Kicking off the Year of the Snake

Though things on the career front are slow, this weekend was pretty spectacular.

First of all, this happened:

Photo by thelsdj

That's Cheeto, basking in the sun and sporting her cone of shame. She's fenced in because company was over and she has a habit of trying to eat them. C'est la vie.

Muse and I ended up having family over Friday and Saturday evening and had far too much fun playing Heavy Rain, Rockband, and Cards Against Humanity, watching bad rom-coms starring Ryan Reynolds, and eating delicious things. My family can cook, y'all. :) Waffle pizza made the menu, among other tasty things.

On Sunday, I woke up late, took Cheeto for a nice, long walk to make up for all of that fenced-in time, and grabbed some tasty items for Chinese New Year. I skipped the moon cake in favor of some jin deui (sesame balls), and the super-not-traditional coconut, cream cheese, and red bean filled buns. Oh! And Senorita bread! It may not look like much, but heated up that stuff is heaven. Sugary, buttery, carb-y heaven. I followed all of that up with Chinese takeout from J's Garden paired with lazy person rice cooker rice.

Cheeto finding the scent. Of noms, I presume.

Imagine my surprise when I weighed myself and found I'd lost another three pounds in the past week. Woo! It seems the Couch to 5k and all the walking have been paying off. I just finished week three of this version of the program. Seven minutes may not sound like a lot of continuous time running to anyone, but to me it was hell. My short achilles tendons and wonky ankle make it all the more challenging, but I'm incredibly pleased to have made it this far. I managed a small self-reward of some light gloves to keep my hands warm on walks without overheating, as well as a headband to keep the wispy layers of my hair out of my face while working out. Hopefully I'll get smart and get back to doing those tendon lengthening exercises from my ballet days. I'd love to get back to a point where 30 minutes in slightly flexed snow boots won't cause severe calf cramps, but we'll see. Gotta finish the small stuff first.

THIS IS A POST TITLE

More pictures of food BECAUSE I CAN.

Besides the lemonade, I ended up making cranberry orange scones and chicken cacciatore. I wish I liked the act of baking and cooking more - if I could just research recipes and have the food magically appear, that would be GREAT. Tonight's food project is crockpot beef stew. I'm hoping to find more tasty vegetarian recipes, but most of the ones I've tried thus far just aren't that satisfying. :-( Oh well.

Good news is I'm down 6 pounds since January 1st, despite all of this eating I've been doing (the Bestie was in town earlier this month and MY WORD did we eat. That was basically the whole visit - waddling from one food adventure to the next.). The walking has been wonderful and I am finally at a point where pushing myself physically feels rewarding instead of like I'm trying to torture myself. Hopefully I'll get to a point where I'm not waking up every few hours from muscle soreness. But with the Couch to 5k thing, I doubt that will be soon.

When Life Gives You Lemons

Tasty

This, my friends, is a glorious glass of cold lemonade. Maybe not so great for those of you dealing with winter storms, but to me it is divine. It represents all of the best things about working from home. The fact that I feel stronger than I have in ages and therefore had the emotional energy to make something from scratch. When insomnia strikes, I can stay up and squeeze lemons rather than freak out about needing to be up at a certain time. I happened to be home in the middle of the day when a friendly neighbor stopped by to deliver the lemons. It's also incredibly tasty. My goodness.

Unfortunately, my primary client had to pull way back on hours. Here's hoping I can fill up my time with some new design work, rather than go back to the 9-5 grind. *raises glass*

Goals for 2013

I've decided to slightly shift my goal lists this time around - instead of framing things as successes and failures, I'm going to try and incentivize the more difficult to achieve annual goals.

1. Improve my health. 
I've been walking for 45 minutes to an hour five days a week with Muse and Cheeto. It's gorgeous here, so it's not hard to maintain - as long as I keep making it a priority. To this I am adding the Couch to 5k regimen, Wii's Just Dance 3, Dance Dance Revolution, and my Planet Fitness membership. My plan at the moment is to essentially pay myself for keeping up with moving more. If I finish the Couch to 5k plan, for example, I intend to treat myself to dance classes. With the gym, if I go X number of times in Y period of time, I will reward myself with Z. So far I'm thinking some kind of foot massage will be in order. Essentially, I'm giving myself cool experiences if I'm more physically active, and if I happen to lose any weight with this increased activity, I'll treat myself with various material gifts every N number of pounds (budget permitting).

2. Take steps toward performing again.
Dance class counts. Perhaps voice lessons. Maybe acting lessons. Maybe auditioning for something. If I'm cast in something, anything, I plan to take myself and some friends out for celebratory bowling.

3. Travel.
It's a reward in and of itself, but I'd like to pull off a road trip to Montana and spend at least a few hours in Canada. This will require me finally sucking it up and getting my passport photo taken. Muse and I also need to get to Boulder to visit his amazing/wonderful/fun/awesome/fabulous sister and hopefully see his niece (maybe in Chicago?And if Chicago, see family, family friends, and friends who are family). Bonus life points if I go someplace beyond that.

4. Read.
I hit my ten book goal last year because I started reading on my mobile devices. I've very mindfully created more free time for myself, and I need to figure out how much of it I want to devote to pleasure reading. As long as I finish whichever book I acquired most recently, I'm giving myself an unlimited book budget.

