Thoughts and Ramblings

As I looked back on my calendar today, I noticed that when I run this Friday, it will mark 9 weeks of running three days a week (though that does include two days off when I was sick)! I don't think I have been that consistent at exercising three days a week for a long time. I never thought I would be one of "those" people who wakes up early to go running in the morning. Actually, I have scoffed at those people before. But I do love the feeling that I get throughout the day remembering that I have already exercised today, and that I can enjoy my evenings without having to feel guilty that I am not dragging myself to the gym (which I never liked anyways).

I more or less have a pattern down that Monday I work on speed, Wednesday I run the 2-2.5 miles at whatever pace I feel comfortable at, and Friday I am working on distance. I did manage to run an eight and a half minute mile this Monday, and then my second mile was eight minutes and forty five seconds. The problem is that I did indulge in a short walk break between the two, so I can't say that I ran two miles in 17 minutes and fifteen seconds, but instead that I ran the two miles at the above speeds. My goal for next Monday is to keep the same times, but not walk in between.

The downsides of Mondays is that my current way of telling my speed, and thus working to improve it too, is my phone. I have a program that tracks my speed, how far I am running, and my current time. But it does mean I have to carry my phone while I run, which I don't like. If I stay consistent with running, I would love to get something like:

This way, I don't have to carry my phone, and I can still know my distance and time. I especially like that there is a feature where it records your previous runs, and you can race a digital character that is running based on your previous time. What a great way to find out if I am going faster or slower than my last time!

Another random thought about my runs is that more than I can ever remember before... I am so looking forward to daylight savings! When I started running in September, I was running in the early morning light, and watching the dawn as I ran. Lately... I could just as easily be running at night! Its safe, there are plenty of lights around Irvine's trails, but still, it is weird running in the dark. I look forward to having a time that it is somewhat light again when I run.

On a totally different topic (that really should be in another post... but isn't going to be) I think I have found that I am 4/5ths good with our route to children. The 1/5th is reserved for things like "My Belly Book." I bought this journal to chronicle my pregnancy back when we were first starting to try because I wanted to write in it as soon as the first week after I found out, and I didn't want to have to wait to go get it if we were successful the first month (sigh, the foolish optimism of those first months). Currently, we are over a year past trying, over a year past deciding to adopt, and 9 months into the adoption process...and I can't let go of this journal! I don't keep it anywhere near me, I have it tucked away by Blake, but I can't seem to let myself decide to give it to good will or give it to someone else. I keep hoping that maybe when I find out the next person I know is pregnant, I will give it to them... but since deciding that there has been a teacher at my school get pregnant, give birth, and you know... I still have this journal! Similarly... during my super optimism time, I made a variety of baby clothes. I have been to multiple baby showers since then, and since our decision to adopt an older child... and I can't seem to even allow the thought of giving them away, or passing them on or anything.

Why? Why do I have this portion of me that literally cannot let go of the possibility? As much as it irritates me when people say "that it will happen now that you aren't trying" ... I think it partially bothers me because it puts that thought in my mind too... and I think it is healthier for my mental state to embrace the adoption without a part of me holding back with the ever lingering hope of pregnancy.

This same fifth of me is the same part that gets jealous when I read things like I did today on our adoption board. Two different people on the board already had kids, adopted more kids from Ghana, and are now pregnant again. I don't know why... but I feel extra jealous of them because not only do they have the blessing of having biological children easily, they have also already jumped through all of these hoops and have their adopted kids already too! It's just... sigh.

I can't explain it. Extra frustrating is that the other 4/5ths of me is bothered by the very presence of the 1/5 that can't seem to let go completely. Some days it is enough that I wish that I had had something so catastrophically wrong with that portion of my anatomy that I knew it was impossible for me to get pregnant. Maybe then I could have closure.

Since I hate to leave this on a bad note, I will throw into this super random post that my weekends lately have been extra nice. This school year is stressful for me, and so I extra need the weekends to unwind and relax. Blake and I have been riding our bikes to a lunch location, and just generally spending time together and it has really been great. We even spent a day going down to San Diego and seeing Sea World and the San Diego Zoo in one day, and it was just a great bonding day. Also hard to explain, but in a good way, I feel like we are connecting more than ever on these great weekends together. It is the silver lining to my cloud of the previous paragraphs that though we don't have kids yet... we have a blessing of more precious wonderful weekends with just the two of us.

