Archive for July, 2009

090724 – 99 Bottles of beer on the wall

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

This morning after I got Eric situated with coffee and the newspaper I headed out for a walk to get my blood pumping. I headed from our house to Santa Teresa County Park following this route. It was still pretty cool in the morning, but by the time I got about a third of the way up the hill I was puffing pretty hard. Sucks being out of shape.

I’ve been working on the new leadership manifesto and trying to think of all the activities and goals for the leadership center. It’s a big challenge because the whole thing is such a blank slate. I can imagine how people get paralyzed from all the possibilities. I’ve put together some good stuff so far, and I think I can get a good draft to the boss by Tuesday. DH is bringing home some more leadership materials for me from the Scout office so I’ll have some “official” material to use as well.

There are some schools/states out there who have some pretty interesting thoughts about leadership and service learning. Lots of good information to use to support the need for a youth leadership center. I just need to keep it in my head that I’m not writing an academic justification for the thing; my task is to articulate a vision that can be used to support the project.

So now I’m going to head to the Starbucks for another couple hours of work. For some reason working in an environment like that makes me more productive–maybe because I have to work harder to concentrate and because there are fewer distractions (like laundry or the garden) to tempt me.

And, in memory of the Taco Bell doggie who passed away, I leave you with this picture of our genuine Kentucky Chihuahua:

Personally, I think she's a dead ringer for the Taco Bell dog.

Personally, I think she's a dead ringer for the Taco Bell dog.

090723 – Roughly 100 days till Halloween

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

So with roughly 100 days until Halloween, I need to get off my ass and start a.) excercising, b.) eating healthier food, and c.) eating less of it. So my goal is to start training and run a 5k race on Halloween weekend in 38 minutes or less. A reasonable goal for me, right???

stop laughing.

seriously.

Yes, I hate excercise. But I also hate that I’ve gained 20 lbs in the last four years. That shit has got to stop. There’s no excuse for it anymore–I just need to buckle down and do it.

Wish me luck.

090716 – Ode to a widow

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

So late yesterday afternoon, the black widow came down to visit again. I’d done some reading on the internet (dangerous, I know) and started to get kind of freaked out about how the venom affected humans, especially children. So once she got in range… I’m just hoping she died childless.

But then I started feeling guilty. All my work for the last ten days has been focsing on environmentalism–land and resource conservation, habitat restoration, waste management/reduction, mine land reclamation…. All the big stuff. As a result I’ve been hyper aware of my own actions in the context of the environment. It’s enough to drive you crazy. But not so crazy that I’m going to forego a trip to Sunnyvale to meet Syl for coffee and stop by Purlescence to check out the new yarns. So I guess ultimately I don’t feel too guilty. What I’ve done lately to increase my positive impact on the environment is (in my own, rationalizing mind) more significant than the life of a potentially dangerous spider.

So now I’m going to take my spinning head and put it back to work distilling out some bullet points for a presentation on Monday. I don’t have to give the presentation, but I have to prep the people who do. It’s be fun to be a teacher again.