Christmas Planning 2010

Yeah its early for this but I find if I don't figure things out now then I tend to miss out on some neat opportunities.  Fr Dave would be appalled - he thinks people start celebrating the season too early and miss out on celebrating the actual feast days (his view stretches beyond just the Christmas season). 

So here is the consolidated list of possible activities and events for me for December

Sat, Dec 4 - 2010 Jingle Bell Run/Walk -  (only $17 compared to $30+ at Milwaukee Zoo and Madison's runs)
Racine Lutheran High School
http://jbrracine.kintera.org/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=426504
Sat, Dec 4  - Madison Hoofers Ski Resale  -http://hoofersns.org/resale
   9:00am to 5:00pm  (can't do Sunday - reserved for cookie bake) 


Sat, Dec 4/5 - need to make it to one of St Dom's mass - they have special Sun 10:30 am mass with the Archbishop to dedicate the new renovated spaces- and have "gifts" for all at all the masses - I will miss the special mass due to cookie bake
Sun, Dec 5 locked in for annual Cookie bake

Thrs, Dec 9 @ 7:30 pm - It's a Wonderful Life at the Sunset Playhouse - BJD has 3 tickets 
http://sunsetplayhouse.com/onstage/show.php?id=27

Sat, Dec 11, 1:30 pm - Badgers Basketball at Marquette (Bradley Center)

Sat 18/ Sun 19 - Model Trains at Discovery World - http://programs.discoveryworld.org/archives/1591
   try to combine with a winter lakefront walk?, holiday lights?, tea?, etc

Dates not yet set:
Chicago Botantical Garden - Winter Wonderland
http://www.chicagobotanic.org/wonderland/

Christmas Express Train at Elegant Farmer - December 4, 5, 11, & 12 from 11 am - 3 pm
www.elegantfarmer.com

Milwaukee Holiday Lights - walk thru or take the jingle bus
http://www.milwaukeedowntown.com/categories/14-holidaylightsfestival

High Tea - a couple of options
 Pfister 23rd floor  - every Fri - Sun from 3 - 4:30 during Nov and Dec - link
 George Watts tea shop - http://www.wattsteashop.com/index.html

M&I Holiday Display - quick walkthru when you're already down town
http://www.micorp.com/mibank/solutions.cfm?ObjectID=00095BA4-9D4A-1F70-901180C8FE5A0000&


Dropped items - keep on list for review/consideration for next year

Bel Canto -- Christmas in the Basilica - Sat, Dec 4, 7:30 pm ; Sun, Dec 5, 3pm
        Basilica of St. Josaphat
        http://www.belcanto.org/dnav/6/page.htm
Mannheim Steamroller at the Bradley Center - only Tue, Dec 22 & Wed, Dec 23
http://shop.mannheimsteamroller.com/content/Tour.htm  Dropped - missed ticket sale and resale price is out of controll

 

New Challenge - pre and travel challenges

This week's salad challenge was highly successful - I had a salad every day for lunch and more importantly if I had not given myself this salad challenge I would not have had salad every day this week.  So the challenge does really work well to change my behavior.  I'm a very self-competitive person...which means I like to do things just to find out if I could do it.

Next Wednesday evening I travel to Las Vegas for 6 days.  The impetus of the trip is to see the Wisconsin Badger football game against UNLV, but we are going down early and leaving later - never leave the travel plans for a Vegas weekend to a bunch of gamblers because the weekend up becomes a week long trip!!

So back to the challenges - yes challenges with an "s".   I'm going to do a pretrip challenge and a trip challenge

Pretrip challenge
1) clear out fruit, veggies, and dairy that need to be consumed before I leave for Vegas.  This may mean doing some cooking and freezing; and bringing veggies and fruit to the canoe trip and book club cookout Update - this went very well, I'm eating the last of the cottage cheese and grapes as I type this.  The milk is in the freezer (first time trying to freeze milk - we'll see how it goes); I only have 2 apples and some carrots felt.  Current plan it take them all in m my carry-on bag.
2nd update -- mainly success - apples were eaten with a small dinner but I forgot the carrots!!  hope they are still good when I get home.  Also would have been nice to finish off the orange juice.
2) Need to get the quicken/bills paid - this has been dragging on for too long and I don't want to get late fees,etc cause I didn't get to it before I left Update- well we got have way there.  The bills are entered into Quicken and paid except for the Health Care bills - still hoping to get this taken care of before I leave tonight.  
2nd update - did not get to the Health Care bills - will need to make that a priority; also need to work on the Mortgage refinance process - received package from wells fargo the day I left

