And Update on Updates

I'm having a craptastic week (although my neck is totally better! Yay hot water bottle!) Nothing big, but just one of those days where everything things to seem a million times worse that it probably is. In my experience, it is best to wave bye-bye to Tuesday, go to sleep, and start Wednesday with a fresh outlook.

But before I do that, three things:

1. I'm reading Inside and guys...it is SO. GOOD. I almost don't want to share my second copy with you but I realize that having two of the same book won't allow me to enjoy it twice as much, so I will still give one away. But it is that good; greed-inducing great literature. 
2. I'm reducing updates on here to Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The thinking being that my "running" days are Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays so I will update during that half hour in the morning that I would otherwise be spending outside. Book blog will get all my my Saturday and evening attention. 
3. Medical intervention is official on the running. But we are going to re-evaluate in the new year and go from there. That will still give me 9 months to get to the 5k, which I think is totally doable. And not risking my health is pretty cool too I guess. So while I can't go running, I am cleared for light exercise like Yoga, so for now my morning "run" is going to be 30mins of yoga.   I can live with this. 

That is all. Now if you'll excuse me, Imma make my lunch for tomorrow, measure out the coffee and set the timer, and then going the #%* to bed. 

Blogger Fail / September Wrap up

Yeees, I have been neglectful. What can I say? Real life got in the way. Real life like work, school, more work, errands, and work (again).

Things are trucking along though. For those of you reading this via Facebook, you are likely aware of my nutty electric shock injury (gas stove ignitor got me and messed up some muscles in my neck. It hurts. I slept for 15 hours last night). That has been a real bummer. I made a trip to Ikea yesterday to puck up some "make my apartment a home" stuff and had to leave in a hurry because I was in so much pain. Even now, almost 48 hours after the initial injury, I am hurtin' - my head is in a permanent tilt to the left, which sucks but makes me seem like a more caring, sympathetic person I think :) Before you tell me to go to the doctor, I am going to. Tomorrow.

Right - to the wrap up:

1. Running has been put on hold. I REALLY want to start again in October but between my doctor telling me to pull back and now not being able to turn my head, I may have to be a little patient on this. 
2. Vegan month starts TOMORROW!!!! I have done a bunch of research, have some recipes in waiting, and I've pretty much indulged all my dairy loves over the past week, so I'm ready to go! Expect to see a lot of pictures of food over the next month. The highlight? Cooking my own completely vegan Thanksgiving dinner next weekend. Gulp!
3. Quit my Job - not yet. Apps and skill development in progress. 
4. No drinking - not a problem. (side note: the Bookstravaganza event I went to earlier this month was open bar - OPEN BAR! That one kind of stung) 
5. Knitting - it is really coming along! Slowly, but surely. Check out my scarf progress (at bottom)
6. Make a quilt - still trying to find a sewing machine. I think Santa may bring one for me...
7. Volunteer - putting this one off until later in the year. 
8. Apartment decoration - doing okay. Got shelves (still need to be painted) and have worked on my work area a lot (photos below). I really want to tackle the kitchen organization next and then once my sewing machine and I meet, there will be a lot of textile work. 
9. Yard Sale - in spring
10. Vancouver - no progress
11. Print 20 photos per month - On my way to print these today! I'll post a photo of the photos later. The thing that I learned this month about this one is that if I want to print photos of things, I need to TAKE photos of things. So events like dinners with friends, markets, outdoor festivals, etc - take pictures of things that I will want to keep. 
12. Dinner Party - scheduled for later in the year
13. Chicago - planned for later
14. Surprise Party - I can't write about that anymore...
15. Cards for B-days/Anniversaries - Yeah. I sucked up this one this month. Going to make a point of getting on top of October. 
16. Mail a letter - sending it today!
17. Get a Dog - Need to think of something new for this one...
18. Go to Dentist - scheduled for later
19. Retirement Fund - totally forgot about this one. Shit.
20. Book/movie/album recommendations from family - they are slowly coming in! I'm excited to get started
21. Journaling - I may amend this one to journaling specific days. Maintaining this blog daily as well as trying to work on my other one is a big time commitment. So I may need to cut back on this one and focus more on the book blog. Don't worry, you will you still get to hear all about this exciting stuff (</sarcasm>) 
22. Rock Climbing - I have that scheduled for a particular month. I can't remember which one or find my yearly schedule...I should get on that. 
23. Birthday date - check!
24. Poetry reading/book event/concert  - went to Bookstravaganza all myself! 
25. ass-kicking glass - scheduled
26. Call my sisters - going really well. It is hard to schedule with them but we are talking a lot more. 
27. Beginners art class - I found a book binding workshop yesterday! So I am going to do that, but I also want to find an actually weekly class that runs for awhile. 
28. Boston - scheduled
29. Credit Card - app sent in. Waiting. 
30. Museum memberships - going to get these in October

So there you go! I think I'm doing pretty well, all things considering. 

