Archive
Friday Fun! (Musings On My IBS)
Hello my lovely readers!
This week I haven’t seen much of my library since I’ve been participating in the Science Librarian Boot Camp. I’ll be posting my notes from the Neuroscience section next week, since I think those were the most interesting (at least so far). Perhaps the capstone this morning will be inspiring as well and make the grade too though. 🙂
It’s been great to see some of my librarian friends this week, although the Boot Camp was a bit of a struggle. I’ve been experimenting with eating less dairy for multiple reasons (primarily health). I ate quite a bit of dairy on the first day of the conference and subsequently had a flare-up of my IBS. Not pleasant, trust me. 
It was frustrating and frankly hard on me emotionally. I’ve struggled with this syndrome for so many years and just when I think it’s mostly under control, something happens again. Although I am passionate about heath, it is frankly sometimes difficult to have to be so incredibly strict on my diet, stress level, sleep amount, etc…. or pay the consequence of being physically ill almost immediately. Trust me, I wish I could indulge in gluttony periodically with the only consequence being a few extra miles on the treadmill! But I know in the grand scheme of things it’s a minor thing to have to deal with, and I am lucky that Boston is such a mecca of vegan food. The key for me, I think, will be figuring out how much indulgence is acceptable to my body. Nobody can be strict all the time! In the meantime, FSM bless Boston for having indulgences like vegan cupcakes.
I also guess this just means I’m going to have to start requesting vegan food at the conferences.
This weekend I’m hoping to see one of my good friends, resume work on my next novel (tentacles, oh my!), and of course gym it. Happy weekends!
Friday Fun! (The Only Shoes I Talk About: Gym Shoes)
Hello my lovely readers!
I feel like I’m being terribly dull after the excitement of my Seattle and gashed knee Friday Fun posts but things have been honestly rather calm around here.
*looks around*
*knocks on wood*
Well, besides the Social Sciences Librarian Boot Camp and the release of my book that is. 😉
The most exciting things that happened in the last week were:
- My recently planted container garden seeds sprouted.
- I wore out my gym shoes and bought new ones.
Ok, so, to me the fact that seeds that are organic, heirloom, and over two years old sprouted was pretty damn miraculous, particularly given that right after I planted and liberally watered them we had no sun for around four days. (Things got…moldy). But I am literally speaking to you about plants growing, so.
It also was a big deal to me that my gym shoes wore out. We’re talking holes appeared and a heel is half off. To me this is a sign that my fitness thing went from an attempt to a part of my life. I literally worked out so much that I wore my gym shoes out. Wow. To celebrate, I let myself buy nice ones. When I put my feet in them, they said ahhhh.
Oh, before I go, btdubs, I finally realized I totally neglected to put my novella I published almost a year ago, Ecstatic Evil, on Smashwords for all of you lovely folks without kindles, so it is up there now.
Waiting For Daybreak will be there as well after the first 90 days of exclusivity to Amazon are up, aka on September 4th.
Happy weekends!
Friday Fun! (FI Steps and One Year Gym Anniversary)
Hello my lovely readers! Wow, can you believe it’s February already? Craziness. It seems like January just flew right by.
So you know that I’ve started following the steps laid out in Your Money or Your Life. One of them is tallying up your categories each month to see where your “life energy” went. My first month of tallying was December to give me a clear idea of where I was starting from. So this was my first real month on the plan, thinking through everything as $7 = 1 hour of my life. When I did my tallies, I am shocked to report, that my expenditures went down by 83.7 hours!! And I wasn’t even really trying! I just stopped and thought if each purchase was really worth X hours of my life. The book said thinking that way just naturally curbs spending, but I really truly am shocked at how much it did in just one month.
In other exciting news, this weekend marks my one year anniversary of gym membership and commitment to my health. I’ll be doing my measurements and such with my trainer, but I don’t even need them done to know it’s working. I just feel so much healthier than I did a year ago. I have more energy, sleep better, have more enthusiasm, can handle things better. It feels so much better to go take your stress out in the gym than in other unhealthy ways like drinking, eating, or vegging out in front of the tv. It’s a real positivity boost. Anyway, in honor of my one year achievement, I’m finally going to let myself get a real gym bag. I hadn’t let myself because I refuse to spend money on things I might not stick with, but it’s obvious this habit is here to stay. I can’t wait to have a real gym bag with compartments for dirty clothes and shoes and straps to hold on a yoga mat. It’s definitely going to be worth the life energy it costs for the purchase. 😉
This weekend I’m going to be very busy with a couple of projects I’m excited about. February is going to be awesome. 🙂
Happy weekends all!
