Whiplash sucks

So I officially have whiplash. At first I didn't really feel too bad and was minimizing the situation. My car is totalled and the guy who hit me's insurance is buying it from me and selling it to salvage. Guess there's no hope for that puppy.

But me? Heck. I'm strong. I can do 12 pullups in a row and bench press my own weight. I can run for an hour plus no problem-o. I do yoga 2-3 times a week. Me be hurt? Nah.

Wouldn't that be nice if it were the case. Reality is that almost two weeks later I feel worse than I did at first and am starting to take this more seriously. Yesterday while leading the evening DHS group it was all I could do not to lay down on the floor, as my back and neck were aching. I am temporarily not allowed (by my chiropractor) to run, lift or stand on my head. I have never done viparita karani so many times in my life as I have this past week. THIS SUCKS.

I hate being injured. I have always taken my health for granted and it is a hard lesson to have it pointed out to me in such a dramatic way. Thank God it is not cancer or anything of that ilk. But it still sucks. I don't feel sorry for myself, but I do wish it had never happened and that it would go away.

In the meantime, off the the elliptical... again.

In the blink of an eye

It's amazing how quickly things can change-- and how lucky we are that they pretty much don't.

On Friday morning my older daughter and I were driving to the bagel store, basically to kill time after dropping the younger girl off at a before-school activity and before the older one needed to be back for the morning bell. La la la, sitting at the traffic light minding my own business and... SLAM!!!!!! Massively rear-ended. Back of my Honda minivan is a mess, thanks to a rather large Toyota pickup sliding into me, courtesy of a very icy morning.

Everything was and is fine (except the van, which drives but looks pretty bad and I can no longer open the back). And that is just the point. I have minor whiplash but the pills the doc gave me make me feel a lot worse than just stiff. BUt I'm fine. My daughter is stiff and sore too and was pretty shaken up but we are fine.

I am so grateful for our health and all that we have in life. This really drove that home for me (ha ha, get the pun?). A car is stuff, and stuff means nothing. It's the people in our lives that matter, it is our health, how we take care of ourselves and the others around us.

I know this sounds hokey but I have been so overwhelmed with gratitude the last few days I needed to share.

Ch-ch-ch changes

Wow is my life different than it was in October.

I used to have lots of free time. Now I'm not sure I remember what it is.

I used to not know any felons. Now I know lots of felons. And spend time alone with them in close quarters with the door closed on a regular basis.

I used to not know any people who had their kids taken away by the Department of Human Services. Now I lead a support group for them on a weekly basis.

I used to not know anyone who used heroin. Now I need to send a 28 year old woman to detox and inpatient treatment to kick the habit-- or else she will lose her kids, not to mention herself. Although I'm afraid for her that she may already be lost.

They say to count your blessings. I never realized how truly blessed I am. And I am grateful. Really, really and truly grateful. Wouldn't mind more free time... but still grateful.

Potluck for Felons is TODAY

The men in my Federal Probation Relapse Prevention group had the clever idea of each providing one ingredient toward creating burrito bowls for the potluck they (and I) have been told to attend tonight. However, upon reflection I realized that no one had actually coordinated who would bring what.

So my supervisor had the idea that we call them with a "reminder message" and give them each an assignment. And so I did. It went like this: "Hi Joe, This is Debby from HCH. I just wanted to remind you about the potluck this Wednesday at group, and ask you to bring shredded lettuce for the burrito bowls." I mostly left messages, but no one with whom I spoke protested. I wonder whether they thought we had already arranged this and they forgot.

I'll let you know how it works out.

Potluck ideas from Felons

They seem to think burrito bowls are the way to go, with everyone bringing one ingredient. Apparently, this is a popular prison treat.

Potluck ideas for Felons, anyone?

This is a call to help from you, my gentle readers. In two weeks the Wednesday night Relapse Prevention Group which I lead is joining all the other support groups at my office for a Thanksgiving potluck. This sent the men into a greater tizzy than the thought of returning to prison (which, frankly, many of them don't seem too concerned about). So I thought I might help them out by coming up with a list of suggestions of things they might bring.

They are always complaining about lack of cash, and since none of them seem particularly domestic, and since most of them have to take cabs or buses or get rides since a condition of their probation is having their license taken away, I think the main criteria should be:

*inexpensive ingredients
*no prior cooking knowledge required
*easily portable

Ideas? Suggestions?

Feeling Refreshed

What a nice feeling to rise on a morning after which my adopted home state voted for not one but two major democratic candidates-- Obama and Mark Udall, who won the Colorado State senate seat. What a difference from when I moved here in 1997, when the loudest voice on the local scene seemed to be that of Dr. James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family. I am so proud of our country and so proud of my state.

I only hope that we can learn from all that we have been through and that true change is not too hard a reality to bring about.

Workin' Stiff

I love my new internship. But it's a job. A nine hour a day job. A pack lunch AND dinner (twice a week) kind of a job. And I'm tired.

I think it's endemic in our society that we try to do it all and don't give ourselves credit for what we are accomplishing. I have tried to simply work this job into my schedule without giving up anything else. No skipped workouts. No pre-made dinners on the nights that I am home. No hot lunches at school- all still packed with love and lots of fruit and veggies.

That's not entirely true. I did buy pre-chopped garlic in a bottle to use while making dinner.

Anyway. Why do we feel we need to do so much all the time? And why can I not figure out what I would give up, if I were to give up anything? Maybe I just need to realize how much I am doing and treat myself with a bit of extra kindness because of it.

The Circle of (my) life

Yesterday I ended my post saying life is good. And it is. So why does my day start on such a sour note when my scale reads 2 pounds higher than I'd like it to? And why are those 2 pounds hanging around, despite my newly cleaned up eating habits?

Finding Om will ride again

My new supervisor, JL, has asked me to come up with a proposal for a one-day Finding Om seminar, which could be expanded into a multiple-session class if there is sufficient interest. Yaay!

This week the weather is freakishly warm. Too bad I'm cooped up in this office instead of outside raking my leaves. I love my internship so far, but I like being outdoors more than almost anything. I did get out and run with Scoop yesterday and today before coming in to work, which was such an incredible pleasure.

Life is good, isn't it?

High on the Confusion. Low on Wisdom.

It is pretty basic knowledge that when every fiber of your being is screaming at you to take a break and not work out because you are exhausted and unmotivated, you should probably listen or your body will make itself heard in other ways. I forgot to listen.

Friday I was running with the kids-- just goofing around, racing to the supermarket door-- and I fell, ripping open my hand badly enough that my dermatologist friend said it could use stitches "if there were any skin left." That sounds more dramatic than it is, but it ain't pretty. Then Saturday I ran 6 miles that felt like 100 and my knees were killing me, which is unusual. Sunday I was dragging ass and really wanted to take the day off but went to hot yoga instead.
Monday I went to the gym and injured myself. I'm not quite sure what I did but I was moving the bar down on the squat rack and felt a teeny little pop in my right wrist. Now my wrist hurts and is all swollen and hard to move. No way I can do yoga-- I tried a down dog, which was okay but chatturanga-- fuggetaboudit.

Crap crap crap. Why didn't I just take a stupid day off? At least the weather is supposed to be nice this week so I can get out and run.

And on the plus side, I am really liking my internship so far. I just (clearly) am still working on finding that balance. Well, my mashed up hand and the pain in my wrist will help with that for a few days, anyway.

Running in the snow

I did it-- I went out for a run anyway this morning. Snow, ice, wind and mud made a 45 minute run into an hour run but I had a great time, despite falling twice.

Also had a great time in substance abuse relapse prevention group. No kidding. This has been an all-star day.

First snow

I moved to Colorado Springs in 1997 and every year it has snowed before Halloween. This year, as of last night, is no exception. I woke up to a lovely blanket of white-- on roofs and lawns, not yet sticking to roads and sidewalks. I don't have to be at internship until 10am today and was all excited to go for a nice mellow run in the snow. The howling wind kind of killed that buzz. I hate running in any wind, let alone a wet cold one.

Internship is going well. I led my first group on Monday, second group tonight and I see my first client today. As with anything it is starting slowly but that's a good thing right now. I have a feeling I'll be pretty overwhelmed. Which is why I built my beloved Kundalini class into my standing Wednesday schedule. Clever, no? Especially on a night I have to work until 8pm.

I did a Mitzvah

Today I guided a blind runner in the Denver half marathon. It is a great race and it was a lot of fun. We finished in 2:11, which was 11 minutes after Bruce's ideal goal but 19 before what he would have been satisfied with (2:30). Saw lots of runners I know and everyone was cheering for us and I was happy that people I know saw me guiding Bruce. I am struggling a little with the feeling of being happy that people I know saw me. This was supposed to be a selfless act, an act that was gratifying in and of itself. And it was. So why do I feel I need kudos?

After the run I drank way too much beer before 12 noon at the Lefthand Brewing company tent which was sponsored by the Colorado Chapter of the American Council for the Blind. Basically any amount of beer before noon is too much, but it was a special occasion. Or at least that was my justification. Now it is 8 pm and I can barely keep my eyes open.

Tomorrow starts my first full week of internship. I am nervous and worried that my current exhaustion is just a prelude of things to come. I am going to give myself this week to get adjusted-- don't have to freak out about workouts or having a clean house or perfect meas or anything, just start getting into a schedule and see how it goes. Or at least that's my idea.

10 hours down, 1,990 to go

This internship business is going to be a longer road than I thought. The state of Colorado requires a 1500 hour pre-doctoral internship. The one I have accepted and which I began yesterday requires 2000 hours. How I missed this rather important detail until today is something of a mystery, but suddenly I have to work 500 more hours than I thought. HARSH.

