~Grins and giggles from Peanut
~Penguin Clothbound Classics
~Kisses from hubby
~CDs by R.E.M., the Shins and the Decemberists
~Northern Virginia hikes
~Mugs
~Vacation memories – and photos
~Meaningful art
~Hugs from good friends
~Minutes stolen and spent on me
~Visits to stunning cathedrals
~Trivia, of both the historical and hockey varieties
~Piano sonatas
~Comfy jersey dresses
~Sunrises and other spectacular views
Are you a collector?
Hah.
It’s still winter. Still. Winter. It’s not as bad here in D.C. as some other places – we’re in the odd in-between season where it will snow one day and be 60 degrees the next (yep, that was Monday and Tuesday of this week) – but notwithstanding all that… it’s still winter. Still grey, and it snowed (just flurries) on Monday. There are daffodils poking up along my drive home, and a few early cherry trees starting to adorn themselves, and I’m thinking about starting my annual Claritin regimen, but it’s… still winter.
Winter’s last gasps in the mid-Atlantic region aren’t furious or frigid, just dreary, but we still have to get through them every year. (As E so poetically put it the other day, “March: in like a lion, out like a lion, acts like a lion all month.”) And while I’m not looking forward to pollen season, I am looking forward to seeing the back of this entire month of drizzle. In the meantime, here’s what’s getting me through:
What’s keeping you going through the last gasps of winter?
Hockey: the only sport I care about.
I recently learned a new sports metaphor: “moving the ball forward.” Oh, I’d heard it before, and I had a vague idea that it meant making progress – or something along those lines – but I didn’t know it was about football. You can laugh (and you will) but I’m just not a football fan. (I remain confused about why a game with sixty minutes of playing time should take four hours. That’s 25% playing, and 75% breaks. Who has that kind of time? Think about it.) Anyway, I just learned this metaphor a few weeks ago and since then I’ve managed to overuse it until it has lost all meaning, because obviously. I have to be me.
A client and I were joking about this very metaphor – “moving the ball forward” – the other day. She couldn’t believe I’d only just figured it out, until I explained that I’m a hockey fan and there is no room in my heart for other games. (Other sports are not nearly violent enough for me, apparently. I’m very bloodthirsty.) I bemoaned the fact that there aren’t really any common sports metaphors for the wannabe-Canadians among us and confessed that I’m now on a mission to learn more sports metaphors and overuse them.
The degree to which I am obtuse about sports metaphors is amusing, among other things, but it also raises a more serious point: sports, sports talk, and sports metaphors are a big part of the reason that many women still feel excluded or alienated in their male-dominated workplaces. I’ve been lucky and escaped feeling excluded, to a large extent. At my first job, I worked with mostly women, none of whom had much use for sports in general. (There were a few guys there who were big hockey fans, and we bonded. They liked the Rangers, but I didn’t hold it against them. Nobody’s perfect.) When I left that job and joined my firm, I was the only female attorney in the office (that is no longer the case), but I never felt left out. The men in my current office are great guys who made me feel welcome right away, and while they’re all big sports fans, they never used sports to exclude me or tease me.
(Well, there was some gentle mocking when I picked Cornell to win March Madness. But here’s the thing: I’m 4’11” and I can’t relate at all to basketball, so I have never followed it. I could waste my time doing hours upon hours of research and I’d still be flying blind when it comes to March Madness picks. I don’t stand a chance of winning. So I might as well pick my alma mater. They did make it to the Sweet Sixteen, which I always thought was a party.)
There are times when all-attorney meetings veer onto the subject of baseball, which most of the other attorneys in my office (including the women) follow passionately. I don’t because, again, I am apparently too bloodthirsty. (Now, if baseball players were allowed to fight…) I sometimes tune out of those conversations, but I’m never teased or excluded based on my lack of participation, which says more about the people I work with than it does about me.