Friday Fun! (Thanksgiving, Cooking)
Hello my lovely readers! I hope those of you who celebrate had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I had a great time with my dad. We ordered in Thai food, which he’d never had before. (I believe it was a hit). I showed him one of my favorite indie bookstores. He took me grocery shopping! (Which has been wonderful for me, I can tell you). We spoiled my kitty rotten and went to a couple of my favorite pubs. It was a wonderful weekend, and I hope to get to see him again very soon!
This week I got to see my friend Nina for the first time in around a month. We went for a super long walk together in the random Indian summer weather we had at the beginning of the week and made this stir-fry out of baby bok choy, onions, pepper, garlic, parsnips, carrots, and fake steak tips (they were soy). Oh, and sesame seeds!
Those of you book bloggers who are looking for projects and/or challenges for 2012, please be sure to check out my Diet for a New America page and my Mental Illness Advocacy 2012 page. Even if you don’t choose to participate in them, any mentions on your blogs, facebook, and twitter are most welcome! These types of things are always more fun the more people participate!
Also, if you missed it, I have an international giveaway currently running thanks to the author. Be sure to check that out too!
This weekend I’ll be training in the gym, going to a tree trimming party, and editing zombies. Also hopefully cooking something up in the slow-cooker to freeze into single servings for lunches. Busy busy!
Happy weekends all!
Friday Fun! (Gym, Thundersnow)
Snow on the ground this morning.
Hello my lovely readers! I hope you all had nice weeks. I discovered at my potluck that all of my friends are *amazing* cooks! We should do this potluck thing more often. 🙂
This week I returned to meeting with a trainer. In January it will be exactly one year since I started focusing on my fitness, and I’m rather determined to meet a few goals before then. I figured a trainer would help. He’s also nice and tough on me, which I enjoy. I am a bit distraught to discover that I’m still having issues holding a plank for a minute. I make it. But just barely. Needless to say, that’s one of my big goals for the next two months.
We got our first snow of the year last night, and it wasn’t just snow, it was THUNDERSNOW. That’s what we call it when there’s thunder and lightning with snow instead of rain. I loooove winter, and I was happy to see snow this morning, although I must admit that I hope this winter isn’t incredibly long like the one in the Little House books.
I got a lot of library loot last night. I’m thinking of having my own mini read-a-thon at some point next week, especially since I’m no longer working at the restaurant. I’m picking up my final check today and handing in my uniform. I’m happy to have my evenings back to myself, though I will miss the extra money, heh. In any case, let me know if you’d be at all into a mini read-a-thon at some point in the next week.
Happy weekends!
Friday Fun! (The Gym and Mount Auburn Cemetery)
Hello my lovely readers! I hope your weeks went well and that you are enjoying this summer weather. You all now know that a significant portion of my time nowadays is being taken up with my newly budding writing career, and of course I’m loving it! It’s so nice to be out of school and doing what I enjoy.
Of course, being me, I’m not just reading and writing in my spare time. I’m still consistently going to the gym. My new trainer and I (my old one no longer works at that gym) are starting to understand each other and tailor a routine to fit my needs. It’s interesting to see the differences between her and my old one, and I like that she’s focused on my cardiovascular health and core strength. We did my measurements this week, and I’m proud to report that since the beginning of June I’ve lost another 2 inches around my waist. Yay! See, I don’t just yak about Americans and our health, I am trying my best to improve my own as well. 😉
Last weekend I visited the historic Mount Auburn cemetery for the first time. Can I just say, it is freaking huge and very inspirational for horror stories. It basically is a nice, hilly hike right smack in the middle of urban development. I absolutely loved it. There’s no way I saw anywhere near everything there is to see there. I mean, we’re talking there were randomly hidden ponds and bridges and monuments and……I could go on and on about it. It’s a truly amazing free gem right in the middle of the city.
Tonight I’ll be going to a bonfire at a friend’s house. I’m excited for that! I love fire. The rest of my weekend will consist of going to see some improv, working out, and a meeting of progressives in my neighborhood. I hope you all have lovely weekends! Any good plans?
Friday Fun! (Netflix)
Hello my lovely readers! Sorry for the slow week on the blog. Normally if I’m caught up in a few longer books at a time, I’d grace your presence with movie reviews, but *shocker* I haven’t really been watching anything lately. In fact, I’m watching tv and movies so infrequently that I’m having this mental debate about whether or not to suspend my Netflix subscription. There once was a time when I only very rarely watched a movie, and generally I would do so in the theater or borrow a dvd from a friend. I think I’m shifting back to that persona. There’s just so much else to do! Even playing a videogame is preferable, because, let’s be honest, with my xbox I can either play an active kinect game or play on live with friends.
I’ve become so much more active now that I’m getting back to who I really am that honestly by the time I get home, I would rather spend a couple of hours making myself an amazing dinner or make something quick then snuggle up in bed with a book and my cat. I know that might sound pathetic, but I don’t even get home until late most nights due to plans with friends or going to the gym or heck, just wanting to be outside. I like it that I get home and am exhausted. I like feeling at the end of the day like I’ve done something with myself. I like that it doesn’t take me hours and hours to fall asleep.