Now enjoy some photos...

Desk-area is coming together slowly; I have too many lots of really great books to read this month; My scarf so far

My younger sister will be the recipient of the first of my hand-written letters. I hope she likes it!  

On a lighter note, my favourite pub has LOTS of vegan options including the best veggie bacon ever. Ever.  

Rain = blah

So my run got rained out this morning. Boo. Yes - I'm actually disappointed. Weird, right? Before you start judging me for not sucking it up and running in the rain, let me just say that it was raining a lot. And I don't own a raincoat/anything that is waterproof. So I think in the interest of not getting sick I did the right thing. I'll go tonight or tomorrow morning - no biggie. I figure a Sunday-Tuesday-Thursday schedule works best for me but I am flexible and will adjust where need be. How often do others run?

On the fun end of the life-spectrum, I am going to Bookstravaganza tonight at the Ritz Carlton here in Toronto. It is a little party thrown by Random House Canada and Chatelaine Magazine to highlight some of the fall releases. It should be fun! I am looking forward to meeting in person of the people in Canadian publishing that I have thus far only dealt with online. The only complicated part is that I didn't find out that I had a ticket until I was already at work this morning, which means I will have to go home at 5pm, change, go to an appointment in fancier attire than normal until 7:30 and then scoot down to the party an hour late, hopefully arriving at 8pm. Living in a big city is fun but sometimes the time/effort to takes to go places really just sucks the fun out of them. In any case - I'm excited to be going! Photos and comments will be coming your way! 

Applying for a slew of jobs during my "break" today. All the fingers should be crossed for me. All of them. 

Thoughts on Running

I was talking to a friend last night and we started talking about my running project. I should stop and say that while I love all the encouragement that people have offered regarding the running I do feel just a little silly accepting it. It has only been a few times that I've gone and it doesn't feel like much of an accomplishment (yet). But the encouragement does help a lot, so thank you :) Anyway, so we were talking about the running and how it was going and I told her that I had been avoiding the outdoor track near my house because it was always being used by "real" runners. I had realized that I was a little scared to be seen running. It wasn't because I was embarrassed by the lack of finesse my run would display; I am clearly not a "real" runner. But I feel about the act of running the same what I felt about speaking Mandarin when I lived in China: people need only take one look at me and they will know I have NO idea what I'm doing. It takes away a lot of the intimidation factor when the pressure to do well is eliminated from the get-go. So if I wasn't afraid of being (rightfully) pegged as a newbie, what was causing me all of the this anxiety? Running Culture and my being decisively on the outside of it.

What I mean by "running culture" is all of the stuff that people who run seem to know: what to wear, when to wear it, and what it is worn for; how to plan a route and what my route should include and why; which shoes to wear for different terrains and based on my physical needs. Also running culture encompasses the answers to all these questions I never knew I would have: what do I do with my house keys while out for a run? Those in the know certainly had this figured out and my having my keys jingling at my side felt more embarrassing than gasping for breath after 2 minutes of light jogging.

I'll admit it - not having the "stuff" has made me feel like an outsider too. Not that anyone has said anything to me at all, but in my head I judge myself for not having the outfits and the iPhone holder and all the fancy things that "real" runners use. But this is one thing that I am actively trying to avoid - buying the "stuff." The reasoning is that I am not doing this to become part of a club. I am not looking to be identified as a "real" runner. I just want to get my runs over with and (hopefully) enjoy the physical and mental perks of some good exercise. I don't want to change who I am into a runner, but rather I want to adopt running into my current life. So I have decided for this reason (as well as because I am trying to save money so I can quit my job) to only buy what I need. For now, that is shoes, a couple pairs of exercise pants, and a couple sports bras. My keys can jingle in those pockets for now.