Not all of my friends are so lucky. One of my closest friends, also a lawyer, was cruelly mocked at a business dinner for not being able to recite the rules of football. She was put on the spot in front of her entire department by her boss, who – knowing she did not follow football – demanded that she explain the game, and then laughed at her when she couldn’t. An extreme example, perhaps – but then again, perhaps not. Women can’t be groped in the workplace anymore, or excluded for promotions based on their sex – at least, not legally – but they can be and often are made to feel out-of-place and embarrassed by not being “one of the guys.” I’ve escaped this fate through a combination of personal luck (in that I found a job where I work with nice, friendly people who wouldn’t dream of making me feel unwelcome), hockey knowledge (at least I can talk intelligently about one sport), and the fact that my co-workers also read widely and enjoy international travel, so we have other conversation topics.
But just because it hasn’t affected me (yet) doesn’t mean that sports knowledge doesn’t contribute to many women’s personal glass ceilings. Succeeding in many professions still demands at least a certain degree of behaving as if you’re “one of the guys.” You don’t have to put up with harassment or laugh at misogynist jokes, but there are many women who help their careers immensely by participating in sports talk at work. Even if you’re not passionate about athletics, it can often help to learn a few sports metaphors and scan the headlines of the sports page, especially if you’re in a male-dominated profession. Here are just a few that I’ve heard (and subsequently looked up on Wikipedia, where there are TONS of examples on the “Sports Idioms” page):
Unfair!, you shout. Why should I have to learn about sports when they other people don’t have to learn about my interests? Well, I agree, it is unfair, when you put it that way, but so is life. And you don’t have to. Some women find learning about sports useful when it comes to climbing their career ladders; some don’t. For many people, there comes a point in your career when advancement depends on how well you can bond with people (especially the higher-ups), even more than the quality of your work – because everyone else is just as good as you, so what really matters is whether you can fit in. Given that, learning about a topic that lots of men and women find interesting can only help you, right? (I found a great blog – Talk Sporty to Me – which lists a bunch that I have never heard, and more that I was wondering about.) Still, if it’s really painful for you, then you would be better served by bonding with your co-workers over topics you both enjoy, like traveling or current events. But know that sooner or later, you’ll probably encounter a sports metaphor or two in your career, and it can’t hurt to know what they mean. Just think of it as moving the ball forward when it comes to your career.
Note: I don’t usually write about topics related to the workplace, since many of them touch upon what I do for my day job. This was just something I was thinking over and wanted to write about. So, to be on the safe side, I’ll just say that this post represents nothing more than my own personal opinion about a topic that’s been on my mind recently. Please don’t construe this as legal advice or the official position of my firm, because it’s not. Over and out.
Sis-in-law E and I have been watching “Gilmore Girls” when we get the chance lately – which is not often, but we’re trying. E has never seen the show, which I find all kinds of shocking. I knew she’d love it, and she does. (We’ve gotten as far as “Rory’s Birthday Parties” in season 1, so we’re going slowly. She also has to catch up on “Downton Abbey” so we can all watch season 3 together as a family.) And while we were watching recently, I had an unsettling revelation. Here it is:
Right now, I am only one year younger than season 1 Lorelai.
WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
I started watching “Gilmore” when the third season was airing. I was nineteen, a junior in college, and not that different from Rory – and Paris, bless her heart. I could remember being a slightly awkward, bookish teenager with Ivy League dreams (although mine focused with laser-like intensity on Cornell, not Harvard). In fact, I still was a bookish teenager, just a few years further into my own college journey than Rory was at the time, since season 3 is her senior year of high school. I liked Lorelai, Sookie, Michel, Luke, Miss Patty and the rest of the townsfolk (except Taylor, of course), and Richard and Emily too (especially Richard), but I watched the show for Rory and Paris, and to a lesser extent, for Lane. They were my contemporaries. Rory and I read the same books. Lane and I both liked Rilo Kiley. Paris and I had the same neuroses.
Lorelai, meanwhile, was out of my immediate sphere. I loved the character, of course – her determination to give her daughter the best education even though they didn’t have much money, her passionate follow-through on her dreams of starting her own business with Sookie and Michel, her cool outfits and flirty banter with Luke, her string of boyfriends (remember Jason and his crazy dog?)… but I didn’t really relate to her.
