I've been Simpsonized!

Fun! Upload a picture and get Simpsonized : )
Luckily they let you tweak it a bit - my first attempt turned out like Patty and Selma - aaah!

Thanks for the link, Diana.

Apparently the moon revolves around me

I am not a morning person.

I require 2 mugs of coffee-like substance within hours of waking in order to get moving (preferably cappucino or latte, but I'll drink the watery crap that comes out of a machine at the gas station in desperate situations)

This morning I woke up at 4:30 and I was WIDE AWAKE

I hadn't gone to bed any earlier or started any new wellness regime - I have no explanation other than the lunar eclipse

must see eclipse....

All I really saw was a reddish glow, but apparently the celestial beings wanted me up and in attendance, so I was there.

I thought it was sorta cool and ok maybe a little creepy, but I think that E howling at me all day is a little over the top.

Motivated monkey

Saturday I sent E off to the cottage solo - I gave the vague excuse of having work, etc. but once he left I realized that I didn't actually need to work, and what I really wanted to do was go to Chapters for a book signing by local author Sheila Kindellan-Sheehan. I haven't read her books, but they sounded good and I love to meet authors in person. Particularly female authors, and even better - ones who live nearby.

She was sitting at a table with friends and family wearing t-shirts that had her latest book cover on them. I know it sounds incredibly dorky, but to me having your friends and family wearing t-shirts with your latest book cover on them is the pinnacle of success.

I grabbed a copy of each of her 4 books to be signed and felt my hands shake as I reached the front of the line. I am completely awestruck by published authors. She was exceptionally nice and even gracefully managed the etiquette breach by the moron behind me who was talking to her while I was at the table - DUDE - wait your freaking turn!!

I started reading the first book, The Sands Motel and so far so good - it's fun because it's about snowbirds (Quebecers who winter in Florida) and I actually 'get' the references: St Viateur bagels, Double Hook book shop, Trudeau airport, etc.

Later that afternoon, I dusted off my book, re-wrote the beginning and didn't realize what time it was until E. called at 10 p.m.
What? Who? It's what time? Wow.

E. says to send him away more often if that's what it takes for me to finish, but I think his being gone was just coincidental. I've often had time to myself that I didn't spend working on my book.

It was the t-shirts that motivated me.

Remember the monkey on the bicycle from the game "The Incredible Machine?"
He only starts pedaling when a screen is pulled to reveal a banana dangling in front of him.
I'm the monkey in front of my keyboard. I start typing furiously when I see a picture of my book cover on a t-shirt.

I've searched for an image of the monkey/bicycle/banana but can't find it - he seems to have been replaced by a baboon on a treadmill - now that's just silly. If anyone has the monkey please send it to me - I must have the motivated monkey : )

Sim Lessons

“My friends hate me, I can’t pay my bills, the place is a mess and I’m really tired…” No, I’m not having a breakdown, I’m talking about my “Sim” character. Go ahead– sigh, roll your eyes – that’s exactly how I felt about computer games since I “outgrew” them about 20 years ago. Then one day an XBox® appeared in the living room and I started playing The Sims™ Bustin’ Out. This “silly” game has driven the “balance your life” lesson home to me in a way that no book or article has ever done.

In the game, you need to keep your Sim in a good mood by keeping 8 motives in balance: Hunger, Hygiene, Energy, Social, Comfort, Bladder (when you gotta go, you gotta go), Fun, and Room. From the instruction guide: “Sims are happiest in clean, well-lit homes with nice furnishings… All work and no play is a sure way to grump out your Sim... Keep your Sim in the social swing by making friends and developing strong relationships with fellow Sims.”

While keeping all of these life aspects in balance, my Sim is also building a career. Going to work in a good mood helps him get ahead. Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? I thought so too and started playing similarly to how I live my life: my Sim always made it to work, but tried cutting corners on housekeeping and didn’t make much of an effort to maintain relationships. He quickly became grumpy and I really had to work to figure out how to get the fun level to go from red to green. The night he peed on the floor twice and started a kitchen fire was a definite low, but now I’ve figured out that he needs to spend more time out of his house visiting friends to be happy.

