June Resolution Update
Jun. 30th, 2006 02:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rowyn1. Exercise at least five times a week for at least 30 minutes per session (20 of which must be aerobic).
I've converted one of the rooms in the Basement of DOOM into an exercise room (which is kind of doomful when you think about it). I've got lots of those waterproof jigsaw-linked rubber floor mats down for flooring, along with a weight bench, bunches of dumbbells, my yoga mat (the rubber mats are fine for walking on but they're still kinda hard for kneeling or lying), and a few cheap full length mirrors. I'd love to have mirrors covering the walls like a real gym or a dance studio, but that's way more money than I'm willing to spend. The floor mats were more than I'd expected as it was.
It's been a dry summer; the Basement of Doom hasn't flooded in a long time. I'm hoping that, when it does, the floodwaters will flow downhill around my floor mats, instead of over them. I suppose I should get a weight stand for my dumbells, but I rather want to take a break from spending gobs of money for a while. Instead I've got them on top of the floor mats, with the extra edge-pieces for the floor mats underneath them to add a little additional height. I expect they'd survive getting wet, but I don't want rusty dumbbells just the same.
I've done some jogging again, too. On Tuesday and Wednesday I jogged most of the way home from work -- probably 6/10ths of a mile or so. (Lut and I measured the distance between the bank and the house again a few weeks ago, and it's not quite a mile -- around 8/10 or 9/10ths, instead.) I jogged very slowly, thinking that perhaps my problem the last time I tried was that I was actually trying to go faster as opposed to just picking up my feet. It seems to have worked, since I can now do several minutes of continuous jogging. My jog is faster than my walk speed, anyway -- I got home in 11 minutes on Wednesday, as opposed to my usual 17-19. Gonna try jogging home on M-T-TH-F from now on. I'm hoping that only jogging one way and giving myself a mid-week break will keep me from having knee problems this time around.
Anyway, my exercise levels are at an all-time high between lifting weights, jogging, and my usual dance. I'm not doing as much cardio as I used to, but my official resolution said that I could subsitute weight-lifting for cardio, so that's okay. I know lifting weights isn't an actual substitute for cardio, but I'm still walking (with a little jogging) 2-3.5 miles five days a week, plus doing dance workouts around three times per week, so I'm pretty sure I'm fine on this front. I should probably start tracking the dance workouts/jogging, though, since those are the only "get my heart rate up" exercises I'm currently doing. Just to make sure I'm not totally slacking off on cardio in my rush to become a big burly 5'3" girl.
2. Read twenty-six books this year.
January: Zorro, Isabel Allende; Witch's Business, Diana Wynne Jones
February: Elantris, Brandon Sanderson
March: Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift
April and May: In Our Hands, Charles Murray; The One-Armed Queen, Jane Yolen; Dhampir, Barb and J.C. Hendee; Resenting the Hero, Moira Moore; Emerald Sea, John Ringo; Starship Troopers, Robert Heinlein
June: Against the Tide, John Ringo; Waifs and Strays, Charles de Lint
I ought to have read thirteen by now, and I'm at twelve, so I'm still one shy of even. Oh well. I'm also most of the way through Tom Holt's Paint Your Dragon, so I should hit thirteen soon in any case. On the downside, I'm not enjoying Paint Your Dragon nearly as much as I did Expecting Someone Taller.
The de Lint book is a collection of short stories. I picked them up based on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shaterri's recommendation of "de Lint short stories", and they were indeed a treat. Interestingly, although deLint is published as a genre author (fantasy, or mythic fantasy if you want the subgenre), a few of the stories were straight fiction. They used characters that had other appearances of a more fantastic nature, but the events of the individual short story involved no fantastic occurences or supernatural encounters.
3. Collect six rejection slips for fiction this year.
*walks on by, whistling, and hopes the resolution doesn't notice her*
4. Pet the cat.
The cat is still getting petted, although not at the moment since I'm at work.
5. Put more money into savings in 2006 than I did in 2005.
Got this one done in March but I'm still adding nails to its coffin.
6. Keep track of any other productive things I do.
Let's see:
20 entries in Unfinished Tales, all of them on Silver Scales.
Some number of Game of October logs -- I dunno how many exactly. Five or six?
I did another pencil sketch based on the Edwardian fashions paper-doll book. It's not bad but for some reason I couldn't get the head the right size. I drew it too large at first, about 1/6th of the body, and then too small so now the body is eight heads high. >_< Okay, so it's an Edwardian man with superheroic proportions, I guess. I don't think I've done any other art this month, so the art front remains rather pitiful. But that's okay, I'm getting writing done
Set up the exercise room in the basement, meaning I'm actually getting use out of my basement. This is a cool new thing in and of itself.
7. Clear out my email inbox at home.
Um. Losing ground on this one again. I'm at around 3850 now. And unfortunately at work, or I'd go do some more clearing while I'm thinking about it. By the time I get home, I'll have forgotten. Maybe I should just switch all my email to gmail and make this resolution moot.
9. Do at least one post per month tracking my progress on each of these.
Done! Phew.
