I told myself in December that I was going to go to bed earlier, get up earlier and get to work earlier, so I could leave work at a normal time. My office hours are really flexible, so no one is keeping tabs on when I actually show up. If I put in a solid 8 hrs a day, everyone’s cool. It’s great to have this flexibility, but it’s lead me to fall into a pattern that’s eating up my evenings, causing me to stay up way past a normal bedtime, sleep in too late…it’s a vicious cycle.

I’ve seen people on the street heading to work at 7am (this is usually because I have a meeting and have set 12 alarms), looking fresh and showered with ironed clothing and travel mugs. How the hell do they do it every day? Are some people just naturally more efficient in the morning? Maybe I could trim down my morning routine which goes something like this:

-hit the snooze at least 7 times

-shuffle into the kitchen

-smell the lavender plant, which I keep on the windowsill. Gaze out the window for 3 minutes.

-shuffle in the bathroom to pee

-smell the plant again (seriously, you should get a lavender plant.)

-sit on the couch with a cup of coffee

-check my email, facebook and some of the blogs I regularly read

-make my lunch for the day

-have breakfast – this may or may not include making fresh carrot/apple juice in my juicer. If it does, I also have to clean out the juicer

-look at the clock and realize I have 15 minutes to do what I really should have been doing all along

-spastically try to shower, dry off, thrown on clothes and dash out the door in 15 minutes

-leave the apartment approximately 1 hr later

-go back to make sure the stove is off (sometimes twice)

-walk briskly to the train…stopping for coffee on the way

I’m just a natural dilly-dallier. I love dwaddling, until I realize I’m doing it when I shouldn’t, and then that stresses me out. Maybe I should smell the lavender fewer times, or not spend as much time checking email.

Ok, tomorrow’s the day! I will get up at a reasonable hour, reduce my pokiness by at least 50% and join the normal people rush hour. At least the “running late” normal people.

I got off my butt, walked to yoga class, did yoga and walked home. I feel a lot better. Yoga was more of the slower, focused type vs. the more vigorous, quickly moving vinyasa that I prefer. But, it was still a good class that challenged me in different ways. The instructor kept reminding us to “wipe the slate clean” and not let outside thoughts take over. The idea is to leave everything behind for an hour and not think about what’s happened during the day, what happened yesterday, what will happen tomorrow, etc. I’ve heard other teachers call it “monkey mind.”

I totally have a monkey mind. And, it’s not just during yoga. At work, at home, while watching movies, while having conversations with people…I’m always always thinking about other things or (worse) worrying about something. Why is it so hard to “be present?”

This “being present” thing should really be one of my goals. What kind of life are you living if you’re never really, TRULY thinking about what is happening at that moment? It’s like you’re constantly trying to catch up with yourself…or thinking about the past.

-Phoebe

Even though I run pretty regularly on the treadmill and in the park, I haven’t run a race since the NYC Marathon in November. So, a few months ago, I signed up for the Brooklyn Half Marathon, which is happening in a couple weeks. As usual, I printed out my Hal Higdon training program, wrote in the corresponding dates for all the long runs, and started to train.

It might have been old shoes, or maybe I’ve been bad about stretching, but I developed a case of plantar fasciitis about 6 weeks ago. In case you’ve never had it (and, I hope you haven’t) it’s pretty painful and will make running and any other activity requiring you to be on your feet absolutely miserable. I’ve suffered from it before, and it’s gone away with some rest and icing.

I made the decision to not do the race. With a couple weeks rest from running, I may feel better in time, but I won’t feel ready and prepared. And, if I go from 0 to 13.1 miles, I’m likely to re-irritate it or cause some other kind of injury.

Since I made the decision a couple weeks ago, I’ve been going to yoga pretty regularly, but almost all cardio vascular exercise has come to a halt. “I’m injured, I need to take it easy,” I’ve been telling myself. “I’m smart. I’m looking at the big picture, instead of pushing myself to injury.”

Now, throw in a couple of busy weeknights and a Mother’s Day weekend with mom, and I’ve slipped down the slippery slope of moderation and balance and landed in a sticky pit of laziness.

