looking forward to a domestic night tonight. First, running on the river trail, then picking up dry cleaning, then grocery shopping, then home for laundry, playing with dogs, feeding fish, doing dishes, making dinner, making lunches, doing strength exercises, and cross stitching! sounds good to me. I like those days every once in a while. My friend Rebecca calls it "nesting" - when you want to stay close to home and putter and put things right.

I bought workout pants that make me feel really cute, which is the main force behind getting me to go run these days. It's great!

Tomorrow I plan on going to a running store and researching new shoes. The shoes I run in now my dad bought me when I was 18 years old. 6 years later... time to get new shoes.

Today I've felt pretty good. Happy, productive, peaceful, glad. I feel the way an icelandic poppy looks. I love the sunshine. I am so happy that it's spring. I am ignoring the fact that it is supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow - gray and gloominess right in the midst of sunshine tends to put me in a bad mood, but instead I will revel in the fact that the rain will water my freesia bulbs that I keep forgetting to water, and then I won't have to wash my car. Then it will be sunshine again!

running, being cold, and yarn

fingers...so...cold....

woke up this morning at 6:30 to go running with Adam. We went to the park so the dog could go crazy. We have the best dog. Running was hard for me this morning - something about how cold the air was, or how asleep I still was - made it incredibly hard for me to breathe. But I am glad I went. It makes me feel like no matter what else happens, this day was a success.

I am still tracking my points and still doing good! I need to encorporate more crunches, but other than that I am doing just fine. This morning I had enough time after we got back from running that I made the Hungry Girl broccoli cheese soup in my new blender, AND a smoothie for breakfast. I am so looking forward to lunch - I brought some chicken I grilled the day before yesterday, soup, some fruit and string cheese to snack on all day. I figure for lunch it'll be 3 pts for the soup, 3 pts for the chicken, I ate 3 pts for breakfast...that's only 9 points, which leaves me 13 pts to play with for the rest of the day. Woohoo!


So I have a question to pose to you - does anyone else out here suffer from the same thing? I feel like I am really, really easy to buy presents for: GET ME YARN. It's not that hard, right? I would truly, deeply, seriously, really love every skein of yarn ever given to me as a present. I can NEVER HAVE ENOUGH yarn! I don't have the money to buy all the yarn I want! I want yarn for every gift! But...do people ever get me yarn? Not really. In my 24 years of life I have received 3 gift certificates to yarn stores. But I am thinking - yarn is cheap! (at least, some yarn is) it'd be a great present - just a bag o' yarn. And yet people complain that I am hard to shop for. They buy me other, random things just to buy something, when if they spent 10 bucks at Alamitos Bay, I'd be through the roof. Anyways - I don't understand it. I have told people this time and time again "just buy me yarn" "I love yarn" "what do I want for christmas? Yarn!" but still - no one believes me. yeesh.

Oh - I have an amendment. I do have to say, when Adam and I first got together, his very first gift for me (which was for no special occasion, just random) was a beautiful, beautiful skein of green (expensive!!) cashmere. That was a good present.

But more people should give me yarn.

That's the moral of this story. :)

PS We at Roya inc. would like to say that our official stance is one of gratitude no matter what gift is given. Your presence is present enough, etc. Thank you and goodnight.

food woes

I don't know how much I have talked about my eating issues/exercising/weight loss/etc. on here - but it's a decently large focus of my life so it deserves some air time. About 4 years ago I stepped on a scale and weighed 201 pounds. I about died right there. That was the day I decided to start losing weight. I proceeded to, without the help of any "diet" - just by eating right, cutting out soda, and exercising - to lose 50 pounds. It wasn't easy, but it was FUN. I actually enjoyed the process. My boyfriend at the time helped me a lot - I asked him to never comment on what I was eating, except at the beginning of each meal to ask me to think about what I wanted to eat before I ate it. He also helped me develop my own personal exercise grid. I had so much fun every night checking off the little boxes for "50 crunches, 30 leg lifts.." etc. I would exercise while I watched West Wing every night.

At some point I realized I wasn't going to lose weight unless I started running. So every day after work I would drive to Cypress College track and go 8 times around - running the straights and walking the curves. I hated it with a passion. But there was always something to fixate on - a little old asian man who walked with his head down and didn't look at anyone but was there every single time. A tall black woman with this incredibly bright gold jacket who was there a lot, etc.
I worked at a daycare, so I was outside a lot with the kids. At one point I realized how much more I wanted to be active, and it was so fun to be able to actually play kickball and handball and tag and stuff with them.