That said, I think this is going to be a really good experience. Tiring, no doubt stressful, but a good experience nonetheless. JL, my supervisor, was open to my ideas about yoga therapy. He even suggested the possibility of running some sort of Finding Om-like group on a Saturday. Cool! We are literally right next to a yoga studio and I know one of the instructors so this may not be too difficult to orchestrate. But I don't want to get ahead of myself...

Next week I begin to see clients, go to staff meetings, get supervision, sit in on a few assessments and possibly accompany someone to court. I will also begin leading groups on Monday and Wednesday evenings from 6-8pm. I am a co-leader, so the first few times it's fine if I just hang out and get an idea of the way things work, which I think I will. Both. Hang out and get an idea.

I have a feeling that I'll be exhausted by the end of next week. But I'll have knocked out another 40 hours!

But before all that I guide Bruce the Blind Runner in the Denver Half Marathon, which is this Sunday.

Frost on the ground

Woke up this morning to frost on the ground. Winter is coming. So is my internship. Yes, yes. Today is the day. I am ready. It's time to move on to the next phase of my life.

I woke up in plenty of time to do a yoga video or run a few miles on the treadmill but decided that I'd rather drink coffee and bum around in my pajamas. There will be plenty of time for that typical working woman kind of morning. A whole year at least. Today I'll take a moon day.

My weight was not too heavy this morning, which is a nice start and I think I will interpret as a good sign of things to come. Sadly, it always makes me happier to weigh lighter, even as the weight I accept as okay (like this morning) is higher than what I would have been happier with 1-2 years ago. Diet, laziness or age? Probably all of the above.

What are my goals for internship? I suppose my main goal is to finish in time to graduate. Second internship-related goal I have would be learning lots and lots, including hopefully Motivational Interviewing and having a chance to implement some of my yoga therapy ideas with this non-eating disordered population.

Another goal--equally important to me-- is to get back towards the kind of physical shape I would like to be in. Part of the reason I let my fitness slip recently has been the mental effort I was putting into completing my dissertation. Now I want to get into a rhythm with work and get serious again about my working out. I'm not sure what that is going to look like right now but I think it can happen. It was not the time that the dissertation took, but rather that I only had energy in my brain for one main goal. Doing a good job at internship is not so big that it will crowd out anything else. The biggest challenge will be balancing all I want to do: run, lift weights and yoga, basically, as well as balance the fact that I'm not going to look like I did when I was training for a bodybuilding/figure competition. We'll see how it works out.

I also need time to do lots and lots (and lots) of homework with my younger daughter whom, I was informed at her parent-teacher conference yesterday, is being put on an ILP, or individualized literacy program. We have George W. Bush and his no child left behind program to thank for this. The literacy teacher informed me that 10 years ago my girl would have "fallen through the cracks" but that thanks to W. she can get the help she needs. And together we can do 40 minutes of homework a day, not counting what she gets from her regular 2nd grade class-- which, fortunately, takes about 10 minutes. When I mentioned to the literacy teacher how long the homework took, kind of questioning whether a 7 year old really needed that much work, she suggested I begin timing it and reward her for bringing it down to 39 minutes.

Sigh. Maybe with my whopping $12,000 internship salary I can pay the babysitter, a cleaning lady, my school tuition AND a tutor.

Enough complaining. Time to get psyched. Maybe I'll run around the house throwing air punches, Rocky-style.

My internship starts tomorrow

I hiked the Manitou incline this morning then did a Kundalini yoga class. After that I came home and made very healthy apple walnut quick bread but decided it was way too healthy so I covered it in chocolate chips and then ate half of it.

Now I feel full and kind of gross but also kind of good in a gross way. I think I craved an exercise/food binge before starting this new phase of life. And I may succumb to a bit of a drinking binge later. Will help make the presidential candidate debates go down easier anyway. Not so much of anything that I feel sick for the first day of work, though, which kinds of means the eating needs to be curtailed asap.

Four more days

Today is the last weekend day of my pre-internship life. Then Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, SHAZAAM! Full-time job, here I come.

By this time next week I will have worked two whole days of my internship which, as I have previously mentioned, will be the first full-time job I have held since having children. Or since getting married, which I did in 1995. I have worked since then, both doing freelance journalism and as a therapist at my school's mental health clinic. However, I have not had to be somewhere 9 (!) hours a day 5 days a week in a long, long time.

In truth, I'm excited to begin. I mean, I have to start it to finish it, and they won't let me graduate without completing internship. Plus, I have heard that HCH is a great place to work and I look forward to getting some really good experience, as well as putting my nascent Phoenix Rising Yoga therapy skills to work.

But I am also getting really, really nervous. This is going to be a big change for my entire family. I don't think any of us realizes how big. But I also know that it will all be fine. A rough month or two, perhaps, but mostly just fine.

I miss shwag

Okay, so this is painfully shallow and especially embarassing given not even a full 24 hours have passed since Yom Kippur. But here goes:

I miss shwag. I used to work in the magazine industry and we would get lots of free stuff. I worked at Folio: (the colon is part of the name), the trade journal for the magazine business so a lot of our shwag was other magazines, which is fine with me because I am a magazine whore. I will read almost anything and, unlike Ms. Wannabe VP, I can and will name names.

Some of the shwag was invites to parties at incredibly hip places that I probably never would have heard of otherwise with great free drinks and awesome musical acts like onetime I saw and even got to meet the Neville Brothers, which was also of course great.

And then there was the... you know... stuff. I like stuff. I get rid of lots of stuff all the time because I don't like stuff hanging around for very long. "Keep it light enough to travel" resonates strongly with me, despite the size of my suburban abode. I still have the illusion that everything I need can be carried on my back-- which is actually probably true.

But what can I say. I am an American. I grew up in and am a product of our consumer culture. And speaking of products, I like them, especially when they are free things I kind of covet but ordinarily would not pay money for. Sparkly makeup comes to mind. So do kitchen gadgets, especially those relating to alchoholic beverages. Yoga gear. Warm running headbands....

Now I am a psychology graduate student and get reverse shwag. Like, could you volunteer to do free depression screenings on Monday at the local health clinic because it is depression awareness day. Noble, yes. Worthy, yes. Shwag, no.

Sigh. I hate to admit this about myself but there it is. I need something new and free. Maybe the expo at the Denver half marathon will help cure this. There is always lots of free athletica there.

Orienteering Maven

I volunteered at my daughter's school this morning as a chaperone on an orienteering trip through a local park. The kids were divided into groups with a few kids and a parent, given a map, a punch card and a time limit.

We had to punch our cards at 10 stations. The kids read the map and we jog/walked most of the time. Lo and behold, our group (which included my daughter) set the record for fastest all-girl group ever. I think I went up a notch or two on the maternal coolness scale. Nice.

Running really is meditative

I always thought running was moving meditation. I didn't really need proof, but now I have it in the form of a quote from Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, "a renowned teacher of Buddhist meditation and 3:05 marathoner" (Runner's World). In the November issue of that magazine, Sakyong that "peace is really a living, active experience, which is embodied in running."

On his own web site, the monk says that "With a body made joyous through movement, the mind is able to relax. With mind/body balance, we can take the power of feeling good and generate compassion... As runners we connect to the earth and reach for sky. By challenging and extending ourselves we become more than who we thought we were. With a relaxed and vast mind we can then extend this sense of peace to the rest of the world."

Yes, yes, yes. This is seconded not only by me but by a recent article in Monitor on Psychology which talked about how repetitive athletic activities, notably running, can induce a relaxation response in the brain. I knew that. Every runner knows that.

Of the 15K Peace Run, which was held at the Shambhala monastery in northern Colorado last July, about which I read in Runner's World and in which I plan to participate next year, Sakyong says that “Running is always such a personal thing, and to be able to run for something greater than oneself was wonderful.”

On that note, in 2 weeks I will be guiding a blind runner in the Denver Half marathon. Because I agree. To be able to run for something greater than oneself is wonderful.

I'm, like, almost famous

A whole bunch of years ago I spent about 6 months living with my aunt and uncle in Anchorage, Alaska. Got a few jobs, made a few friends, had lots of fun.

So today a friend forwards me a New York Times article dated Sept 13th that says: "Ms. Palin appointed ... another classmate, Joe Austerman, to manage the economic development office for $82,908 a year. Mr. Austerman had established an Alaska franchise for Mailboxes Etc."

Okay, so here's the thing. I KNEW THAT GUY!! He lived next door to the friend who sent me the article. And I know it's really him because at the time he managed the local Mailboxes Etc. And guess what? I MADE OUT WITH HIM AT A NEW YEARS EVE PARTY!!!

So perhaps the only good news that could come out of a McCain/Palin victory is that I will be able to tell everyone that I made out with the new Secretary of Commerce.

See? There's always a bright side to everything if you look hard enough.

Matilda please come home

I live with my family at the edge of an open space-style city park at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Just beyond our property line the park has 7.5 miles of dirt trails for walking/ biking/running but other than that there is no landscaping aside from what nature put there. Lots of rocks and bluffs.

Deer wander through our yard so frequently it's boring. I plant my garden with them and the rabbits in mind. At night we regularly hear coyotes howling. One night I saw a bobcat and a few years ago we saw a momma and her baby bear.

