Mission Accomplished!

Goal 5 - Attend The Nutcracker

Melissa in the ticket line

I was SO JAZZED by this you have no idea!!! ScottieDog said he'd never seen me so happy at a performance. [Actually that might be an overstatement. I was pretty darn happy at Spamalot!] It was SO. GREAT. Scott said it was certainly the best production he'd ever seen, so much better in fact that he enjoyed it thoroughly all over again.

Well hey, it's Balanchine, after all. What I didn't know is that Balanchine essentially rescued The Nutcracker from relative obscurity and established it as a Christmas classic at the NYCBallet in 1954. I had been assuming it always was--like Handel's Messiah--from day one. But apparently when it was first performed in Russia, people kind of went "meh..." Amazing.

All the little kids were great! And the mouse costumes were amazing! And the big Christmas Tree! Oh gosh... And the dancing! And the snow!

I could go on and on.

Here are some random shots of the evening:



Clockwise from the upper left: 1) the David H. Koch Theater, 2) the humongous stage, 3) Melissa by the newly renovated computer automated Lincoln Center Fountain, though it wasn't doing much at the time, 4) two big strong ladies in the lobby who do great things for Melissa's body image.

(ScottieDog has some great pictures on his iPod that I might post later.)

Then we went out to an Irish pub that turned out to be the hangout for the ballerinas and the ballet guys (ballerinos?). Several of the principal dancers came in after us and sat down at the table in the picture. But by then I was not in a picture-taking mode, being busy with my Southern Fried Chicken. It was pretty good, but real Southern Fried wouldn't have had such a crisp eggy crust on it.

Dammit, no more yoga!

So anyway, it turns out I have mechanical sacroiliac joint dysfunction. (SIJ) At least it's not arthritis. I decided to go get it looked at since it's been bothering me for years, and because I keep getting hurt.

But get this: the therapist says I can't do yoga anymore! Or at least not a lot of the poses. She says yoga is for mobility, and I have too much mobility. She doesn't want me doing anything with one leg that I'm not doing with the other leg. For instance, the pose in the picture is a big no-no. I wanted to say, does that mean I have to hop upstairs, but I didn't. Still wondering about that, though. (That would make for an interesting Sunday morning, because the choir loft is three flights up.)

I'm also wondering about the "yoga is for mobility" thing, though. I think there are a lot of strength poses in the yoga I've been doing. Even in the Sun Salutation. It's not for wimps.

And I can't cross my legs anymore either!!! Or stand in that cool model pose with the hand on the hip and the weight on that leg... She says I have to stand in the army at-ease position. Great. That'll look elegant.

So anyway, now I have to do Pilates instead. I changed my Goal 49 to say "Take Pilates classes," and I'm in the process of registering for one, except they have to have my doctor's approval. Bureaucracy... (Speaking of which, did you read this???? Counterbureaucracy Scary!!!)

But here's the good news: Tonight I am going to go see The Nutcracker!!!! (Goal 5) For the first time in my life!! Just one of those weird unexplainable gaps in my musical entertainment experience...

ScottieDog is all excited; he's seen it a bajillion times growing up in Chicago, but I never did except for bits and pieces on TV. I asked him if he minded taking me, but he said "God no!" He explained that it's like having your child's first trip to the zoo: you get excited all vicariously. He did say it was an awfully "girly" ballet.

Again, I have to say I would never have scheduled this, or a lot of the other things I've done in the past year, if it hadn't been for my "101 Goals in 1001 Days" project. I'll be lucky if I get 50% of them done, but just look at what I've accomplished that I might not have done! I got to see Jon Stewart!!!! And the stars!!! (The real ones.)

I'm making a very big effort to get a bunch of them done before the new year. I slacked off majorly here lately, and I have some lost ground to make up for.

I was going to try to do another December of Discipline, but I'm off to a very late start for various reasons, such as SIJ. Still, I think it's a good idea. Get a running start on those New Year's Resolutions with me!!!

Weekday Update

I'm really having a spell of frantic activity here. Just to get up to speed: the FatBet is going strong, I'm still in the lead with almost five pounds lost (out of the goal of ten). We're more than halfway through though, so I really need to buckle down to it.

I finished The Poisonwood Bible and am working on my book report. What a book! If you haven't read it, get a copy and get going right away.

