Kristin’s Playground

::Waves:: Remember me? Yeah, I’m a bit behind in posting a bunch of things. As is normal. I’ve had a couple of late nights at work as we are trying to get “the perfect data,” but I’ve also had some non-work-related fun in the last week too. Went out dancing with friends on Friday night. Had dinner with my hubby on our 5th anniversary on Saturday. Took most of the week off in terms of biking or running to be nice to my knee; started again this morning with 3 loops of the mile-long course around my house (still no 10 minute mile, but I think I’m closer). Been keeping up with my pushups, but I’m not sure I can claim complete victory today. This was the start of the dreaded Week 3. I’d completed 20 pushups in my exhaustion test on Sunday, and they expected me to do 64 pushups (albeit with breaks) today. Ow. I made it through the first three sets alright, but on the 4th pushup on the set of 10 I couldn’t come back up. I paused and tried again. Made the 4th, but then failed on the 5th. Paused a little longer and I could finish the 10, though I’m sure my form was not up to par. After that, I was supposed to do as many pushups as I could, as long as it was more than 15. I waited longer than the 60 seconds to start them, and still had to stop and start a couple of times. I eventually got to 15, but after the awful-form last pushups I could hardly move my arms. Ow. I’m going to push ahead with the rest of week 3 and we’ll see how it goes, but I imagine I’m going to be repeating this. It’s definitely making me build up some muscle though.

With the running and the late day at work, and the pushups, I’m tired, so I’m going to bed early today. But, before I go, I’ll post some overdue photos-of-the-day, and hopefully I’ll catch up on some of my other posts soon.

6 August 2008: My adorable mp3 player I told you about. The silly putty egg is for a size reference. This thing is tiny.

7 August 2008: There are tires filled with concrete and posts to hold up fencing for a construction area on campus. They’re ridiculously bright orange, and I had to take a photo of one.

8 August 2008: Oh no! It’s bedtime and I haven’t taken a photo yet today! Good thing Anya’s cute.

9 August 2008: All I wanted to do was jump into bed. Fresh sheets, made bed, and a sleepy Kristin who still needed a photo for the day.

10 August 2008: Last Sunday I went kayaking with some friends. Right by the canoe livery there is a shopping cart that has clearly spent a long time underwater and was covered in mussels.

Okay - bedtime now. ‘Night!

I went out last night to see the perseids after all. Not too long, just out on my deck. I saw a number of meteors; there was one that went across nearly the whole sky and even left a faint visible trail. It was pretty cool. But the coolest thing of all? I caught one. On camera! I brought out my camera, not really expecting to get anything (after all, the field of view is pretty small for my lens, and you have to expose correctly to not let too much ambient in, but you have to have your ISO high enough and your aperture wide enough that a quick little streak will even show up on the camera. Anyway, I’m quite pleased that one of my frames found a meteor.

Before too long, though, some clouds started coming in and I decided I really needed to go to bed. Not soon enough though - I’m tired this morning!

It’s been a busy day. Lots of biking. Over lunch, we watched the finale of American Gladiators on hulu and did day 1 of week 2 for the pushup challenge. The men’s finals were pretty amazing, and one of the contenders was going into the eliminator with multiple sets of stitches and some pretty impressive bruises. Ow. Hardcore.

Speaking of hardcore, how about the relay swimmers? (And boo to NBC for not letting non-intel macs in on the olympic video action! Some of us don’t watch TV, and we rely on the intartubes for our video goodness. Support older macs! I had to watch it with Chinese commentary on some youtube video.)

Between the kayaking yesterday and the pushups Saturday and today, my shoulders and neck were awfully tight today, so I decided I needed a massage. Thankfully, there’s a place nearby that has walk-in seated massage, so I got 20 minutes. They found knots in muscles I didn’t even know I had! Guess I need to go more often. Shucks.

Then I biked over to Beth’s, and we went for a “Civilized Ride” with the Ann Arbor Bicycle Touring Society. There weren’t too many riders, but Beth and Nathan and I pulled up the rear, by a lot. The leader of the ride stayed back with us, but we quickly lost sight of the rest of the crew. Thankfully, it’s a ride to a Dairy Queen! Saved by a caramel sundae in the middle!

Still. A lot of biking today. Total for the day: 27.3 miles in 2 hours and 34 minutes. And now, I’m tired. I’d like to see some perseids, but I don’t think it’s going to happen tonight.

Well, once again I’ve been remiss in updating. Whoever would have predicted that, eh? It’s been a busy, yet nice week, complete with working, a couple of runs with friends, a frustrating mile-long run by myself, tasty ice cream, some movies, kayaking in the rain, completing the first week of the hundred push-up challenge, and more - all without the help of a coffeeshop. When my friend and coffee-buddy moved out to Oregon almost a week and a half ago, I decided it was a good time to try my two weeks without buying things from a coffee-shop. It’s been working well so far - I just have a couple more days to go. Shouldn’t be a problem. I miss my friend though.