When I started working here, I knew that going from working at a daycare (and I worked part time at a nature center where I walked all day long giving tours) to working at a desk in an office would be difficult for me to stay active. So that's when I joined weight watchers. My mom had lost about 85 pounds and was very invested in that program, my aunts were doing it, it seemed like a good option for me to maintain being healthy. So I started going to meetings and tracking my points.

I really love the weight watcher's program and their focus on the healthy living habits. I no longer go to the meetings (if I could afford it, I would) but I still track my points. I go through phases, though - and it's SO OBVIOUS how much better I feel when I do track and when I exercise.

I made my own tracking form and keep the points calculator in my purse. I use a lot of the online resources you can find just by googling. I started hardcore tracking my points on October 28th, and the only gap I have had since then was three days over Thanksgiving. However, I am not doing so well with the healthy eating things. Here is how I am going to fix it:
1. Water - I need to drink 6-8 cups of water a day. I have been totally slacking on this. I will make sure I have a water bottle with me all the time! No more ordering diet soda for a while either, I will drink water!
2. Fruits and veggies - I need to go shopping. It's as simple as that. I am out of fresh produce.
3. Dairy - need to buy non fat milk and yogurt.
4. Oils - this is hard for me. I never know how to get in oil except for salad dressing. So I guess I'll try to make more salad.
5. Vitamin - About half the days I forget. I will just have to make it a more consistent part of my morning routine.
6. Grazing - I do better when I eat small amounts of food all day long, rather than one or two big meals. Having more fruit and veggies to snack on will help with this. Also ordering less food when I go out. For example - although it's a good deal, I will not be buying the foot long veggie subway anymore, because that makes me want to eat it! Instead, I will buy the 6 inch, with the knowledge that if I am still hungry afterwards, I can always go buy another one.
7. Exercise - I miss running. I actually do. I am charging my ipod right now, I have my gym clothes in the car. I will change at work, and head to the gym or to Seal Beach to run. Tomorrow I will do the same thing. Friday I have an A2A event so I probably won't have time - unless I ask my supervisor for a long lunch and do it then. Or even if I just take a walk on the river trail for lunch. That would at least keep me thinking active and not break my streak.
7a. Crunches - I had a weekly challenge with a coworker of mine to do a certain number of crunches a day. We haven't done it for months. Today is the day we reactive that!

Okay. That's all from me. Sometimes writing down your intentions is the key to making them actually happen. I am using all of you as witnesses to help keep me accountable. Thanks!

How I can make one day feel like three

Phew! Yesterday was a very long, very wonderful day! I have discovered the key to my having a good weekend - going to sleep by 10pm and waking up before 8am! Friday night I went to my dad's house and watched Top Chef with him, and then had along heart-to-heart. I was at home, asleep by about 10:30. I woke up around 7am the next morning, and spent a few hours happily sweeping, scrubbing, cleaning... then I headed over to Amber's house, where we stopped at Whole Foods, and then went to Aardvark's for clay, and then went down to the Irvine Fine Arts Center!

Now -for those of you who don't know, ceramics has been an obsession of mine since I was about 11. It actually started at the Irv.FAC - we went with Girl Scouts once. I loved it (although the first time I went, I was so excited, I went and got a bucket of water, and set it down on the wheelhead. The first thing they said to do was test the peddle. So I did. And water went FLYING. It was so embarrassing, but I survived.) Then, I was at Cypress College when I was about 13, and walked past this door...

I peered inside, and there was Bob Dylan and Tom Waits playing, murals painted all over the walls, the wheels, and the cubbies, and a big flashing sign that said "CERAMICS" and this silver haired woman with the brightest shirt I ever saw going around and encouraging everyone. I signed up for ceramics the next semester.

That class turned out to be so much more than a class for me. I stayed there for 5 years - they helped raise me. Char and all of the lab techs took me under their wings and taught me everything about throwing, glazing, and firing. Les would help me load the kiln, Ducky would show me how to use the power chisel to clean the shelves, and Jeremy let me raku with him. Oh, rakuing. That's a whole separate post. Oh man. My heart palpitates just thinking about it. Greg Morissey was the handbuilding/low fire glazing expert, Jim used to come up to me when I was learning how to center and thump my elbow and say "oops, center it again" so I learned how to center really well and really fast. John Danner and I started the same semester, and stuck together - he ended up making me some incredibly useful personalized tools, Rebecca, Fil, and Tifani started a little later, and when I met them, my life was complete! Rebecca now lives in Utah, but is still doing ceramics out there (and is thinking of opening her own etsy!) Fil lives who knows where, but apparently resurfaces every once in a while, and Tifani is her own fairytale, which I ruined, and is also another post.