And therein lies the problem. We have 3 cats. I say that somewhat hesitantly right now because dear sweet Matlida, the baby of the bunch, didn't come home last night. We all know that this is a risk and try not to let them out after dark. There's not much we can do, though, if they are out already and we are going to bed. So far they have always returned in the morning. We have joked about Tillie's stellar speed-climbing skills being a protective factor against the night creatures. Well, the night creatures may have won out.

This is not good. I love that little kitty, and I really don't want to have to break it to my kids. I think they are starting to get it but are kind of in denial.

Today is Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the Jewish New Year. This isn't really how I had hoped it would start out.

Meme

I am: sore from lifting hard yesterday
I think: most of the time

I know: how little I know

I want: to be satisfied with myself on a more regular basis

I have: a great family—nuclear and extended

I wish: I could grant myself grace

I hate: the word pampered
I miss: the east coast fall season

I fear: alienating those I love

I feel: tired but content
I hear: a fly buzzing at the window

I smell: bread baking

I crave: chocolate chip cookies—not now but that is my general craving

I search: for truth (had to say that, right?)

I wonder: whether the good messages I try to send others will ever sink in for me. I regret: not realizing at the time what great shape I was in a few years ago

I love: my kids, my husband, my sister, my parents, the sunshine.

I ache: for my childrens’ future

I care: usually
I always: care about my family

I am not: tall

I believe: that I am getting better all the time

I dance: like a Deadhead

I sing: mostly on key

I cry: more and more as I get older

I don’t always: love myself

I fight: instead of being patient or taking responsibility

I write: skillfully, without having to try too hard to do so. I win: when I am happy with my performance

I lose: my patience way too often (but less than I used to)

I never: say never

I confuse: the digits in phone numbers fairly regularly

I listen: really well to my clients, less well to my family

I can usually be found: lsot somewhere in my head.

I am scared: to start internship

I need: to do a lot of homework with my daughter this weekend.

I am happy about: beginning to get in better shape, beginning internship and getting on with my life, the state of my relationship with my husband and where I am in my career.

Pass it on.

San Francisco here I come

Tomorrow I leave for a Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy level 1 training in Oakland, CA. I guess I am excited. Right now I just feel tired and like I don't want to pack.

Submitted an article version of my dissertation to the International Journal of Eating Disorders but they won't accept it because my n (sample size) was too small-- only 10 people. Oh well. I'll think about where else I can try to submit it. Any ideas?

Quite a week

Whew! Looking back at the last week there have been quite a few accomplishments.

1. Successfully defended my doctoral dissertation.
2. Appeared on a radio show.
3. Set a PR climbing the Manitou incline.
4. Found out my daughter's growth hormone shots are officially working.
5. Taught said daughter how to ride a bike.

Thursday I leave for a Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy level 1 training in Oakland. Before I leave I want to work on turning my dissertation into an article, which I'm going to submit to the International Journal of Eating Disorders. I don't see the editing as being too much work, because it is just a matter of chopping out a whole bunch of stuff and maybe cutting and pasting a bit. If they don't like it I'll figure out where to send it from there.

I'd also like to take advantage of what is supposed to be great weather all week and condition the soil in my garden. Usually this is a springtime job but since I'll be on internship this spring I might as well do it now while I have the time.

AND... I am meeting with Julie the yoga teacher to talk about getting another version of Finding Om up and running in the the November timeframe.

My life is truly blessed right now. I'm not sure what I did to deserve this but I am very, very grateful. I don't even mind so much that my revelry of 2 nights ago is still hanging around as unwanted bloat, or that I don't have a fall marathon coming up any day now.

Now, why did I have to end that on a negative note?

On a roll

I never did get around to partying last night. Instead I felt exhausted and indulged myself by climbing into bed with a book at 7:30 and turning the lights out at 8.

Today I met Scoop to do the Manitou incline, setting a PR of 34:48. Woo hoo! To the top only. Didn't time how long it took to get down.

Went straight from there to a local radio station where I was interviewed about Finding Om. Even got to plug my website (guess I'd better update it soon) and the class Julie the yoga teacher and I have been talking about running this fall. Which commits us to doing it, which is just fine. Nothing like announcing it in public to make something a reality. I will try to post the show once I get the CD copy I was promised. That is, if it didn't suck. I don't think it did, because even though I felt like I stumbled a few times the host invited me to come back in 6 months or so. Maybe he says that to everyone. Maybe he meant it.

So lots of good stuff has been going on. I think I'll do yesterday's celebrating today and then get back on the clean living bandwagon. As much as I hate admitting it, this no-drinking thing is actually making me feel better about myself. Not as bloated and all. And not as inclined to eat tons of cookies when I'm not sloshed. Well, back on the wagon tomorrow. Gotta go fall off now.

4 words

Pass with no revisions.

Oh, 4 more words: time to get shitfaced.

DIssertation Defense is TOMORROW

It's tomorrow. It's tomorrow. La la la.

I took 2 Tylenol PM last night so I could get some sleep, since I didn't sleep much at all Monday or Tuesday night. I'm a real meds lightweight and it makes me kind of groggy in the morning though, so I am going to take my chances tonight.

Today's plan:
*Make lunches, check homework, get the kids off to school.

*Meet Julie the yoga teacher for a run.

*Bake zucchini bread and cut up fruit for fruit salad and get together the various foodstuff I need to bring tomorrow. It sounds ridiculous but numbers of people (including my disseration chair, twice!) have mentioned that lots of people bring food to their defenses. On the menu: the aforementioned zucchini bread, banana bread, a loaf of challah, fruit salad, butter and peanut butter. It's at 10 so I'm going with morning food type things. I think I may also bake a batch of cookies. And I'm bringing drinks. Maybe bottles of water and one of those cartons of coffee Starbucks sells. Any other ideas?

*Buy salmon for dinner tonight. Salmon is brain food and I need all the brain cells I can muster up and ready and in fighting shape.

*Go with husband to buy a remote clicker thingie so I can walk around and still advance the slides while I do my PowerPoint. This was his idea. These are the little ways that I know he loves me.

*Staple the hard copies of the PowerPoint that I have to give out to people who attend. I have no idea how many people will be there and I made 15 copies.

*Make correction to said printout that I had already copied before my stats guy said I should says "sample group" not "sample population," which in statistical terms mean different things. So instead of wasting paper I'm going to white out the offending word and write in the other. Vaguely lame but I'm not getting graded on the handout, I know that for sure.

*Practice presentation one more time, this time with remote clicker thingie.

*Go to Dharma Mittra-style yoga class from 5-7:30.
*Make dinner.
*Try to sleep.

I need to be at school to set up my computer (and the food) by 9:30 in the morning. I can't decide what to do about my workout tomorrow. If I'm up early (by 6) and the weather is nice maybe I'll run. Or maybe I'll do my Gurmukh video, which always gets my energy nice and high in a balanced way. Or maybe I'll just run around yelling at people.

A little bit of everything.

I'm a little bit tired. I'm a little bit drunk. I'm a little bit depressed. I was invited to be a guest on a radio talk show talking about yoga and psychotherapy and eating disorders. I have three days until I defend my dissertation. I start a 4 week ashtanga yoga clinic tomorrow night. It's from 7-8:30 pm. I may have to sleep through it.

Above all else, be kind

And patient. With myself.

As the weather cools and I can no longer wear sundresses or loose cotton pants on a daily basis, I am appalled at how much weight I have gained. Or, more accurately, how much my body has changed. I am really only about a pound or 2 heavier than I'd like to be, but I used to be a lot more muscular. Meaning that the weight I carry is puddling a lot more around my waist, ass and thighs than sitting nicely on my shoulders, tris and biceps. And the well-defined abs I was so pround of... well. Ahem. They are kind of blobbing over the waistband of my jeans.

But I have decided that it's time to turn the corner and stop abusing myself by eating so poorly. I love to eat and I especially love eating sweets. It's okay to indulge at times. But not if those times are hourly every day for a few months.

I am frustrated (and I know I am the only person in the world who feels this way) that it takes time to lose the weight. Probably more time than it took to gain. And since I'm sure the gain has been happening progressively over the last year, it will not be an overnight miracle to get back to where I want to be. Although it would be nice to lose it as suddenly as I seemed to notice it.

I invented a miracle diet where you lose all the weight and get in the shape you want instantly and then need to diet and work out for the requisite time it would have taken you to get there. For example, I want to lose 2 pounds and be more muscular and toned. So that would happen instantly and I would look thinner and more musclar and toned. The catch is that if it took me 6 months of dieting and working out to get there the old fashioned way, I would still have to put in that time or else I would start reverting back to my fat flabby self. But the motivation to "keep it up" would be constant, since I'd look great from the start and the only motivation I would need would be a glance in the mirror at my hot self..

But I probably wouldn't notice I looked great, because every time I looked great in the past I forgot to notice.

So I am trying to be kind and patient with myself, since neither God nor science has gotten behind my miracle diet yet. This isn't easy. I am much more comfortable in a place of self-disgust (coupled with a closet arrogance that rears its ugly head every so often) than I am in a place of loving self-grace.

But then again, I'm also more comfortable feeling fit, filled with the secret knowledge that, even though I can take no pleasure in it, I am actually looking pretty good.

We'll see how this works out.

Stop the madness

You know how sometimes you let yourself go and use something else as an excuse? That's what I've been doing all summer. Writing my dissertation has taken all the mental energy that, over the last few summers, I have channeled into running marathons and riding my bike and generally getting super-fit. And that is okay. I wrote a good dissertation, I look forward to a successful defense one week from tomorrow and I am proud of what I have accomplished in that area. And I haven't exclusively been sitting around on my butt. I managed to run the Mt. Evans Ascent, train for a duathlon that I would have done if it hadn't been cancelled, and finish the Breck Crest half marathon. Sure my times were slow, but I am still proud of having trained for and done those races.

