Perpetuating a vicious (exer)cycle

The Daily Plah: Day 3
Currently reading: Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr (I should note that I read in fits and starts throughout the day, so it is through no fault or deficiency on a book’s part if it takes me 3-4 days to get through it)
Book 2 progress: I am restructuring the top of the book, so alas, I am not yet past page 34 *mopes*
Other notable facts: I cooked last night! I am a terrible cook, so this is a real triumph. I don’t know if there’s a name for what I made. It’s basically a stack of things: eggplant, roma tomatoes, ricotta cheese, chicken, mozzarella cheese, and chopped mushrooms. It was very delicious. For Little Sis, I made a veggie version: eggplant, roma tomatoes, ricotta cheese, big mushroom slices, sliced artichoke, and mozzarella cheese. Most of the cooking I do attempt ends up being Italian. I am not comfortable pan-frying, so everything is baked.
Contest winner: The winner of the purple veggie bag is CHLOE! Congrats to Chloe. Stay tuned for more contests, coming soon!

For the past few days, my stomach has been sort of jumpy, so I haven’t made myself exercise. But today I think that excuse is tired. So I’m sitting here at the computer in my workout clothes, waiting for a sufficient post-breakfast interval to pass so I can hop onto the machines. I’ve created a little circuit for myself, since I am easily bored. Recumbent bike, trampoline, treadmill, trampoline, recumbent bike. Equal time on each. I’ve been aiming for ten minutes, but today I might do eight.

Exercise is like writing–I dread it, I whine about it, I do everything I can to avoid it–I even get all suited up for it and then find something else to do. But once I start doing it, I’m happy. I even enjoy myself. And when I can get into a schedule, it’s even easier.

I remember back in my teens and early twenties, if I wanted to lose ten pounds, I’d exercise for a month and then stop, at which point I would lose weight. It doesn’t quite work that way once you hit your mid-twenties. You exercise for a month and stop, and you gain five pounds because your body started demanding more food to compensate for the calories you burned. By the time you stop exercising, you’re in the habit of eating more, so you can’t stop.

When it comes to eating, I’m like a goldfish: I’ll eat until I pop. I read an article yesterday saying that kids are up to three snacks a day (plus meals), which is basically a constant stream of food. I think what happens is we adopt these habits (like snacking) when we’re determined to be healthier–so we snack on almonds, or an apple… and gradually that morphs to string cheese and two slices of ham, or a bowl of cereal. And the idea of not eating between meals feels like the greatest deprivation.

How much easier it would be to break out of these patterns if we’d never started them to begin with!

But, as I try to remind myself on at least a daily basis, there are people in the world with REAL problems, so there’s no use letting any of it get to you.

Happy Wednesday! Can you believe I made it three whole days? The quest for 31 continues!

Thanks for dropping by!

4 comments March 3rd, 2010

So this is what it feels like to be hip.

Hey, all! Writing this from our Veddy Veddy Hip (to the point of non-functionality, really) hotel room in the Veddy Veddy Hip Meatpacking District of New York City.

We’re in town for the Webby Awards ceremony, because thanks to all of the amazing people who voted, we’re picking up Beaker’s People’s Voice Award for him. (It is much easier to go to an awards show when you know the results.)

New York is amazing, as usual, but this neighborhood is way hipper than where we’ve stayed in the past. Everything seems more crowded and way more scene-y, which isn’t my favorite thing in the world. But it’s still really fun. We’ll branch out a little into other neighborhoods today.

Yesterday we got to hang out with my brother and his wife and their hilarious little hulk of a son. He’s about 17 months old, and he tries to lift the coffee table. Awesome!

I feel yuck today; you know those sore throats that coat your throat and make you feel sort of nauseated? That’s where I am right now. Blecch.

All right, just wanted to say hi and let you all know that I didn’t drop off the face of the blogosphere! Thanks for coming by!

(This is a picture I took from my hotel room with my new favorite iPhone app, QuadCamera, which takes uh-maze-ZING foursquare pictures. If you meet me on this trip, you will experience how annoyingly obsessed I am with this program.)

Happy Sunday!
k.

3 comments June 7th, 2009

Advncd Tm Mgmt Advc Frm Dbut Athr

Okay, so my life has become completely insane this week. A lot of it is the fact that it’s the most labor-intensive dog show week, but a lot of it is trying to keep my little duckies quacking nicely in their rows as we count down to pub day… wait, I feel like I used the ducks in a row line in my last post. Don’t go back and check! Have mercy.

If you want to read something thoughtful and well-written, please go see what our guest blogger, bestseller Elinor Lipman, has to say on over thar at the Debutante Ball. Her serenity inspires and taunts me in the face of my own complete lack of it.

So. Today is party day. That’s a good thing. But today is also “getting ready for party” day. And that is going to be just awful, I know it. I am awful at getting ready for things. I get all hysterical and grumpy and I tend to leave everything, like showering, to the last minute, like when guests are already arrived and waiting for their food. Luckily, my in-laws happen to be in town, and seeing as how my mother-in-law basically planned our whole wedding for us, I have every intention of appointing her head of the party planning committee and letting her handle everything. Shh! I haven’t told her yet. She’s hiking right now.