Now, watching the show all over again from the beginning, it blows my mind that Lorelai is only 32. Dudes. I’m 31. I still feel younger than Lorelai – much younger. I suppose that’s because I have taken a very different life path than the character did. But my head just about exploded when I realized that, at this point, I have more in common with Lorelai than with Rory.
We’re both moms (but thankfully, I’m not a single mom to a teenager). We both pay a mortgage and hold down steady jobs. I’m not the boss, by any stretch of the imagination, the way Lorelai is. But as the senior associate in the office, I have people coming to me to get feedback on their work, or for mentoring, which strikes me as pretty weird (until I remember that I’m 31 and I’ve been out of law school for almost seven years). I have dreams of starting my own (non-law-related) business someday, as most lawyers do. I don’t have to worry about Peanut driving a car or applying to colleges for awhile (although E thinks she might be starting to contemplate crawling… hoo, boy) but I have a little person depending on me to make good decisions for her and to give her a good start, much like Rory depends on Lorelai. (Although Rory can feed herself and doesn’t need to be rocked to sleep every night; I didn’t say it was exactly the same.)
There’s no specific thesis to this post… except to say that I am totally wigged out now that I’ve realized I have more in common with Lorelai than Rory. (This I can handle. But if one day I discover that I have more in common with Emily than with Lorelai… well, I think my head might explode.) But it’s also telling that this show has so much staying power with me, that I can enjoy it just as much now, as a mom in my thirties, as I did when I was a book-devouring teenager like Rory. That’s a sign of a darn good show.
And now, because of reasons, I will conclude with my favorite quote from an immensely quotable series:
Rory: “No one reads The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire unless it’s for a class assignment. It’s a honkin’ long book. This is clearly a cry for help.”
Lorelai: “You’re very anti-intellectual.”
Now that Peanut is six months old, I have been finding it a little easier to think back on our NICU journey. (Not easy, per se, but easier. I don’t know if it will ever be easy or positive for me.) While we were in the trenches, I found myself googling “NICU survival guide” almost every day, searching hungrily for tips that could make my experience even a little less painful. At the time, I thought that I might write a post about the things that got me through the NICU experience, sometime when the memories weren’t quite so raw. So, if you ever find yourself in the NICU – although I sincerely hope you don’t – here is some advice, one NICU parent to another, about how to cope.
1. Call. Call the NICU anytime, day or night, whenever you’re not there and you want an update on your baby. You will not be making a nuisance of yourself. You’re the mom (or dad). It’s their job to update you on your kid, and they really, sincerely do not mind. There’s someone there 24 hours per day, and there’s always going to be a nurse on duty who is responsible for your baby and for answering your questions. So even if it’s 3:00 a.m. and you just want to know if the baby pooped since you left, call. They don’t mind.
2. Be vocal about your needs. If your family or friends ask you how you can help, tell them. And if someone does or says something that bugs you, tell them that. For example, one thing that drove me nuts when we were in the NICU was the phrase, “Just take it one day at a time.” No. I don’t want to take it one day at a time. My current reality is so terrible that if I just focus on today, I’ll lose my shizz. I need to think long term. I need to think about Peanut coming home, and her first walk in the stroller that’s ready and waiting for her, and about her first Christmas and her first vacation and about her playing in her room as a toddler. I need to hope, because I have nothing else right now, and what you are saying to me is that I should stop focusing on the good things ahead and just think about the crummy, depressing situation I’m in right now. So when people told me to take things “one day at a time,” I said, politely but firmly, “That phrase is really not comforting to me. Please don’t repeat it.” (However, everyone is different. Hubby felt that he had to take things one day at a time. His way of coping was to never look beyond the next feeding, the next diaper change. And that’s okay too, because that’s what he needed.) Don’t be afraid that people will judge you or think you’re rude for telling them what helps or comforts you and what doesn’t. You’re going through what will probably be the most challenging experience of your life, and your family and true friends will understand.