My point is - I loved everything about it. I loved the actual act of throwing, loved the smell of clay, loved sticking my whole arm down in a glaze bucket, loved the old film of Paul Soldner rakuing, loved the day when we got to watch the slides of Char's favorite cups, loved the first day of class ("WOW" day she calld it - for "Weed out the Wusses") I LOVED cleaning that big beautiful silver sink and singing, taking breaks and hanging out on the patio by the aloe vera plant with all the smokers, organizing boxes in the clay cage, helping to load and unload kilns...I loved the precision of loading a glaze kiln, but I loved the bisque kiln because it was so big I could stand in it to load it.

Raku - originally a Japanese form of glazing, was Americanized and made popular by Paul Soldner, known as the Father of American Raku. He also happened to be one of Char's instructors when she was in school. He would come and visit, and every once in a while select students of Char's would get to go to his house for parties, potlucks, and sitting in his hot tub surrounded by the bush that looked like a water monster, and 80 different bonsai trees. I lived for the day Char deemed time to raku. At our studio it was a three person process - and my two favorite parts were definitly actually using the tongs and walking into the kiln to get the pieces, and watching the golden-molten glaze lift off in cotton-candy-thread-like pieces if they were stuck to the kiln shelves, and opening the lid of the reduction barrel - and the backdraft and smoke that would happen every time it opened. I actually lost my eyebrows once from that, and lit my ponytail on fire! Arm hair was a thing of the past. ;oP

Char ran an incredible studio. It was, as she always said she wanted it to be, a mini Utopia in a world where it's hard to find a perfect place.

Then she retired. I stayed on as lab tech for a few semesters after that, but it was too hard for me without her, and without most of the people who had been in class with me for 5 years. I moved to Wisconsin for a little while - found a spot where I did ceramics once, and cried the whole time.

Discovered the Irvine Fine Arts center, and I remember that I hated it the first time I went, for the sheer lack of Bob Dylan music and Char's big booming voice. I pretty much stopped doing any ceramics for a while.

But you know what? I couldn't quit it! I don't do it as much as I used to, that's for sure, but every once in a while my hands just ache for clay. I still get Char's voice about technique in my head when I throw, and I hope I am not forming any bad habits, but throwing for the sake of throwing is now just as enjoyable as it ever was.

However, I STILL HAVEN'T RAKUED SINCE CHAR RETIRED.
ohhh woe, woe, woe..

------
wow, I sure left my original post. Okay, I guess that illustrates how much I love ceramics..the point is, getting to go throw yesterday was a very good day for me. Amber and I threw from about 11am-4:30pm when they closed. I had to stop throwing because I ran out of clay, and did handles/trimmed cups for the last two hours. I forgot how quickly I can go through clay. Next time I will be bringing more.
I used Soldate 60 - which was our staple at Cypress College. It takes glaze well, and has enough sand in it that structurally it's fairly easy. Next time I might take some B-mix, just to get some really fancy schmancy glazed pieces.

There was a lady there yesterday that actually knew Char, and we started talking - she said she could see Char's influence in my pieces. I am not sure she meant that as a compliment, but I take it as one - Char was always after my pieces to be more dramatic and have more direction. I felt really good about these cups.

After ceramics, Amber and I went and had some sushi at a new little sushi place in Seal Beach, then got the dog and went for a run on the beach. It's day 2 of week 5 of Couch to 5k, and it wasn't so bad running with Amber. It helped to run on the boardwalk between houses and ocean - I LOVE running in neighborhoods. Imaginging the people who live in each house and looking at their design is what distracts me the best from running. Adam likes the gym so he can watch people and the tv, but that's not distracting enough for me. He also likes the park, which is nice, but I have to retreat really far into my own head for distraction.

By the time I got home, ADAM was also home, which was nice since I hadn't seen him since Wednesday morning. He left at 6am this morning after a good luck kiss for Ventura for his physical exam for the State Parks.

Alrighty, I think this post is now officially four times as long as any reasonable blog post should be. I am going to go get dressed and call Amber - today is a bike ride to the farmer's market, and going to my little sister's performance of And Then There Were None.

oh you know, stuff

Well, yesterday's doctor's appointment turned out to be a big emotional drain/letdown/hopeful visit. It was a weird mix. I didn't end up getting a biopsy...but I also don't feel very good about making progress in figuring out exactly what is going on. The doc gave me something else to try for another month, and, yet again, we'll just have to "wait and see." Grr.

