How Did I Get Here? & Month End Stats

Ever get one of those quiet reflective moments that you are sitting there and wondering WTF happened to bring you to this point? That was me this morning at 5:45AM waiting for the Pilates Reformer Class. I will admit that I wasn’t feeling like my usual self and thus, I guess I wasn’t on auto-pilot.  I found myself in a reflective mood.

Photo- Diane Ross eat your heart out.  It's Ollie in drag!

I’m quietly sitting waiting in my frigid car in front of the pilates studio and attempting to think warm thoughts. The car heater hasn’t really been working since this latest cold snap and I’ve been meaning to check out to see if it’s just the anti-freeze that needs topping off. (I hope that’s all.) But I’ve been too busy to get it checked out and I’m not mechanically inclined at all. So, here I am freezing my butt off.


Just as my teeth are about to chatter, a car pulls up in the next parking stall. It’s another gal that’s in the pilates class with me. She’s sitting in her less than one year old shiny silver gray with black four door sedan Cooper with tunes and probably a heater that works. Meanwhile, I can't help but think about all of the steps that have led me to be sitting here in a freezing 11 year old scratched and dented (small dents & scratches from leaning my bike on it) silver station wagon that looks like I live out of it. Not that I’m jealous of the situation. I could be sitting there in a newer heated car if I chose to be. But it’s kind of strange that I’m relatively happy sitting here freezing in the old car that has me perplexed. What happened along the way that made me okay with that? Hmmm… Did I have a few screws that came loose along the way?!?


The more I thought; the more I found myself comparing...  I bet she lives in a cute little house with a spoiled cat or a springy young dog that loves to run. Meanwhile, I live in a one bedroom apartment that doesn't allow pets where most days my living room serves as a painting studio which leaves me inclined not to invite guests in. She probably has a productive job that she enjoys and she’s good at it too. Meanwhile, I’m passing the time as a lowly secretary/receptionist that answers phones and sometimes back talks to my boss. I really should be fired but for some reason I’m not. I will admit that my work is not fulfilling but I’ve reached a point where that’s not what I’m looking for. I opted out years ago to settle for an 8-5 type of steady job and I’m okay with that.  Not all of what I AM or who I AM is my job like some people.  I would have to say that I’m everything BUT my job to a certain extent. But overall, I’m happy with my life. Not that I couldn’t use some changes but overall I’m happy.


The pilates studio opens its doors. We both get out of our cars to head in and I can’t help but compare myself.   Now, is this mentally unhealthy of me to do this? I don’t think so. I see it as a litmus test. And so the comparison continues… She’s a tall blonde slender and looks like she’s ready for to model for a layout in a yoga magazine. Her hair is in smooth ponytail with matching headband. She’s wearing a matching black jacket with long yoga pants and black sleek tennis shoes.


Here I am looking like I’m homeless and look like I HAVE been living in my car. I’m in an oversized fleece jacket with a mismatched hoodie and almost threadbare yoga capris. I’m wearing knee high shearling winter boots, fingerless colorfully striped knitted gloves from some third world country and have topped off the whole affair with a black & gray skull cap to cover my bed head hair that is in BAD need of a color dye. So, in another words I look like I was literally dragged out of bed from my car.


We walk in and she (Ms. Yoga Model) is all sunny “Good Morning!” Meanwhile, I mumble “good morn” as I’m consciously trying to tug my hat off so my hair isn’t sticking straight up. You see, I really had a time trying to drag myself out of bed this morning for some reason. Which is really not LIKE me at all but my lack of being “put together” this morning seems very obvious when I’m staggering in with Ms Yoga Model next to me.


It’s later after the pilates class as I’m heading home in my still frigid car that I think that there MUST be a few screws loose as I’m happily puttering home to shower and change for work.  But I will admit that I wasn't happy with the scale when I got home.  It had been almost two weeks since I've stepped on it and I found myself up by 3 lbs.  Ouch!  Yep, there's some things that I want to change.

November's Monthly Stats--
27.5 miles running
60 miles cycling
3hours 11 minutes on the elliptical
Read 2 THICK books this month (bringing to a total of 55 books for year)
and ...
I'm up to #95 on the 100 Salt Lake City Porches Painting Project.  To view the progress of the project you can click here.  Here's the latest...

"100 Salt Lake City Porches, No.95"; Oil on 12" x 12" Canvas

Hair Adventures & End of Month Report...

This last Saturday I went into my hairstylist and said I needed a change. I bravely left it in the hands of my stylist and said whatever you think. Talk about the beginnings of an adventure.  I went in a mainly medium length brunette with red streaks and came out a short asymmetrical bobbed blonde with caramel highlights. My stylist made it look SO cute using a straightening iron and this is me on day 1. Barbara Streisand eat your heart out!

This is day 2- I don’t happen to have a straightening iron but used a regular curling iron to attempt to straighten it. Did I mention I have naturally curly hair?

This is day 3- This I took this afternoon at my desk. It’s been unusually humid here all day because it’s been pouring rain off and on. Some parts of Utah got up to 1’ of rain which is unusual for this time of year. But it’s been enough to make my natural curl sprout some of that wonderful frizz. Ugh!  Darn hair sometimes has a mind of its own!

Do we see a trend here?  More hair adventures to come, I'm sure.


