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Where There’s a Will There’s a … What?

pancakes
Hello, delicious food.

As I prepare to expand my writing horizons with a new blog, here’s another “blast from the past” post from my original marathon training blog!

Alas, this one shows just how weak-willed I can be. Sometimes, when the flapjack calls, I just have to answer.

These are the very habits I’m hoping to break, actually!

But, here’s another oldie but goodie from January 2006.

Pancakes

January 10th, 2006 at 8:41am

Well, getting to the gym sort of fell through.

I went for pancakes with my mother instead. The call of the flapjack was just a little stronger than the call of the leg press.

Or maybe it was just that my mom was driving, and she didn’t feel like dropping me off at the gym.

“You’re wasting away! Here, let’s go eat pancakes.”

I could have struggled. I could have fought. I could have hurled myself from the moving car and out onto the six-lane highway. I could have dodged and weaved through traffic and ran to the gym screaming “Blessed weights, I come for you!”

Instead, I sat in a booth and and shoveled a plate full of buttermilk pancakes into my mouth.

All hail the flapjack, covered in butter and maple syrup with a tall glass of ice cold milk on the side.

There you have it! My breakfast food addiction in black and white. Being gluten-free has helped me cut down the amount of IHOP runs to zero, but I still struggle with will-power.

See you next time! I hope to launch “The Writer’s Fitness Plan” within the next week.

In the meantime, you can follow my rambling here (this blog isn’t going anywhere) and find me writing “How To” articles at ComputerGeeks2Go!

Photo Credit: iStockphoto

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Odd Finds in the Memory Vault

Karen Bristow and her sister, circa 1983-1984
The tall, goofy-looking brunette is me, somewhere between 3rd and 4th grade. The cute little blond is my sister.

Ever wonder what causes certain people from childhood to stick in your brain for no discernible reason?

People who, when they pop up on your mental movie screen, cause you to pause and think, “Whoa. Where’d they come from?”

My memory vault is stocked with some strange standouts. I mean, I can understand remembering my very first BFF, the first kid to bully me in school, or the first boy who’s heart I broke.

Those people had a profound enough impact in my life to scorch their own trail to my long-term memory.

But Ian and Derek from Mrs. Gould’s 4th grade class? We did nothing more than share space in the back of the classroom and swap yogurt for Twinkies at lunch. I’d understand remembering them for nearly three decades if we’d at least swapped spit. Maybe it was the unique name or the leather jackets? Or just the fact that they were complete opposites.

Ian, who to me, had the coolest name ever, sat to the right of me for most of the school year. His desk was as orderly and pristine as mine was a black hole that swallowed up my homework and barfed out excuses.

He came to school every day in dress slacks, loafers, a button down shirt and either a navy or red sweater vest. He never misplaced his homework or had to borrow a pencil. Nor did he have a problem loaning his pencils to me when I needed one. He was just a sweet kid who, thankfully, hated Twinkies as much as I hated yogurt.

Behind him sat tall, dark and Polish Derek. The “Bad Boy” of 4th grade. (If the 4th grade can have “bad boys” that is.) He wasn’t a jerk, that I remember, but he sure could pull off an attitude that matched his “Thriller” uniform; leather pants, either black or red, a matching jacket full of zippers and buckles, and high-top shoes.

He was the only kid in the school who could outrun me, but not by much. And if my desk was a black hole, then his was a supernova. Nothing that entered his desk came out unscathed, or at all.

Though the three of us did team up once in a while (a very unlikely-looking trio) for assignments or kickball, I can’t pinpoint one thing about them that stands out enough to make them so extremely memorable. Yet I’ve named my firstborn after one and pillaged the memories of both for personality traits and quirks for characters that haven’t yet found a home in stories.

Somewhere, somehow, in the ten-month span of 4th grade, they did something that caused my subconscious to freeze-frame them permanently in my mental photo album. And the ego part of me sometimes wonders, “do I stick out for no good reason in their memories too?”

Do you have any memories of people that cause you to ask yourself – “What the heck? Why him/her?”

Photo Credit: My Dad

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Here’s to New Habits! Fitness Goal Check Week Three

I heard somewhere that it takes 21 days to form a habit. Well, I’ve made it 21 days. Does that mean I now have a new, healthy habit? I hope so! With the exception of an illness knocking me out on Arms & Shoulders day, I made it through week three without a hiccup.

The program’s a little repetitive the first three weeks, so week three looked exactly like weeks one and two:

  • Day 15 – Chest and Back
  • Day 16 – Plyometrics
  • Day 17 – Arms and Shoulders
  • Day 18 – Yoga
  • Day 19 – Legs and Back
  • Day 20 – Kenpo
  • Day 21 – Rest or Stretch

Getting up at 4:00 has gotten, dare I say it, a teeny bit easier. I woke up on Day 19 a few minutes before my alarm went off, actually. I’m still not fully functional that early, but I’m not a complete zombie either.