5. Be selfish.
I'm not going to get into the Phoebe debate on whether or not any act can every truly be unselfish. But, I do have a tendency to spend too much time worrying about other people's impressions of me. I want to do things for myself, for my reasons, to further my own end-goals. The reward here, I believe, is peace of mind.

6. Write.
I *will* use this space for whatever the hell I want. I've spent too much time worrying that I should reserve my blog for a limited number of things or focus it to "increase traffic," etc. Forget all that - I'm just going to post about what's on my mind, what I'm doing, what I'm not doing - what*ever*. :) For this I will have the pleasure of looking back at this space to see who I was during this time. That's ultimately what this blog has served as for me, so I may as well be true to that.

7. Focus. Or not.
I see myself as an aspiring Jane of all trades. This makes directing my career efforts difficult, as generalists don't seem to be valued much. I intend to spend some time reflecting on what I really want out of a career, out of life and moving forward from there. Perhaps fragmentation can be the right path. Or not? As with being selfish, my reward here is potential peace of mind.

8. By the end of the year, have at least one moment where I have felt like I was exploding with joy. 
Because I want at least one spectacularly gleeful moment this year, if not a whole long string of them. 

How'd I do? 2012

1. Up the ante and read ten for-fun books. (Up from last year's five.)
Status: Success! 
The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life - Amy Tan
The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tam
Punished: A mother's cruelty. A daughter's survival. A secret that couldn't be told. - Nonna Bannister 
The Wild Things - Dave Eggars
Big Girl Small - Rachel Dwoskin
Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power - Rachel Maddow
Red Azalea - Anchee Minn
Bossypants - Tina Fey
Inheritance - Christopher Paolini (my god, will this author ever stop using the word "fingering?! Please.)

2. Climb a wall. Status: Failure.

3. Apply to grad school (minus the beard). Status: Failure.

4. As a carry-over from 2011, travel outside of the U.S. Status: Failure. 

5. Stay true to my Weight Watchers plan. Despite their creepy video. Status: Failure.

6. Go bowling. I love bowling*, but never go. Status: Failure.

7. Run a mile without dying. No matter how fit I've been, I've always hated running - however, it lends itself to my plan for #8. (Also sans beard.) Status: Failure. I did decrease my mile time though. :)

8. Operation: SUPER OMEGA TOP SECRET. You'll see. Status: 0.25. Can't tell you yet.

9. Sing more. Way more. Status: Success! 

10. At 11:59 p.m. on December 31st, feel like this: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jKlxjbhB9HE) Status: Success! 

A lousy 3.25 out of ten. But it was ultimately a good year.

It happened

I've been told by a few people in my life that there are two topics I never go a day without mentioning: dogs and San Francisco (I'd argue that we need to put food planning on that list, but I suppose it's not my list).

Well, I already have my darling terror of a terrier, Cheeto - so I moved to the Bay Area. It may not be the city-city, but it's close enough in the East Bay. I got here in September and it has been amazing. Truly amazing.

I feel good, connected, like I'm actually in the moment and living a life. Let's not dwell on how rare that feeling has generally been for me.

I've made major strides in improving my physical health (not to mention the emotional benefit of being here). I haven't been this happy in a long time.

Here's to a prosperous 2013!

Much love,

Cat

Wish me luck...

And cross all your crossables.

Setting the mood

When I need to clean the house, I put on Hoarders.

When I study, I watch bland comedies like Just Friends, The Proposal, and Legally Blond.

When I want to avoid any triggers that will irritate me, I turn on HGTV. It is my safe zone.

When I need to vegetate in front of the TV, I watch garbage like The Real Housewives (yes, judge away) and My Fair Wedding.

When I do graphic design, I need fast-paced, catchy music.

When I write, I require stony silence.

Unintentionally sounding like a serial killer

Me: Hey, do you have a decent saw I could borrow?
Friend: My dad has one in his truck, but won't be here for another hour or so.
Me: Great! If Muse is still struggling by then, I may need to use it for a bit.

Today

From Garfield Minus Garfield

Minimalism

Thanks to an infusion of motivation this year, I've been organizing up a storm.

First it was the living room shelves, now it's transferring all of my CDs onto my computer, tossing the plastic cases, and saving the album artwork in a little box. (And with a world music curator/DJ for a father, this is going to take awhile.)

I'm curious to see where this ends. I've had a recent urge to get rid of as much stuff as possible.* Opposite of nesting, perhaps?

* Left as tribute to the LA trash gods (or the people who love curbside finds): one of two bedside tables, ten pairs of shoes, and a shelving unit; selling on Ebay: several old phones, and a PDA (still works!); selling on Craigslist: king-sized box spring; donated: thirteen bras, and lots and lots of clothes (and more to come as I go through the other closets). 

Love

Fiona Apple.

...Is that a threat?

Me: So, I posted this on Twitter, but I'm guessing you didn't see it.
Muse: Hmm?
Me: I was in the car and this woman crossed in front of me, looked directly into my eyes - my SOUL - and littered. She dropped some garbage on the ground without blinking. Like she was trying to intimidate me or something.
Muse: First world anarchy.

Ah, Friday.

(From Hipster Zodiac)

"Yessss, self-controlled," she thinks while taking another bite of a doughnut.

Big dreams, big disappointments

What is it about doing things for myself that makes me so terrified? I'll jump in to defend/protect/help a friend in a heartbeat, but if it benefits me...I freeze up.

Yes, internet. I'm asking you to solve all of my problems.

So, uh...hurry up.

Thanks.