3. Be an advocate for your child. Hubby and I are not confrontational people (funny that we’re two lawyers, huh?) and we were generally happy with our NICU, but we did run into problems from time to time. Some of the problems were big, and some were small, but no matter what, if there was something we were unhappy about we were not shy about voicing our concerns to the Charge Nurse, the Nurse Manager or our baby’s doctor. While we might not have complained on our own behalf, when it came to our kid we expected perfection from the NICU, and when we were not satisfied we insisted that they make things right. And I know we weren’t the only parents who were willing to complain if the care didn’t meet their standards. We didn’t care if we were “those parents” or if we annoyed the NICU administration. Demanding perfection from the NICU was one way we could help our baby, and as her parents we were her voice. In the end, no one is going to advocate for your baby the way you will.
4. Make a statement of your faith in your baby. I was lucky in that the vast majority of the people in my life were very positive, and if they had any doubts that Peanut would come home whole and healthy, they didn’t express them to me. But I did encounter the occasional doubter, and while I tried my best to ignore the naysayers, I found it helped me to make a statement of my own convictions that Peanut would be a healthy, normal kid. For me, that took the shape of a sweater. I got out an old pattern (a baby sweater I’d knitted for a friend’s little girl back in 2007) and lost myself in cables and button bands and increases and decreases. With each stitch I knit, I thought about all of my hopes and dreams for my little girl. I poured all of my love for my baby, my frustration with the NICU process, my anger at the few people in my life who didn’t seem to believe as hard as I did, and my conviction that Peanut would come home, into that little sweater. And she did come home – in fact, she came home before the sweater was done. I kept knitting on it all through the fall, and I gave it to her for Christmas as a special gift from Mommy. (Starting a tradition, I hope, of knitting her a sweater every Christmas.) It was my way of saying to Peanut, “I believe in you.”
5. Do something for you. The nurses and doctors and our parents encouraged hubby and me to take a little time “off” from the NICU – leave early, go to dinner, be a couple, etc. We didn’t like leaving early, but we did try to go out once or twice while Peanut was in the NICU, and keep up with our own interests, which was easier. When Peanut was first born, I found it hard to concentrate on a book. I was just too frazzled (and hormonal) to focus on anything other than the NICU, and wonder whether we’d be having a good day or a bad day. But my emotional state improved noticably when I went back to reading. I’ve always read through the tough times,. and the NICU was no exception. I carted a book with me everywhere I went and read in the car on the way to and from the hospital, in the pump room, by Peanut’s bedside if I wasn’t busy taking care of her, and in the evenings at home. I’ve always loved to escape via a good book, and reading was a huge part of what got me through.
6. Stay healthy. Eat well, and do what exercise you can with your doctor’s approval (I had a C-section, so for me that meant nothing more than light walking for basically all of Peanut’s NICU stay – but it did make me feel better to just move my legs a little, once I was past the pain of surgery). And do whatever you need to do to avoid getting sick! It will be hard to get sick with all the scrubbing you’re doing, but it’s not impossible, and the last thing you need is to be quarantined and unable to see your baby for a few days. Plus, you’ll feel like you’re doing something by googling “natural cold prevention” and buying all the shiitake mushrooms and oranges in the grocery store. So chow down on that vitamin C like it’s your job.
7. Hang on tight. Anyone who has been through the NICU fire will tell you that it’s a roller coaster. You’ll be up on top of a mountain, and you’ll be down so deep you’ll feel like you have the bends. Know that those highs are coming, and so are the lows, and you’re not going to be on an even emotional keel for awhile yet. Hang on tight to your partner, or your mom, or whoever you lean on for support. You’re going to need them for awhile. And then one day, things will get better. They really will get better.
8. Remember: it doesn’t last forever. My seven weeks in the NICU felt like an eternity. In my haze of new mom hormones, I was convinced that Peanut would be there at least until her freshman year at Cornell. And I was also convinced that the doctors and nurses were trying to steal my baby. (They weren’t, but that discharge sure did seem slow in coming.) Yes, it’s completely irrational, but there will come a time when you’ll think “This is going to last forever, and we’re never getting out of here, and THEY’RE DOING IT ON PURPOSE.” It’s okay to feel that way, and it’s okay to be angry that you’re in the NICU to begin with (goodness knows I was; I was furious). But I promise: they’re not actually trying to steal your baby; they’re trying to get your baby home. And they will.