Trip Challenge - 6 days Thursday morning to Tuesday evening
1) Continue the running program - 3x  5min run/ 1 min walk for at least 20 minutes
Update - Thursday morning ran the last of the 4 imn/1 min program.  Nike ipod did not record (again), ran 23 minutes and overall felt good but slow
Friday morning  ran the first of the 5 min/1 min for 5 sessions (30 mins) again felt good but also felt slow pace combined run/walk total pace was 15 min miles.  I'm gonna blame a lot of the slow pace on the vegas experience and excess, plus not knowing where to go makes me slower as a I search the street or parking lot to figure out a route, and lastly the heat and running with a water bottle - just doesn't feel as natural -- but while this sounds negative I don't mean it to be, I'm actually very happy and proud that I've been able to get these workouts in and I'm positive that the runs will improve when I'm back sleeping in my own bed, going to be at a regular time, and eating veggies again. ;-)

2) Squats - 3 reps of 10 squats on each of the non-running days
3) Water exercise - hard to predefine but I'll know if I did it, should be hot enough to spend a lot of time in the water - let's make part of it a work out
4) Walk/hike at least 5 miles on at least 2 of the days - take pedometer to measure Update - we walked the strip on Thursday and I forgot the pedometer, but I'm going to guess overall mileage was between than 2 and 3 miles.  

Bad back

Woke up this morning with a sore back.  Not sure what happened or when it happened.  My back was a little bit tight last night during the group run.  I did do more stretching than we normally do after the run, including some upper body stretching, so I would have thought it would help rather than causing any back problems.

I had an ice bag tucked into my tanktop this morning in an effort to heal the back; also took 2 Aleve which probably helped even more.

I'm hoping the back/right shoulder are fine for Saturday's canoe outing.  I'm really looking forward to the day on the water.

Salad challenge

I'm going to try to add some weekly healthy challenges to keep me motivated and on the right track ... who knows some of these may become healthy habits.

This week's challenge is to have Salad for lunch every day this week (expect Saturday which will be excused because it's my canoe outing and it's really much easier to eat a sandwich in a canoe mid-river than a salad)

Results 

Sunday - yes

Monday - yes

Tuesday -yes

Wednesday -yes

Thursday - yes

Friday - yes!!!

Saturday - excused due to canoe outing

Fri 8/27 updating that the challenge was a success!! Salads every day and most of the huge bag of romain lettuce is consumed -- its important to use this up before next week's vacation.

I'm back ...from Healthy Living Summit

It sure has been a while since I've been back on this site.  I spend the last weekend in Chicago at the Healthy Living Summit which was both good and bad for me.   The good is its helping me get restarted on keeping this blog updated and helping me want to set some personal goals and challenges.  The bad is I was not the target audience at all - I'm close to 20 years older than the average and close to 75 more than most, which would be ok except many of the attendees were not very welcoming of anyone that wasn't the norm.  

I was excited to be in Chicago for a weekend, especially since it was the air and water show weekend.   I rode the amtrak train down to Chicago in the morning and worked form the IBM offices on Wacker.  That was really nice.  But the best part was being able to lunch with my former co-worker Jason.  It's been over a year since I had seen him and was great to get caught up.  Working from the Chicago IBM office was easier than I thought it would be - the train was quick and I had access to the IBM sametime most of the train ride so it virtually like I was in my own home office.  If I do this more often, I need to evaluate switching to the iphone or a different smart phone than the blackberry I have now - other phone have much easier internet and application access.