BUT... somehow I managed to use the writing and sitting and not marathoning as an excuse to not go to the gym practically ever and to eat WAY too much bad stuff. Not like fast food. More like cookies that I bake with flax seeds and wheat germ and walnuts and then pretend they are health food and eat, like, 15 of them. All the while typing and writing and thinking about binge eating. How lame is that? So today I sit here feeling like a blob monster with a roll of fat around my middle kind of wondering how I got here. I know the answer, of course. And I know how to get out of this place. And I will. But I wish I had never gotten here.

I generally think Shape magazine is useless but I get it because there was some promo at my kids' school. Anyway, this month has an interview with Brooke Shields, who said something that really struck me. In response to a question about whether there was an athlete or celeb with whom she compares herself, she said no, that comparing yourself to others is always a losing battle since you can never become them. She then went on to say that her best motivator is to remember back to when she felt her own best, the fittest, etc, to remember how that felt and use that feeling to help you get back to that place. That really struck me. I feel gross about myself right now, but I have had times when I feel great about myself. I am going to hold that memory in my mind as I work to try and get back there. So when I want to eat a cookie I need to think short term vs. long-term gratification. Especially since I need to start putting work clothes back on again in a month.

Take that, cookies!

Dissertation has been delivered

Today is the official due date of my written dissertation. I delivered the requisite spiral bound copies to my three committee members yesterday, along with a thank you note and a bottle of wine. One of my committee members told me that she considers the nicely-bound, clean copy of someone's dissertation her "little treat" for serving on their committee. Wow. The bottle of wine is the treat I like, but diversity is what makes the world interesting.

This weekend we are off to Breckenridge. I am going to run or, more accurately, slog my way through the Breck Crest this Sunday. It starts in downtown Breck, which is 9,600 feet, "crests" at 12,475 and then goes mostly down except for a little up. It is brutal but incredibly beautiful and a lot of fun in that demented I-like-to-punish-myself kind of way. I've run the race three times, completing twice and turning around just before the summit because of a blizzard with 40 mph winds once. SO when I pack today I will bring sweats and long sleeved shirts and a hat etc. But I also checked the weather and it's supposed to be pretty nice. I'm not really sure I'm up for another snowstorm slog, to be honest.

Dissertation defense is two weeks from today. I am excited! At least right now, sitting here in yoga clothes blogging whatever comes to mind and it all feels really theoretical.

Madonna: scary or hot?

So here's what I'm doing instead of preparing the Powerpoint presentation for my dissertation defense. I'm wondering whether Madonna is totally hot and amazing or a little over the top. Even if I had all the money I needed to hire a personal cook and 3 hours a day to work out with various trainers, would I want to look like this? I might. This may be jealousy talking.

Although I could do without the monkey pose and mike-as-penis thing.

The American Tragedy

Yesterday I got an email from the young, gorgeous and ridiculously fit woman who ran my yoga classes for Finding Om. She can do down dog in Lululemon running shorts and not look obscene. Need I say more? Her email complained that "We took professional pics at Bija tonight and I seriously thought I looked gorgeous. I got them back via email and, wow. Dude. I may never be happy. And even in black and white! My butt looked all puckered and my legs all stumpy."

I don't understand what it is about women in our society that makes us hold ourselves up to these unreachable standards. Go to the supermarket and look around. Any market--even Whole Foods. How many people look like they could be on TV or the cover of Shape magazine? Not many. In fact, even here in Colorado Springs, recently crowned "America's Fittest City" by Men's Health magazine, more people look like they could be featured in Weight Watchers magazine than Women's Fitness or Runners World.

I know, I know. I'm not one to talk. I feel shitty about myself right now because I am not in as good shape as I usually am by the end of the summer. Does it count that I am finishing up a kick-ass dissertation that helped people feel better about themselves and that I can probably publish (in a much shorter version) and that I can in some way turn into at least part of my future practice? Uh... kind of. But not so much when I look in the mirror. Then I just berate myself for not looking fitter, more muscular, less flabby (shall I name where?)and start comparing myself to Ms. Leadville 100 or Scoop, who has run 3 triathlons this summer and is in possibly the best shape of her life. Fine, fine, neither of them is finishing up their PsyD. So what?

Sure, every so often you read about someone getting her MD-PhD who also races Ironmans, has 8 kids, is PTO president and looks like Cindy Crawford. But most of us don't. Nor do we need to.

Right? (small wimper) Please?

Bob Costas and George Bush

If you have been watching the Olympics as obsessively as we have here at Finding Om headquarters you will have seen this interview between (cute and intelligent) sportscaster Bob Costas and (adjectives deleted) President of the United States George Bush. But if you didn't, it's worth a look:
http://www.prnewschannel.com/absolutenm/templates/?a=749&z=7

Finding Om study

I just sent off the final draft of my dissertation to my husband for proofreading. Have to get a spiral bound copy to each of my committee members next week. Then I start working on my power point because in three weeks I do my defense.

Scary and exciting and kind of unbelievable. I feel they way I did when I trained for my first New York marathon which I ran with my cousin Yoga Chickie. So much of my life and planning and daily schedule and thinking had gone into training that, when the marathon was over, I felt sort of at a loss. I'm thinking I may begin to feel that way now. Although I do have my Power Point to prepare and a presentation to practice.

And a full time job coming up a month after that.

Ugh

I feel fat, gross and out of shape. My face looks weird and my hair refuses to look good.

Yesterday I went to take my Kundalini class and not only was there a sub, she was a sub I have had before and whose teaching style I don't care for at all. So it was a waste of time and not a workout.

I know the wine and cookies I have been indulging in regularly are not helping my cause. Possibly I should be granting myself some space because, after all, I am a week away from being done with my dissertation (although then I have to do the Powerpoint and prepare my defense. But the main part, the writing, will be over). And there has been only so much I could prioritize at one time and this summer it had to be my dissertation. Sounds good and valid but the implemenation is really hard. I am ususally in kick-ass shape at the end of August, not feeling bloated and icky.

Ironic that I am working on a paper that talks about using yoga and mindfulness to give yourself grace, to realize that you are so much more of a person beyond your body and that you can't pin your entire self-evaluation on your looks and your relationship with food, yet I find it so hard to apply the message in my own life. Almost impossible, in fact.

Bah humbug. I am definitely not my own best fan today.

Internship agita

I finally spoke to JL, the man who will be my supervisor on my internship. Start date was up in the air and I had only a vague idea of the work hours, which was starting to aggravate me. Now that the kids are back in school and the dissertation is wrapping up (!) I am eager to establish some sort of schedule.

What I found out is that I'd better enjoy my free time now because I won't have any shortly. Intership hours are 9-6 three days a week and 11-8pm the other two.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrghhhhhhhh!

What about my kids when they come home from school? What about my workouts? Who is going to do my laundry and go to the supermarket and cook my family healthy dinners? How am I going to get Kid #1 to Hebrew school at 4:30 on Tuesdays and kid #2 to guitar lessons at 5:30 on Wednesdays?? My kids... my workouts... When am I going to sleep?????!!!!

Maybe those of you who have been 9-5ers forever are scoffing at me. So... tell me your tips.

I know I can get up at 5 to work out, which is what I plan to do-- and love those leisurely mornings when I don't have to go in until 11 and can get in a nice run or bike ride outside. Or run at lunch. Or go to the Y at lunch. I will work a 9 hour day. I assume I have lunch.

Okay, experienced working moms and dads: What do you do with your kids after school? Mine are 7 and 10 years old. I thought I was going to work until 5 and was fine with them being home alone for an hour. But 2 hours is a different story, not to mention those late nights. I have called our babysitter but haven't heard back from her and I'm not sure either of us envisioned her as a quasi-nanny.

On the happy front, today is my noon Kundalini class that I love and look forward to every week. Yay and hooray for Kundalini yoga. Hope I can still do it come October, considering it is at the Y (oddly enough) which is right down the street from my internship. Which, on another happy note, is located in a beautiful part of downtown only about 15 minutes from my house.

2 weeks

My dissertation final copy is due to my committee in 2 weeks.

FREAKING OUT.

There is kind of no reason to freak out, since I have a meeting with my chairperson tomorrow and unless she tells me I need to rip it apart I think things are more or less under control.

Please let those not be famous last words. No jinx, no jinx.

Anyway, the discussion section may need some (or a lot of) work. I think everything else has pretty much been cleared.

Then 2 weeks until I defend. Powerpoint must be made. Presentation must be practiced.

Oy vey. This might take a lot of running, bike rides, yoga, cookies and wine.

Carbo Loading in Vain

Seems to be the thing to do in Colorado this weekend.


I got to run the first 2 mile leg of my duathlon. Just as I was getting into a groove and no longer feeling freaked out by lightning that was flashing directly overhead and hail that was hitting my face I found out that they cancelled the race due to... weather. Oh yeah, and a mudslide that obscured the canyon road we were supposed to ride our bikes up and down. As a consolation prize they let us use the rec center for free. Surprisinly lame, considering this is Aspen, after all, but I still managed to do a pretty self-punishing weight workout and then run another 4 miles on the treadmill.

Mine wasn't the only race bust, either. Less than half the registered runners managed to summit the Pikes Peak Ascent before it, too was cancelled and race officials started turning people around. Not sure what happened with the Marathon, which was scheduled for today. Weather looked pretty crappy up top the peak as we passed it on the way home but, oddly enough, I can find no mention of anything online.