9. Build a NICU community. Hubby and I were lucky to have the support of several NICU alums, including Amal, who gave virtual hugs and encouragement, a sorority sister who sent diapers and shared her own NICU journey, and my boss’s wife, who came to visit us at the NICU, shared her own story and let me cry on her shoulder. And then there were the moms I met in the pump room. We shared delivery horror stories, joked about how we knew so many medical terms that we could probably pass as nurses, and planned playdates for the hazy future when our kids would be healthy and home. It wasn’t easy for me to make those friends – I’m not someone who connects easily to new people, and I was stressed out, on edge, and hidden behind a lot of walls. But there were moms who reached out to me despite my perma-scowl, and now we share a bond that I could never have imagined. We exchange pictures of our little ones and squeal over the babies’ adorable traits, and it’s even more special because we each know what the other went through to get to this point. And finally, there is one special nurse who I still email. She took care of our whole family when Peanut was at her most vulnerable, and she’ll be a special part of Peanut’s life forever.
10. Take care of the baby. Most NICUs consider parents to be part of the care team, and they’ll let you do basic care tasks, like changing the baby’s diaper and taking her temperature. Our NICU even let me bathe Peanut. The nurses were always happy to take a moment to teach me how to do something, and they LOVE parents who want to help, because it takes a little bit of work off of their very full plates. But taking care of the baby doesn’t have to stop when you walk out of the NICU doors at night. Every evening, when we got home, hubby and I would ask each other, “What can we do to help Peanut tonight?” (We’d use her real name, though.) Every night, we tried to do something for her – it might take the shape of knitting her sweater (see #4), working on her nursery, doing her laundry, writing thank you notes, or something else, but it made us feel good to know that we were doing things for Peanut even when we weren’t with her.
11. Kangaroo. If your NICU supports Kangaroo Care, do it as much as possible. It’s good for the baby, encourages growth, and it helps Mom (or Dad) too. We did so much Kangaroo Care I considered changing Peanut’s name to Joey.
12. Laugh. I know, you’re going through a crummy situation right now. Believe me, I was in as bad of an emotional state as anyone else – but even I found things to laugh at. I laughed at the baby when she did funny things (for instance, she used to hold her hands up hear her face and spread her fingers; we called it “daisy pose” – her little fingers were like petals – and we giggled at it and even imitated it) or made silly facial expressions, which she did a LOT – Peanut has always been an expressive kid. And I read a funny book – Freddy and Fredericka had me in stitches – and when we really needed to check out, we’d watch old episodes of “Friends” in the evening and chuckle the entire time at the characters’ antics. Laughing felt good, and it let me forget – just for a moment – about all the stress.
13. Celebrate. You had a baby! A beautiful, sweet, wonderful little miracle baby. It’s easy to get caught up in medical charts and pumping and tracking weight gain and all that clinical stuff, but don’t forget: you deserve to celebrate your baby just as much as the mom who gave birth to a healthy baby at term and got to leave the hospital, kid in tow, the next day. Your baby is still a baby. She’s still here, and special, and worthy of celebration. So don’t let people focus you on the bad news. Hubby and I called our parents every day on our way home from the NICU and gave them the scoop on our day, and we took tons of pictures, and we ate up every compliment we got on our gorgeous little girl. She might be in the NICU, but she’s still a new baby who is worthy of all kinds of joy. You’ll find that the people who really love you, and your baby, will look past the wires and tubes and see the beautiful little life you’ve created. So go ahead, Mom and Dad. You made a gorgeous, special, unique baby. Brag.
If you’ve been in the NICU and you’re out of it now, fist bumps to you. What got you through? If you’re walking through the fire right now, you have my love and support and all the virtual hugs you need. Feel free to ask me any questions, or just vent if you want – I’ll always listen and support a fellow NICU parent.