It’s been about a week since I’ve been to the gym and all I want to do is eat potato chips and watch TV. Right now I’m telling myself I don’t need to go do my usual Sunday evening yoga because I walked to the train and helped mom carry her suitcase to Port Authority. Oh, and because it’s cold outside. Note: It’s 52 degrees in New York.

The truth: I’m being a lazy jack ass.  I went from modifying my workouts to giving myself a break to doing nothing.

A brisk 15 minute walk to the gym and a 1hr yoga class will make me feel great. The stretching will probably help my sore heel, and a Sunday night yoga class will help set the tone for a healthy, active week.

Ok, I think I’ve managed to convince myself to get off my butt and put on some yoga pants.

How do you guys deal with the slippery slope of “moderation?”

-Phoebe

So, I would say my lunch is probably the healthiest meal of my day. I almost always have a salad, some fruit, maybe some hummus and crackers. But then I ABSOLUTELY need something sweet about an hour later. A granola bar with some chocolate in it is one of my favorite treats, even next to cookies, chocolate bars, creme brulee…There is seriously something about the texture and chewiness that is just so perfect for me. For years I’ve been buying the bars that are marketed as healthy and high and fiber. Of course, I’m no dummy. I get that packaged/processed  foods can only be so healthy. Here’s what’s in my bar of choice:

What are mixed tocopherols? According to the 100% accurate wikipedia

Tocopherols (or TCP) are a class of chemical compounds of which many have vitamin E activity. It is a series of organic compound consisting of various methylated sphenols. Because the vitamin activity was first identified in 1936 from a dietary fertility factor in rats, it was given the name “tocopherol” from the Greek words “τόκος” [birth], and “φέρειν”, [to bear or carry] meaning in sum “to carry a pregnancy,” with the ending “-ol” signifying its status as a chemical alcohol.

Ummm…I just wanted a granola bar.

Last weekend I got ambitious and came up with my own recipe by borrowing from a few recipes I found online and improvising/substituting with what I had in the kitchen.

What you need:

- 3 cups of old fashioned oats

- 1 1/4 shredded coconut

-1/2 cup of flax seed

-1/4 cup of pepitas (little pumpkin seeds)

-1/2 cup sliced almonds

- 3 tbsps of natural peanut butter

- 2 tbsps of canola oil

- 1 1/2 cups of raisins

- 1 cup chocolate chips

- 2 teasps pure vanilla extract

- 2/3 cup of honey

- 1/4 cup brown sugar

- teasp of cinnamon

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees. Mix together the oats, coconut, seeds, almonds and cinnamon in a bowl. Spread out the mixture on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes until lightly toasted.

Melt the peanut butter, oil, brown sugar and honey in a saucepan until smooth. Allow it to cool a little and then stir in the vanilla.

Mix in the raisins and chocolate chips to the toasted mixture, then pour the liquid mixture over that, making sure everything is coated. Transfer to a 9×13 baking dish and bake it for 20 minutes. Allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before cutting into bars.

The verdict=tasty! They are a bit more crumbly and messier to eat than the store bought kind, but are definitely yummy.  And nothing to do with rat fertility.

I wrapped them up individually in cling wrap and then froze half of the batch so they wouldn’t go stale before I got to eat them (remember, no preservatives). So, I had two weeks worth of granola bars for lunch. You could switch this up according to your tastes. Maybe you want more dried fruit or like white chocolate chips?

Do you have a way better homemade version of something that’s typically store bought? SHARE!

Then I went to work. On the way there it occurred to me that I probably shouldn’t drink the coffee, even though it is filtered before it even hits the fancy little machine it comes from the tap. It did not occur to me that every restaurant and coffee house would be closed. I got to work and coffee and water weren’t an option, they practically put caution tape on the machines. I know my caffeine addiction so I quickly bought 2 diet pepsi’s from the vending machine and two bottled waters and stuck them in my desk. Then I watched. People freaked out. They contemplated where and how to get coffee. Should they go to another town (all the towns around here have the same ban these people are not watching the news), should someone go home and boil water and have their wife make it? Should they go to the grocery store and buy starbucks in large quantities? (that won) I drank my pepsi and giggled.