So I’m a nutcase and that’s all there really is to say about it.

But I’m really going to blog EVERY DAY this week and either have a contest or a download or something fun for every. single. day., although I may regret putting that in writing, but I MEAN it! So please stop by and visit me and say soooooothing words and forgive my complete and utter maniacalness. (Mania? Not as fun to say.)

Now the dog is barking and I have to get on the treadmill to make up for those big soft sugar cookies with all the frosting, of which I am intending to eat approximately 47 tonight at the party.

Note to self: remind party-planning committee to buy big soft sugar cookies.

I feel like this cat… minus the house full of old ladies thing, which could be misinterpreted as a statement about my in-laws but is not intended to be, I swear:

6 comments April 18th, 2009

Despite the plague…

The husb got sick early last week, and I thought I might be able to sneak through the week without catching it from him. WRONG! It knocked me on my back. You know that feeling like there are hundreds of little germ battles being fought all over your body? I had that. For like two days. One morning the husb went to work and I realized I still had to get up and take the dog out, and I wanted to cry.

Yuck! Anyhoo, I’m back to about 80%… you won’t catch me on the treadmill, and you wouldn’t want me snurfling next to you in a movie theatre or anything, but I can go up and down stairs and even talk coherently on the phone (unlike Friday, when of course I decided it was a good time to call my agent). Sort of like drunk-dialing… more like Dayquil-dialing.

So despite the sickness, some very fun and cool things this weekend… one is a big surprise that I can’t really talk about except to say that it is something very awesome to do with Bad Girls Don’t Die.

The other thing is that Winston and I went to a free trial for a canine agility class, and Winston was great at all of the little tasks. I knew he would be. To speak in technical terms, he is good at behaviors, plural, but not at behavior, the concept.

The husb just got home from grocery shopping, and the way I feel toward a brand new carton of orange juice right now is like Edward Cullen toward Bella Swan. Therefore I must take my leave.

But cool things are coming! And if you’re reading this, Agent M, the thing I said wasn’t going to happen did happen! And it was cool. (And sorry I Dayquil-dialed you.)

8 comments February 15th, 2009

Curiosity did nothing to the dog.

I’m blogging about hobbies over at The Debutante Ball today. Please join me there and celebrate my… what’s that word that means you try a little bit of everything? It’s not “philandering,” which is what I almost typed. I do not philander, and if I did, I wouldn’t expect it to be celebrated on the internet.

Dilettantism, I think, is the word I’m looking for, although I think the conclusion I drew is that writers are allowed to be dilettantes.

Anyhoo, I am just exhausted this week! I don’t even know why. I think my brain is swimming with all the dogs from the show we just finished PLUS all the dogs from the show we just started PLUS lines of code that had to be examined and re-examined and tweaked in order to get the new format up and running.

Also, in contradiction to the title of this post, the husb and I went hiking Sunday, which we never do, and just happened to be in the right place at the right time to save a couple of beagles who had been lost in the coyote-filled ravine all night. The boy dog wouldn’t come to us, but the girl was too tired to run away. When the owner finally showed up, the boy dog came trotting out of the ravine like he’d been waiting thirty feet away as opposed to running all over tarnation and baying like a maniac.

I just can’t stand to see dogs in trouble. It cuts me to the quick.

Happy Tuesday to all, and here is a picture of a dog who is NOT in trouble:

(This was advertised as a “pirate” costume in Mexico, where I bought it.)

PS – Tom pointed out that my RSS feed is giving him some trouble, which means it’s probably giving everybody trouble. Try this instead: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/katiealender

14 comments January 27th, 2009

Sawing logs

Winston’s snoring is getting out of control. I’m afraid most of the problem stems from the fact that he sleeps on his back between the husb and me. But he wakes me up four or five times a night. I try to rub his throat and nose to relax them, but it doesn’t work for long.

Something tells me the little guy is going to be sleeping in his own bed for a while. He’s still in the bedroom with us, but not in the bed.

Poor dog. But he’ll get over it.

Anyway, that’s on my mind today because it kept me up all night.

(I’m sure his argument would be that he wouldn’t have to sleep on is back if we would just move over and make room. Case in point:)

So I’m blogging over at the Debutante Ball today, about guilty pleasures. Thanks to all who entered last week’s contest! One of these times one of my blogfriends will win. And we’ll be that much closer to world domination!

In the meantime, I’m off to tread the mill for a few minutes.

Happy Tuesday!

9 comments January 13th, 2009

Ugh, lost a day!

So the dog show is completely nuts and I had to work most of the day yesterday, which means that today was my day to try to get the house and life in general in order (since I haven’t devoted more than probably 2 hours total since before I went down to Long Beach on December 11). I accomplished many wonderful things, such as throwing away hair products for hair that I no longer have, and discovering evidence of termites in the master bath (ah, home ownership).

