catheroominations

Maybe this can masquerade as a Grace in Small Things post. Let’s see if I can squeak out five things here. It is my 50th Grace in Small Things, so I should make it a good one, huh?

1. My weight loss journey is at a dead end. I cannot get out of the range I have been in since Christmas. Last week I ate way too much crap food, but I did work out FIVE TIMES during the week. This is unheard of lately. The result on the scale was a gain of .2 pounds. While I’m not upset with the gain, had I been eating thoughtfully and healthfully(?) I could have had a nice loss. BAH! So, I’m going to start a challenge hosted by The Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans. Starting tomorrow I will pop my nearly never-used DVD of Jillian Michaels’ 30-Day Shred into my DVD player and let her torture me every single day for 30 days. I thought about not mentioning this here, but by doing so, I’m hoping to be more motivated to commit it. See, I am a people pleaser and if I tell you I’m going to do something, I do not want to disappoint you by not doing it. What I’m really saying is that when I am sore from the strenuous workouts, I’m blaming you guys. OK?
2. Also, because of my serious need for extra motivation in the weight loss journey that never ends, I am enlisting your help. This story showed up in my Google Reader last week. This guy lost more than 50 lbs in 10 weeks, and one thing that helped him was soliciting comments from his readers. For every comment he received, he worked out for one minute. This is where you come in. I am going to exercise one minute for every person who comments on this post (and subsequent posts). Before I work out, I will check how many comments I have to my latest post and do one minute of crunches, pushups, walking, weights, whatever per comment. This does NOT mean that you can leave multiple comments to one post. You can comment as much as you want, but the way it works is one minute of exercise per commenter. No fair turning your 10-word sentence into 10 comments of one word each. Remember that I am doing the 30-Day Shred, so I will probably be able to kick your ass if you pull some crap like that. Also, having shredded, you might not recognize me sneaking up behind you and might mistake me for some hot chick with great highlights. (Lately I have been getting lots of comments on the color of my hair.) For this to work, and for me to get a proper amount of exercise, you need to comment. Don’t worry about being witty, or funny, or anything. If you usually delurk, say so. (Hi, delurkers! Thanks for coming!) Just please help me get my ass in gear. Please. I don’t ask for much, but right now I could really use some help.
3. Along with the exercise, I am also joining The Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans in their current challenge Shrink Into Summer and will be telling you every week how much I weigh at my weekly weigh-ins. My weigh in day at Weight Watchers is Saturday, so come back and see how I am doing. I can’t believe I am going to tell you all how much I weigh every week, but if that isn’t motivation to get my act together again, I don’t know what is! But if I tell you my weight, you’d better leave a comment. You can’t just be all voyeuristic and not say something to add to my exercise minutes. Deal? Deal.
4. A co-worker and I are starting a weight loss challenge in our office. I am a very competitive person and I fully expect to win this challenge. This is a sneaky way of motivating myself, under the guise of helping my colleagues and friends shed some unwanted pounds. I’m sneaky like that! We’re setting up an internal website where folks can get recipes, menu ideas and tips on exercise and healthy lifestyles. I’ll be sure to post some of the tidbits here, and if any of you have something to share, please do. Your helpful hint will also count for one more minute of exercise for me.
5. On a completely different topic, I signed up for a writing class so I can get some help on how best to tell the story I have to tell. I’m looking forward to learning some new skills, and am even excited about letting perfect strangers read my work and tear it to shreds. If I ever do write a book, perfect strangers (and probably several imperfect ones) will be reading what I wrote and I won’t get to hear if they think it sucks. So I’d rather hear it before I go through the trouble and sweat of writing the thing. And I’m going to have to grow a thick skin and get used to rejection if I ever plan to farm a book out to publishers or editors. Not that any of my classmates will think my work sucks. Because it so doesn’t. It’s completely awesome and fantastic. Of course it is.

Hey, don’t forget to comment. <\whoring for comments>

Updated to clarify one commenter = one minute of exercise. Thanks for your help!