Although I’ve only been playing the game a short while, I already find myself mentally checking my own motives: hmm, the house looks ok and my hair looks great, but I haven’t talked to S in a while, and E and I need a night out. A few phone calls later and my relationship level is out of the red and into the green. Thanks to my Sim, I’m finally “getting” it: mood is a function of balancing how you spend your time, and fun doesn’t just happen ¬- you have to make the effort and take the time for it. The game has much more to it including levels and options I haven’t started to explore yet, but it will have to wait. I’m going out with friends tonight.


How does the Real Me measure up against My Sim?
My Sim
Real Me

Will pee on the floor if bathroom needs aren’t met
Does NOT pee on the floor

Will refuse to do something "not fun" if the fun meter is too low to avoid being too grumpy.
Will force myself to do what I’m “supposed to do” regardless of fun, and then be extremely crabby.

Leaves important mail lying all over the house
Uhh, I do that too sometimes.

Tries to compensate for lack of sleep with coffee
I’m trying not to do that as often

full disclosure: I wrote this a while ago, but it still holds true...

On a clutter bender

I'm trying to check myself into organizational rehab but all I've managed to do so far is spread the mess out the door and down the hallway under the guise of 'filing' and allow myself to get thrown completely off-track by 4-ring binders and 3-hole punch inserts - what the?

I've thrown a tiny bit away and wasted waaay too much time trying to determine what is/isn't recyclable.

In other news, I told E I need a breakeroo tonight - he replied that he thought we took a breakeroo last night - we went to the Simpsons movie. Compared to re-wiring an engine, I suppose that going to a movie is a breakeroo, but compared to lying immobile on the porch reading a book, going out to a movie is big excitement.

If you've ever played The Sims, picture my character stamping her feet on the ground cursing SimSpeak until allowed to slack on the recliner chair. I'm at code red. E is more like the mad scientist character - only happy when on the verge of causing major destruction. As long as it doesn't disturb my slackitude I'm okay with that.

Do I need to keep Staples mail telling me I didn't qualify for any reward dollars? is it recyclable? does it require shredding? grrr. I'm ready to take a flame-thrower to this whole mess.

clean up update
found: one metallic green notebook with a matching metallic green pen that I forgot I had. yess! I knew I'd find something worthwhile eventually : )

Fish tank feng shui

Look at my snap-tacular super-clean fish tank featuring a new Flinstones-esque hut made of freshly-picked stones from the majestic shores of Lake Erie!

I can feel the positive feng shui flowing just looking at it.

What does a fish tank have to do with feng shui? I'm not sure - the feng shui information available on the Internet is sketchy at best, contradictory and blatantly product promoting at worst. I boiled down my ten minutes of research to this: a dirty fish tank is the root of any and all money trouble you might think was caused by underestimating the amount of tax you owe and needing to replace your car engine unexpectedly. Cleaning your fish tank will magically cure your money trouble with no additional work required on your part.

Ahh - I can sense the greenbacks heading my way.

So, yes - I need to be working overtime to earn more money but would prefer to let the fish tank do the work. Let's hope that a combination of both will do the trick.

p.s. I couldn't get the 'red eye' function to eliminate 'white eye' on the fish.
p.p.s. E actually helped me clean the fish tank even after listening to my inane feng shui reasoning. I think he just wanted to design the new stone hut.

Model of Efficiency, as usual

PILES of work to do now that I'm back from vaca. Priority #1?
Harry Potter personality quiz:


Find out your Harry Potter personality at LiquidGeneration!

DON'T TELL ME WHAT HAPPENS !

That's me shouting HP5-style - I just finished re-reading Order of the Phoenix. I burned through it really quickly the first time to get to the end, so it was nice to slow down and enjoy reading it the second time through. I just picked up HP 6 to read for the second time and have been negotiating time chunks to read. Why negotiating? Because E and I are completely booked up through mid-August. He's agreed to do all driving and not complain while I sit in the passenger seat and read. I've got to finish HP7 before meeting the family for vacation because I will either hear spoilers or be left out of any and all HP conversations. Plan A was to spend this weekend reading the whole thing, but friends from Vermont invited us to go on a 2-day bike tour, and it IS summer after all,... so I will be picking my copy of HP up on SUNDAY - very late, and then reading next week and en route to the family vacation.

I have no idea who lives or dies or if Snape is good or evil. I don't like to try to figure things out before because either way it would be disappointing. I want to be surprised. My only hope is that we see more of Fred and George Weasley and that there is an ending that makes sense. I heart the twins.