I need to review my goals list. I'm working really hard on several big long-term goals, but I need to see if there are some I can knock off pretty quickly. I'm not really stuck at 11/90, but it kind of feels like it.

And it refuses to be spring here in the New York Metro area. I hope it's better wherever you are, all you out there in the blogosphere.

A Great Way to Spend December

I have been SO good this week, except for one day when I went way over my wine limit. As my yoga DVD says, tell yourself one healthful thing to keep in mind for the day. I keep telling myself "Enjoy the discipline!" And I think I am, actually.

My weight today was 143.6, down two pounds from last week. Of course WW goes "tsk,tsk" because they think that's too much to lose in a week. Screw them. I'm eating all my points per day, most days, and going over into my flex points. I used 22 flex points last week. And it is, after all, December, so the shrinking is bound to ease up a little.

I'm feeling pretty good about my food. THE KEY IS to keep that afternoon snack going. Got to have my piece of fruit. If I don't, when I get home I tend to fall upon whatever is most handy and devour it. The cats are starting to keep out of sight when I come in the door.

One other thing: I'm eating no "diet" food. I use regular salad dressing, and regular butter. And of course olive oil, all in moderate quantities.

I've been getting fairly good grades except for that one day (see above) when I got a D+. The hardest thing is to make sure I do enough hand therapy per day. Yesterday I went to the actual hand therapist so I got a good workout. And my hand is so much better! I saw the doctor this morning and she was very impressed!

Exercising is going great! If I don't get to the treadmill or a long walk, I can always fall back on my yoga DVD, which I'm starting to love! I ordered another one this week, and also an aerobic DVD from The Firm. We'll see how that works out.

I'm telling you, this is a great way to spend December. Much better than feeling all apprehensive about how much weight I'm going to put on over the holidays, and looking forward to a January of restraint. I recommend getting a jump on your New Year's fitness resolutions.

P.S. I'm also really excited about a couple of Christmas presents I'm making. More about that later, because I don't want the recipients reading about it in my blog.

Creativity

Remember back when I was trying to get filing done, so I took big stacks of it to work? I decided to take all my tortuous hand therapy equipment to work with me and get some done there. I call that thinking outside the box! And hey!--my hand is really starting to improve!

The apparatus in the picture is my hated neuromuscular stimulator. You hook those electrodes up over the correct tendon and put on the splint, and when it gets going it gives you some low-level but nasty sustained shocks and makes you bend your finger. Actually both the little finger and the fourth finger bend, because they share a tendon. And you have to work really hard to try to bend it a little further. It makes my neck and shoulders really tired because I forget to relax everything else. But I can really tell the improvement!

Next time I'll post a picture of my putty! That'll be interesting, because it's green.

Anyway, my December of Discipline is moving right along. I've discovered that weekends and leisure time in general are the enemies of discipline. I get a lot more done when I've got a lot to do, if that makes any sense. Over the weekend I made a B- and a D+ (ack), but yesterday I got back on track with a good solid A! And I'm still 143.8 lbs.

December of Discipline, Gol-durnit!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

I had two Thanksgivings, one here at home on Wednesday night and another with my extended family in Kentucky on Saturday afternoon. This is NOT such a good idea if you're trying to lose weight. I gained five pounds. :-P

It's a shame Thanksgiving and Christmas come so close together (not to mention Halloween, though I'm not too big on sweets) because it puts the people trying to pursue fitness at a double-whammy disadvantage. No wonder New Year's diet resolutions are so popular. SO, I decided that on all the days this month that I'm not partying, I'm going to be observing as much discipline as I can. It would be great if I could start the New Year a little better off instead of worse off!

I started WeightWatchers flex program again, because I feel good on it, and I won't drink so much, and it encourages me to exercise (so I get to eat more).

I'm hoping to reach Goal 47 (drink <2 glasses of wine a day for one week) and Goal 96 (practice voice 5 times in one week), and work on 45 (lose weight), 56 (exercise 3 times a week), 57 (hand therapy), and 65 (make Christmas presents).

My Rules: I'm going to grade myself each day on how well I do. I will have to 1) stick to diet, 2) not drink too much, 3) exercise, and 4) hand therapy -- all four in order to get an A for the day. And obviously continue to whack away at what other goals I can manage.

We'll see, I guess, whether I've got the right stuff...