Leadville 100 trail run was Saturday as well. A friend and inspiration finished in 29 hours. I don't know whether that's good or not, frankly, but I know the weather wasn't great.

Oh well. So I ate a bunch of garlic bread for no reason. Tonight I'm going to follow that up with a bunch of wine. For a reason? Who knows.

I have this vague feeling that I need to get back on track but somehow I don't care enough right now to make it happen.

Quickie update: It's raining! Again! At least I don't have to water my plants tomorrow.

Back to school

My children started the 08-09 school year today. Crazy, no? The weather is unseasonably cool today--almost as if to try and make it seem like we don't go back to school in the middle of the summer.

This weekend we head out to Aspen to do a triathlon (husband) and duathlon (me). The kids are going to volunteer at the transition station. Fun! 2 mile run, 17 mile bike up and down a canyon, 4 mile run to finish it off.

Last year when we did this race we went up thinking that Aspen couldn't possibly be as cool as all those movie stars think. I don't know what movie stars think, actually, but husband and I had to begrudgingly admit that Aspen is pretty cool. I'm psyched to go up again, but with back to school the timing kind of stinks.

I almost don't know what to do with myself with such a quiet house. Oh right. My dissertation. Off to work.

Paris Hilton might have a sense of humor

Although I hate admitting it, given my general distaste for the whole celebutante thing.

Her "presidential stump speech" seems to be getting plenty of press, but just in case you haven't seen it, the link is at www.funnyordie.com.

Backyard bobcat

Last night all three of my cats were outside, even the fat retarded one who normally doesn't choose to go outside. He really is retarded. Our vet has declared him "mentally challenged." I'm sorry if I offend anyone with the use of the word retarded. I don't mean to.

Anyway, all 3 cats were out last night. At about 2am I was awakened by some really awful sounding cat screams. I jumped out of bed because it sounded a lot like fat Dexter, who also has a really odd, distinctive meow. Because he doesn't go out much and is fat and spazzy I don't like him to be out at night because he'd be awful at defending himself and can't climb. Not even a kitchen chair. But when I went on the deck there he was, hanging out by the sliding door, pretty pleased that someone was finally coming to let him in. One accounted for. But I knew my other two were still outside. So who had made that noise? Called and called for them, to no avail. Not good. I went back inside, wondering who wasn't going to come home in the morning.

From my bed I heard the sound again, coming from out front. Got up again and went out the front door. Heard the sound loud from my neighbor's garden. Oh boy, I thought. JG is going to find one of cats dead in his flowers in the morning. I don't know why I didn't go over. Middle of the night thinking. I called and called some more and then went back to bed.

This time the sound was loud and close. I put on my flipflops and went down the deck stairs to the backyard. Didn't see any cats but I started to notice all the laundry that I had put on the deck to dry which had fallen overboard and I'd been to lazy to go down and retrieve. So I started picking up my laundry at 2:30 am, walking around underneath my deck calling for my cats.

Suddenly I heard a rustling noise and a meow and saw a cat run away from me. I quickly walked to the other side of the house. My rush of relief was replaced with confusion when I realized that this creature was too big to be either of my cats, had unusually long legs, a stumpy tail and tufted ears. But (middle of the night arms full of laundry thinking) I still kind of thought it might be one of my cats because it had the same markings as one and was lean like the other. That nonsensical idea only lasted for a second. This strange cat arched its back, ran a few feet from me and then settled rather comfortably on the side of my driveway. I was a little afraid, actually, so I went back in, calling again for my own cats as soon as I was out of the stranger's view.

Just before I decided to give up I saw our beloved Matilda come to the door. What a rush of relief. I was still worried about my own cat, Rock Star, but was not about to take on Rocky Mountain Wildlife in my nightgown and flipflops. I went to sleep wondering whether I'd see my Rock Star again or whether he had become part of the food chain. Thank God or the cat diety or Rock Star himself, he showed up at the deck door in the morning, as is his habit.

Now they are all sleeping in the basement. I will let them go outside again, because I can't imagine a life without fresh air, but not at night.

This morning I Googled bobcats. Look about the same as my midnight visitor.

I may have had an encounter with a bobcat. Cool.

Cooling off... or not

The temperature is finally beginning to drop. I was so excited to be able to cook in my kitchen again (as opposed to having to grill or die of heat). I think I went a little overboard, though, because I managed to heat the kitchen right back up to run-outside-or-die level. Oh well. I will need to remember back to this time when I'm freezing my ass off in winter.

One for the record

So I was right about it being hot. So hot, in fact, that yesterday set a record high of 99 degrees. Today is supposed to be almost as bad. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I think we might go to the mall.

Outdoor living

We slept outside again last night. I brought another blanket for myself and slept really well. It is such a pleasure to fall asleep looking at the stars. Last night had more clouds than the night before and the sky was so interesting. I kind of miss my bed but I know that this won't last much longer, so I think we'll do it a bit longer. Or at least for as long as the days stay in the 90s.

All heads on deck

My house does not have air conditining. This is generally a good thing. I hate the fake chill of AC, hate needing a sweater in the middle of a hot summer day, hate the waste of electricity. Plus, Colorado nights cool down 20+ degrees and we open up all the windows and get a great cooling breeze. I love laying in bed listening to the crickets and feeling the cool air coming through my window. But after a week of 90 degree days the house just heats up and stays hot.

When I came home from yoga last night at 7pm, the radio said the temp was 92 and the wind was still. 92 at 7pm! This calls for desparate measures. So the girls and I decided we needed to sleep out on the deck. Not sure whether husband would have gone along with this, but he's away on a business trip (surprise!) so that's moot. We got out our sleeping pads, brought out pillows and blankets and there we were. It was lovely... until I woke up cold in the middle of the night. Thatwas kind of nice too. I got another blanket and lay there for a while enjoying the cool night air and looking at the stars.

At about 5:30 younger daughter came in and went into her bed. Older daughter is still sleeping away on the deck. Forecast is for another scorcher. Wonder if we'll repeat this tonight.

Happy Birthday To Me

Today I am 42 years old.

To celebrate, I will go to 6:30 am yoga, take my kids to swim lessons, meet with my statistician for more Finding Om number crunching, return a dented $70 garbage can and take the kids back to school shopping (they go back to school August 14th!! Crazy!!). We may go back to the pool if it isn't raining, and then we will go out to dinner. Thai or Japanese. Haven't decided yet.

Oh yeah. And I'll read my horoscope.

I don't suck!!!

Ran the 10k this morning in 50:40 (clock time-- don't know what my chip time is but probably roughly the same). That translates to 8:09/mile. Wow!! I am totally psyched about that. I was just hoping to do around 9 mins/mile!

This particular 10k is a point to point course, so before I went to the starting line I locked my bike up at the finish line so I could ride it back to the car. Fun, and felt good. For a total bonus there was a farmer's market just up the road from the car, and I had $20 to burn. I'm such a sucker for farmer's markets. I have more fruit at home than I know what to do with. Well, eat it of course, but I hope we can get through it before it goes bad. There's always cobbler, I guess.

Speaking of which, when I went to Baptiste Teacher Training Bootcamp the cooks there made the most incredible raw food desserts and one was blueberry cobbler. Haven't been able to find a recipe for that since. Any ideas?

Forearm Balance and a 10K

Last night I went to my new favorite Dharma Mittra style yoga class taught by a great guy whom Dharma himself renamed Sadhu Om (but we don't have to call him that). When I mentioned that in India Sadhus are supposedly holy men but look a lot like naked crazy homeless people the Colorado Sadhu seemed pretty unconcerned. Anyway...

Last night in class was this nice but show-offy yoga guy who definitely brings a spirit of competition into the room. Or maybe it's just me trying to do all the asanas as well as he does. They say if you ride your bicycle with other people you become a better cyclist because you push yourself harder. Does that apply in yoga? In any case, I did some BEAUTIFUL forearm balances. Even Mr. I'm So Great commented on them. Fine, fine, I'm talking ego. Let those who live in glass houses throw the first stone-- by which I mean, oh please, tell me that you have no ego at all involved in your practice. I do try to keep it out but... there it always comes back again. While I'm bragging, I did a pretty nice bird of paradise on one side, too. Those are really hard for me because I don't have the openness in my chest, shoulders or hamstrings.

On that note, I am running a 10k tomorrow morning. It's not a hard race for a change, which will be a welcome relief. I am going to try and push myself to go fast, but we'll see how that goes. All of my mental energy is going toward getting my dissertation done and ready for defense on Sept 12th and I don't really have any give-a-shitness left over for my running times. It is kind of liberating.

Finding Om worked!!!!!!

Met with my statistician today, who also happens to be the interim president of the fine school from which I am obtaining my PsyD. Guess what?

MY RESULTS ARE STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT!!!!!!!

From my dissertation draft (all rights reserved or Yoga Chickie will come after your asana):
"The main finding using a pre and post paired sample t test was that at the end of the 10 weeks of Finding Om the mean number of objective binge episodes had dropped from 4.75 (SD = 2.34) as reported pre-intervention to 1.95 (SD = 2.18) binges per week, with 2 participants reporting having eliminated binges completely (range 0-7, median = 1.5). This difference is significant (t = 5.78, df = 9, p < .001).
These results stayed stable and in fact improved at an 8 week informal follow up. Eighty percent of participants responded to an email query asking how many times they were bingeing and practicing yoga per week. At 8 weeks post-intervention, binge rate had fallen to a mean of 1.2 per week (range = 0-5, median = 0.4). A one-way repeated measures ANOVA found a significant difference in the number of objective binge incidents pre intervention, post intervention and at 8-week follow up (F (1,7) = 13.96, p = .007)."