Ummmmm, so. Back in… er… 2011, I gave you a tour of my ridiculous tea cabinet at home and embarrassed myself by telling you that I sometimes perch on the kitchen island and gaze lovingly at my tea (and R’s tea) in the evenings. (I don’t really do that anymore. It’s still good entertainment but it’s not really conducive to sprinting up the stairs every ten minutes to soothe a fussy infant.) And then I told you to “stay tuned,” because Part II was coming up and I was going to show you around my work stash. And then I… didn’t.
Oops. Sorry about that. Only eighteen months later, if you haven’t tuned away, here’s my current work stash. It’s different from what it was in 2011 when I promised this post, obviously, since some new friends have come in and I’ve worked my way through other tins. So, here’s what I see now when I open my top desk drawer:
That’s actually pretty reasonable for me. It’s not overflowing or blocking my access to my stapler or anything. Here are a few detailed views:
Bunch o’ bags. Twinings English Breakfast tea, gigantic box purchased while pregnant (before hot beverages became odious to me and I had to give up caffeine anyway on account o’ the IUGR); Tazo Om for afternoon zen; Tazo Wild Sweet Orange (a gift from sis-in-law G some years ago, and I loved it so I just kept buying it); Republic of Tea Good Hope Vanilla, also purchased while pregnant because rooibos was supposed to be good for lil baking peanuts (again, before hot beverages became odious to me and rooibos tea in particular killed my soul).
Some of my beloved loose tea makes an appearance, finally! We’ve got Ginger Black and Lavender Earl Grey from Old Town Coffee, Tea & Spice in Alexandria (that store is like a rabbit hole, you fall in and you ain’t coming out again); Celestial Seasonings fruit tea sampler purchased because my Target stopped carrying True Blueberry and this was the only way I could scratch the itch; Wissotsky rosehip and hibiscus tea, which is the closest thing I can get here to the rosehip and hibiscus tea from the German store in Buffalo; Celestial Seasonings Tummy Mint (I’m a litigator, I need this stuff); and Guyaki Yerba Mate in both the canister and the yellow-and-green bag.
Finally, my good stuff. I don’t keep much really nice tea at work because I like to save my best stuff to enjoy with a book at home. But I have a little bit on hand for nice morning treats. Kusmi Strawberry Green, Vanilla Bourbon and decaf Earl Grey, all purchased in NYC while preggers, but after the hot beverage aversion had started to wear off a bit; Teaism sweetened matcha powder for mixing into green tea (I’ll probably take this home and use it for smoothies); Teaism Chai, Golden Monkey, Jasmine and World Peace – some of my favorites. I have to have World Peace whenever I need it, so I keep a bag at home and a bag at work. It’s that good.
So, there you go, my promised work stash tour, only a year and a half later. I’ve made a concerted effort not to bring much tea into work until I drink down some of what I have, so this is really not too ridiculous of a stash. Certainly better than my home stash, which is just silly.
Are you a tea drinker? Do you have a giant stash, or are you a reasonable, responsible adult about your tea drinking?
This is a hard post to write. I’m a driven, ambitious, Type-A person and always have been. I like setting goals, and more important, I like achieving them. I don’t like revising them. But I think, in this case, I have to.
In November I told you about my “Zero to Hero” goals for postpartum fitness. Later, I shared with you my plans for getting there. I was really excited about all three goals: to run the GW Parkway Classic 10-Miler in the short term; lose the baby weight (which I fondly refer to as Peanut cushioning) in the medium term; and be a healthy mom in the long term. I’m still totally committed to the medium and long-term goals, but I think I need to rethink the short-term goal.
Upon first blush, it didn’t seem all that crazy. The race was months out, and ten miles is not unheard-of for me. I’ve run the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler and the Virginia Wine Country Half Marathon, so I know that I am (or at least, have been in the past) capable of completing the distance. The Parkway was a race I’d always wanted to run, so I had that motivating me. And I have a training buddy: my sister-in-law, who said she’d like to prepare for and run the race with me.
