Just had to share.

So, I finally got myself out of bed to get to a 6:30am class at the gym. I know that sounds sad to those of you who knew me as the get up at the crack ‘o dawn girl, making it to the gym for a 5:30am class, if not earlier to do my pre-workout workout. No, here in Seattle, I’ve become a slacker. I still work out regularly, but the time in the morning varies. There have been times I’ve done work in the morning, then worked out at home before getting into work in the afternoon. That’s what a flexible work schedule will do!

Anyhow – I made it to the spin class at the gym. I had tried one in the evening before, and I wasn’t impressed. It seemed very low-key, low-intensity. The instructor wasn’t wearing cycling shoes or cycling gear, which threw me off – at the Tri-Cities, the spin class I took, the teachers I liked always wore their cycling clothes and shoes. In fact, one of them is the reason I got the cycling shoes I have. Anyway – the instructor this morning was the same as I had experienced before – no cycling gear or shoes, so I wasn’t expecting much. Combine that with the fact the instructor never turned the lights on, was kind of quiet, and nobody spoke in that class…and I wasn’t sure I was ever going to come back. I was pleasantly surprised. It was 55 minutes of interval training. Granted, you can always do your own intensity, but those of you who know me know I’ll go all out when I can. It was a killer class. The teacher said next week would be endurance training – I cringed inside. She said last week had been climbing. I’m glad she changes things up, and it sounds like it’s always a pretty intense class. I decided to pay for the 10-class punch card. If I’m going to get my groove on for cycling, I need to have something that helps challenge me and push me along.

So, I’m getting back in gear and looking forward to the next steps on my road to getting back on my bike and out cycling!

Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

1. I grew up watching Star Trek – the original, then Star Trek: Next Generation, then Star Trek: Deep Space 9. We started losing interest in the series part way through DS 9.
2. When there was a Star Wars marathon during the holidays, we’d watch it.
3. I’m also a James Bond fan – I watched a couple of the Bond movies growing up, too.
4. I will usually choose an action or comedy over a chick flick.
5. I enjoy reading murder mysteries.
6. My family didn’t own a computer until I was 12 – it was a Mac. I worked on Macs at home and PCs at school and work.
7. Even though my mother is from El Salvador, we didn’t eat traditional Salvadorian food – we did have Salvadorian desserts, though.
8.

So, my left foot has gone wacky on me again, leaving me with limited options at the gym (i.e., can’t run, can’t do the stairmaster or stair killer, can’t do my jumpity-jump workouts, can’t kickbox, etc.). I went onto Fitness Magazine’s website and tried out their build-a-workout. Before my foot wigged out on me, I wasn’t too impressed, to be honest – it was mostly weight stuff, not really cardio (I’m a sucker for cardio). Then I tried one workout in their magazine that claimed to fit it all in, in just 20 minutes. Thinking it’d be a good warm-up, I got right into it (pre-foot problem). HOLY COW. I was sweating by the second exercise – and there are really only 8 in the entire workout. I’ll share that one later – by the time I was done with the 20 minutes (I think I went a little over, because I HAD to take breaks between exercises), my heart rate monitor said I’d burned somewhere between 240 and 300 calories.

Once that option was denied to me, I decided to try the Fitness Magazine build-a-workout again. This time, very little jumping, not really cardio, but I took the exercises a bit fast-paced, and found myself sweating it out and not bothering my foot. It says an hour, but I was done in about 40 minutes, and was close to 400 cals burned in that time. It was a great, overall body workout.

Just thought I’d share. I promise I’m taking it easy on my foot this time…well, all right, I’ll admit, I’m taking it easy after doing a jump-aerobics deal and realizing later in the day how dumb that was when having a foot injury…and when my husband asked if I was taking care of my foot or “being stupid” and having to fess up that I was doing the latter.

No, I don’t learn things like this quickly.

It’s 2009! Hurray! While most people set resolutions, I don’t tend to any more, because they only seem to last a short while. We DO, however, have a couple of top-of-mind items that hopefully also only last a short while longer: Rich finding a job, and the Pasco house being sold.

I missed many friends while Rich and I were visiting family the past two weeks; my gym buddies and I never got together for a workout, and I’m bummed about that. But having all the Johnson clan together for a week, then catching up on work and such the next week, it just never happened. Next time, gals.

