Bakenstein

There's a web site I like called Bakerella: http://www.bakerella.com/.  Its the best site and makes me feel totally inadequate, I couldn't make any of that. This is what I make

No this is not intended to look like a snake and no its not my liver. This was my attempt at making gluten free Spelt flour french bread. Often I will make things that look horrible but taste good. Not so here. It could have been used as a rubber dog toy if only my dog had any teeth left. Actually even if he had teeth he would have probably passed. I threw it out pan and all. It only took me 4 hours and 19 dirty dishes to make, no big deal. I didn't have anything else to do. I almost feel relieved to cross "attempt cooking specialty breads" off my list. CHECK!

The problem with bread is that there's too many steps. The first time I let it rise I let it go oh about 2 hours too long. OOPSIE I had a work crisis. Then I forgot about it again and was falling asleep so I had my husband take it out of the oven. I cannot believe he didn't try some! 

I blame this newfound unachieveable goal on my neice Andrea who makes baking look easy and bread look like something you want to inhale.  When I saw what she was making over at http://www.piebirds.org/ I had to try. Hey I don't have enough to do and I need another expensive kitchen appliance, time to start baking. Mind you I don't even eat bread anymore. Well unless I'm feeling really crazy. Ok I eat it all the time.

Actually I really can't stand my nieghbor; I'm thinking of finding this in the trash and putting it in her mailbox.

New treadmill workout to die for

Too hot to run outside, or its raining CONSTANTLY. Today I decided to do a workout I saw in Self magazine; the Minka Kelly treadmill workout. I can't believe how awesome this was so I thought I would share. I absolutely despise the treadmill but you can't beat the convenience. If I don't have a goal like this all I can think about is how miserable I am and every second goes by like an hour.

Here it is..

1 minute @ 5 speed
1 minute @ 5.5
1 minute @ 6
1 minute @ 6.5
1 minute @ 7
1 minute @ 7.5
1 minute @8
2 minutes @4.5

Repeat 5 times. YUP, 5 times.
I shit you not I didn't even know my treadmill had a speed of 8. I almost died but I stuck with it. You have no idea how bad I wanted to take a shortcut but I am really trying to DO WHAT I SAY IM GOING TO DO as it relates to diet and exercise and STOP WHINING or making excuses. I am better than most at working out; I need to remind myself of that. I tend to focus on the negative and curse myself for it but I was very happy I stuck with this because it was hard but I felt great. Happy running fuckers!  

Hypnotize me

I went to hypnosis the other day. Lest you think I'm getting all crazy - I had a groupon. There are lots of reasons people do this I guess, quitting smoking, quitting junk food, past life regression therapy, etc. My stated goal was to calm the fuck down. I want to learn to deal more productively with anxiety. You know, when your on a conference call and your already ticked off because its well past 5, the dishwasher is buzzing, you're trying to figure out what to make for dinner, the dog just shit all over the house, the kids are fighting, the phone is ringing and you want to shoot yourself in the head. Is this normal? These are the times I  guess everyone is stressed but there are also lesser events that make me feel the same way. I am never happy with the tradeoffs I make; I choose a high pressure job but I am tortured by the constant mess my house is. I choose to be lazy and stay on pinterest all night yet I'm pissed I didn't do something more productive. I choose not to volunteer at school anymore because I always run into a stepford wife that has dressed for the occasion with matching earrings and sandals and I haven't even taken a shower. Outwardly these things don't bother me but inside there's constant chatter about it.  The bottom line? I want to be everything and I want to be perfect. Make my own bread? YES. Serve condiments in their original containers are a dinner party? NEVER. I think you get the idea.     