My ambitious plan for the weekend

The weekend plan is ambitious not only in the volume of tasks I am going to tackle, but what some of those tasks are. There is the list, it should speak for itself:*

1. Interview Friday after work for another p/t job
2. Pick up eggs Friday after interview
3. Spend my night washing down my kitchen and all my floors (the original plan was to go out for a birthday dinner with my friends, but none of them seem to be available. Take out and cleaning it is!)
4. Run Saturday morning (Ughghghghghghghghguyuugyhushdghsdlkjghsldfg goodie)
5. Brunch! Something fun! Yay! No one could make it. Boo.
6. Either:
1. work all afternoon
2. go get primer, paint, and wall paper to turn my ugly new bookshelves into something that looks pretty (see below)
7. DO LAUNDRY OTHERWISE I WILL BE A DIRT BAG! (side note: I don't have laundry in my home and this has never really been an issue. I mean I would definitely prefer to have laundry here, but I kinda like the laudromat, so it's all good. Or was. Enter running, aka: Let's wear something for only 30 mins that is gonna get gross and sweaty. This means that every day that I run, I wear THREE outfits - sometimes four! Running Outfit (1), Work Outfit (2), Potential change of shirt and/or pants for school so I don't have baby snot/sweat/food/dirt on myself in public Outfit (3), PJs (4). This is, in a word, foolish.) 
8. Get home and do homework/write/read (fun Saturday night or what?!)
9. Make chili Sunday morning
10. Meeting with Internship-supervisor
11. Knitting and tea! Something fun! Yay! 
12. Get primer, paint and wallpaper if I had to work on Saturday and couldn't do it then. 
13. Homework/write/read
14. Two job applications

Some of those are gonna be fun (yay brunch and knitting and writing and all that!) but some of them are gonna be HARD. 

Namely, the bookshelves. I just don't have any design sense. I  know what I like and I know what kind of feel I want in my home, but I am not good and bringing things together to create a cohesive "feel" for a space. So I have no idea if these bookshelves are gonna be great or look silly, but I am moving ahead with them all the same. I spent $20 on them so I want to keep the makeover cheap too. I really have been digging the look of wallpapered bookshelves like this one. I just don't know how it will look in the space, and if it will be too much to have two of them wall papered, and how bold a paper I should use, and so on and so on. But we will see! I figure they can't look any worse...









*Disclaimer - this isn't an "I'm so busy and important and everyone else sucks" list. It is an "If I don't write all these things down now Imma forget something and feel like a moron" list. 

Sorry Sorry Sorry

Fail. I didn't post yesterday. Reason: I left my computer at work. I did journal though, kinda. I spent my break at work writing an article for the blog-tour I'm organizing to be guest-blogged on one of the participating blogs. Check it out at jennsbookshelves.com

The other thing I did yesterday: run at 6:30am. I wish I could sit here and tell you how great it felt, but I can't. It sucked. It hurt. It wasn't that I was tired or out of breath, my muscles just refused to lift my legs for me. But I did it and today is a rest day and while I'm still sore, I'm not feeling too bad! So that is encouraging. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I'm looking forward to running again tomorrow, but I'm not completely dreading it...that's something, right?

I also interviewed for a part-time childcare gig last night (extra money = can live while I do an unpaid internship in the future) and bought book shelves, finally. So it was a productive day! The shelves I don't think will be permanent, but they were $10 each and hold my books, so in they went. I'm going to wallpaper the inside of them to fancy them up a bit, until I can figure out my home office and the floating shelf situation.

Oh! I found this the other day on my run. I am thinking of washing it down, painting it up and making some kind of mail-holding situation. Thoughts?

This is so uninteresting. Sorry.

Class starts tonight - which is pretty exciting for me. I missed being in school, and these two classes are the two that I've most been looking forward to. So a long day for me (7:30-5 work and 6:30-9:30 class, blah) but it will be a good one!

I'll leave things there.

Running

I went running last night and it was embarrassingly exhausting. But I did it! I'm going to take a rest-day today and then attempt an early morning run on Tuesday. I'm already tired thinking about it.

Impressively sweaty after a light run in cool weather. 

I was so happy when that lady-voice told me I was finished!

Today is also my date-night with myself! I had my schedule confused, which is why it isn't happening tomorrow. The plan is to take my journal out for coffee after dinner, do some writing and enjoy some quality time with myself out in the world :)