Being the first day of August, here’s a look back at the month of July.  The End of Month Report for July.
Savings- I stayed right on track for the month of July which I think is pretty good considering that I went on a bit of a vacation to Helena, MT.

Weight loss- I’ve been rather on a plateau at the 22 lbs. mark, but that happens. Why does it always seem that the last 10 lbs. are the hardest to take off?

100 Salt Lake City Porches- I’m a bit behind on this art project. I should be finished through to porch #66 as of yesterday if I keep to the schedule I set up. Instead, I just finished porch #64 and hope to finish porch #65, an oil, tonight. I have lightly sketched porch #66 and have it prepped for a watercolor. So I’m not terribly behind and I can catch up to where I should be.  To view the progress of 100 Salt Lake City Porches, click here.

"100 Salt Lake City Porches,No.64"; Watercolor on 10" x 14" Paper

Uncluttering my life? I’m still building a pile to go to the good will. It’s slowly getting larger and taking up more floor space in the corner of my bedroom. I’ve added items of summertime clothing from last year that doesn’t seem to go with anything else in my closet. What happened there? I’m unsure.

Stats for the Month...

18.50 miles Running

460.50 miles Cycling

2 hours on the Elliptical

Read 6 books ( Makes for 39 so far this year!)

An Early End of Month Report...

Since I’ll be heading out to the Netherlands of yurting tomorrow morning and getting some much needed R&R,  I figured I would go ahead and do my progress report for the month of March. It’s kind of hard to think that a quarter of the year has all ready passed by. Overall, I feel good and think I’m progressing well on my entire goals for the year.

As I type this I must admit that I’m very pleased with my progress on my savings goal.  I’m still ahead of my goal, and I even have managed to move more ahead of that goal. I’m almost ahead by $110. Yahoo!  Little by little its adding up, and it feels good too.



This morning I weighed myself, and found that I’m down another 2 lbs. YES! Though, I tend to wonder if some of that is due to my hair appointment this last Saturday. You see, I had about 4” of hair taken off the length. Naw! Just kidding around! Yes, I did have that much taken off but hair couldn’t weigh that much could it? So anyway, that brings my total weight loss to 18 lbs. total. I seem to be still averaging 6 lbs. per month; a very good pace of losing weight.



Here’s the nitty gritty stats for the month….

6 hours 24 minutes on the Elliptical

28.33 miles running

92.25 miles cycling

2 miles swimming

And

Read 5 books (up to 14 books for year)

I’m running a little bit less but getting more miles on the bicycle as the weather allows. I’m trying to balance out the running with the cycling; which was one of my goals. I’m also trying to build up more miles on the bicycle to work towards doing a century. One of my goals is to get one century in for the year.

"100 Salt Lake City Porches, No.32"- Poured Watercolor on 9" x 11" Paper

I just finished #32 of the 100 Salt Lake City Porch paintings.  This project has been moving along quite well and I seem to be on schedule to finish it up within the year so far.  I also think I'm seeing some improvement in my paintings.  Click here to check out the progress of the project.



Now for the uncluttering my life goal… Well, at the end of last month I moved out the defunked dryer. I then went through that closet and reorganized and cleaned it out of excess stuff. With doing my taxes I ended up going through various paperwork and receipts that I had. I cleared out quite a bit of the unneeded. Why I had the receipt for the 52” Big Screen TV that I got rid of 8 years ago? Gee, I think it was a safe bet that I didn’t need to keep that anymore. I was amazed at how many receipts that I had like that. I thinned out those files pretty well. I was actually able to get all of those, my tax papers, and other important papers to fit in my small fire safe. Cool! But you know with all of this clutter “maintenance”, I sometimes feel like I’m a gardener. There always seems to be weeds sprouting up where you least expect them.  The worst thing is... I never did like gardening or yard work, and most of it was due to those darn weeds!

A New Hairdo & On the Mend

I'm always going through phases-- blonder or redder for the most part. This last Saturday I got a new haircut with a bit of color. I told my hairstylist that I was ready for a change. She cut it with a little more layers to bring out my natural curl and then I went with a bit of a darker red. I finally this morning felt like I did a halfway decent job of styling and took a couple of quick pictures. (Why is there such a learning curve with styling your hair after a haircut?) This is for you MOM; now you can see what I look like.

And here's the result...

(I apologize for the raised eyebrows and the smirky looks. It's not easy holding a camera and trying to look semi-normal.)

Yes, that is all natural curl that most times I try to take the curling iron and wrestle it out of my hair. I'm really hoping that I figure out the new "do" before my art show on March 20th.

After the haircut on Saturday, I had made an appointment at a local massage place to see if I could get the pain in my top right thigh worked out. OMG! It was a very painful massage that I muddled through-- the young man that worked on my legs was kneeling on a stool near the table and using his elbow to get deep into my upper legs muscles and glutes. On top of it all, I was in a mood to chat. I talked the poor guys ears off. Not normal for when you get a massage but the funny thing is that we discovered we had a connection. He was friends with the neighbor boys that I used to hire to cut my grass about 10 years back. Small world!

I was walking normal out of the massage parlor but woke up the next morning to discover that my ass was on fire! He had told me that I would be sore the next day, but I had not expected this. All of Sunday I was going back and forth between sitting on a hot pad or sitting on ice. Talk about freezing my ass off!

Slowly over the week, my ass has been less and less sore. I've actually been feeling quite good and think by this Friday I'll be able to start back up with the running. YAHOO!