9 minute mile!

I am so excited, I wanted to share my making a milestone this morning. I have a variety of goals that I hope to achieve with my running, such as endurance, stamina, and slight weight loss. Less important, but an additional goal, has been to improve my speed on my 2 mile run in the mornings (that will eventually become 3 miles).

The last couple weeks, I was averaging around a 10 minute mile, so my first goal was to get that down to 9 (for reference sake, in my cross country days my first mile was 7 minutes). Well, today I ran two miles in 17 minutes and 50 seconds! Yay!

8 minutes here I come!

Eleven

Today we received an update from our coordinator for our Ghana program, and I do love getting the updates, because even if they don't exactly tell us where we are in the program, it helps.

Currently there are eleven other families in the program at the same place we are. I have no idea (nor way of knowing, nor would I ask) where we fall in the order of these other families. I do know that the family that has been waiting the longest has been waiting 9 months, so that isn't us. I am thankful that the number isn't bigger, and that the longest waiting isn't over a year. I can handle the thought of 9 months, and even the thought that if we are the least waiting, there are only 10 families ahead of us. I think the best thing about this number is that it is something to hold on to. I know that the number of people ahead of us is limited. It reassures me that there will be an end eventually. It's good to have any kind of defined end in this crazy process that is different for everyone.

I also take comfort in the fact that there are 15 families that in the two stages closer to child coming home. So many families are being made! It just makes me happy! It also gives me more peace that our turn will indeed come. 15 families have made it past our step at this point, those families are heading towards the finish line. It is possible!

Anyways, I wanted to pass along these little updates so that they can also give anyone who reads this and is curious where our adoption stands a little more information about where we stand.

Also, I wanted to let you guys know that there is a fundraiser going on right now to get Christmas presents for the orphans that are a part of our agency. It is a silent auction where you post a comment on the item you want with your bid and if you win, you are notified. Read more about it at http://aaiholidayproject.blogspot.com/

Let them eat cake!

As hard as it is to believe, I have been jogging three times a week for 5 weeks now! Last Friday, the 23, I ran for 20 minutes straight! I was tired, to be sure, but I did successfully go that whole time without stopping.

Throughout the last couple of weeks I have considered posting an update on how it is going, and on things that I changed and tweaked through the time, but life always got busy, and then I decided I was so close to 5 weeks, I would post about all of it when I hit this mark.

First off, I learned some valuable things about running music. I found that it was not enough to choose songs that have a good beat, and fit the length that I need, but they also need to not be repetitive. One song that I tried, I really felt like I was having to run for longer because the song happened to be one that repeats the same lyrics over and over again. Songs with different verses work much better, because I don't notice the time passing as much. I did also learn how to set up a song on itunes to start or stop at a different time than the song's length and this became extremely valuable since there were only so many songs of the exact length I needed.

The first time I ran, I ran with nothing but my ipod. Blake was not pleased... and he had a good point (and I know my parents probably aren't happy to hear this either :-D), since if something did happen on that run, I would have had no way to contact him. Also, I was stressing the whole time about him deciding to leave early, and locking me out, and how could I get back in the house, etc. However, I hate having anything in my hands when I run (or walk... or basically ever... I really like my hands free). But while I researched and looked for a solution to this, I did my next couple of runs with my phone in my hand, and explicit instructions to Blake to not lock me out.

I ended up buying this:

It is called a shadow pack, and is made for runners, and had really good reviews. Honestly, I barely feel it when I run, and I can fit my cell phone and my keys in it. I now use an app on my cell phone called my tracks that says how far I have run, and records my average speed and my elevation. I really enjoy looking at it and seeing my progress.

I might have mentioned earlier that I also decided that I should buy new shoes since my old shoes had holes in both of the toes. This was a huge decision for me because I wanted to choose good shoes that would last. So I dived into the world of running shoes. As I searched, I learned more about barefoot/minimalist running. Basically, the philosophy is that our legs were designed for running in a way that is superior to all of the advances in shoe technology, but we have to train ourselves to run this way. Without knowing tons about it, the main difference is that we tend to run in a way that our heel strikes first when we wear typical running shoes, and the shoes are designed to cushion that impact and even draw our heel down. But when they study people who run barefooted, the mid-foot hits first. This makes the calves and ankles work harder to absorb the impact, but they do so very well, acting as a spring.