Later I went to the grocery store even though I knew it would already be ransacked. I needed some bottled water for the house, it’s not good to survive on juice and booze and we didn’t have sanitizer. They were almost out of everything. It was like one of those apocalypse movies (but only in the water and hand sanitizer sections, as well as frozen food). I managed to get a case and some generic sanitizer and make my way out of the mob.

I decided to try to wash at least a few dishes so they weren’t sitting around dirty. I boiled a huge pot of water, cleaned the sink, put in the stopper and poured it in. I was so smart. It went down the drain. I put a big bowl in the sink and decided to was the dishes in that, I put the next batch of water in there with soap and started to wash… but had no where to rinse. Honestly the worst part is they are adamant about us conserving so I’m trying not to do laundry and I really wish I had been a good girl and taken care of my mountain on Friday night. I don’t want bacteria clothes anyway… sigh.

The kitties love poland spring by the way.

love,

Lula Mae

And, no, I don’t mean that I’ve become more graceful at falling or that I now do less damage than I did twenty years ago when it was more age appropriate and, therefore, more socially acceptable to fall down in public. No, it’s still an awkward, drawn out, slow motion event where I flail helplessly for at least 5 minutes as I pitch forward, fighting the powerful cooperation between the earth’s gravitational force and the density of my skull. Kinda like this:

Except, as I’ve mentioned, I typically pitch forward. And, I don’t need the help of an icey sidewalk. And, I’m not a dude.

So, the story that inspired this post: Yesterday, in my ongoing pursuit for zen and a state of equanimity, I awkwardly half ran, half jogged in flip flops to a yoga class toting my bag and yoga mat. And, because I’m me, I’d left myself just enough time to get there…as long as I awkwardly half ran, half jogged the whole way and didn’t have to wait at any of the cross walks. So, you can imagine my excitement when it looked like I was going to make it JUST in time as long as I didn’t get held up waiting for the very  last walk light before the gym on the corner of 6th ave and 9th street.

With my destination in clear sight, I took off thinking “I’ll actually be a couple minutes early!” when suddenly my visual perspective changed.  I was no longer looking straight ahead at the blinking walk signal. Strangely, the pot-holed, gravelly terrain of 9th street rose up to meet my hands and I thought to myself “oh..I’m falling.” And then, “Naw, I can save this.” What followed was a desperate attempt to get one foot in front of the other fast enough to keep my upper extremities (and face) from making contact with the pavement.

I failed. I fell in the middle of a busy intersection with an estimated 50 or so witnesses.  I fell hands first with my legs in an ironically yoga-like twist, earning me a bruised knee and a harsh triangle-shaped configuration of cuts and road burn on my left ankle. I did manage to prevent a face plant  (silver lining).

Somehow, despite the slow motion nature of the fall, I managed to collect myself and my belongings before being flattened by oncoming traffic. I got to my class before it started, caught my breath and found “a comfortable seat in the center of my mat.”

I’m not gonna lie. For the first 10 minutes of class the only thing running through my head was the phrase “I just fell in the middle of 9th street” – on repeat. But, eventually, I managed to let it go and actually focus on the class. During our concluding resting moments of the class, I was briefly visited by an image of myself tripping in slow motion and had to squelch a bubble of laughter. Then I rolled up my mat and went to CVS.

So, how is this any better than past falls? So, as a 10 year-old, I would have burst into tears and sought the comfort of my mom.  As a 15 year-old I would have basically half died of embarrassment and ran home with my tail between my legs. At 20,  my main focus would have been on assessing the scene of the crime (omg, who just saw that? did any guys see that? I can’t believe I just DID that!)

Yesterday, I let myself be momentarily embarrassed, but re-focused on getting to the yoga class and the other things I wanted to get done that day.

Why? I think part of it’s probably what you’ve guessed this post is about: getting older and getting more comfortable in your own skin. I’m not immune to embarrassment, but I’m generally less concerned with looking stupid in front of other people. More and more, I accept who I am:  someone who falls down in public once in a while.