I am a little homesick about HP7 - for HP6 I was with ksl, Dodi and the boys and we had a great time at Barnes and Noble midnight madness - the best part was we waited in line for hours, then stopped at a grocery store on the way home only to find a table heaped with HP6 and no lineup.

This time I will just be running into Chapters to grab my copy 2 DAYS after it is released. Not so fun. Maybe E will dress up in a cape and HP glasses.

Edge=good

"If you don’t feel that you are possibly on the edge of humiliating yourself, of losing control of the whole thing, then probably what you are doing isn’t very vital. If you don’t feel like you are writing somewhat over your head, why do it? If you don’t have some doubt of your authority to tell this story, then you are not trying to tell enough."

-John Irving

found on Pick the Brain

The Big One

The most fun thing about E is that he pushes you past the edge - it's as if all most of us can see is a flat world and somehow he can see further. He's good at convincing other people that the world is actually round and then for those who are willing to go with him to see, he proves it over and over again.

One of his friends recently returned from a year in New Zealand and was pushing E to name the next "Big One" A big one is BIG - one of those 'things I want to achieve before I die'. The ones you can't do in an afternoon - they require commitment, training, focus and seeing past your flat world.

E's friend just put together these clips of their last Big One - summiting Mt. Aconcagua. While mountain climbing is not my big one, this video still inspires me because it all relates.

Preparation - instead of training, running, hiking, carrying packs, learning about the area, first aid, another language, mountain rescue, avalanche awareness, I need to write every day, learn the craft, revise, stay aware of the industry, stay focused. They managed to prepare while working full time jobs, keeping relationships, friendships and family ties strong and raising the funds to make the trip. Not easy.

Focusing on what you control and preparing but not worrying about what you can't. What if there's bad weather? What if the altitude gives me a cerebral edema? What if there's an avalanche? What if the market for the kind of book I'm writing bottoms out? What if I can't find an agent? What if no publisher will buy my book? Doesn't matter. Prepare the best you can and take your shot. It's the only way to get there.

My big one looms. I'm about to get much more ruthless with my time and attention. I can just see the curve beyond my flat world...

Dahling I love you, but give me Park Avenue

Cottage life sounds so idyllic - drive up in your Lexus and sip lattes on the veranda. The reality is scooping rotting organic matter out from the bottom of the lake to stop the proliferation of algae and rotting organic matter stink. I spent most of the weekend in chest waders (not to be confused with hip waders) - oh so glamorous.

We did manage to finish the concrete footing for a friend's dock - well, E did while I sat on a rock fishing and actually caught a small-mouth bass. No one could believe I actually caught something. Apparently my frog-drag technique wasn't so amateurish after all.

Our dock is now extended much further out into the lake so we'll have more sun and less bugs. Of course we won't have a chance to get back there to enjoy it until mid-August. grr.

When was the last time you spent a weekend in waders? I'm not sure how this will ever play in to novel fodder, but you never know.

Thanks to TomTom Ken, I'm never lost

If you asked me how the Internet has greatly improved my life I would say e-mail communication and MAPQUEST. Mapquest has saved me countless hours of frustration and humiliation getting lost and asking for the same directions over and over. However, Mapquest does have its drawbacks - I have to re-copy the instructions huge in Sharpie and tape them to the dashboard for quick reference while driving. AND if I have to stray from the directions for any reason - traffic, exit closed, whatever - I'm finished.

E has saved me from all of this. He HATED my 'paper taped to the dashboard' system and constantly re-explained how to navigate L'Acadie to get to MEC (I'm 2/3 successfully getting there on my own). He just bought me my own TomTom. It's a portable GPS that you can carry with you (downtown!) or place on the dashboard of your car. You enter your destination address, and TomTom uses GPS and North American maps to figure out where you are and how you should get to where you're going. The voice of your choice tells you when to start moving over for a turn, gives you advance warning of turns and tells you what the next turn will be. I selected Ken - English-Australia because he sounds so calm and he uses funny words like 'motorway.'