First thing we did was to breathe; deep breathes in with positive thoughts...deep breathe out with all the crap in your head; like puking negative thoughts. It did relax me. Then I sat back in a chair and he started talking to me in a very soothing voice about being on top of a mountain with a cool breeze in my hair and he kept counting down to say every level I would let my mind wander and think of nothing. Half the time I thought I would die of laughter but I was really trying to be serious..to push back the constant noise in my head; (this is hysterical! I have to go to the dry cleaner! If this guy doesn't stop talking soon I'm going to be late to pick up the kids! Shit I forgot to go to CVS!). But it WAS very relaxing and once I felt on the verge of falling asleep he asked me questions like WHY do I feel anxious all the time. See the problem with therapy and all this stuff is that I know what my problems are; I am a perfectionist: if I don't go running when I'm supposed to I feel bad and I say bad things to myself; you are lazy, you have no will power.  I have a short fuse; little things aggravate me - mainly stupid people.   Why go to therapy? I'm not going to change the fact that I felt like the mother growing up and my father died and then mother died and I never felt like I belonged. Why talk about it? I know I'm a good person, a good mother, funnier than most, not as fat or wrinkly for my age as most. Doesn't change the fact that I am a perfectionist who drinks too much, works too much, sucks at baking, has the patience level of a gnat and I occasionally smokes (ok sometimes more than occasionally).

In any case, he asked me some of the root of all this while I was "under" (and I do remember answering, not sure if that means it didn't work). I did feel relaxed when he brought me back from the half asleep state I was in. He gave me a meditation cd, told me i had a lot of work to do and sent me on my way.  Ca-ching! I don't know if I'll go back. I am going to try the meditation cd and i am going to try the breathing techniques. It was really good for a day but then yesterday I had a horrific day at work; no one listening, having to repeat myself over and over, I let a detail slip that caused problems, etc etc.  But today's another day! Wish me luck :)

   

My first half marathon wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I finished in 2 hours which was pretty good considering I hadn't run more than 6 miles in 2 months; must have been the giant bowl of pasta I had the night before. Running a marathon is like the lie that you are pregnant for 9 months; they tell you its 26 or 13 but its really 26.2 and 13.1. My gps said is was 13.6!!! I can't say that I would have done this without my friend Jacquie's encouragement. We both have had our training challenges but we got out there and put one foot in front of the other. There were a lot of reasons why i couldn't do this. It felt really good to set a goal and meet it despite the fact that everything that could have gone wrong in training DID go wrong.  As you can see Jacqui is the stylish one.  

I met most of my goals, all of which involved some version of me not embarassing myself by sleeping through/tripping/puking/crapping/peeing or any kind of miscelleous bodily malfunctioning during the race.  I almost hurled but not for the reasons you would expect. You see my first half marathon was in the Dirty Woo. Ran through every kind of neighborhood and was very disracted the whole time, checking out all the houses in the nice neighborhoods and counting the number of check cashing stores in the bad.  The vomiting almost happened when I ran by a hugely unattractive guy in his bathrobe leaning against his front door smoking a butt. I also discovered that there are a LOT of hair braiding salons on Chandler St. FYI at races they aren't always hand out water - sometimes its gatorade and you should doublecheck before you decide it would be refreshing to douse yourself in it.  For some reason the whole first part of the race I thought about my stepfather who lived through unspeakable cancer pain (nothing compared to the pain of dragging my fat ass around town): between this and my trying to remember where he worked on chandler st I blew through a couple miles of mindlessness. Strangely I was competitive during the race even though my only goal was to finish. Almost every section I ran in focused on catching someone I couldn't bear losing to (I usually try not to end a sentence with a preposition but FUCK it I'm tired). I got a lot of satisfaction from blowing by the 90 year old man, the hippie wearing blue tights and the cottage cheese leg girl. As usual I saw lot of hilariously stupid things to amuse myself with. The race shuts down all the streets it goes through and its not the first year for you race so you would think people who live on the route would be used to it but I saw a guy in the "rich" part of town trying to get out of his driveway and he couldn't because it was wall to wall people so he was busy cursing moving his car a millimeter at a time; I have my anger management issues but its actually comical watching someone that idotically mad. Then this runner took matters into her own hands and started yelling CAR!! CAR!! as he tried to get down his street. Of course I laughed and stayed exactly where I was. PURE EVIL I TELL YOU. 

As if I don't have enough gear for everything I do I also discovered the compression (insert product: socks, pants, etc). Yes please!! Supposed to prevent shin splints, decrease muscle cramps and soreness!! Sign me up!!!


Does it make me a bad person that I wanted to toast my succcess with a refreshing minty newport light?