There are, of course, people who actually run barefooted, but I knew I would feel way too weird to do that. There are also shoes that have toe spots that are as close to running barefoot while wearing shoes to protect you:

However good reviews these received... they were also way too weird for me. I instead went for minimalist shoes. They are designed to make your feet/legs work the same way that they would if you were barefooted, but with slight padding, and no seperate toes. These are the shoes that I picked:

As promised, the first couple times that I wore these my calves were killing me for the next few days! They were not used to having to work so hard. But, I did feel much better running in these shoes. Actually it was interesting because the first time I ran in them, I liked them so much I ran faster and harder, and wore myself out thoroughly before I finished my run (I was running very slowly by the end). But I am happy to say that my feet have adjusted, and now my calves aren't especially more sore than other parts.

I have found a route that I love, and I find that my morning run is really nice for a variety of reasons. One is that the way that the timing is currently working, I leave the house while it is still dark and watch the sky gradually lighten during the 20-30 minutes I am gone. I see rabbits and birds in the morning and very few people. I feel much more awake the days that I run, and the mornings go smoother because of our almost military level operations the night before (lunches ready, clothes picked out, car loaded etc.). It is getting to the point that I miss having everything ready on my non-running mornings, and it might become a regular routine to do that every night.

A nice side effect of running too is that I have so much more endurance during tennis too. We haven't tried a bike ride since, but I have a feeling that I will do better during the ride because of my increased stamina as well.

I haven't really noticed a difference in my weight yet... but that was never my goal to begin with anyways, I just wanted to be able to run without feeling exhausted, and even though I am only 5 weeks through the program, I feel that that portion is successful.

The program trains to running a 5k, but for our timing in the morning, my goal will be to do a half mile walk and then a two mile run, and try to gradually decrease my time during that run. Maybe if my time gets good enough, it will be increased to three miles in the morning, but not for now.

Knowing that goals are important to keep something up, even as we make my cake tonight, my next reward after another 5 weeks of three days a week running will be a pound of See's candy.

p.s. lol...I guess the shoe pictures turned out really big... but I don't feel like fixing them... sorry!

New school year and new fitness plan

Two weeks ago I started a couch to 5k fitness plan. Each week, it outlines the breakdown of a 25 minute run. At the beginning the runs are shorter and the walks are longer, and gradually it is more and more running until it just starts with a 5 minute warmup, and then a 20 minute run straight.

If I can make it through 5 weeks of running three times a week, Blake and I will celebrate with a cake. If I can make it another 5 after that, we will get a pound of see's candy. I know, it seems totally counter productive to an exercise goal that the rewards are desserts. However, we both have a sweet tooth, and it isn't unheard of for us to just buy ourselves these kind of treats without any special occasion or incentive at all. This way, we don't get these treats until I make these fitness goals. A dessert week every 5 weeks isn't too bad. (If you are wondering why our desserts is all on me, it is because Blake already works out 5 days a week).

My reasoning for choosing this particular work out is because of my chosen sport in high school- cross country. I ran for two years, and though I was never the best at my school, I am proud of the fact that I ran 3 miles in the races and frequently ran 5-6 in the practices. Recently on walks, Blake and I would jog a little on the walk... and I would be beat! Out of breath, totally exhausted. This is a far stretch from my high school cross country days. So, of my own volition, I decided that it was time to get myself back to at least being able to run for 20 minutes. Also, it has been fun for me to design my running mixes on my ipod, setting up musical cues with faster songs for my running intervals and slower songs for my walking intervals so I don't have to deal with a timer.

Part of my goal of typing this and putting the ticker on my blog is to keep me going, and keep me accountable to more people. I figure the more public I make this commitment, the more likely I am to make it a habit even as the school year begins, and it gets harder to get up in the morning. Fingers crossed I stick with it.

Next week will be the start of my 6th year teaching. I do get to stay with my fourth grade level another year, however I will have 6 more students than I did last year. That doesn't sound like much, but when I consider that that is 6 more of every report, paper, and test that will need to be graded, I get a bit nervous. My room is almost all set up, and I think by tomorrow, it will be all ready.

I am really excited about my theme for the class this year. In the past, I generally avoided classroom themes, but I thought it would be fun to unite my classroom with some consistent color choices and thematic decorations this year. So, I went with music. Most of my decorations, borders, and desk plates are black and white, and then I have added different musical notes to them. My class verse for the year is focusing on living in harmony with each other, and I will be reinforcing this theme with teaching the kids that the point of harmony is not to sing the same note (all be the same) but to sing different notes that work well together (emphasizing their need to be able to work together).