What does that mean? That there is a one in 1,000 probability that I could have obtained these results based on chance alone for the pre to post intervention figures, and a 7/1000 probability that I could have gotten them on chance alone for the followup figures.

It worked. Yahoo. Despite the fact that my statistician is also the acting president, around whom one might want to show some level of decorum, I did a happy dance all around his office.

Yay. Hooray. I did it. They did it. We did it.

Camp Nurse

I posted a topic for the post I must have been planning to write but got distracted and never wrote it. So here it is with a new title.

Genogirl went to sleepover camp last Sunday, and will stay there until Sunday July 27th. During that time she will be getting her shots from the camp nurse. Of all the things about camp, this was the one that was making her the most nervous. Her fear that she would be the only kid on meds was assuaged when she saw the length of the meds line at camp dropoff. And when I said that she is on Genotropin, the nurse said "oh, someone else is on this, too." Normalization is a good thing.

I wonder how it is going for her. Not too traumatically, I supposed, because I haven't heard from her about it yet.

I touch myself

I finally broke down and got a mammogram. This should have been my third but instead it was my first.

Less unpleasant than I had feared, but certainly not enjoyable. Especially because she had to redo the right one twice. Good thing for yoga breathing, because that definitely kept the whole situation a lot more under control.

Now my breasts feel... manhandled, dare I say, but not in a good way.

I keep touching them because I feel like I need to coax them back into place or comfort them or something. The problem is I keep doing it in public. I must look like some sort of pervert. This might be a good time to practice mindfulness.

Beauty all around me

I went for a bike ride in the stunning Garden of the Gods this morning. Always hard, always beautiful. I was very cognizant of how lucky I am to live in such a gorgeous place.

I thought of my mother-in-law (blessed be her memory), who lived a very provincial life, despite spending most of her life an hour from Philly and a short stint in Chicago. Her 2001 visit to us here in Colorado Springs was the only trip she had ever taken out west, and she spent much of the time declaring, in an almost angry voice, "I hope people who live here appreciate this place." I assured her that, although not a native, I certainly appreciate it.

I still do. Very much so.

All Quiet on the Home Front

Elder daughter is away at summer camp. Husband is away for work. That leaves me and the younger one. Kind of nice. Kind of lonely. Lots less fighting.

What is a little too quiet for my liking is my dissertation. I need to crunch my numbers on SPSS (statistical packaging for the social sciences), a computer program which is very expensive but my school has available for our use.

Finding Om had 10 subjects. I have data entered in for 9. Finally got the paperwork back from #10, and now SPSS is down. There is only so much I can do to move forward without my actual data. I mean, based on 9 people I know the general trend (less binges-- yay!) but I can't move ahead in the writing too much more than what I've already done. And with a Sept 12th defense date, the clock is ticking.

I've been assured it will be up and running early this week. Monday is over. We'll see how this goes.

Yoga Renegade

It was 92 degrees here in Colorado Springs yesterday. Not that I'm complaining. I am actually enjoying the hot weather. But it does cause one to drink a lot. Ya get very, very thirsty in this semi-arid climate.

By later afternoon I'd already had a liter of water. And another liter of homemade lemonade sweetened with stevia. Another liter of unsweetented cranberry juice mixed with water and stevia. I wanted something... not juicy. Not water, either. Driving home after picking up my kids I passed a Starbucks. Aha. Iced cofee. So, back home I brewed up a pot and filled my Nalgene bottle once again, this time with coffee mixed with fat free Coffee Mate (I can't help it, I love it), stevia (my go-to sweetener, obviously), a teaspoonful of vanilla protien powder and lots and lots of ice. YUM!

And this is what I brought with me to my evening yoga class. Tee hee. While everyone else was stoically drinking water as we sweat through our asanas, I was loving every sip of my icy icy iced coffee concoction. Sure, sure, I missed out on some of yoga's detoxifying benefits. Whatever. It was decaf, anyway.

Redemption is mine

The official results of the Breckenridge Firecracker 10K are in. I placed 6th out of 30 in my age group!!! Yahoo!!! I feel great.

I didn't realize how much it bothered me to place in the bottom 1/4 at the Mt. Evans Ascent. Yes, it was a hardcore race. Yes, over 125 registered entrants stayed home, presumably leaving only the hardiest racers. Yes, I am generally a mid pack runner and am comfortable with that. But there's the rub. I didn't realize quite how comfortable. As in, I know I'm not going to win, but I like it that a whole lot of people finish behind me.

Well, there you have it. I guess yoga hasn't completely eradicated my ego about ridiculous things. Oh well. La la la. I came in 6th (to be sung accompanied by happy dance).

Now if I could only find my will power and stop eating so much, because the happy dance ends when it comes to feeling good about myself in that category.

This aint no garden variety July 4th 10k

Every town in America has some kind of July 4th citizens race, and Breckenridge CO is no exception. Actually, it has been an exception until this year, contenting itself with the hardcore Firecracker 50 mile mountain bike race, which also doubles as the national mountain bike championships. Happily for me, this year inaugurated the Firecracker 10k, which I gleefully paid my $20 to enter.

Unhappily for me, the first 3 miles climbed roughly 1,000 feet, from 9,600 feet elevation to 10,400 feet. Why, oh why can't I enter any non-killer races?

That said, I redeemed myself, at least in my own eyes. Mount Evans was killer, and finishing in the bottom 1/4 of runners was kind of hard on my ego. Today I finished 6th out of 30 in my age group. I admit it. It felt good. I am so signing up for this race next year. Even as I was running I was coming up with places in Colorado Springs where I can do some apples to apples training runs, although at a somewhat lower altitude.

Now, after having eaten much of the candy my kids scored at the Main St. Parade, I have to go get good and drunk in time for the fireworks.

Independence Day

Tomorrow is July 4th. Happy birthday, USA. Thanks for all the good stuff. I could do without GWB at this point, though.

How I wish I could be independent of my body issues. The other day training partner Scoop sat me down and tried to metaphorically slap me in the face about my craziness. She knows: we have done lots and lots of runs together, the subject of many of which has been my weight or state of physical fitness. I had to explain to her that, while I truly and honestly appreciate her caring, honesty and bravery for talking to me about this, every shrink I've had since age 16 has diagnosed me with an EDNOS, or eating disorder not otherwise specified. That means I don't meet all the criteria for anything in particular but show plenty of the symptoms. I am pathological. It's not that easy to just say, oh, you're right. I'm better now. I wish it were.

So in the meantime, me and my double chin are in Breckenridge, working on the dissertation and drinking lots of wine. Oh, my family is here too. We love it up here on Independence day. Cooler weather, dinky hometown parade and not-too-bad fireworks. I'm excited to do a 10k trail run tomorrow morning in which I have absolutely nothing invested. Learn a new trail, get some exercise, get a T shirt and a coupon for a free beer at the Breckenridge Brewery. Do run. Get free beer. Drink more wine. Eat food that has been cooked on a grill. Watch fireworks. Try to accept myself as I am and realize that I not only am so much more than my physical being, but that most people think I look just fine.

How is this good?

I have been struggling lately with the fact that I don't look the way I did 5 years ago when I was training for a bodybuilding competition and working with a diet coach who won Mr. Heavyweight Colorado for at least 2 years in a row. I will never look that way again. Even at that time I had the sanity to realize that I was going insane, very literally counting every gram of food that went into my mouth and generally feeling miserable all the time. Did I mention the 40 minutes of cardio twice daily? Which doesn't count weight lifting.

But damn, I looked good.

And now... school. Dissertation. Lack of motivation. Love of cookies and wine.

Today I told myself that I was going to give myself a break and eat and drink whatever I wanted and not weigh myself. Well, I did eat and drink whatever I wanted. Not so good with the scale. Didn't like the results, either.

Why the self-torture? I feel sorry for other people I know who never seem happy with themselves. Yes, I am fatter than I have ever been before. Does it matter? Apparently, to me it does. Yet this does not motivate me to do anything except eat more.

I say: Okay, I'm fatter than I've ever been. I'm also older than I've ever been (42 on July 28th) and closer to a PsyD than I've ever been. Nothing matters except my weight/size. But I seem oddly unable to get a grip and actually do anything about it. Except complain, of course.

My new theory: I crave cookies because I don't let myself eat carbs throughout the day in a normal way (bread, cereal, rice). So maybe if I let myself have a bowl of cereal for breakfast or a sandwich for lunch, I won't want to gorge on cookies at night.

That still leaves the issue of the scale. and all the fat around my middle that I didn't used to have. And what happens when I still want those cookies?

Still Tired

Boy, Mt. Evans took more out of me than I anticipated it would. It was only 14.5 miles and I walked about half of them, but I was still powering uphill at 10,200+ feet for 3 and a half hours.
Luckily the only goal I have right now (emphasize right now) is to finish my dissertation. Speaking of which, better get back to it while the babysitter is still on the clock.

What if...

...I didn't weigh myself for the rest of the summer?

I did it

I finished the Mt. Evans Ascent in 3:27. Yahoo!!!!!!!!! It is over!!!!!!!!!

I was 20th out of 26 women in my age group, which is hardly all that impressive. But considering neither hills nor altitude is my strong point, I am thrilled. Of course that begs the question of why I sign up for races like this. To miss an entire month's sleep worrying about something ultimately unimportant, of course. To be able to eat cookies like a pig and drink like a fish for a few days with less guilt that normal. Duh.