1. After years of reading her blog, I finally met Mere tonight. Yay!
2. Dooce brought Mere and me together. Mere invited me to Dooce’s book signing in Mountain View. (Photographic proof below, courtesy of Mere.) Dooce: bringing people together. Who knew she could spread the love?
3. Light Amber beer at Tied House. It’s actually pretty good…for a light beer.
4. Working from home to attend an online conference, complete with virtual exhibition hall, AND featuring a keynote by David Plouffe. That dude knows marketing, he does.
5. Being closer to Friday than we are to Monday.

1. I will have a loss tomorrow on the scale. I will. (But if I don’t, I might not tell you.)
2. I got an A on my Photoshop portfolio, as it “demonstrates skill level beyond the level for this course,” according to my instructor
3. Watching how excited Desmond gets when the Wii comes on the TV screen.
4. Trader Joe’s Fat Free Balsamic Dressing
5. Fridays

1. 9-year old Oskar Schell, the narrator of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I’m listening to the audio version of this extremely good and incredibly awesome book and I want Oskar to ride with me to and from work so he can talk to me and also so I can ride in the carpool lane. I adore this kid. If you’ve read the book, please don’t post any spoilers. I’m not too far into it!
2. making a faux 50/50 bar with a scoop each of light slow-churned vanilla bean ice cream and raspberry sorbet. YUM.
3. Things are moving along on my work weight-loss challenge. I got the OK from HR to post fliers to promote it, and IT gave my co-worker and me a page on our intranet where we can post tips, recipes, photos, whatever!
4. I laughed harder today at work than I ever have (at work). The president of the segment I work for asked me to recommend a site where he could send a raunchy birthday e-card to a friend. I showed him my favorite site for cards, and asked if he liked this one. I have never seen him (or many other people) laugh as hard as he did. He immediately backed away from the desk, laughing so hard he had to bend over. Bent in half, he walked around his desk to the table, wheezing that silent laugh. I was cracking up to the point of crying, more at his reaction than the card since I’d seen it before. After we addressed it and hit send, I left his office, while he was still laughing. I could hear him all the way from my desk on the other side of the office. It was…legendary.
5. the fact that I just cannot seem to get enough of Barney Stinson

1. Marc Johns will soon have a book.
2. Last night I typed the first words of a book I hope to publish one day
3. I’ve decided to start a weight loss challenge at work. If anyone has suggestions on getting people to join me, please let me know!
4. Thinking we were expecting thunderstorms all day and realizing that I was looking at the forecast for Brookfield, Wisconsin and not San Jose, California. Sunny and 68 was more like it!
5. I’m getting a mammogram tomorrow. That may not seem like a bit of grace, but it refers to two small things, so there you go.

Sorry for the hiatus. When you’re pounding the keyboard 10 hours a day, the last thing you want to do is play on the computer when you get home. But I’m back now. I’m sure you’ve been crying and moping around during my absence too, so I’ll throw some photos your way this time.

1. Saturdays
2. The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I read it in one sitting today (not hard to do). Reading great works like that inspires me to write that book that’s hiding somewhere in my memory. After finishing Shadow of the Wind last night, I’m ready for something upbeat like some Jane Austen or Anne of Green Gables, I think.
3. Finally finishing Salem Falls by Jodi Picoult (audio book). I chose it for the goodreads.com Spring Challenge, and was it ever long. Like 19 hours long. I learned some things about Ms. Picoult’s writing from hearing someone else read it aloud. 1) she used the word “muttered” a lot in this book; 2) there were waaaaay too many metaphors that appeared in chunks of the book; and 3) she’s quite verbose, that Jodi, what with all the characters and sad lives and all.
4. The Milpitas Library. Holycrap. See ya, tiny little branch of the San Jose library by my house!
5. I have completed my portfolio for my Photoshop class. It’s due on Tuesday. That’s right. I’m done a whole three days early. You can take a peek at what I did. Heh. Here’s a taste:

1. the phrase heir to the Massengil fortune to describe a douchebag (courtesy of How I Met Your Mother)
2. leftover flank steak stir-fried with brown rice and green beans
3. having a productive Sunday morning that included two loads of laundry, unloading the dishwasher, and completing 3 quizzes for my Photoshop class
4. finding a partially-used Visa gift card with $5 left on it
5. bargain books on Amazon for $4