On the upside, Adam took me to the doctor's and was wonderful and supportive and made me realize, yet again, how good it is to have someone like him to be able to lean on. I have a hard time asking for things like "hey I'm nervous about the doctor, I'd like your physical presence, will you go with me?" I remember once I had to go to the emergency room when we were first together, and I got my mom to go with me - I'm used to depending on her! It's a funny transition going from her to boyfriend, you know? But Adam did make it very clear that it's both that I *should* ask him of these things, but he really *wants* me to. I can understand that. I love to "be there" for him - it would hurt if I were never given that opportunity.

After the doctors, we had lunch at Souplantation, then I went home, did some work (I was working from home for the rest of that day) and then watched The Office while I knitted. I am working on my fingerless gloves in order to survive my freeeeeezing office.

Tonight is picture night at the karate studio, and I need to do some reading for psychology. Adam is frantically heading to Monterey as I type, and I turned down an invitation to go to Mammoth this weekend in order to see Roxana's show, And Then There Were None.

As far as karate goes - I hit a slump a few months back where I was just not interested. I had to force myself to go, and it took a long time for me to get into it once I was there. I consciously made the decision not to give in to that, and reestablished myself at the studio. Tonight I am testing for my first stripe on my greenblack belt, and I am excited about being excited. I am doing two lessons - one is a right forearm hammer to the back of the neck while stimultaneously kneeing them in the groin. This makes them bend over, and I do a choke on my right side (while making sure my right foot is placed beside theirs), then I plant my right foot behind them, and do a right sweep, which takes them to the floor. Then I do a stomping side kick to their throat with my right foot.

The second lesson I am doing, we both start left side up, they throw a straight punch, I block with my left (upwindmill block), then do a straight one-knuckle punch to their ear. I do a right side kick to their knee, which brings them to their knees. I do a right backhand to their neck, then I do a left upperarm strike to their throat while bringing them in to a four knuckle upper cut to the back of their head, almost in a scooping motion.

I am starting now preparing my lessons for my blackbelt test. These will be the first two I do. I will now never stop doing these lessons.

Friday morning I would like to wake up early enough to go running on the beach, since it's dark by the time I leave work now. Day 2 of the Couch to 5k involves two 8 minute runs. Adam will try to do his while he's camping in Monterey, so I have to make sure I do it before he comes home and wants to run 20 minutes straight.

Alrighty - that's all from me for now. I will miss Adam, but I am also looking forward to not having to negotiate what we watch on tv. :) Romantic comedies and "stupid" tv shows, HERE I COME! ;)

Tuesday morning update

I am so sleepy, that for once I am glad it's cold in my office. Last night Adam and I went to the gym pretty late - I worked on mah abs for a while and did the elliptical, and then we did day one of WEEK FIVE of the couch to 5k program. Holy cow, this week is going to kill me. But I do feel really good after I run - I hope I don't stop. It's pretty miserable, but I keep hearing people talk about how much they love to run and I want to be like them! :P I can see running has the potential, but right now, it's just pain. But I'm sticking with it - I have gone running three times a week for the last 5 weeks, so one day I hope it'll turn into a fun, good habit.

I made cupcakes on sunday using yellow cake mix and a diet soda. Very interesting. It totally worked and I was mucho suprised. I definitly want to experiment with this!

Adam will be gone from Wednesday to Saturday and then gone again all day Sunday. I feel the need for an Office Marathon with my little sisters already.

Today I have a doctor's appointment - that all throughout writing this post is what I've been thinking of. I finally have an appointment with a specialist, and I am a little (more than a little) nervous, but trying not to be. Wish me luck.

The thing that I keep focusing on is being able to finish my second calorimetry in the waiting room. I am knitting it with smaller needles and a smaller weight yarn - manos del uruguay, which is my one true love. then I am going to make some fingerless gloves using my kool aid yarn.

Here I go!

it feels like fall!

Oh my gosh, this morning it feels like fall. I need to knit myself some fingerless gloves so I can sit in my freezing office at work and actually type. I love mornings like this morning - I woke up so warm and in blanket-nest, and there was pastel sunshine like only fall can have, and I knew as soon as I got out of bed it'd be chilly, but I got to snooze for ten minutes and just scrunch down in the warm and sunshine.

Last night (this morning, technically) around 1:00am Adam and I went running again - this time in the park. We were visited by all three coyotes again - they are getting incredibly bold. Adam now runs with a large stick just in case. I tried for a while, but it's annoying, so I gave up any pretense of badassedness.

We did a 3 minute run then a 5 minute run, twice. Adam says he feels improvement, but I just feel tired. I guess mentally there is an improvement - five minutes does not seem like the end of the world the way it felt the first time we did this set. We made the mistake of looking ahead to next week - the first day are 3 5 minute runs, then there are two 8 minute runs, and then 1 TWENTY MINUTE RUN. Yikes. I am afraid, but also looking forward to the challenge. I am liking the idea of being able to just run and run, even if I am cursing under my breath while we do it.

