is a close up of the pied, sitting on my finger, displaying his crest.
Here is a photo of the pearl, with a relaxed crest, on Trev's finger.
We haven't come up with names for them yet...working on it. They both know how to wolf-whistle, and to chitter, and they like doing that in the eveinings as it gets dark.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Rearranging our furniture, and our lives
Trev and I decided to get a new piece of furniture. But this required a whole new arrangement of the downstairs. Here is trevor enjoying the new arrangement, and the new addition.
Here is a close up of the new furniture. As you can probably tell, it's built to house some new additions to our household.
So, the reason we need this new addition was that Trev and I found some new additions to our little house. I've wanted birds ever since before I went to volunteer at the Raptor Center. Trevor agreed. So we did some research and we think we've found two. The first:
The second is below. We don't know if they are males or females. The typical cockatiel coloring these birds do NOT have. The top is a pearl, the bottom a pied. We're trying very hard NOT to get a male and a female as we prefer to not have babies appear suddenly. We are about 90% certain that we'll come home with these two birds next week. There are 5 options, so we're going to do one more gut check w/ these two.
Why two? Because cockatiels are even more a flock bird than other parrots, it's mean to have one if you don't have many hours to spend with it, so since we are active it's better if they have a playmate.
So, the above have no names yet and have no idea if they are even male or female. We might not even bring these exact two home, but next week we will have 2 birds to share our house with us.
Here is a close up of the new furniture. As you can probably tell, it's built to house some new additions to our household.
So, the reason we need this new addition was that Trev and I found some new additions to our little house. I've wanted birds ever since before I went to volunteer at the Raptor Center. Trevor agreed. So we did some research and we think we've found two. The first:
The second is below. We don't know if they are males or females. The typical cockatiel coloring these birds do NOT have. The top is a pearl, the bottom a pied. We're trying very hard NOT to get a male and a female as we prefer to not have babies appear suddenly. We are about 90% certain that we'll come home with these two birds next week. There are 5 options, so we're going to do one more gut check w/ these two. 
Why two? Because cockatiels are even more a flock bird than other parrots, it's mean to have one if you don't have many hours to spend with it, so since we are active it's better if they have a playmate. So, the above have no names yet and have no idea if they are even male or female. We might not even bring these exact two home, but next week we will have 2 birds to share our house with us.