But here’s what I don’t have: time. When I was training for my 10-miler and my half, I put a lot of time into it. I worked out or ran almost every day, and I did long runs of up to 11 miles on the weekends. That was hours and hours of time that I dedicated to getting ready for those races (and I was still slow – but hey, I finished and that’s what I wanted). Those races were great, and I felt so proud of myself after I finished. (Especially the half marathon – I was going through some tough times during my training, and crossing the finish line was a big vote of confidence in myself.)
These days, I just don’t have the hours and hours it takes to get ready for a big race like that. (It might not be a big race to some, but it would be to me – especially after not really running for a year due to a foot injury, then pregnancy and C-section recovery.) I have to build up a baseline of cardio fitness again, and I have to do it while working full time and caring for a newborn. If I started training for a 10-miler, that would eat up more free time than I have – and worse, it would take away from time I could be spending with Peanut. I want to be a fit and healthy mom for her, but I don’t want to spend hours away from her while she’s so tiny – I want to enjoy this special time with her and think about running later. So I am admitting, as painful as it is, that I’m just not in a place right now where I can devote that much attention to race training. When it comes to workouts, I need to get in, get out, and get on with my day.
Still, you can’t set short, medium and long-term goals and then jettison the short-term goal completely. Once I decided to forego training for the Parkway, I knew I needed another short-term goal. It’s not that I want a neat and tidy blog post; it’s more that I like having some short-term success and I think it helps me stick to those medium and long-term goals better. So I said to myself: Self, what were you really looking to get out of your short-term goal to run the Parkway? I thought about it and concluded that what was behind my choice of that goal was a desire to get back into the road racing scene, because it’s fun and because it gives me achievements to help me along in my journey. I don’t have to target the Parkway as a goal race; I can target any race that I want to do.
So I checked out some other races in my area, and I picked a new goal race: the Healthy Strides Community 10K, in April 2013, at Burke Lake Park. (There’s also a 5K option if I decide I need to drop down.) It’s a more manageable distance and – bonus – it’s at one of my favorite northern Virginia parks. I know the race course very well, since hubby and I have hiked it quite a few times – most recently when I was 11 weeks pregnant. (That was a long day. I slept in the car on the way home.)
I’ll do the Parkway someday. Maybe in 2014 – who knows? Maybe when Peanut is a toddler, she’ll drive me so crazy that ten-miler or half marathon training will sound like a vacation. In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy shorter workouts, get back into the racing scene with some more reasonable distances, and snuggle my baby as much as possible.
Have you ever revised a goal?
I do so love January. I love fresh starts and making plans and taking on new challenges. And when it comes to 2013, I’m especially excited. 2012 might have been a banner year for me, but there’s always room for new goals, right? And this year I get to tackle those goals with a little sidekick who brings a whole new feeling of purpose to life.
I fell a little short on some of my 2012 goals (I’m especially embarrassed to have failed so spectacularly in my grand plans to plant a vegetable garden and paint the house), but that’s okay. Goals should be a challenge (but an achievable challenge). In that spirit, here are my goals for 2013. I’m sticking with the same format of setting categories, but including a few small goals in each category instead of one big goal for each.
BLOG
1. Keep up a M, W, F posting schedule consistently all year – no blog breaks.
2. Stay informed about current events in the literary world, and post about them.
3. Shoot a new header that reflects the spirit of the blog.
HOME
1. Get the rest of the house painted (even if I have to hire professionals to do it).
2. Hang curtains!
3. Plant an herb garden, and don’t kill it this time.
FITNESS
1. Get back into road racing.
2. Get into a regular yoga practice.
3. Join Stroller Strides and attend regularly.
READING
1. Really, really read more books I already own. I mean it this time.
2. Read at least one classic every month.
3. Explore more non-fiction.
LIFE/FAMILY
1. Seek out ways to be a better wife and mother, and practice them.
2. Practice gratitude even when life gets challenging.
3. Love my little Peanut wildly.
What are your goals for 2013?
Hi, friends. How did you ring in 2013? I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season, and that you all have a joyful, healthy and inspiring 2013!