Which brings up another factor – at nearly 30 years old, I’ve been around long enough to see some people do some really stupid shit, falling down being the least of anyone’s worries.  When you have others’ idiocy as a mark of comparison, your own mess seems less sloppy.

And, lastly, our time is limited and precious, our weekend time even more so. I used to have no qualms with drinking until 3 am and sleeping until 1 in the afternoon on both Saturday and Sunday. Now, I find myself consciously drinking less and  setting an alarm for fear of sleeping away the daylight or spending the whole morning nursing a hangover.

So, with only one Saturday every 7 days, I’m not going to let myself waste too much time focused on what a gigantic moron I probably looked like in front strangers.

And, I’m sure I looked pretty stupid.

Oh well.

-Phoebe

I’ve decided, if the gym is going to start again it has to be in the morning. It’s going to be easier to start eating write and getting more done once I start exercising, I know this. I have had this battle so many times and every time I say not again. Maybe this really will be the last fight.

Still not officially hired which doesn’t help. It is really hard to feel worthy of anything right now.

Love always,
Lula Mae

Lula mentioned the big 3-0. I, too, am a 1980’s baby and will be reaching that milestone in just a couple months. Mostly, I’m happy about it. There’s a part of me that’s felt 30 for a few years. Not in a bad way. It’s just that my significant other and most of my friends are a little bit older than me and I’ve watched them enter their third decade without the world crashing down around them. And, I think I’m healthier now than I was 10 years ago. I’m in a better place in general.

So, I plan to turn 30 happily. In fact, I’m considering giving myself a tropical vacation…Yep, I’ve been wanting to go to Costa Rica for years. I was weeks away from going for work a couple years ago when the trip was canceled, and I feel like it’s absolutely necessary for me to close the loop on that… Plus, a week or so of beach + surfing + yoga + drinks with umbrellas in them sounds soooo good right now. (NYC is doing it’s stubborn April dance of waffling between warm lovely spring days and cold, rainy ones).

Before this happens I, of course, have to do things like buy airplane tickets and book hotels. We’ll see if I can orchestrate this and maybe I’ll be blogging from Tamarindo this time 2 months from now?!

Which also means I’ll have to don a bathing suit this time 2 months from now…

Goodnight friends!

Phoebe

I will come back with a full review and let you know if it enlightened me any more than the simple USDA website did.

I have a bit of a harsher goal for myself this time. I want to be 145. I hit 30 a month back and have not had children yet. When the time comes I need to be ready to play with them, I want to be healthy and live a long time to see them grow up and being my “ideal” weight and in good health is going to give me the best chance of that.

I do need help getting started again when it comes to exercise. It’s always the first few times that are the hardest. Any tips?

Love always,

Lulamae

“You will find abudant aromas of cherry, cassis, cedar, basil and tobacco in your glass. The flavors of ripe, spicy fruit are balanced with soft tannins and pleasing acidity giving the wine an overall impression of richness of presence of depth…”

Yes, please!

Would 1 glass of wine completely de-rail my training and wreck my hard work? No, definitely not. But, it’s too easy for 1 glass to become 2…and then 2.5. And that’s enough to impact my work out the next day, making me feel groggy and thirsty.

Friday night was the ultimate test. After a alcohol-free dinner with a friend I met my BF and some of his friends at Brook Vin, a perfectly lovely wine bar in the neighborhood. They have some specialty boozes and a really great selection of wines by the glass.

I had the lemonade.

It was nice lemonade and all…but, I will admit to eying my BF’s glass of red more than once and feeling a little pang of jealousy. However, despite the comprehensive wine list, the exposed brick decor, the dim lights and the relaxed feeling that Friday night brings, I didn’t have a drop.

For the next month or so, I’m allowing myself to explore and indulge in other types of beverages. It’s getting chillier, so hot cocoa and hot apple cider are becoming more and more appealing. And, of course, there is the old standby, which I don’t think I’ll ever give up:

I took this pic while vacationing in San Diego. The BF and I were wandering in the Pacific Beach area and found this cute little Turkish coffee shop. We ordered cappuccinos and sipped them while lounging in the sunshine. Wish I was there right now!

So, what’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to give up? Certain foods with ill effects? Bad habits? Poor company?

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