So far so good...

As promised, I have awarded myself a goal for breaking a bad habit (leaving my shoes all over the house). Yes I know I said I back-slid a bit last week, but I renewed my efforts, and it's been over a month, so I'm claiming it.

(Hey, these are actually the shoes I bought to wear to my daughter's wedding. They are currently up on the closet shelf in a box. They are a lot sexier in person.)

I also renewed my exercising efforts. Yesterday I had to get on the elliptical because for some reason the treadmills wouldn't start up. I discovered that a lot of my workout mix that hadn't meshed too well with my walking works just fine on the elliptical! I think I'm going to need two mixes, a fast one for walking and a slower one for the elliptical.

And I need HELP with this. I know hardly anything about rock/pop music. The songs I have currently (my daughter AC put a mix together for me) that I really groove to are "Let's Dance" (Bowie) and "Cocaine" (Clapton). I think I'll have much more incentive to exercise if I have some really fabulous, driving, fun-to-listen-to music, preferably not too bubble-gummy. Any suggestions???

ALSO, I have pretty much settled on another virtuous habit: establishing a flossing routine again. I was doing pretty well until a couple of years ago when a series of accidents put a real cramp in my style. At one time I had both hands in braces, from falling down and hurting my wrists. And I also broke a rib. Not that time, another time. And now I have this hand thing going on.

I'm not going to put off developing the habit until after surgery--I'm going to try to cope with dental hygiene right through the recovery period. My dentist sold me a nice Water-Pik, AND I have another new ally in my quest: I only discovered this brand lately because my stepdaughter left it behind when she moved out. What a revelation. My teeth are really close together and really hard to floss. This stuff makes it easy!!! And fast! (Please don't tell me it doesn't do as good a job as the regular floss.) And yes, it is more expensive, but it makes it so much less onerous a task. In fact hardly onerous at all.

My first product review! (*simper*)

Goal 54 - Visit the Dentist

Arrggghhh!! I buckled down and researched dentists today, and ended up with a dental appointment next week. One week from today!

I must explain: I have severe dentalphobia. One afternoon in the gym when I was eight I broke one of my front teeth on account of a girl I never liked very much barreling into me during a game of Flying Dutchman and knocking me down. What ensued during the following twelve hours was right out of your worst nightmare. And back then, dental science was not nearly as advanced as it is today. I know they knew about gas back then--they called it "laughing gas"--nobody thought about using it on me, probably because I was a very stoic youngster who had a mortal dread of making a scene. (I internalize everything.) I ended up (after what seemed like hours of drilling without benefit of anesthetic if I remember right) with an ugly metal cap on my front tooth, which some of my peers thought was way cool (though even "cool" was a word they didn't yet know in that definition). And then eventually with a more real-looking temporary crown that stayed on through my teens. Never will I forget that night at the dentist.

Anyway, I cannot now undergo even a routine cleaning without being gassed into oblivion.

It takes me a long time to "break in" a dentist. I had a really nice one in KY--I even got to the point where I could have a cleaning without gas, but then I moved to NYC. Then I almost had another one broken in, but he moved away, probably because of me. I had a habit of spouting copious tears while under treatment, and he found it a bit unnerving.

It's been way too long, so today I called around, and the first dentist I chose I made sure to ask about the gas, and they said "No way." What's up with that? I asked the receptionist if there was some reason for this, and she said I'd have to talk to the dentist, so I said, "Well, I'll get back to you." I found another dentist on the second call who had no problem with the nitrous, so I have an appointment in SEVEN DAYS! If it weren't for my Goals List I would never have called. And without the support of all you blog people I would probably chicken out. But I am going to be staunch about this. Don't want dentures! Vanity trumps dentalphobia.

Goal 3 -- Paint 5 pictures

Taking one last ride in ScottieDog's car.

Ah the Bard festival is coming to a close! And I did bestir myself here toward the end to accomplish some things: I went on a hike with my friend Eileen and my ScottieDog, and took some nice scenic shots that I might paint from later on. Also the hike was very invigorating, which goes toward my long term goal of getting more fit.

Lots of my friends here have been looking at my goals list, and a couple have started on their own lists! I feel so proud and influential!

The Bard Festival is always so great. We have a ball. Note the incredible Frank Gehry "Space Turtle" concert hall behind the car.