I can just about pull myself up one inch now, instead of just hanging there like an ironed shirt from my pull-up bar. Using a chair for assistance helps and I have the bonus of getting an extra leg workout! I’m finally sort of getting the hang of the first half hour of the yoga workout. I can at least go from Downward Dog to Runner’s Pose to Warrior 1 without totally falling over. I still have issues with Kenpo though. Maybe if I had something to actually punch, I’d find it a bit easier.

The diet portion of the challenge still needs work. But I think I’ve trained myself to want my apple at 3:00 in the afternoon instead of wanting a bag of fruit snacks. As a matter of fact, if I don’t have an apple sitting on my desk at work, I get a little twitchy. The weekends are the hardest for me. I’m pretty sure it’s because at work, I have a routine that I stick to. I don’t have that on the weekend.

Overall, it was a good week. I’m looking forward to week four, which is “Recovery Week.” That means a lot of stretching, Yoga and a DVD called “Core Synergistics” which I’ve never tried.

Check back next week to see how the first month of my 3-month challenge went!

And here’s to forming new habits! What new habit are you trying to form?

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Facebook as Connection Tool

There are plenty of reasons to maintain a healthy annoyance at Facebook. Things like, your privacy settings getting reset every time they change something you just got used to. Definitely a good reason to stay annoyed.

But there’s a really neat reason not to drop Facebook like a container of wriggling spiders.

Reconnecting and staying connected.

In my case, I’ve reconnected with family.

My parents moved us away from Rhode Island just before my 16th birthday. Which, for the record, was … a long time ago. Some of my cousins weren’t even born when we moved and I’ve maybe seen them once in all this time.

Thanks to Facebook though, we’ve managed to connect (and in some cases, reconnect) and I’m getting to know these really cool people. All without the awkward silences that come from say, family reunions, where relatives introduce you to someone you once met when you were an infant.

“Honey, you remember your cousin Karen, right? You were four months old the last time you saw her. She wrestles cheetahs or something now.”

Facebook lets you avoid the nervous smile and wave that usually accompanies that kind of re-introduction. (And I wrestle with a Cheetos addiction… not with actual cheetahs.)

One of the neatest parts is getting to live and travel vicariously through my family members as they post pictures of their time in places like New Zealand or Italy. And I’m learning that majoring in medicine is not for the faint of heart or weak of mind.

By extension, I’ve reconnected with their parents as well. And my aunts and uncles, I do remember. And miss. Yes, there are phone calls, emails, and letters. But Facebook is so immediate. On busy days, when life has me by the throat and is shaking me like a gator with prey, I can keep up with my family in real-time, with a glance at my phone.

Facebook may have its quirks when it comes to privacy and user experience (Timeline, anyone?), but with keeping you connected, it’s pretty awesome.

Now I’m curious about how to use this connection epiphany for business as well as personal. How can I use this real-time interaction with people to expand a business?

How have you used Facebook to a business advantage? And has Facebook helped you reconnect and stay connected to family or friends that you haven’t seen in years?

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I Survived Single Leg Wall Squats! – Fitness Goal Check Week Two

I’ve made it through week two of my 90 day fitness challenge. It’s had its ups and downs, but overall it wasn’t as painful as week one.

By Friday I was so wiped out that I almost hit the “Off” button on my phone and slept through Yoga. But I got up anyway and powered through, nearly falling flat on my face trying to do “Crane” pose. I was so tired by that night though, I was drooling on my pillow by 7:40 p.m.

On the nutrition side, this week reaffirmed my belief that I’m a total stress eater. The beginning of the week sort of put the “F” in “effed up” and Tuesday saw me wanting nothing but chips, cheese, and chocolate. My fitness challenge coach and group gave me some great advice on how to combat my desire to chow down when the cortisone levels spike and Wednesday started with a clean slate. I did pretty well the rest of the week.

I also gave up fruit snacks and Snickers (my personal irresistible temptations) for Lent as an added incentive to not eat them.

Here’s what week two looked like (exactly like week one, actually):

  • Day 8 – Chest and Back
  • Day 9 – Plyometrics
  • Day 10 – Arms and Shoulders
  • Day 11 – Yoga
  • Day 12 – Legs and Back
  • Day 13 – Kenpo
  • Day 14 – Rest or Stretch

Week Two Wrap Up

I used a chair this week to help me with the pull ups and sure felt it in my back! I have no grace or balance and I hit myself in the face during Kenpo. My eating still needs help, but I did better this week than last week. Also, I’ve lost half an inch on my waist, hips and thighs. And best of all, I survived single leg wall squats!

Bring on week three!