Here are my official results, taken from the official results page:

PLACE: 286 (out of 374)
BIB: 345
DIV: F4044
DIVPLC: 20
GUN TIME: 3:27:26
NET TIME: 3:27:04
PACE: 14:17
AGE: 41
SEX: F
SEXPLC: 83 (out of 127)
CITY: Colorado Springs
STATE: CO
EVENT: MT. EVANS ASCENT

In terms of my overall place this is one of my worst finishes ever. But I feel great. My running partner Scoop finished 9 minutes ahead of me and did much better overall in the standings. However, she puked at the end of the race and felt generally awful for quite a while. I felt great pretty much the whole time and drank copiously the rest of the day. So which is better?

Now I need to figure out my next pursuit. Of course, first and foremost is...

MY DISSERTATION. I am determined to defend by the middle of September so I can go to Phoenix Rising Yoga therapy training in Oakland from Sept 19-22nd and then take a quick vacation before I start internship on the 29th. That means I need to get writing. Like, tomorrow.
But I need to come up with other athletic goals as well. I just need to realize that I can only give top mental priority to one thing and that needs to be the Finding Om writeup. I may still choose to train for the Portland marathon on Oct 5th, or for any other races that strike my fancy, but it will need to be done with the understanding that the mental energy I would usually put into caring about my finishing time needs to be funnelled into caring about the finishing time for my dissertation.

I did it. I finished Mt. Evans. Hooray for me.

Crazy things that I have done:

Ridden my bicycle from St. Augustine Florida to San Diego, CA

Trekked to Mt. Everest Base camp

15 marathons, 5 above sea level

Many half marathons, including Georgetown to Idaho Springs, the Steamboat Springs half marathon and the Buena Vista Color Run

Tons of shorter races, including a 3rd place overall finish in a 10 mile trail race on the north shore of Oahu last summer where there were only 15 women overall. Hey, it's all about who shows up!

Pikes Peak Ascent

Mt Evans Ascent

Breck Crest Mountain Marathon (3 times, with this year's race on the calendar)

Leadville Heavy Half marathon

a bunch of duathlons and one triathlon (18 years ago!)

trained for a bodybuilding competition (but never competed)

And I'm not tired yet!

The Cracked Pot

I read this version of a Hindu tale in the August edition of Yoga Journal, which excerpted it from The Treasure in Your Heart: Yoga and stories for peaceful children. I really like it and think it's worth passing along:

Every day a farmer carried two pots to the river to fetch water. Each pot hung on the end of a pole across his shoulders. The pot on his right side was new and perfect. The pot on his left side was older and had a crack in its side.

The new pot brought back all the water the farmer had put into it. But th cracked pot leaded out water in a little trail. This went on day after day for two years. The little cracked felt terrible. "I am so ashamed of my imperfection!" One day it spoke to the farmer. "I must apologize. I only deliver half my load because I leak out water all the way back to your house. You should just get rid of me.:

The farmer said, "Do not despair. Look behind you. Do you not se those beautiful flowers along the path? Those are on the left side where I carry you. I knew about your special feature so I planted flower seeds, and you have watered those seeds as I walked home. Thanks to you, I have fresh flowers for my table. Thank you, little cracked pot. You are very special."


Here's to all of our special features!

I think I can, I think I can

To make the initial cutoff time for the Mt. Evans Ascent I need to get to Summit Lake at mile 9 in 2hours and 30 minutes. According to the Cool Running pace calculator this means I need to run the first 9 miles at a 16:40 pace. This is kind of laughable for a regular road race, but taking into account that the first 9 miles of this particular race climb 2,250 feet higher than the starting line to an elevation of 12,850 feet ups the ante just a bit.

I think I can. I think I can.

Once I make it to Summit Lake Cool Running tells me I have to keep a 21:49/min/mile pace to make it to the summit before the 4.5 hour race end. Again, sounds silly. However, all of the final 5.5 miles are between 12,850 and 14,264 feet above sea level. It's pretty safe to say I won't be running any of the last miles. But I KNOW that if I can make cutoff #1 I will make it to the summit in time.

I think I can. I think I can.

What to wear? In 2002 runners were pulled off the road because there was a whitout. Yes, snow. Enough to cause organizers to worry about hypothermia and call off the race early. But on the website you see happy runners wearing shorts, their manditory long sleeved shirts tied around their waists. I think I will plan for the worst and hope for the best. That means hat, gloves, running tights, windbreaker, running sweatshirt, shorts, tank top.

I think I can. I think I can.

Not running today, although I am going to do yoga this afternoon. Short run tomorrow. Then it's showtime.

I think I can. I think I can.

I know I can. I know I can.

Crying on the run

Three days until the Mount Evans Ascent. I have begun not sleeping very well and have been getting out-of-breath nervous at random times. Like on my run today, which is actually not really all that random.

I did the Manitou incline for the last time pre-race yesterday, and did a 30 minute easy run today in the park behind my house. I couldn't stop thinking about Mt. Evans race, about the distance-- which isn't so great, but all 14.5 miles are upill-- about the incline, about the altitude, about the cutoffs, about how much my legs and lungs are going to be burning. Not the most productive thoughts, I realize, but that is what I was thinking.

Then I twisted my ankle. Not badly enough to cause anything more than very minor temporary pain, but it was excuse enough that I started to cry. Hard. There I was, sobbing, limping along the trail. The nervousness and feeling of inadequacy was only magnified by the fact that I missed my already-three-years-overdue mammogram this morning. I didn't oversleep. I could have easily made the 7:15 appointment. I just forgot. This is not very like me, and it upset me.

About the time I realized that my ankle felt fine, I began going down "Resolution Hill." I call it that because it comes at the end of the run, is a good strong downhill, and is a time I tend to begin feeling better and making resolutions. I will love myself better. I will give myself a break. I will run X marathon. It's always something.

Today I used Resolution Hill to give myself a pep talk. I have trained for this race. I have gone back and forth to Barr Camp 3 times. I have done the Incline 5 times. I have done many long runs, including a 14 miler, including a 9.5 and ten miler in Alaska. I have been doing hills for months. True, I have not been doing speed training, which never hurts because it is a strength builder. But even if I had been doing speed, I would not be using it at 10,000+ feet.

So we'll see. I just need to breathe, stay positive.

Yogarific

Got back from Alaska on a redeye Saturday morning. The trip was great, although I must admit that after living in Colorado for 10 years the mountains of Alaska have lost some of their "wow" factor for me. Sad but true.

Cousin J's bar mitzvah was great, as was seeing family-- especially the ones that live in Anchorage. The NJ/east coast branch of the family gets seen plenty. Sometimes too much. Camping and hiking in Denali national park for 3 days was awesome, with moose and bear and eagle sightings a-plenty. We visited Fairbanks for the first time and, despite rumors that it's a dump, were captivated by its unique charm.

The drive back to Anchorage via Delta Junction reminded me how much I like civilization. Despite spending the entire day surrounded by incredible natural beauty, including the incomparably beautiful Paxon Lake, I realized I had begun to breathe more easily when we passed Glenallen, freely when we got to Palmer, which is about an hour outside of Anchorage.


All of this travel, including the plane ride, amounted to a lot of sitting. Yes, I ran while we were away, including a 9.5 and 10 miler on the Coastal Trail in Anchorage, which I love. Yes, I did yoga 3 times. But oy vey, am I ever stiff. I did my Baron Baptiste CD this morning (after an attempt to take a 6:30 am class at Corepower Yoga which the instructor blew off). Wow. They say every day is different. I could really feel the impact those hours of sitting had on my body. Backbends, which are always a challenge, were completely killer. But it felt great to get moving like that again, and it was nice to be reminded how hard yoga can be.

Glad to be home. Now, I need to get motivated to work on my dissertation.

Another possibility

Maybe I haven't lost my mojo. Maybe I don't hate running anymore. Maybe its just that...
running uphill at high altitude sucks! No, no, it doesn't suck. But it is really, really hard.

I went on a short 25 minute no pressure pre-airplane ride run this morning. Didn't force myself to do extra hills or anything, and I had the most lovely run I've had in a long time.

Maybe after Mt. Evans (3 weeks from today at this exact time I'll be an hour into the race) I will just try to run. Run for enjoyment. Run for the love of running. I am going to test this theory in Anchorage, which has a great series of paved trails all around the city. I'll let you know.

Heading North

Saturday we leave for a 2 week trip to Alaska. We'll start in Anchorage, hanging around with family and celebrating my cousin's Bar Mitzvah. Then my husband, 2 kids and I will head up to Denali national Park, where we hope to spend a few days camping. If the weather sucks we'll change plans, because we don't want to turn the kids off to camping completely by forcing them to be wet, cold and confined to a tent.

Tomorrow: final hike/run to Barr Camp on Pikes Peak. Then, the Saturday after we return from Alaska... Mt. Evans Ascent.

Searching for my Mojo

Yesterday my training partner Scoop wasn't feeling well, but didn't want to bag on our ambitious plan to hike the Manitou incline, continue hike/running up Pikes Peak to Barr Camp, and then run down. In deference to her illness, however, she requested that we walk all the way to Barr Camp.

I had no problem with that, especially since I feel pretty sure I'll be walking the majority of the time on the Mount Evans Ascent. Indeed, I was psyched to see what our time would be walking, since I have become somewhat nervous about meeting the cutoff times for the Mt. Evans race.