If you stray from the directions - miss an exit or decide you don't want to take a congested highway, the TomTom will pick up the directions from wherever you are and map out a new route. Since the voice keeps you informed, you don't have to look at it, but it is easy to see with a quick glance how far you are from the next turn. I can't tell you how stressful it used to be getting trapped in traffic, scared to stray from the directions, knowing I would get hopelessly lost. TomTom has eased all of that stress. I can now exit anywhere and I'm never lost. For anyone who doesn't naturally have one an 'internal direction beacon' I strongly recommend a TomTom - much cheaper than dealing with the harmful effects of that constant stress on your body.

I'm buying one for ksl! She's the one who showed me the mapquest/sharpie system - I think she's ready for an upgrade : )

Weekend plans: fishing, pouring concrete for a dock, then chain-sawing two trees 'up north' and planting cedars. I am part of the work crew doing these projects and I get the impression I will be the only female. I have no interest in pouring concrete, but apparently there is a job involving hip waders that might be mine. I'll let you know how all of this goes. Hip Waders! excellent.

Upcoming: Next week I will be hosting a Go Green party promoting Shaklee Get Clean products. No, this is not my new job - I'm doing it to help reduce waste and dumping toxins into the environment. Yes, I realize that industry is responsible for the majority of the problem, but if we start at home the effects will ripple out. Shaklee cleaners work - I've tried many and wasted a lot of money so I am saving others the same trouble. And the packaging has puppies and butterflies on it - always a bonus :)
Don't trust me? Here's Oprah raving about Shaklee

Mid-point 2007

Back from the race - feeling a little ragged. Race went well except for the start of the kayak leg - had some trouble getting into my kayak. Let's just leave it at that.

Have to work today - feeling sorry for myself. Bought Divisadero and stated reading it. Don't love it yet, but it's going fast and keeping me entertained. No quotation marks in the text, yet I can tell what's being said. how odd. Wish I could spend the day on the back porch reading...

Mid-year analysis: need to spend more time on the book, focus on stretching to avoid further pain/injury while working out. otherwise, it's all good : )

Triathlon training

Remember the duathlon I WON in my age division last year? That race is happening again this Sunday. I will be on a relay team doing the running and kayaking, and my teammate D will bike. E will be doing the complete triathlon for the first time: run, bike, kayak.

Here's how we've been training:

K: took kayak out of storage, rinsed off dirt, went paddling once while somewhat hungover after a party. Spent 2 hours shopping for a new paddle which E said was the same as my old paddle. E returned it and bought me a different paddle. Will be racing with an untested paddle.
Increased my runs from 0x/week to 2x/week, but my knee still blows out if I increase my pace from a shuffle.
Should be interesting.

E:
Also went paddling once while slightly hung over after a party. Decided his bike needed to be red, not grey. Disassembled the entire bike less than one week before the race. Ran out of a discontinued 'cherry red pearl' paint which required 3 Canadian Tire store inventories to replenish. Bike is now painted red and back together (after several late nights in the shed) and needs a final road testing.

As you can see, we're taking this very seriously. E is actually a little freaked out about competing in the triathlon - he doesn't do well when confronted with the possibility of being at the back of the pack. I'm sure the red bike will help.

Karen, Lorelai and Rory WIN!

Thank you everyone who contributed to the Take Down Eric fund.
He went through all the stages when I started pulling ahead:
disbelief - wait a minute - how did you raise over $200 in one day?
anger - hey, you scammed my e-mail list, and my friends and co-workers are sponsoring the Gilmore fest!
acceptance - ok, ok , it's for a good cause

I ended up raising $937 and E raised just over $700
The team raised over $10,000 and it looks like the event will reach its goal of $365,000.


As for my individual race time, well, let's just say I'll need to find another 10K to hit my target. Between not training due to quad/knee issues and general poison ivy misery, I wasn't in the best 10K shape. It was also stinking hot that morning. I'm looking for another race to do at the end of August.

GILMORE FANS UNITE!

I'm in the final push to win our bet: If I raise more funds, then Eric has to watch a Gilmore Girls marathon. If he wins, then I have to do an orienteering race this fall.

Let's go Gilmore!

Right now, I've raised $827, and he has $690, but there's still one more day and anything can happen. Let's make sure the Giilmore Girls win. I know Lorelai and Rory wouldn't be caught dead running, but I'm sure they'd prefer the idea of spending a day slacking on the couch over bumbling around lost in the woods!