As an extra touch, I plan on showing this video as a demonstration of what harmony (in music) is:


I am hopeful for both my new fitness plan and my new school year!

The power of one

I will start by admitting that I am not good at keeping up with the news. I enjoy reading novels, magazines and various things online (blogs, articles, facebook posts etc.) but I don't like to watch or read news stories.

The biggest reason for this is that I don't like sad stories, and generally... the news includes sad stories of people who got killed, or injured, people who died in war, or other various bad things that happen fairly often in this sinful world we live in.

This is not to say that I never know what is going on in the world. Blake reads news fairly often, and lets me know some of the headlines of the day (even when they are sad... even though I ask him not to :-P). Also, you would be surprised how much news you can learn just from facebook and blogs. If it is big enough, everyone is talking about it... so I hear about it too!

However, there is a category of news that I really enjoy reading and am happy when I stumble upon it: hero stories. The stories where someone steps out and does something great and changes another person's life in the process.

Today I ran across two hero stories (links at the bottom to learn about them from the news) and I felt they were worth sharing, they were that good.

Apparently there is something about huge cliffs that appeal to people as their preferred way to end their life. In Australia, there is a guy who lives really close to one of these cliffs, and using binoculars can actually see people on the cliff who are contemplating this end. If he sees this, he actually goes to the cliff and talks to them and invites the sorrowful stranger back to his house for tea. He admits that not everyone is open to this, and he has seen people reject his help and his offer... but many more are thankful to have someone who cares. With his quiet presence and willingness to be there for them, people walk away realizing that life is worth living.

There is a similar story of a guy in Japan who walks to a popular cliff twice a day in hopes of deterring people there from committing suicide.

Each of them has stopped over 100 suicides, and the Japanese guy goes a step farther and actually keeps in contact with each person he has rescued, still checking on them and showing them that someone cares.

What an amazing calling! I love that there are people out there who literally devote their life to helping strangers. I actually think that in some ways, knowing that it is a random stranger who wants to do this makes more of an impact than the organizations set up to do the same thing. If I knew that the person helping me was doing it because it was their job, I might not believe that they truly cared about me. A random person stopping to talk to me about how I am feeling is very different.

It also reminds me of my most haunting psychology class that I had in college- basically the class showed numerous examples of how we, as people, tend to think that someone else will take care of it (whatever it is), and sometimes that means that nobody does.

There is something called the bystander effect. Basically, if there are a couple of people who are witnesses or experiencing the same thing, we wait until someone else acts before we act. But since we are all waiting for someone else to react... nobody does. If, on the other hand, someone takes responsibility, and starts asking those around to help, everyone mobilizes and sees how they can help.

A tame example of this was done as an experiment: the people who were going to participate in this experiment thought they were waiting for it to begin (it actually took place during the "waiting" time.) Smoke started coming out from under the door of another room into the waiting room. If the participant was alone, they always alerted the scientists. If the participant was waiting with other people (people planted by the scientists to not do anything), then many times they did nothing.

The less tame examples included people getting seriously hurt or killed while others stood around doing nothing.

Ever since that class I have hoped that if a situation like that came up, I wouldn't be the one to do nothing. I will no longer assume that someone else will take care of it. I want to be like these guys who stop suicides all the time (not exactly like them, but just taking the power of one). We can't help everyone... but we can all help someone. Many people who attempt suicide have said that if someone even smiled at them, they might not have done it. So... smile! Reach out to people in need! (I am saying this to myself too). I think the world would be a better place if everyone took this attitude of looking out for people to help.



http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/06/14/world/main6580981.shtml

http://www.japanprobe.com/2008/10/31/man-saves-lives-at-japanese-suicide-cliff/

Great Big Bear weekend

Blake and I spent last weekend up in Big Bear, where his parents have a cabin. It was such a nice weekend!

Honestly, there was very little that we did there that we couldn't have done at home, but I think weekends at home too often turn into errand running busy weekends, where being away from all the housework and responsibilities allows for more relaxation.

We both (yes, Blake too!) spent a good amount of time just sitting outside reading. Reading outside surrounded by trees and forest is definitely superior to just reading at home.