The last concert is tonight!

Here's a chorister eye view of the rehearsals:






Sopranos are always right in the middle of the percussion instruments. Well, right behind, anyway. And boy is it LOUD. Interesting, though.

This is a BIG orchestra. You'll note we can hardly see the players in the front of the orchestra. We have to look for the conductor with binoculars.

Goal 31--Get All Papers Filed

Aargh! This isn't even all of it. The dining room table is stacked full too.  And there are about seven or eight boxes of stuff under the table.  Two huge moving boxes of files belong to my mother-in-law who just moved up here in March into an assisted living facility.  I haven't even opened those yet.

How did I get into this mess?

One thing is that I am simply not used to non-academia.  All my life the prevailing rhythm has been nine months of school and/or work, 3 months off to do whatever, year in and year out.  

This business of working every week of the year, with just a few exceptions, has really cramped my style.  I always so looked forward to the end of spring release, when I had a chance to breathe and to get things under control.

I'm now looking at about seven years accumulation.  I quit teaching full-time in the mid-90s but began a full-time work week on the Regular People's Schedule around 1999.  I didn't do so badly keeping things under control until 2001, when 9/11 sort of put us all into a six-month paralysis.  It's been gradually downhill from there.  

Anybody else miss school??

I've been doing pretty well on Goal 31.  It looked worse than this a week ago.  I had a brainwave:  I figured I would take a stack of papers to work in my backpack, and if I had downtime I would sort through.  Best idea I ever had!  I have loaded up my day job waste basket with so much trash.  I brought home a big envelope full of things to be shredded, which I did today.  Other than getting a bad stiff neck from trying to carry too much stuff, things are progressing pretty well.  I filed for two hours this afternoon.  I can't believe it doesn't look any better than this.

(I'm also working on Goals 16 and 57.)

ONE OF THESE DAYS

I knew I’d have to do this sooner or later. After all, on a sudden impulse I set up my blog a year ago; but I had only an incoherent idea of what I wanted to write, so it’s been blank all this time.

After considering various self-improvement projects and sort of kind of deciding I’d just gas away instead (and getting totally sidetracked for several months by breaking my right hand), I happened up on a Project Idea in The Simple Dollar: to wit, “101 Goals in 1001 Days.” It is a winner. You can read about it here: 101 goals in 1001 days

I’m not really a terrible procrastinator any more (though I used to be), but I do have trouble NOT thinking along the “one of these days” line when I look at a pile of stuff to be dealt with, or a sudden urge to do something interesting that I don’t have time for. What days do I think I’m talking about exactly? The really, really neat thing about the 1001 days idea is that you can get the answer to that question! It is: “One of THESE days!”

I think I’m up to 50+ goals now, and I thought of several more on the subway today, so maybe I’ll have my whole list by the end of the week.

Here is a short explanation of the project, excerpted from its origin on the site triplux. There are some good tips for choosing goals and for pursuing them as well. It is apparently okay to fail at reaching a goal, because you might learn something.

The Mission: Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days

The Criteria: Tasks must be specific (i.e. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (i.e. represent some amount of work on my part).

Why 1001 Days? Many people have created lists in the past — frequently simple goals such as New Year’s resolutions. The key to beating procrastination is to set a deadline that is realistic. 1001 Days (about 2.75 years) is a better period of time than a year, because it allows you several seasons to complete the tasks, which is better for organizing and timing some tasks such as overseas trips or outdoor activities.

I am whaling away at my 101 goals list right now—it takes a considerable amount of effort, actually. It is, however, extremely energizing! I’ve thought of a number of things that aren’t so obvious, like: “On a clear night drive out into the country where it’s dark and look at the stars.” (I live in the NYC area, so I never get to see them, and I suddenly realized that it’s important.) Then there’s stuff like: “Clean out the coat closet.” “Take a language class.” “Take a yoga class.” I even put in “Acquire a virtuous habit, TBD”—I realize that’s kind of ambiguous, but I’d like to leave it up to my aspiring self later on, when I might have a sudden motivation. (My definition of “habit” is: something you do way more often than not.)

I really am going to post my entire list, even though it’s rather personal. And I really am going to post updates about how it goes. (“Write a blog” is one of the goals—I’m getting a head start on it.)

Cheers, and wish me luck!