This Saturday I will be participating in the 25th annual Step Up for
the Children with Standard Life 10 K run to benefit the Foundation for
Research into Children's Diseases. It's a wonderful cause which
supports four pediatric research centres: Centre hospitalier
universitaire Sainte-Justine, The Montreal Children's Hospital, Centre
hospitalier universitaire de Québec and Centre hospitalier universitaire
de Sherbrooke.


Please sponsor me by clicking here.
Secure online donations can be made with a credit card and an electronic
tax receipt will be sent via email within minutes.

In celebration of our community's children and their families, thank you
in advance for your generous support - together we can make a
difference, one step at a time.

Poison Ivy : (

GRRR.

Itchy oozing rashes on both of my wrists just below where my gardening gloves were. This is the first time I can remember having poison ivy or oak or whatever and it's not fun. I have to stay hepped up on Benadryl or else all I can think about is the itchiness. We must have PI somewhere in the yard - I did a lot of clearing around the edges of the fence and under trees. Thankfully I was wearing gardening gloves. I can't even imagine what this would be like if I was sans gloves.

High-functioning Manic Depressive?

In the immortal words of Jimi Hendrix,

"Manic depression is touching my soul
I know what I want but I just dont know
How to, go about gettin it"

Is there such a thing as being a high-functioning manic depressive? I either seem to have zero energy to the point where watering flowers requires all the focus I can muster to brimming with enthusiasm and feeling like I won't have enough time to accomplish everything I want to do.

E says it's just allergies, and being outside is putting me to sleep. Maybe it's the poppy I planted.

What have I been up to? Lots of freelance work - I increased my output for May to 150% to help pay my tax bill and car repair bill from April. I am almost back in the black - at least close enough that I can relax.

Reading: Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. I love this book. I NEVER describe books as well-written - to me that is usually code for boring and overly descriptive, but this book is beautifully written. It weaves opera with kidnapping and explores a cast of non-cliche characters so well, I'm sure they all exist. I almost finished it last night, but decided to save the last bit for today.

Recently bookmarked: Pick the Brain. Thanks to Ed for this one. Interesting explorations on self-education, motivation and decision-making. Here's a sample of PTB philosophy on writing something worth reading:

"Absorb fresh ideas and sublime style by reading old books, written by masters of language. Then take these ideas and pretend you invented them. You’ll be hailed as a prophet."

The movie industry does that constantly.

Must take my manic self outside for a run before it hits 31 (C) today. Thats 88 (F) for those south of the border.

On my to-do list: upload photos to flicr. Watch this space for poppy blooms, my Dad on the climbing wall and more....

Maximum Distraction

My parents came to visit last weekend, so my Dad finally met the infamous E. They went to visit battlefield sites where the Americans TRIED to invade Canada while Mom and I focused on gardening shows and the Ottawa Tulip Festival. Very Mars/Venus. The visit was fun, but I'm beat now. I've only been running once in the last 10 days, and E is lording it over me that he is ahead in fund-raising. I still have a few sources to hit, so I'm hoping I can still out-manoeuvre him.

Help me beat E!

In June I will be participating in the 'Step Up for the Children' 10K run fund-raiser for the Foundation for Research into Children's Diseases. E is the team captain, so my participation is mandatory. As you know, E is not human, and will run the race in some ridiculously fast time which I have no chance of beating. He will also send one lame e-mail the day before the race and somehow magically manage to raise tons of money. Sometimes he can be really irritating.
Please help me out-fund-raise him!

If you're inclined to give donations to worthy causes, this is a good one and I am actively (so to speak) requesting donations. To sponsor me, click here. Tax receipts are provided via e-mail.

My reason for doing this isn't just to beat E. One of my three main goals for this year is to get into 10K shape which for me means being able to roll out of bed and run a 10K race in less than 60 minutes on a whim. That isn't a fast pace, but it does represent a good level of fitness for me.

I already did one 10K in March and finished in 1:04:31. I've increased my training and dropped a few lbs so I'm hoping I can break 1:00 in the next race in June. Last year I ran it in 1:06:26. It's a fun race for a good cause, and an opportunity to squish E like a bug. Help me!

Update: Thanks Dorse and Dodi! I'm well on my way to crushing E under my strappy sandals : )

I think if E loses he should have to spend a weekend slacking, watching a movie/tv series marathon of my choice.

If I lose, well, it will just be sad.