Those who know me, know my addiction to exercise. What some DON’T know is my recently-developed joy of road cycling. Visiting the Tri-Cities, going over the bridges a few times, I reminisced on my ridiculous rides with little to no food, overheating…riding from the Blue Bridge to the Cable Bridge just to see if my estimate of distance was correct and then realizing I was WAY too far away from home and not enough water for the rest of the ride. But I LOVED my weekend rides. I LOVED being along the river riding along Pasco, seeing some of the enormous houses and yards there were to see.

It made me miss the cycling – and I miss it more than I realized! I have an itch to get on my bike. However, there are two things keeping me from doing so: the cold (I really have no cycling gear, let alone cold-weather gear) and my clumsiness. My bike came with Crank Brothers’ eggbeaters, which you cannot get out of without turning your foot much farther than with Shimano SPDs. This little detail led to a few falls…one of which left me with what seems to be a permanent miscolored portion of skin on my left knee. I think God left it there to remind me that I should not get on my bike until I have different pedals – either Shimanos or regular flat pedals (and save the shoes for the bikes at the gym). It’s not really a scar, but it’s a dark spot on my knee from the last fall I took which was the worst. Thankfully, it was also in the driveway to our house in Pasco.

At any rate, I started looking at rides that are happening this year – I’m determined to do at least ONE ride this year, but that means I need to get out. And that means I need to find trails. I’ve heard of the Burke-Gilman, but a friend at work let me know that you can’t go very fast on the Burke-Gilman because so many others are also on the trail. There’s Green Lake, which will do for getting my feet back on me once I have new pedals, but it’s only 2.9 miles around, and typically packed…I was doing 25+ miles on Saturdays. So, I need to find pedals and I need to find trails, especially with minimal traffic.

And I need to wait until the weather warms up.

Oh, and get a bike pump so I can get the tires back up (they’re a little flat after being in storage for a couple months).

Until then, I might take advantage of the fact the cycling class bikes at the gym have odometers on them and do a 25+ mile ride once a week. It’s not quite the same as riding outdoors, but it will have to do for now.

So, awhile ago, I had posted about things that make a place feel like home.

Then we went on vacation and came back to Seattle.

And it didn’t feel like we were coming home – but like we were coming back to Seattle.

We spent time at the Oregon coast with family after the vacation to the board game convention in Dallas, and, on the way back, it felt even LESS like home than it had the week before as we had travelled back!

I miss family and friends. Don’t get me wrong – I’m SO grateful I have my husband, else I’d go completely insane, but I still don’t feel settled here. And because of it, I’m struggling with feeling like decorating our house for Christmas — the place doesn’t feel like ours (and who am I kidding – it isn’t, we’re renting it), and we won’t be there FOR Christmas, so why bother putting up any decorations?

Can you tell I’m struggling a bit with this?

Quick random thought – I wonder how many people actually read my blog? I know of a few, but I’m always curious. One friend posted on her blog something that made me think about that…basically asking why do people blog? Personally, it’s a mixture of getting things out somewhere, being able to do some writing, and keeping in touch with people who care enough to read this thing. 🙂 There’s something deeper, maybe, but I don’t feel like going there right now. My head hurts as it is.

I’ve been feeling pretty ill the past few days. It started a couple of days ago when I woke up feeling nauseous and really low energy. I still got ready for work, but as I was toweling off from the shower, I couldn’t help but notice that the towel felt like sandpaper…and it was taking a surprising amount of effort to dry off. I was hoping the feeling would pass, but, after taking my first conference call of the day from home, it didn’t. I ended up in bed most of the day, unwilling to eat or move.

Enter my amazing husband. Yes, my husband is amazing. The man cooks, cleans, does the dishes, and washes the clothes. He supports me, he comforts me, and he makes me laugh. And, when I’m sick, he brings me soup in bed, and sneaks my medicine into my ginger tea because I’m too blasted stubborn to drink it myself (I hate syrups – I’m fine with pill form meds, but NOT syrups). He makes me eat so I don’t pass out entirely, and he frets over me, constantly asking if I’m okay, teasing me when I tell him I don’t want to move and talking makes me feel sick.

My husband makes me feel so loved in so many ways. As I lay on the couch dozing off a bit (I managed to get out of bed only because I was tired of being in bed reading and wanted to watch TV for awhile), he quietly came to where I was laying and started pulling my hair away from my face. He was tucking it behind my ear, and just running his fingers through my hair. I felt like a little kid whose mommy or daddy was looking in on her while she was sleeping. I just felt so loved!

