Corporate Hippy

Yes, I know. Its always something with us. Every winter we try to loose weight, and every summer, we gain it all back. Do I really expect this time to be any different? Well, I hope so. I think I might have found a tool that will help me change my eating habits permanently.

My Food Diary doesn’t just focus on weight loss — it also helps you focus on eating healthy, and maintaining a current weight. At the end of every day, I get feedback on good and bad things that I’ve done. Yesterday, I was really excited to see so many Green Smiley Faces! I’ve always been told that calcium is important, especially for women, and that its really difficult to meet your Recommended Daily Allowance .. Well, yesterday, I managed to consume 272% of my RDA for calcium! Rock on.

At a glance …

	Notes
	Exercise! You burned 350.6 calories.
	You met your water consumption goal!
	No dessert! You easily saved yourself 150-500 calories.
	You consumed 34.7mg of iron. This is 193% of your recommended daily value.
	You have had 102.4mg of vitamin C. This is 137% of your recommended daily value.
	You met your recommended daily value for calcium. You consumed 2715mg, which is 272% of your RDA.
	Saturated fats accounted for 13.7% of your calories. For a healthy heart, try to stay below 9%.
	You consumed 5250mg of sodium. Ideally, this number should be below 2400mg.

Lots more dog and scenery pics from our UP vacation on our smugmug page.

I don’t have much to say other than the weather was fantastic. The turkey was scrumptious. It was great to see and spend time with my parents. And, obviously, the dogs had a blast 🙂

We decided this week that the Las Vegas time share is out, and buying land in the Marquette area is in in in! After a very small amount of looking, we’re currently drooling over a 4 acre parcel on the Carp river … mmmm

What is it about seeing a friend driving on the same road as you when you’re on your way to work (or, anywhere, really) that just makes your day a little brighter?

I used to see my friend KevinP on 696 now and then when he worked out this way. Also, my old pal Ted used to drive an unmistakable magenta (read: pink) explorer that I used to see quite regularly when we both worked on 12 mile. One morning earlier this year, I saw James’ green truck in ‘the clem’ … A few weeks ago, I passed schwinny on my way home from work.

I don’t really know why this is such a positive event for me, but it is. It always leaves a lingering smile when I see my friends on the road when I’m driving. Maybe its just a nice surprise to see someone unexpected in an otherwise mundane environment.

It was no different this morning when I saw my pal Charles on 696 (couldn’t mistake the Nissan with the tinted windows and Kentucky license plate – even after being here for almost 2 years). I jumped on MSN when I got to work to see if I could catch him online and say “hello” .. I ended up making lunch plans with another friend in the same office and met Charles, John, Kurt and Alex for lunch today… And, when they were 30 minutes late showing up, it was a perfect queue for the perfect joke “oh, its ok, I just figured grandma Charles was driving” … You see, I’d passed Charles on the freeway this morning like he was standing still; and I really wasn’t going that fast 🙂

As part of my “Information Services Learning Plan” for work, I’ve committed to the following:

Cisco Certified Security Professional (CCSP) – 6/30/07

Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) – 7/30/07

Wish me luck.

I sent an email to my mom not long after I posted my rambling rant below.  My mom and I have always had a really good relationship.  When I was in college, she called me almost every Monday night for 4 years.  After college I lived and worked with her for some time, and even when I moved out of her apartment for my own, we spent lots of time together (dinner, movies, shopping, etc).

When I moved in with Nick, we had dinner with my folks almost weekly.  When my mom moved to Marquette, Nick and I had dinner or lunch with my dad as often as we could until he started working more than sleeping/eating and spending every other waking moment driving to Marquette or being in Marquette.

I remember my mom saying once that she called me regularly when I was in college because she knew I needed it.  And that’s the reason why she still calls my sister regularly.  But for me, she figures, no news is good news; and great news gets a phone call.

Well, I am going to make an attempt to call more, and not because of my sister’s guilt (my mom says she’s our family’s conscience), but because of my uncle Frank’s intense sadness over his mother’s death.  As we were leaving the funeral home on Friday, I gave my uncle a big hug and asked how he was doing.  He said “Go buy your mom some flowers.  I used to always think, ‘I’m gonna buy my mom a huge boquet of flowers and bring it to her today’ but I never did.”  He was telling me not to take my mom for granted.  I need to realize that my mom and dad won’t be around forever.  This is the only time I have them, I really should make the most of it.