Anyhoo, as I sat down on the couch with my chips and salsa, I thought, “What a day! At least it’s only Saturday.”

Which is, of course, WRONG.

So wrong.

So sad.

Ugh.

5 comments January 5th, 2009

Waaaah!

Thanks for the sympathy about Le Grande Tumbledown. I discovered this morning that I actually have a giant bruise on my shoulder! I have no idea what sequence of events took place, or how I avoided bonking my head on the ground.

Now, on to the (well, in the grand scheme of things, not-so-)tragic part of this blog post… Winston spent twelve days at daycare while we were out of town. I went to pick him up this morning, and when they brought him out, he looked RIGHT THROUGH me! I called his name, and he perked up, but still wasn’t totally cool. Then I took him from the guy and he (the dog, not the guy) started licking my face enthusiastically.

Now he’s sleeping like a log–in his crate, not on the couch with me. It always takes him a couple of days to get used to being back at home after he’s boarded for any length of time.

I think it’s harder on me than on him. I keep trying to bribe him to come up onto the sofa with me.

*sigh*

He’ll come around. In the meantime, his summer cut is growing out (just in time for the hot Santa Ana winds) and he is adorably fluffy. I’ll take pictures soon.

7 comments October 12th, 2008

Open letter to gravel.

Dear gravel,

You are mean. Just because someone is tra-la-la-ing across you, looking forward to getting in the car and getting warm, and in a good mood from being at a fun wedding while you have been providing the surface area of a parking lot all night, does not mean you have to roll under said someone’s feet and somehow launch her out of both (!!!) of her shoes, downhill, in a manner that causes her to somehow slide-slash-stumble-slash-careen down to the ground, ruining her tights and scratching her hand and wrist and toe and knee and scaring the bejeezus out of her husband, somehow forcing him to (!!?????) step on her.

Sincerely,
Katie “I Fall Down a Lot” Alender

“I fall down a lot” is actually a phrase I inadvertently coined a few years ago, one night when I’d had too many White Russians. I didn’t know I had coined this term until I heard some friends-of-a-friend saying it to one another in the manner of a pop culture reference, aka, “Bob, you only gave the bartender three dollars and your drink is seven!” “D’oh! I fall down a lot!”

But I do fall down a lot.

4 comments October 12th, 2008

My life as a pioneer woman.

Two days ago, the unthinkable happened:

I had finally managed to lure the husb down to the sewing room. I often try to get him to come hang out with me while I work, but he doesn’t particularly like going downstairs. But on this day, the top story of the house was very warm, and the basement level was nice and cool.

Almost immediately, my sewing machine broke. Something happened where the needle thread gets caught under the little plate where all the secret, magic stuff goes on. I tried repeatedly, but couldn’t fix it.

Then, the next morning, as I was sitting at the computer, the husb comes in and says, “I need the computer for a shoot we’re doing over the next two days.”

I beg your pardon?

But these mythical “shoots” are apparently more importantly than my voting on lolcats over at I Can Has Cheezburger, so I surrendered the machine (with great misgivings and lots of whining to show how serious I was, naturally).

That night, I got home from work to find that the shoot was still ongoing, thereby robbing me of the third of the four essential items in my home (my husband–the fourth is Winston, but he was grouchy). Add this to our chronic lack of groceries and the fact that our DVR is full of high-def episodes of CSI: Miami (don’t ask me why, I gave up on David Caruso a loooong time ago), and I was marooned.

I wandered around the silent house, occasionally pausing to look at the empty desk where the computer belonged. Then, clearly driven to madness by the starkness of my situation–

I went downstairs and started… cleaning. On a weeknight.

The big room downstairs has become a bit of a catch-all, especially with the new outdoor-type supplies that have to live inside. I rotated the couch and started organizing and making various little piles and putting things away.

Eventually, I hit a wall and went back upstairs. I found something random to eat and sat down to watch The Stepford Wives, feeling strangely like a Stepford wife myself. That movie is so strange. Especially now that it’s so ingrained in pop culture–every time they say, “There’s something wrong in Stepford,” you want to shout at the screen, “What do you expect? It’s STEPFORD! The place with the wives!”

Last night, knowing there was neither sewing machine nor computer nor husb waiting for me at home, I stopped and meandered around the grocery store a little. Then I got home and found that the DVR had made room for America’s Next Top Model (which I am starting to have a problem with, as none of the winners actually go on to become, you know, MODELS). I prepped a little food, sat down on the couch, and watched Tyra Banks ham it up.

This morning, like a dream, I woke to find the computer back in its spot. The husb is also in his spot, and Winston is more sleepy than grouchy. The sewing machine has not yet been repaired, but I have a loaner.

Close call with reality, eh?

PS – Bath math:

getting conditioner for hair + looking at face wash = conditioner all over face

PPS – Winston is three years old! His birthday was Tuesday.

5 comments May 1st, 2008