The next day, I was feeling better, and eating a bit more than I had the day before (which is to say, I was eating). My husband kept telling me how happy and glad he was that I was feeling better. Now, those who know me know I can be very slow at times, so it should come as no surprise that it took me awhile to realize how sincere he was! He kept hugging me, kissing me, telling me how happy he was I was feeling so much better! Again – I felt so loved!

I saw this comic the other day:

No, I don’t have children, but my husband does make me feel like a superstar when I get home from work. He’s happy I’m home, he tells me he’s missed me, and he means it. It makes me feel appreciated and loved. (And, to be honest, I’ve done my best to quit being grumpy after a long day when I come home, because I’ve realized that the last thing I need to do after hearing, “My baby’s HOME!!!” is be grumpy!!)

My husband makes me happy. He makes me feel cared for. Evenings I’m getting home late from work, he has dinner waiting for me. When I do stupid things, he doesn’t hammer me over the head with the fact I did them – doesn’t ignore them, either, but he doesn’t rub it in. He works with me through whatever we have to deal with; he listens when I’m having issues and gives me advice; I feel like I matter in his life. And, he really, honestly, whole-heartedly LOVES me.

So, what can I say? My husband is amazing.

What makes a home…home?

Have you ever thought about that? What is it that can make a place feel like home?

Yes, definitely, there are things like family, love, etc. I completely agree with that. But…for me, there are other things that make a place feel like home.

A feeling of familiarity — nothing quite says home like knowing your way around a place, knowing where a good place to eat is, or knowing where the grocery stores are. But even more than just that bit of basic familiarity is knowing where some of the not-so-well known areas are…like the parks and trails. I think, too, there’s knowing the alternate routes to get somewhere. In the Tri-Cities, it’s knowing that if the bypass (Hwy 240) is slow, you can get onto GW Way to get to Kennewick, or knowing that you can take Davidson to McMurray if even GW Way is really crowded.

There’s also familiarity with the place you’re living IN, at least for me. It’s little things like knowing where the light switches are and which one turns on what light that helps.

A feeling of comfort — you know why I think family is associated with home so much? I think it’s because, for the most part, we’re comfortable with family. We can let our hair down around family. We can be ourselves around family. The same goes for good friends – you’re familiar with them, and they’re familiar with you, and you can just have fun.

I realized recently that for me, there were some other things that made a place home…the house we live in didn’t quite feel like home until I baked bread here. For some reason, actually baking something – for me, specifically bread – was like breaking in a good pair of shoes. I was surprised what a difference it made to me. At the temporary housing, I had this almost burning ache to bake something, ANYTHING, to make the place feel a bit homey. I bought a really cheap foil cupcake baking thing, some cupcake liners, and a cheap little box of muffin mix (love Jiffy!), and the place just felt more comfy after I’d baked them!

There’s also a smell associated with home – and maybe that’s what the baking did for me, bring in that homey smell for me. But you know how a place will have a unique smell when you move into it? Having your own smell in a place adds to that feeling of home – it’s like it has YOUR smell. I know it sounds a bit weird, but I hope you get what I mean.

I guess I’ve just been thinking about all the things that make a place feel like home because of the recent move into this house. I’m still not 100% feeling like this is home, but it’s getting closer. I think when everything is unpacked and has its place, that’ll help, too.

And, maybe a few more baked goods wouldn’t hurt. 🙂

So, we’re in the Tri-Cities for a quick weekend visit. We’ve only been here a few hours, but there are a few things that I couldn’t help but notice as differences between the “West Side” and the “East Side” so far.

Traffic

I’d forgotten about traffic in the Tri-Cities. It annoys the HECK out of me! I just don’t get it. And maybe living in Seattle has added to the annoyance I remember having earlier. Do people in the Tri-Cities realize just how incredibly open the roads are? No, seriously – WHY, dear people, are we driving 55 mph in a very clear freeway with a 70 mph speed limit? See, I can understand Seattle’s traffic – it’s a heavily populated area, lots of cars, funneling into a few lanes of traffic with stop lights every block that aren’t exactly synched. So, that naturally leads to lots of cars backed up on the road. But in the Tri-Cities, there’s space between cars, there’s space between lanes, and we’re driving under the speed limit! We also watched one person keep driving with their blinker on to change lanes – with quite the open space to change into between us and the car in front of us, but until we moved, they didn’t want to move into the lane. I told Rich, “If they were in Seattle, they would have changed into that spot a long time ago!” It just cracked me up.