So what’s the point of having Netflix? I like watching instantly, but honestly, most of the time I watch things on hulu or mtv. I’ve had the same disc from Netflix since the beginning of February. The more I think about it, the more it seems like an unnecessary expense. Yet whenever I go to suspend it I think *wait*, but what if there’s a movie or a documentary or a tv show I really want to see and Netflix is my only choice? What then?!
I think I’m at a stand-still of indecision for the moment. 😛
Friday Fun! (The Gym and Body Image)
Hello my lovely readers and a happy April Fool’s Day to you! There’ll be no tricks on my blog, but if you want to have some fun, be sure to check out ThinkGeek‘s home page today. 🙂
In any case, today I want to talk to ya’ll about body image and the gym, because I think it’s something that keeps a lot of folks out of the gym when it shouldn’t. When I joined the gym one of the things I was the most nervous about was exercising, changing, showering, sauna-ing (is that a word? It should be) around other people who might be judging me. Yes, I have fairly good body image, but I’m still a person and struggle with it periodically. I mean really, who doesn’t? Beyond not wanting to have men hogging the weights and hitting on me, I also joined a women only gym purely because I wanted to be in the company of other women who hopefully wouldn’t be judgmental pricks like certain girls in highschool tend to be. But I was just like “Fuck it. I won’t let the possibility of some women being bitches to me keep me from being healthy,” so I joined. And you know what? It has been the best body image experience of my life, and no, that is not just because I’m getting more confidence in my body’s abilities.
I have not once heard a single woman say a single derogatory thing about another woman in my gym. Not once. The women are astoundingly kind. The women are universally thoughtful of each other and profusely kind at sharing equipment and amenities. I have never once heard a personal trainer say the f-word (fat). I have never seen a trainer yelling at a woman. I have never seen a class instructor without a smile on her face. I’ve only heard trainers and instructors encouraging women, telling them, “Society tells you you can’t do this because you’re a woman, but I’m telling you that your body is amazing, and you can.”
But it goes beyond that. I see women of all shapes, sizes, ethnicities, races in the locker room, and you know what? That has just totally opened my eyes to the fact that the Hollywood ideal, society’s mantra of what a woman *should* look like just simply does not reflect reality. And I find every woman I encounter in the locker room and sauna beautiful in her own unique way. And I got to thinking, if I find them beautiful, if they’re here doing their thing with their body, then why should I ever diss my own body or get down on it or not embrace it? My body is amazing. It can do seriously amazing things. I can bench press weights. I can hold the dancer’s pose. I can run. I can do chin-ups. I can almost touch my forehead to the floor. Plus, my body can nurture life or not, as I see fit. My body can do all these things and is simultaneously uniquely mine, and that is what makes it so awesome.
Friday Fun! (Amanda Joins the Gym)
Hello my lovely readers! February is upon us, which in this part of the world means the battle with the winter blues. It’s cold. It’s icy. It’s snowy. It takes extra effort to go anywhere or do anything. It’s dark a lot of the day. And of course there’s Valentine’s Day, which if you’re unattached is basically the haha sucks to be you of holidays. However! I am determined not to let the winter blues get me down. In light of that, as well as recent changes in my life including being single and finishing grad school, I decided to join a gym.
A couple of years ago, I was in great shape. I miss being in that great shape, not because I’m obsessed with looks (swear), but because I like feeling like I can depend on my body, particularly in the event of a zombie apocalypse. What can I say. I was raised Baptist. They like talking about apocalypses, and I’m always slightly paranoid about them. You know how one of the Zombieland rules is cardio? I’d fail that rule right now. So I went into a local women only gym and informed them that I want to regain that inner strength I used to have. Originally the plan was to just take care of getting back in shape myself, but I got two free sessions with a personal trainer for registering with the gym. You guys. Personal trainers are officially amazing.
The woman I was randomly assigned is incredibly cool and supportive. I talked to her about my specific issues (asthma, heart disease running incredibly strong in my family), and she reassured me that I’m still young enough I can fight back and regain that body confidence I miss. She’s mad cool, you guys. Her body image ideas are very similar to mine. She talked about “skinny fat” girls who just burn calories but actually have a high body fat percentage aka no muscle. Also, she teaches Irish stick fighting and invited me to join her next group, which I SO am. I mean, what better way to prep for the zombie apocalypse, eh?
I’m really excited to get back to being the strong, healthy woman I know I am inside. My mood has already drastically improved, and I’ve only been a member of the gym for one week! Plus, it has a steam room, and nothing sounds nicer to a freezing Bostonian than a room full of steam.
Happy weekends!
This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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