Life goes on, and I’ve somehow fallen into a running fad. (I tend to go through phases in my exercising, and right now, it’s the running phase.) I find myself browsing Runner’s World, using their training log, trying to map out routes of varying lengths around my house, etc. I got myself a cute little flash-based mp3 player to run with too. It’s tiny. And it has a radio. It’s pretty great. Don’t get me wrong, I love my big ipod that holds all of my music and more, but it’s a bit bulky for running. I find myself eyeing the gps watches too. My exercise fads make me want things. It’s bad. But good for me. Hmm. This better last at least until the 5k. There’s a 10k in November that I’m wondering if I can train for. I’m not at all fast, but I’m gaining endurance. I tried doing a mile loop around my house for time, and it was still over 10 minutes. Admittedly, I started too quickly, so I couldn’t run the whole thing, and my lungs didn’t like me either, so I need to be sure to use my inhaler before I try it again. We’ll see if things pick up. Running with my friends helps push me. Thanks guys.

The first week of the Hundred Pushup Challenge is now behind me. It wasn’t so bad, and I think I’ll survive week 2 as well. Bit concerned about the transition to week three - it looks like quite a jump.

Anyway, I’m not going to update my photos today, since it’s bedtime, but I’ll be back another time. I’m alive, just busy.

Well, it’s been a busy weekend. Way too early on Thursday I flew back to Wisconsin. There were a lot of small planes at the airport for the EAA’s annual air show:

I left so early so that I could see my dad play in the park with Levi Douma. I’ve been meaning to go see him for quite awhile, so I was really quite happy to make it back for that. They sounded great - good music for the park, and there was a respectable crowd there too. Yay, Dad!

That afternoon my mother and I threw together a photo studio in the living room in order to take senior photos for my neighbor. I brought down my umbrella, lightstand and reflector (all quite portable - no checked baggage!) and all of my camera gear. I threw together a quick gel holder for my flash, and when Erin came over, we spent a lot of time shooting - some indoor in our makeshift studio for the yearbook, and the rest outdoor. More on this later.

Friday, my dad took me to go get running shoes. I’m prone to hurting myself - I’ve had plenty of sprained ankles, and the last time I ran, my knee decided I shouldn’t really be doing that. So, if I’m to run, I need a good shoe that will help keep me in a good running position so I don’t strain things that shouldn’t be strained. After running around the parking lot in a number of different shoes and learning more about what a good stride should be, we settled on these:

That night we also went to the opening of a Chinese art exhibit at the Bergstrom-Mahler Museum. There were some incredible pieces there, and a local dance group performed some ancient Chinese dances. What the Chinese were accomplishing a thousand years ago is truly amazing, and that some of it is still preserved today is great.

Saturday we went to a family reunion for my mother’s family. It was nice to see a bunch of family members I’ve only met once or twice - some not at all! Of course, I got to see my grandpa and aunts and uncles, too. My grandpa has done a ton of research into our family tree on that side, so I spent some time poring through his printouts, and everyone brought out old family pictures and scrapbooks. I’m hoping to get copies of some of them. Even the frogs came out to the pond in the backyard:

Sunday, Dad and I went running around the block twice (3 miles!), and I spent some time deeply engaged in photoshop - trying to finish up the pictures for Erin before I left. Had dinner with the ‘rents and in-laws, saw their new waterfall/pond that they’d just finished putting in. Good stuff. Chai played with a pencil:

Monday was another ridiculously early flight, coupled with not much sleep due to a storm passing through. Unfortunately, the storm made its way to Chicago before my plane did. I spent about 5 hours on the plane (on the ground) waiting for clearance to take off. Oof. I eventually made it home, but it was a long day.

Today was a Tuesday. Worked. Did day 1 of the Hundred Pushups Challenge. I did about 4 1/2 pushups during my test a couple days ago, so there is a lot of progress to make. In other news, one of our tomatoes has turned red in my absence! Anyone know what I can do wih one tiny red tomato?

Oof. And now, it’s bedtime.

Wordless Wednesday

That’s my photo of the day. (Day 7 in a row! 1/3 done with item #95!) That also was yesterday’s baking project. It’s a Linzer torte, and wikipedia tells me it’s the oldest cake known to the world. Cool. I didn’t know that. It’s Austrian, and our Austrian co-worker always brings some back for us when he goes home. He’s leaving for a new job tomorrow, so I thought I’d try my hand at making some for his going away party. I was really nervous about how it would turn out, but I think it worked well. The crust is so delicious - hazelnuts, almonds, butter, sugar, flour. The dough was pretty hard to work with though, so the lattice strips are a little messy. Ah well. I’ve never made anything with lattice strips before. I’m not even sure I’ve ever made a pie crust by myself, so I’m happy.