Speed Limit Signs

I know this sounds silly, but it took us awhile to actually FIND speed limit signs in Seattle. Then we realized why there probably aren’t that many — why bother telling people the speed limit is 50 mph when you’ll probably be going 35 mph most of the time on the road? And even when there ARE signs, it doesn’t seem like people follow them – when the roads are open, and traffic is flowing, it’s like people in Seattle are trying to make up for all the time they’ve had to spend waiting for traffic to move on other days and other times. Just because it’s 40 mph on the road doesn’t mean that anybody will be going 40 when there isn’t a delay! Try 50! Just because you can!

On our way from Pasco to Richland, I was a bit surprised how often we’re reminded of the speed limit. I told Rich at one point, “It’s a bit weird to see so many speed limit signs through here.”

Street Lighting

I forgot what it’s like to actually drive in the dark. It actually dawned on me one early morning as I was driving in to the gym before work — there are LOTS of street lights on I-5 in Seattle! And today, coming in on I-90 before the exit to 182, I was amazed at the LACK of street lights! I’ve never been all that comfy with how dark I-90 is driving past Benton City at night. I don’t think I’ve driven it enough to remember where the curves in the road are, so I feel very disoriented along the way.

The downside in Seattle is I get disoriented with how much lighting there is! There’s a Hwy 99 tunnel (Hwy 99 south) that spits you out onto Western in downtown Seattle that can really throw you off — it’s dark, but street lights are on, then suddenly you’re in near-daylight lighting in the tunnel, then it’s dark with street lights again as you get onto Western! It’s quite the eye exercise as your pupils adjust to each lighting setting.

Political Issues

Lest you think I’m going to ramble about candidates running for office, I’m not. I couldn’t think of another way to capture the difference in what suddenly matters to us now that we live in Seattle. Yes, the big issues – taxes, the economy, health care – we care about. But there are these initiatives on the ballot that we started talking about with my in-laws…related to…roads and traffic! We suddenly care whether or not the initiative to let HOV lanes become full access lanes during peak traffic hours passes or not. We suddenly care about how they’re planning on fixing the viaduct. And we’re explaining it to our family in Eastern Washington.

Oy – that just can’t be good!

So, I just read a friend’s thoughts on her being an “old married hag.” She and her hubby have been together 6.5 years (married for 2); Rich and I have been together 5.5 years (married for 4.5). She talked about spending a few days with another two couples, one engaged, one dating, and seeing the stages of the relationships. It made me think a bit, because I sometimes still step back and am amazed that Rich and I have been together as long as we have! For me, it’s an honest surprise that he’s put up with me for that long and STILL tells me he loves me. He’s put up with my exercise addictions, my health-food crazes, my moodiness and crankiness, my inability to generally take good care of myself — just all of my MANY drawbacks, and he STILL tells me he loves me.

He’s crazy.

But it’s really amazing to realize the stability that a good marriage gives you. The recent move to a new city, new company, new job, would have just killed me if I had done it all on my own. Yeah, I would have found my way, but the stress would have known no bounds! I’ll never forget Rich’s comment to me that hit me hard as we were both in the Tri-Cities still, and I was working myself up into a frenzy trying to figure out how I’d fit everything in that still needed to be done. He said simply, “You don’t have to do it all by yourself.” I couldn’t believe how much I’d been doing myself – looking for places to live, stressing about the budget, how were we going to get the house in sell-ready condition, etc. Now, I don’t know why, after 5 years together, I still was trying to do it all by myself, but, I was. And his words kind of shocked me. First, they shocked me because I realized I WAS doing it all by myself. Second, they shocked me because I realized I had someone who was supporting me, and all I had to do was let him help.

I’m also amazed at my husband because of his willingness to quit his job in the Tri-Cities and move here! Everything that entailed for him was a sacrifice in my book, and a scary one at that. And he supported me all the way. It still amazes me.

Having that constant best friend is just incredible. There really aren’t words to adequately describe it. But it’s comforting for me to realize I’ve been incredibly blessed with a man who knows me, helps me, is my best friend, and loves me deeply.