April 26 2012

1. So week two of no-weight-lifting proceeds apace. I am whiny and sullen about this, but I am being very careful with my hands and arms, not doing lifting, not doing rowing machine, doing lots of stretches.

Instead of weights I am doing a variety of bodyweight exercises. Supermans, where one lays on the floor on one’s stomach and lifts one’s legs and arms up off the floor. AKA, The Beached Walrus. Inchworms, where one stands, bends over, walks one’s hands out on the floor to a push-up position, does a push-up, walks one’s hands back, and straightens. Wall Sits, where one puts one’s back to a wall and squats with knees bent at a ninety-degree angle — and holds this position until total collapse.

There are a lot of bodyweight exercises that end with “… until you collapse.”

2. My new schedule means I have to get all my cooking done in fewer days. I made bread yesterday, and expect I will spend a number of hours today in the kitchen.

3. My kids coveted the plushie Companion Cube (from the Portal video game) that I got J as a present. So M purchased a talking turret gun, and K bought herself a larger Companion Cube.

This would be school yesterday. With Portal.

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Saturday night is for miscellaneous

1. Tentatively, it looks like the possible new work rules to prevent controllers sleeping on shifts won’t affect me too much. Here’s hoping.

2. The season five opener of Friday Night Lights was just SITTING there on Hulu, so, yeah, I’m going to try watching it without going back and watching the intervening seasons. Maybe I’ll pick them up if this really grabs me.

3. I stopped using Tweetdeck. The interface was making me INSANE. I’m currently trying Sobees, which is okay so far. Okay, not great.

4. M moved from Trout to Guppy in his swim classes! This is most excellent, as he cares a lot about measures of advancement. And it’s good because, well, a person needs to know how to swim. Both of my children are better in the water than I am. This is all to the good, since I think it’s one of my parenting JOBS to not pass on my weaknesses to my kids.

5. The interesting thing about putting on muscle without losing weight it that the sleeves of my t-shirts are ever-so-slightly tighter than they were last summer. I notice it; it bothers me. I dislike my clothes to be touching me in ways I notice. (This actually makes no real sense, and is just a neurotic ocd thing, never mind, move along.) My sleeves are touching me all the time aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrgh.

6. After two years, we finally got our garage door replaced! The garage door now OPENS!!!

7. Next week is full of good things. Trap shooting, dinner with Jen B., getting the main sewer of the house snaked out (this may sound odd, but it is SO MUCH BETTER to get this done before it backs up and raw sewage floods your basement, LET ME TELL YOU,) seeing Hanna on Friday with L.. I am excited about all of this, and pleased, and wish I was more alert and awake and full of energy going into my work week. Blea.

8. The lentil soup turned out really nicely, by the way.

Saturday morning domesticity

1. Started a book called The Worst Hard Time, by Timothy Egan, about the survivors of the Dustbowl. So far it is extremely compelling and also horrifying.

2. The time of the kids’ swim classes changed with the new term. Mostly because K advanced to the Flying Fish level, and those classes are held later in the morning. So we have a little more time in the morning to get ready, but I will be SUPER-RUSHED to get home and get ready for work.

3. Last night I played Super Munchkin with the kids, then a round of Gin, and then N and I taught them the extreme basics of poker. (Since they were asking about it.) There are so very many metaphors and cultural concepts that derive from poker, it’s kind of unbelievable. Call, raise, bluff, draw, hold, fold — I could go on.

4. The later time of swim lessons means a later workout for me, which means I will not get to listen to NPR’s Weekend Edition. Fooey.

More in the way of soup

1. M appears to be coming down with something. He’s complaining of a sore throat and is lying in my bed looking pale and tragic. He’s got coloring which is most typically described as “Irish” — red red hair, blue blue eyes, and pale pale skin. Whenever he gets sick he always looks pale and tragic.

2. I’m in the midst of another soup. The beans are soaking. I hope that the longer boil and soak times (I do not yet have the planning skills to soak beans overnight) will make them less crunchy than Wednesday’s chick peas.

3. On a related note, I have heard many a recommendation that I might want to get a pressure cooker, if I am going to be making soup-ish things. Thoughts?

4. On another related note, an accident revealed that I really AM lactose intolerant. My goodness, yes. So, Lactaid and avoiding dairy and only aged cheeses in moderation and lots of soy milk for me.

5. I finished volume five of Nana, and I am loving the mistakes these women are making. I am also loving that this is another of that trope I like, the flakey emotive girl who is really much tougher than she looks, and the tough, armored girl who is more brittle than she first appears, and their friendship. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

6. K volunteered to do the dishes. Mostly, I suspect, because M isn't feeling well, there is no one home to play with, and she ran out of her weekly allotment of screen (computer/video/DS) time. So socializing with me over the dishes is better than nothing.

7. Went to the Y this afternoon, as usual. Since last summer I've gone from being unable to do any squats at all to being able to do twenty with a 45-pound barbell in my hands. This slow, steady progress thing is really quite fun.

8. This update is very domestic, my goodness.

9. I like numbered lists.

Catching up with yesterday

Yesterday was a perfectly lovely day of really a lot of things going on.

1. We’re trying the Singapore Math curriculum for the kids. After a few lessons it seems to be working out quite well. After the placement tests, we seem to have selected the right level of work for each kid. And the textbooks and workbooks are easy to follow and do. So, now, these days we do math with one kid while the other kid does reading on their own, or handwriting practice, or a typing tutorial, or some such.

2. School in general is going well. The kids are slowly getting the countries and capitols of South America, they know their parts of speech rather well, math is fine, and they have a reasonable grasp on world history. Yesterday I spent some time discussing the history of the Bible, and the problems of the entire idea of literal “Word of God” due to the fact of TRANSLATION. And we discussed written languages without vowels. (Is “th ct st n th mt” the cat sat on the mat? The cot sat on the mat? The cat sat in the meat? This cut stay in thy moot? What does it mean?)

3. Karate is going quite well, I think. The instructor assures me that my kids are by no means the least attentive or most dilatory and vague of her students. So I’m taking her word for it.

4. I am deciding that I actively dislike swimming as a form of exercise. On Thursdays (soon to be Fridays) I take the kids to the Y to swim. This fulfills a few needs. The kids get extra time in the water, and even if they are not practicing kicks and strokes and laps, they are playing and being extremely comfortable in the water, and that is all good. I do, though, make M practice some extra kicks and floating and strokes before he can go play. Full-body coordination is hard for him. While we are out, J gets to work in peace and quiet and then nap before her night class. And I get to work out. Except, the thing is, I can’t really leave the kids in the pool and go workout. I could, technically, but not practically. And there’s not enough time to put them in childcare, work out, then have them swim. So I have to swim.

It is so damn boring.

You have to understand — I cope with cardio by not paying attention to it. I read, or watch tv, or listen to audiobooks, or to music. I don’t sit there and ponder my workout. That way lies madness, or, at least, complete boredom. But with swimming laps all I can do is sit ther and ponder my swimming. There’s no distraction. It is so boring.

5. I’m on GoodReads, in case anyone is interested. I tend to write a few remarks or a short review of the books I finish. Though, I have not and am likely not going to go through and add reviews of all the books I list as read.

6. Gaming last night was fun. We played Rock Band 3, and I sang all four Lady Gaga songs in a row \o/

7. Yesterday’s news cycle was completely depressing. Here’s hoping that today’s is better.