I've converted one of the rooms in the Basement of DOOM into an exercise room (which is kind of doomful when you think about it). I've got lots of those waterproof jigsaw-linked rubber floor mats down for flooring, along with a weight bench, bunches of dumbbells, my yoga mat (the rubber mats are fine for walking on but they're still kinda hard for kneeling or lying), and a few cheap full length mirrors. I'd love to have mirrors covering the walls like a real gym or a dance studio, but that's way more money than I'm willing to spend. The floor mats were more than I'd expected as it was.
It's been a dry summer; the Basement of Doom hasn't flooded in a long time. I'm hoping that, when it does, the floodwaters will flow downhill around my floor mats, instead of over them. I suppose I should get a weight stand for my dumbells, but I rather want to take a break from spending gobs of money for a while. Instead I've got them on top of the floor mats, with the extra edge-pieces for the floor mats underneath them to add a little additional height. I expect they'd survive getting wet, but I don't want rusty dumbbells just the same.
I've done some jogging again, too. On Tuesday and Wednesday I jogged most of the way home from work -- probably 6/10ths of a mile or so. (Lut and I measured the distance between the bank and the house again a few weeks ago, and it's not quite a mile -- around 8/10 or 9/10ths, instead.) I jogged very slowly, thinking that perhaps my problem the last time I tried was that I was actually trying to go faster as opposed to just picking up my feet. It seems to have worked, since I can now do several minutes of continuous jogging. My jog is faster than my walk speed, anyway -- I got home in 11 minutes on Wednesday, as opposed to my usual 17-19. Gonna try jogging home on M-T-TH-F from now on. I'm hoping that only jogging one way and giving myself a mid-week break will keep me from having knee problems this time around.
Anyway, my exercise levels are at an all-time high between lifting weights, jogging, and my usual dance. I'm not doing as much cardio as I used to, but my official resolution said that I could subsitute weight-lifting for cardio, so that's okay. I know lifting weights isn't an actual substitute for cardio, but I'm still walking (with a little jogging) 2-3.5 miles five days a week, plus doing dance workouts around three times per week, so I'm pretty sure I'm fine on this front. I should probably start tracking the dance workouts/jogging, though, since those are the only "get my heart rate up" exercises I'm currently doing. Just to make sure I'm not totally slacking off on cardio in my rush to become a big burly 5'3" girl.
2. Read twenty-six books this year.
January: Zorro, Isabel Allende; Witch's Business, Diana Wynne Jones
February: Elantris, Brandon Sanderson
March: Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift
April and May: In Our Hands, Charles Murray; The One-Armed Queen, Jane Yolen; Dhampir, Barb and J.C. Hendee; Resenting the Hero, Moira Moore; Emerald Sea, John Ringo; Starship Troopers, Robert Heinlein
June: Against the Tide, John Ringo; Waifs and Strays, Charles de Lint
I ought to have read thirteen by now, and I'm at twelve, so I'm still one shy of even. Oh well. I'm also most of the way through Tom Holt's Paint Your Dragon, so I should hit thirteen soon in any case. On the downside, I'm not enjoying Paint Your Dragon nearly as much as I did Expecting Someone Taller.
The de Lint book is a collection of short stories. I picked them up based on
shaterri's recommendation of "de Lint short stories", and they were indeed a treat. Interestingly, although deLint is published as a genre author (fantasy, or mythic fantasy if you want the subgenre), a few of the stories were straight fiction. They used characters that had other appearances of a more fantastic nature, but the events of the individual short story involved no fantastic occurences or supernatural encounters.3. Collect six rejection slips for fiction this year.
*walks on by, whistling, and hopes the resolution doesn't notice her*
4. Pet the cat.
The cat is still getting petted, although not at the moment since I'm at work.
5. Put more money into savings in 2006 than I did in 2005.
Got this one done in March but I'm still adding nails to its coffin.
6. Keep track of any other productive things I do.
Let's see:
20 entries in Unfinished Tales, all of them on Silver Scales.
Some number of Game of October logs -- I dunno how many exactly. Five or six?
I did another pencil sketch based on the Edwardian fashions paper-doll book. It's not bad but for some reason I couldn't get the head the right size. I drew it too large at first, about 1/6th of the body, and then too small so now the body is eight heads high. >_< Okay, so it's an Edwardian man with superheroic proportions, I guess. I don't think I've done any other art this month, so the art front remains rather pitiful. But that's okay, I'm getting writing done
Set up the exercise room in the basement, meaning I'm actually getting use out of my basement. This is a cool new thing in and of itself.
7. Clear out my email inbox at home.
Um. Losing ground on this one again. I'm at around 3850 now. And unfortunately at work, or I'd go do some more clearing while I'm thinking about it. By the time I get home, I'll have forgotten. Maybe I should just switch all my email to gmail and make this resolution moot.
9. Do at least one post per month tracking my progress on each of these.
Done! Phew.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 05:46 am (UTC)It's cool that you're actually trying to keep up with your resolutions, though. Most people would have forgotten about them by now.
RYN*: I did post an MP3 once, and it was an OD exclusive (the song, I mean.) I was working on an MP3 of the "Unlimited Budget" song, but the initial efforts were discouragingly horrific and I haven't given it another go since.
(* - One of the many, at least. Thanks for all the feedback, btw!)
no subject
Date: 2006-07-03 10:39 pm (UTC)