Author: Nostrikethat

I fell off the wagon, and then it ran me over

When I set out last week to add some structure to my life and adopt some positive new habits, I knew it would be hard.  I made it through the first 24 hours swimmingly, and then the second day the difficulty of sticking with my resolutions ratcheted up unexpectedly high. Thursday and Friday were a lot easier and I was convinced I had reached a new plateau of personal awesomeness.

The Plan: 1 Real Life: 0

Friday night I had a few beers and the next thing I knew I overslept Saturday. My whole strategy is to front load the morning with time for myself, which appeals to my selfishness and so (I thought) it should be easier to achieve. Then the dishwasher died an ugly, noisy death. Suddenly taking time to go exercise seemed a little too selfish when I had a job to do. My weekend was consumed by a blur of salvage stores and big box scratch and dent sections until we found a decent dishwasher. 

The Plan: 1 Real Life:1

Sunday morning started out well with a gorgeous morning that was perfect for a run with Mrs. Nostrikethat. My dishwasher woes continued as I discovered that I needed a pluggy thing, and no one sold the pluggy thing because we bought the Delorean of dishwashers and the only place to get the pluggy thing was the Internet, after a delay of 2 weeks. 

No bueno. Visit 4 more appliance stores trying to find a part.

Sunday evening turned into an impromptu neighborhood event as a few of us gathered our folding chairs and drank box wine while our kids ran around outside. Sunday evening wine turned into Sunday night beer, and by the time 11 o’clock rolled around my Irish-ish neighbor and I had consumed an embarrassing amount of alcohol for a work night.

The next morning I discovered that my alarm clock sounded suspiciously like my guilty conscience.

“BWARP-BWARP-BWARP-SHAME-SHAME-SHAME-BWARP-BWA-” smackasmackaSMACK

I spent the morning in bed trying to determine exactly what kind of carpet my tongue had turned into as I pondered what I’ve learned this week.

  1. The willingness to revisit your initial assumptions is a good thing. Saturday felt like a better cheat day than Sunday just due to the rhythm of our week.
  2. Revisiting your assumptions 2 days in a row is a nice way of lying to yourself about cheating.
  3. Some things seem urgent and will falsely distract you. I let myself focus on the dishwasher when I might have been better off stepping away on purpose to take care of myself.
  4. Never underestimate the power of beer.

With the dishwasher finally replaced and running, tomorrow is back to work. If I had to grade myself, I’d give me a “C” for the past week. This week we start again. Today was the first whiff of winter, and if I don’t have my new habits solidified by the time it gets cold and dark then nothing is going to happen in the winter.

 

The Idaho Obsession

For reasons I can’t explain I have lately been obsessed with the idea of moving to Idaho.

Let me explain.

In my life I’ve only ever met two actual Idahoans: the first was an old roomate who was a Deadhead and grew up in a tiny town of about 1000 people south of Boise. The second was an old high school friend of his who came to visit us one day, so she was what you might call imported. Beyond that, my Idaho experience is about what you would expect from an average American in that it’s primarily potato-related.

potato
The article in Boise Weekly indicated there was a New Year’s Eve Potato drop. I am not sure I can handle the carbohydrate-related festivities without gaining another 10 pounds

Somewhere in my head I want to enact my own Lewis and Clark expedition into the great Midwest and head off into the blazing sunset seeking great wide open spaces– so long as they are in close proximity to someplace that makes a decent espresso and has a swim team that is USA Swimming accredited.

Recently I started following Hipmombrarian (go check her out, she’s got some great stuff), who writes from Boise. For some reason, I decided to start doing some research and so far I already have the kid’s schools picked out (Longfellow or Washington ES), their swim team (The Y), and approximately where we want to live (within an easy bike distance of the co-op).

The rational part of my mind has come up with a handy list of reasons why moving to Boise is a horrible idea:

  1. I haaaate cold weather.
  2. I am not exactly outdoorsy, and that seems to be the fluffy center drenched in butter that is Idaho
  3. My kids are already in great schools
  4. Real estate is not as cheap as I was hoping it would be (seriously, it looks like there is some kind of bubble going on)
  5. I work in tech, which is not potato-related
  6. I am about as much of a Midwesterner as George Costanza

The rational part of my mind is convinced there is no arguement, we’re staying put.

The irrational part of my mind wants to head out for the weekend to shop for real estate.

Last year I went through a Belgium phase. This is probably a related phenomenon.

If I was an armchair psychologist I would speculate that I have some unmet needs somewhere.

Probably related to french fries.

 

Day 2 is the bane of my existence

In case you missed my last post, on Monday I embarked on a grand quest to align my chakras, fung my shui, and generally get my crap together. I resolved to:

  • Get up at 6 every day. AM. For realz.
  • Spend only 15 minutes half an hour some amount of time less than an hour staring into my coffee every morning
  • Haul my carcass around the neighborhood as if chased by something threatening but not very fast
  • Not forget to ingest calories besides the cream and sugar in my coffee
  • Notice that I have 5 other family members plus a dog all getting ready to start their day and try to help someone besides the dog, who has got his post wake-up nap routine solid

Tuesday morning I didn’t exactly pop out of bed, but I more or less managed to do it. Coffee was consumed in moderate quantities, although slower than I would prefer, which means I need an espresso machine for Christmas. Suck-Up Dog was roused from slumber and unceremoniously dragged through the neighborhood. Something resembling exercise happened, or at least that’s the explanation I decided on for why I was so incredibly sweaty gross and disgusting smelling before breakfast. I even sat down and wrote a couple more paragraphs of The Book, bringing the grand total to… a couple of paragraphs. I was feeling pretty smug.

Celebrating, I stayed up until about 12:30 reading, hyped up on victory and certitude.

 

Wednesday morning came crashing in like a thing that does a lot of crashing.

My similes are suffering. I am seriously tired.

I came to about half a mile from my house, where I discovered to my shock that I was wearing clothes, sweating, and moving at what Stevie Wonder might call a “run” if he saw me doing it.

Suck-Up Dog didn’t get walked, but he didn’t do much this morning besides look smug as he laid there looking like a bag of mulch with a tail in the middle of the living room.

I think I ate someone’s leftover breakfast off their plate.

Mrs. Nostrikethat drove the kids to school. BUT I WAS AVAILABLE TO HELP.

The first 24 hours of any new habit is pretty awesome. Newness in general is usually reason enough to try something– we are novelty seeking creatures in a world that provides endless opportunities to try something New and probably Improved, too.

The second 24 hours are where dreams are shattered.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend I am a big man because I managed to get up at the same time twice in a row, because on the scale of Hardest Accomplishments of Mankind this comes in at the “buttering toast using fake butter” level of difficulty.

My three year old manage to do it every dang day without an alarm clock, and he can’t even wipe himself. It can’t be that hard.

I am, however, going to sit here and pretend that even this tiny bit of self improvement is worth doing, if only because it’s funny to sit here and think of new ways to describe my fat dog, and because Gandhi said “Be the change you want to see in the world…unless it involves waking up too early then you might want to reconsider.”