It seems to be inevitable. I have a meal and conversation with my sister and I walk away feeling like a bad daughter/sister/cousin/niece. The accusations are not generally outward as she tends to lean toward subtle passive agression through comments and eye rolls. I am a bad correspondant; and its not getting any better.

I think I’m just not a fan of ‘life-update-chit-chat’. I don’t want to talk about my job. In fact, when I’m not at work, I don’t want to think about my job. This is not to say that I don’t like my job. I do, in fact, like my job very much – for a job. It pays well. I get good vacation. The people I work with are respectable and easy to work with. And the job description isn’t too bad either.

But, my job is not what makes me happy. It is not what I let define me. It is not what I live for, and I’m glad about that. I don’t want to talk about it, because it is something that I have to do in order to pay my bills and eat food. If I were independently wealthy, you can damn well bet that I wouldn’t spend my time troubleshooting content engines and authentication servers.

So, I like to talk about things that make me happy. I like to talk about my dogs, my bikes, my friends, my trips. But nobody wants to hear about that stuff, because (other people’s) dogs are boring, and everything else is about biking. To many, biking (mountain biking in partifcular, I think), is seen as frivolous, childish and kind of silly. It is my hobby that I spend way too much time and money on, and it is of no interest to them. When I start to talk about accomplishments, good rides, good friends, good times I’ve had on the bike, I get eye rolls, funny smirks, and subject changes.

Maybe they don’t believe, or can’t understand that mountain biking may have saved my life. Or, at least my livlihood. If it weren’t for mountain biking and the friends I’ve made since I started this passtime, I’d probably never leave my house once I got home from work every day. Before I started biking, my depression was so bad that I could hardly get off the couch to feed the dogs. I might very well have ended up divorced, depressed and alone. My therapist told me that when she looked at me, she saw someone very unhappy and sad. My psychiatrist told me that I was hiding in my house with my dogs. He was very blunt and told me that I needed to get out of the house. So, we went for a bike ride on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. We ended with a geocache in MetroBeach and icecream cones. A few days later, we were riding the doubletrack at Stony Creek, and a month or so later, we rode our first singletrack. I met some great people when I went to a women’s mountain biking clinic and my life has not been the same since.

For me, mountain bike is anything but frivolous. It is my lifeline. It keeps me sane in an world that has made me insane. I don’t like living in SE Michigan and I don’t like commuting to work every day. But for now, these are the things that I have to do because of the choices I’ve made in my life. I have plans for an escape and I’m just trying to keep myself sane in the meantime.

I send pictures of myself on a bike to my mom. Pictures that I was proud of and thought she would be too. And most times, I get no response. When I talk about trips we’re planning, most of which involve bikes, the bike part is usually ignored; skipped over. I also feel like I have to make up stories if I can’t make a function or trip because of some biking related obligation – like I have to come up with a better excuse, because biking is not a good enough one.

So, I’m a bad correspondant because of the quesion, “What’s new?”. Apparently, no one cares that I’m in love with the bike I bought last year and am considering a new purchase with bigger wheels for riding back roads and longer training rides. No one (outside of my ‘biking’ friends) wants to hear about how great my ride was yesterday or how cool the trail is that I’m going to ride next week.

Maybe I am obsessed with biking. Maybe I do take it too seriously. Maybe I’m the one who’s being silly and everyone else knows what’s best for me. But ya know, I’m not seeing a therapist anymore and I’m getting some good exercise. I’ve got friends who get me out of my house now and then and I have things to look forward to. Shouldn’t that be what counts?

most of my friends are suprised when i actually answer my cell phone. i cannot possibly explain the depth of my hatred of my cell phone for anything other than purely functional/utilitarian uses. it makes me feel clausterphobic and inhibitted.

this comment from an ask metafilter conversation today gives me hope that i’m not alone:

Another suggestion: perhaps they just don’t get much of a kick out of talking on the phone? Some people are like that. I know I am. I will happily exchange dozens of emails a day with somebody I’m dating, or with friends, but I’ve never ever been one to ring anybody up just for a chat, and most of the time I will be less than enthusiastic about chitchat if somebody calls me. Other guys may feel similarly – that a phone is a functional tool, for organising things, dealing with bureaucracies, ordering home delivery food, whatever, but not a tool for socialising…?
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:38 AM PST on October 12

also, according to this Ask MiFi article, I’m much more like a dude than a chick (but, we kind of already knew that, didn’t we?). so, for those of you out there who’ve tried to call me, only to get my voicemail – don’t take it personally. its me, not you 😛