Oh, speaking of inspiring, guess what?! The ever-gracious A.M.B. of The Misfortune of Knowing has nominated Covered In Flour for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award! Now if that isn’t a way to begin 2013 – with some positive feedback from a blogger whose work I really enjoy and respect – then I don’t know what is. A.M.B. says that she and I have a lot in common – we’re both 31-year-old attorneys, moms to preemies, and fans of the Cotswolds – and I couldn’t agree more. But I’m really honored and flattered that she feels that we are alike, and that she finds my blog inspiring, because I always find her blog smart, well-written and thought-provoking.
So, here are the Pirate Codes guidelines for the award: (1) say thanks and give a link to the blogger who nominated you; (2) post the award pic to your own blog; and (3) list seven little-known facts about yourself. Of course, you don’t have to play along! It’s all in good fun.
My Very Inspiring Nominees
I’d love to turn right around and re-nominate A.M.B., since I think her blog is one of the most inspiring out there. Her posts about court cases relating to censorship and copyright issues are right after my lawyerly bookworm heart, her book reviews are always thoughtful (even when we don’t agree), and her little girls are dangerously adorable. But since I’m pretty sure that re-nominating the blogger who gave you the award in the first place is cheating, here – in no specific order – are three other bloggers who have inspired me, both through their posts and through our interactions in the comments sections on their blogs and my own.
Cakes, Tea and Dreams – Katie writes about books, travel, love and family, life in Boston, spirituality and so much more. Her blog is one of my absolute favorites to read, because she always speaks directly to my heart. Beyond the blogs, we’ve had a (longhand, snail-mail) correspondence going for over a year now, and very few things bring a smile to my face the way seeing one of her letters in my mailbox does. And she’s just as lovely and gracious in person as she is online and in letters – she and her wonderful husband Jeremiah visited D.C. this summer and stayed with hubby and me, and we all had a marvelous time.
Eagle-Eyed Editor – This blog is another one, like The Misfortune of Knowing, that I’m so glad to have found in 2012. Whether the topic is literary bucket lists, favorite (and least favorite) words, funny church stories, or so much more, I am guaranteed to love every word.
The Girl Next Door – I love reading blogs about people in far-flung locations and learning about different lives, and The Girl Next Door is perfect for that. She writes about life in Bangalore (with luscious pictures – I can’t get enough of her snaps of her incredible travels and of the flora and architecture closer to her home) and about books, food and family. And she includes her own original poetry and short fiction. Beautiful writing, thoughtful posts and great pictures – the makings of an outstanding blog!
Seven Little-Known Facts About Me
This is kind of difficult! I’m not sure if I can come up with seven facts that I haven’t blogged about before, but that I don’t consider too private or personal to share. But I’ll give it the old Hogwarts try.
1) When I was in high school, I had a “job” teaching piano lessons to little kids. They’d come to my house for a half-hour lesson once a week and at the end of the year we had a recital with all of their parents. I made cookies.
2) I have a weirdly good memory for things like song lyrics and lines from movies or TV shows. I have memorized R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” and also Sir Mix-a-lot’s “Baby Got Back.” (Yes, I have a diverse repertoire.) And with minimal prompting I can pretty much recite every episode of “Friends.”
3) It drives me cahhhhh-razy when people mispronounce the word “nuclear.” I don’t care what you say, “nuc-u-lar” is not “an acceptable alternative pronounciation” – no matter how many people mispronounce the word, it’s still a mispronunciation. This is one of my pet peeves.
4) Jane Austen is my favorite author, but Jane Eyre is my favorite book. I can’t explain.
5) I learned to tell my lefts from my rights based on a beauty mark I had on my left hand. Then the beauty mark faded away, and I made wrong turns for several years.
6) I have big hiking ambitions. Someday, probably when I retire (if I ever retire) I’d like to hike the entire South West Coast Path in England. And I really, really want to become an Adirondack 46er.
7) I cherish a secret, back-burnered ambition to write a novel. (Who doesn’t?) But I’m thinking of actually giving it a real try. I have the basic outlines of a plot, and lots of research to do (it’s a historical fiction plot). Maybe in 2013?
covered in flour 