From their website: "A 2.5 hour cut-off will be in effect at Summit Lake, which is approximately 9 miles into the run." Now maybe you're thinking "Come on, Deb. You can't run 9 miles in 2.5 hours? That's slower than a 10 minute pace!"

Continue reading from the website: "Summit Lake lies at an elevation of 12,850 feet, and is 2,250 feet higher than the starting line at Echo Lake." Therein lies the problem. It's high. Really high. It's all uphill-- and keeps going up from there, 5.4 more miles all the way to up 14,264 feet. Did I mention that the 14.5 mile Mt. Evans Ascent bills itself as America's highest road race?

I've already done the Pikes Peak Ascent in 2002, the Leadville Heavy Half Marathon in 2006 and the Breck Crest Mountain race three or four times (I can't remember because once there was a snowstorm and a whiteout on the pass and we had to turn around and the run ended up being about 17 instead of 14 and I bonked and started to cry). Lived to tell the tale.

No it's not a 10 minute pace. It's a 16:40 pace. Actually, I think I can do it. But it won't be easy. I don't know why I sign up for these crazy high altitude races, since I get pretty dizzy up high. I think I can do it, especially since yesterday ended up being SO MUCH FUN! Scoop is much better at going uphill and at altitude than I am, and although I love training with her I generally feel some pressure to keep up with her. So just walking and talking was a lot of fun. And our time wasn't all that bad, either.

Oh, but just in case: "There will be buses at Summit Lake where you can take shelter. Summit crew will be notified of your withdrawal, and your summit bag will be brought down to the buses." Your summit includes warm clothes because "Even when there are warm temperatures at the starting line, the summit can be cold, windy, and has the potential for snow at any time of year."

Guess what? My kids get out of school for summer vacation tomorrow (yikes!). Guess what else? It's 46 degrees today. So it's not crazy to think that in 3 1/2 weeks there could be a snowstorm at 14,000 feet. Ah, Colorado.

Ebbs and Flows

My cousin Yoga Chickie posted about her concern that she temporarily likes gardening more than yoga. For those who don't read her blog, she's a bit obsessive about yoga.

But I can relate. Until recently, any time someone mentioned the possibility of running a marathon I was up for it. Ready to start training, ready to write the long runs (16,18,20 milers) down on my calendar, ready to buy some Gus and hit the road. Lately that fire has just... died down. I don't know on what to blame it. Marathon burnout? Other things on my mind? Concern about impending internship or the need to write my dissertation? I really don't know.

I'm kind of okay with it, allowing myself the grace to listen to my body and not force myself to go out on 20 mile runs if I have absolutely no desire to do so. I have always gotten a perverse sort of satisfaction from long runs. Now they just seem... long.

But I am also bothered very much by this development. I want to stoke the embers. It's not like I'm sitting around, and I have not slacked off on my training for the Mount Evans Ascent on June 21st. Yet I am bothered. Where do I go from here? Balance is so elusive.

And I really don't want to get fat and out of shape.

Finding Om: the sequel

Looks like Finding Om may continue sooner than expected. After the last class on Tuesday night both Julie (the yoga teacher) and I were feeling pretty pumped. Things felt like they had gone really well, and we immediately began talking about continuing this program, broadening the target audience to include all eating and body image disorders and marketing it to the general public. Obviously there is a lot of work to do, but a lot of it has been done already.

Happily, our feelings of success are confirmed, at least anecdotally, by the responses I have gotten from the returned program evaluation forms.

Yes, people feel more aware of their bodies as a result of participation in Finding Om. Yes, people feel more in control of their bingeing as a result of participating in Finding Om. Yes, people feel Finding Om was beneficial to them. Yes, people would do this again or recommend it to a friend. Perhaps most importantly, Yes, people would pay money to participate in a program which combined yoga and talk therapy.

When asked how much they would pay per session, given that an hour of yoga is about $15 and group therapy ranges from $25-60 for 75-90 minutes, Finding Om participants threw out numbers from $10 (ridiculous) to $45 (wow).

As I read the responses I literally cried tears of joy. I am so relieved that my project worked-- at least in people's anecdotal responses. Today I am going to enter in the rest of the assessment data and compare pre- and post-intervention responses. I only have half the "exit interview" forms, so I can't conclude anything yet. But I hope hope hope hope hope that my results are statistically significant.

Even if they aren't, Julie and I know that what we did was successful. And I know that I want to continue doing this. And it looks like we will do so sooner that later.

Finding Om ends tonight

I can't believe it, but ten weeks has gone by already and Finding Om ends tonight. Whether my results are statistically significant or not (which of course I hope they will be), I have total confidence that what I have piloted is a good thing. Based on what people are saying in the discussion group, I know they are being helped by this.

I am excited to see the results. And I am not even dreading writing them up too much. Yes, I'd rather play outside all summer, but I really hate having unfinished projects hanging over my head. I would say an unwritten dissertation definitely falls into that category.

Worlds Best Compost Tumbler

That's how it's billed in the ad, anyway. It arrived. It's heavy. It needs assembly. After my regularly scheduled workout of the day (today's program: hike the Manitou Incline, run down), that will be my project. I have a feeling there may be some frustration involved.

Tomorrow is the last night of Finding Om. I'm not sure how I feel about this. For one thing, it means I need to move onto the writing phase of my dissertation. After 10 years as a professional journalist, writing does not daunt me. But after my last month pretending to be a landscaper, sitting inside for a huge part of the day does sound daunting. Plus, this is a pretty high stakes piece of writing.

One day at a time. I'm not going to dive in full steam ahead until after a trip to Alaska in the beginning of June, anyway. One day at a time. I'd like to get all my data and crunch the numbers before that. Anything I can do to keep moving along so that I can defend at the end of the summer before I start internship on Sept 29th.

Talk about daunting! I haven't had a 40 hour a week job since... dare I say... 1995.

Two pounds

Well, I "lost two pounds" since yesterday. That still puts me two pounds above the weight I have come to accept as normal these days, which itself is 1-2 pounds heavier than the weight at which I'd really like to be.

Two pounds. Two pounds. I always seem to be torturing myself over two pounds. But I know that my life would be markedly better without that extra weight. If I were two pounds less I would be more popular, I'd be funnier and wittier, I'd have better sex, I'd be a better therapist, I'd be more successful in every way.

My face looks to me like a giant beach ball today but my husband, who had an unusually free morning, has been hanging around talking to me like everything is completely normal. What's wrong with him? Doesn't he know that he should hate me because I am bloated?

Tonight is the second-to-last meeting of Finding Om-- at least as it exists as my dissertation project. That means I will spend an hour or so looking through various meditations and preparing what I want to bring to class tonight. Maybe today some of what I read will finally sink in on a personal level.

Bloat

This morning I weigh FOUR POUNDS more than what I did last week. FOUR POUNDS. My weight this morning is more like what I would weigh at night after a large dinner or after drinking a quart of water.

I am fairly positive that this is the heaviest weight I have ever been at my morning weigh-in. EVER. I am not going to say numbers because, since I am 4'9", whatever I weight will sound ridiculously light. I don't think I've gone crazy enough to translate this into actual weight gain. I have been eating too much lately and must have been eating a lot of salt and water-retaining things. Clearly I need to stop before this added weight does turn into actual fat. I didn't even think about putting on a pair of jeans this morning.

Despite trying to be cool about the numbers on the scale I'm kind of in shock. Maybe today's weight is a wake up call to what my weight will be if I don't get my act together.

This post must seem very boring, but I am filled with incredible unease and self-loathing because of these numbers. Even though the weight is so ridiculously high that I know it has to be last night's dinner, not anything "real", it still feels really, really bad.

Yes, I place inordinate importance on how much I weigh. A day with low numbers starts out a lot better than a heavy day.

Let's just say this day isn't starting out so great.

Therapy is neither sadism nor masochism

A response to an earlier post, which I somehow just noticed, made me feel the need to clarify issues facing people with eating disorders. Eating disorders, despite appearances to the contrary, are not about eating but rather about control, largely over emotions. The relationship with food is used to replace the need to deal with difficult emotions.

People with binge eating disorder, with which the people in Finding Om have been diagnosed, eat to numb their emotions. People with eating disorders are notoriously disconnected from their bodies. They live in denial of their bodily needs, be it the need to eat (in the case of anorexics) or stop eating (as it is with binge eaters).

To break the cycle of self-abuse people need to find new, more healthy ways to deal with their emotions. This means acknowledging their bodies and coming to an understanding of how the way they have been treating their bodies is ultimately self-abusive.

In order to heal we need to learn to feel all of those difficult emotions we have been using food to avoid. And those feelings, such as shame, self-hatred and anger, are usually not pretty. And it isn't easy to begin feeling them instead of literally stuffing them down with a few bags of potato chips and a gallon of ice cream.

So to see someone cry and feel shame at how she has been treating herself to me represents a personal breakthrough for her. She is getting to a much healthier place. I get no joy out of seeing her cry; rather, I am glad to see her access those emotions and am not afraid to sit with her and support her through that difficult time.

Photographic proof

Various views of my compost bin next to a 30 gallon trash can. On further reading, it seems I may have actually crafted a mulch enclosure. I'm still trying to figure this all out.



































Me squinting into the sun

The view from my deck

Some of the job that still needs to be done

Part of what has been done

It rained quite a bit today, enabling me to cram about 4 more trash cans full of leaves into my compost/mulch enclosure once the sun came out. I have resorted to filling recycled trash bags that I bought at Whole Foods with leaves, since I am kind of sick of paying 60 cents per giant paper bag from Home Depot and my bin is full. Don't know what I'll do with them next. I've already got 10 bags filled.