Other "could do at home but better here" activities included some wii games and a board game, as well as our fantastic meals. The meals were especially good because unlike home, where we generally try our best to eat healthy... for Big Bear we planned to eat more fun meals. We got there late Friday night so our first meal there was breakfast the next day. We had peanut butter banana pancakes (had never made these particular kind of pancakes before, but they were great), bacon and eggs. For lunch we had seven layer dip and chips (yep... as our meal!). For dinner we set up the coals (not without a few tries) and grilled bison steaks, potato, corn and artichoke. It was all delicious treats. Okay, I know for a splurging weekend, nothing sounds all that bad... but the meals were planned in a brainstorming what would be best for _____. The above meals is what we came up with. (This might be partially due to the fact that we generally like how we eat at home, so don't need to do anything that different).





Now, there were some things that we did that we couldn't do at home (at least not with what we own). We did play horseshoes... but that was somewhat sad... I won! I got two points, compared to Blake's one, and this is after a long time of playing. So we decided it was time to quit this game and try something else. (Also, Blake said it was no fun playing with me... I admit that I am not that great... but he wasn't playing that well either... since I won! Maybe he was trying to not make me look bad... or maybe playing with his brother and dad makes him try more because he doesn't want to look bad to them? Not sure... but I do know that playing horseshoes for 30-40 minutes with your high score being a 2... isn't the most exciting game).

We also played badminton. This was a game that we enjoyed! We actually were fairly closely matched. Overall, Blake won more games, but I got one or two in there as well. After 4 or 5 games (guessing here), I said we should just rally. My logic was mostly that in a game, your goal is for the other person not to hit it, but I wanted to practice actually keeping it going. We were doing so well that I decided first to count how many times we could hit it before it dropped. Then (because I am a goal setting kind of person) I said that I thought we should keep rallying until we hit it 50 times without it hitting the ground.

For the first bit of this, it seemed I had set too high of a goal, but then we made it to 33. Somehow this sparked a determination in both of us that we WERE going to make this badminton goal if it took us all weekend! We kept playing, and got many more around 29 to 31... but always seemed to lose it. At one point we had a great rally, and I asked Blake how high we had gotten (after the first couple times, he took over counting) and he said 42. So close... and made us so much more determined! With a few breaks in between to get dinner ready, we kept trying... and we made it! On the last hit Blake hit the birdie to the ground and said 51! At this point, triumphant after 3 or 4 hours of playing, we were done with badminton for the weekend.

Our furry friend Roxie also enjoyed the weekend. I spent sometime training her to catch a Frisbee midair, and she was actually getting pretty good at it, as long as I threw it near enough to her. She enjoyed running around and chewing on sticks, but she actually gave us the most entertainment when Blake was watering the trees on their property.








Roxie was running around, having a good time, chasing the frisbee etc. Then I guess she got hot... because she decided to get wet... and muddy. I was cracking up and grabbed the camera. Eventually we made her get out, and we put the wood chips back (don't worry Lori, it looks fine, we cleaned up after her), and then laughed some more at the muddy mess she made of herself.











There was only one thing I would have wished was different... the moon. Strange, I know, but there is logic to this. You see, we like seeing meteor showers, and trying for that elusive chance to see a shooting star. But here, in Orange County, star visibility is low. VERY low. So we had talked before that someday we should plan to be in Big Bear for a meteor shower, so we can really enjoy it. When I asked my mother in law about the cabin's availability, last weekend was the last spot open for the summer, so we took it. Only later did Blake find out that luck was on our side and there was actually a meteor shower taking place Friday and Saturday! Except... it was also a full moon. We are talking spotlight bright moon. Honestly, visibility was about as good as we have here normally, that bad.

We still wanted to try (figuring that we can sometimes see them at home) so we brought out a sheet from home, put our air mattress on it, and stared at the night sky. Friday night we saw 3... and Saturday night we saw none (maybe one out the corner of our eyes... but not really). This was the results of one of the better meteor showers of the year... sigh. Though, we are planning on asking about next year getting a group together at Big Bear to watch this shower together, when the moon is predicted to be a lot less bright.

Overall, still a great relaxing weekend.

p.s. To my mother in law, who reads this blog, thank you for letting us enjoy your wonderful cabin for the weekend. Even if many of our activities could be done at home, they were so much better away from home. We truly appreciate it!