The party was filled with tasty food and I ate way too much, but Kelly, Beth and I went running again tonight, so it sort of evens out, right? We went about 3.5 miles, which is more than 5k, so we’ll be set when the actual event comes. Took 45-50 minutes or so? (Our timer got a little messed up in the middle…) Not so bad. I certainly jogged for longer than I’d expected to be able to. I had some good constant beat-per-minute music from Podrunner, so it helped me keep a steady pace. Also, running with the group helped keep me going too. I felt pretty awful during the last mile or so, and probably wouldn’t have run much more had I been by myself. If we keep up with this, we definitely won’t embarrass ourselves at the Big House Big Heart 5K in September. We may even get Kelly to reach her under 10-minute mile goal. In high school, I’d been training for a 5k and had goal of completing the mile in gym class in under 10 minutes. I think I got 10:04 or something, so I’d be quite pleased to see a 10 minute mile, too.

Anyway, bedtime. But you should pop over to my sister’s blog to wish my brother-in-law good luck on the bar. He finished Day 1 today, but has another whole day of testing tomorrow. Ugh.

A couple of accomplishments for the day - I had my 7th day of earning both my green check marks, meaning I stayed within my calorie goals for the day, and I had 30 minutes of some sort of exercise. One-third of the way done with item 78.

I also got a pleasant surprise that will let me go see my dad play a gig back in my hometown on Thursday. I’d been planning on going back over the weekend for a reunion, but I’m happy to get to go a little early and spend some quality time with my folks. And I’m extra-happy that I won’t have to drive! (Thanks, Dad!)

I spent this evening baking. It was a little more complicated than things I normally make, so I was nervous, but it looks like it’ll turn out. It’s a surprise for now, but I’ll have pictures later, fear not! Also, I have my picture of the day for you. I had an idea kicking around in my head because Utata has an “Iron Photographer” challenge. It needed to involve a curved piece of wood, something white, and it had to look old. This is what I came up with given my baking evening:

It’s been a busy weekend. Yesterday I went and donated blood when I got up. There’s a real need in the area for donations, and they’ve been calling me every other day to make an appointment. I last donated back in February I think, so it was long past time. I was pleasantly surprised at how it went. My past experiences at the local donor center were less than pleasant - waiting too long, etc, but this time went really well - hardly any wait, the nurse found my vein right away, no problems, etc. They even have comfy new chairs!

On my way back I had an interesting spread of gas prices. I saw regular gas for everything from 3.75 to 4.09. Crazy what less than 8 miles can do. Also, I bought myself a tart pan. I’ve got plans for it too in the next few days!

Saw WALL-E in the afternoon with Kelly. It was great. I didn’t really know what to expect from the previews, but the story was wonderful. We grabbed some dinner, I mowed the lawn, and then I went over to Kelly’s to try out a Wii-fit. I hadn’t been too impressed by the trailer (although its parody was quite funny), but it was actually a lot of fun. Turns out my fitness age is 29. Who knew? Now that I’ve played with one, I kind of actually want one. Not sure if it would actually help get/stay in shape or not, but it was fun. And it has charts and graphs! I love charts and graphs.

Today is a day for catching up on chores and things, although Kelly, Beth, and I did go running. We went about 2.2 miles in around 25 minutes. It was hot and painful. But don’t we look happy about it?

And, so as not to disappoint, here is my photo of the day. When I was experimenting with my “make the photo look old” bit, I learned that one way to do things like that is with textures in photoshop. And then I found ghostbones on flickr who has a lot of good textures to share. So, naturally, I want to experiment with them. Today, my photo was a broken hanger from the front hall closet. I guess my winter jacket was too much for it. Anyway, it was fun to play with. Forgive me for overusing textures in the next little while, but their novelty will probably take awhile to wear off.

Now, I know mowing the lawn doesn’t really seem like it should be on the same list as “Get your Ph.D,” but I felt this was an important life skill that I should know how to do. Don’t get me wrong - it’s not like I’ve never mown a lawn before, it’s just that, growing up, we had a rather large lawn. This meant that we ended up having a riding lawn mower. So, I’ve used one of those plenty. I’ve just never used one of the standard push-mower things, and I felt I should probably know how to use one. Of course, once it was on my list, Logan was all to eager to help me cross this goal off, so yesterday evening I did!

All in all, it wasn’t so bad, though I can’t imagine doing it in full sun on a hot day. You get surprisingly sweaty, even when there’s a nice breeze. Our lawn mower is supposed to have a self-propel feature, but unfortunately, it really doesn’t do too much. The most annoying part of it was the large plants on the edge of the lawn in the backyard. Trying to sufficiently mow the lawn under some rather pokey branches was frustrating at times.

Still, the lawn is mowed, and I get to cross something off of my list! Go me!