My coworker just came in while I was writing this and put in an order for an African Kufi for black history month. I am excited. He's been such a huge supporter of my work - has bought 1 birthday present and 3 christmas presents so far from me.

I now need to make a to do list for all my orders:

1. Finish JW's bag - which means

going to the fabric store and buying nice black liner, sewing liner

2. Wrapping JW's bag, SC's scarf and KG's scarf in christmas wrapping

3. Wrapping EL's picture frame in christmas wrapping

4. Take a photo of JW's bag to put on alchemy

5. Take a picture of all of them wrapped for appreciation pictures

6. Make Alex's Andrea's scarf - finish by Nov. 12th!! (I am so proud of this scarf - I taught myself how to do intarsia on this one. I had a picture of a hat to go by, and it's WORKING. It's just going slower than I'd like.)

7. Make Noemi's sister's coin purse with a crown (since she's a "princess") in pink, black, and gold.

8. Finish the 5 bags and 4 makeup bags I have in progress (buy liner, sew liner, attach handles, put in zippers, etc.)

9. List them!

10. Voila.

Meanwhile, I have an abnormal psychology class I NEED to catch up on today, (quiz tomorrow), work, and dishes like you wouldn't believe. Also - my cabbage and lettuce is getting eaten by something and I want it to stop. My tomatoes and strawberries are doing good, but I am afraid for the rest of my garden.

Tomorrow evening Amber will be coming over to knit with me, so I hope to get a lot of Alex's scarf done then.

I have so many things I want to do that I can't decide so I am running around in circles it feels like! Guess it's time to quit dreaming about the things I will do when I get home and get to work.

Today Adam and I tried something new and went to the gym to run instead of going to the park. I am all for the gym - but not for this. I miss the cold air and coyotes following us and it just being the two of us (and Rommel) (and a few coyotes) in the entire world.

I am so excited about the election. Excited/nervous. I think which one it is depends on how it goes.

Please oh please, no on Prop 8.

Today is such a good day. First off, it FEELS like fall - and boy howdy do I love fall. Secondly - I stayed awake until 1:30am so I could go running in the park with my boyfriend and the dog, and we completed week 4 of the Couch to 5k program, which meant we did our longest run yet. It hurt, and I felt so good afterwards. I love running in the park that late at night/early in the morning. Frequently there are sprinklers on, so everything smells wet and good - it's a largeish park in the middle of a city, with a nature center in the middle of it and some open land where they maybe one day might build a senior center, and a few little hills with horse trails behind the equestrian center on the other side of the disc golf course. Every night we go running, we get followed by 3 coyotes. The first time we discovered them, we were up in the hills running on little dirt paths with mustard growing all around us, and the smallest of the 3 coyotes followed us for about 30 minutes before engaging Rommel (the dog.) Our dog is a huge german shephard - as big as the largest of the 3 coyotes. He's also a big sweet pushover, and doesn't really fight back with anything. He played with this coyote for a long time while we watched, then a second one came to play. A third (the largest) skulked around, and then made some aggressive motions, so we took the dog and kept running. They coyotes followed us back to our car but didn't engage.

Every night since then when we go running, they've come out to greet us - except the last couple of times there have only been 2 and they have been more and more aggressive. Adam runs holding a large stick now, if he finds one, and it sure adds to my exercise adrenaline to be followed by those animals. Last night we knew they were around, but they snuck up from behind and one of them rushed Rommel from really close - Adam yelled and ran at the coyotes, and Rommel ran away from the coyote (actually, he probably was running away from Adam's angry yell) and ran into me and knocked me over. (He's a *really* big dog!)

It was towards the end of our run, so we went back up through the sandy part and up the hill to the jeep, and didn't see the coyotes up close again that night. Adam's dad is a coyote expert (if you google Louis Dedeaux, you will find a documentary called Coyoteland. That's him) so we were talking about all of this - Adam's final consesus was that if he had another dog with Rommel, he'd let them fight just to see what happens. As it is, it's not worth the vet bill. Yeesh.

So anyways, I got home around 2:30am, took a shower, and then couldn't sleep. So I am here at work on very few hours of sleep, but feeling surprisingly perky. Although all of the colors are just a leeeetle too bright, I am happy, I feel good, I am about to go to the gym with my boyfriend and then I am going to the YA halloween carnival, then take my test, then go downtown with Becky for dinner then go to my dad's! Let halloween commence!