I loved walking around the city.  Chicago is very nice in the summer.  Its very picturesque and always has so much going on to see.  Next time I need to take more control of my schedule and make sure I do the things I want to do - in some ways I felt trapped to stay near the Congress Hotel (location of the summit) and grant park.  In hindsight I really wish I would have done 2 things - first go north to Lincoln Park and see my old fave spots - the zoo, the flower conservatory, and my regular running route through it and the marina, and second I wish I had taken the architectural boat tour.  I would have really enjoyed the boat tour.  I know I would have enjoyed both of these much more than I enjoyed the summit itself.  For me the best part of the weekend was the extended walks around the city.  I do love walking and I really get to do it so little.

Winter Activity Goals - Part 2 Snowshoeing

Snowshoeing is one of favorite things to do in winter, probably because hiking is one of favor things to do all the time.


For the last 2 years I've been going snowshoeing primarily during my lunch break on days immediately after a nice snow storm and mainly around my backyard and neighborhood.  The most common trail is one I make up from my backyard through the nearby shool's fields (Fairview South School).   I also do a lot at Beverly Hills Park and a little bit at Wirth Park South.  I've gone only a couple of times at Retzer Nature Center (which is a good choice since they rent snowshoes so I could have a buddy go with me) and Laphem Peak State Park.


This year the plan is to try some new locations and get a bit more variety of trails.  The goals will be 12 snowshoe sessions, that's basically 3 times within every two week period between begining of January and end of February - the prime snow time. 

My snowshoeing sessions tend to be at least 30 minutes but usually not longer than 1 hour.  This year we'll set the goals as: 12 total
1 Major outing of at least 2 hours
3 Long outings of at least 1 hour
8 Short outings of at least 40 minutes

Trail ideas

• Local - ability to get in a trek with no more than a long lunch - mainly the Short Outings
• Mitchell Park - especially try the Dog Hill for a leg workout, the back trails by the river and new boardwalk, and the baseball diamonds and little hills beyond them
• McCoy Field
• Beverly Hills Park
• Fairview South School
• Wirth Park
• Nearby but too far for a lunch break
• Laphem Peak State Park
• Nashotah Park, Waukesha County Park - Sun, Jan 24
• Menomonee Park, Waukesha County Park - Sun, Jan 3
• Retzer Nature Center - Sat, Jan 13 (before 1pm Planeterium show)
• More distant, need to schedule at least a half day (or more)
• Glacer Park (follwed by mass at Holy Hill) - target: Saturday, Jan 2
• Kettle Moraine State Forest—Southern Unit (Sun, Feb 7 pre superbowl?)
• John Muir trail—11.4 miles, intermediate to difficult
• Stute Springs/Homestead Trail—1 mile, easy to difficult
• Bald Bluff Trail—0.8 miles, difficult
• Ice Age Trail—30.6 miles, intermediate
• Kohler-Andrae State Park - Black River Trail—2.5 miles, easy (Sun, Feb 7 pre superbowl?)
• Peninsula State Park, Door County
  Wisconsin State Park snowshoe Trails webpage (not a complete listing) http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/LAND/parks/trails/snowshoe.html  

Winter Activity Goals - Part I Downhill Skiing

Something new for me...I've never put together a winter activity goal list. But if I want to get serious about toning up and losing some weight I need to stay active and one of the best ways to stay active is to make goals and set a schedule.


Key areas of activities
• Downhill Skiing
• Snowshoeing
• Cross Country Skiing
• Ice skating
• Winter Hiking

Now, figure there are 3 key months for winter activies - Jan, Feb, and March. And this year we only have half of March because of a trip to Italy. Any winter actitivity in December is just a jump start or bonus. You can't always count on enough snow in Wisconsin in December; only about half of Christmases are white. Speaking of Christmas, the holiday season eats up so much time, its hard to get in some of the winter activites (especially the ones that tend to take up a full day).


Given our time limits (under 3 months) and cost (downhill skiing especially gets expensive) I'll be defining these goals by activities.  Starting with Downhill skiiing.

Downhill Skiing - one of my favorite activities in my 20s and early 30s.  Now its become a once a year activity.... but I'm changing that this year.  The goals is 5 days of skiing.  Normally that could get expensive but I have 2 free lift tickets (with some restrictions) from attending the Warren Miller movie, and I've found two small ski hills in the extended area that have $12 skiing on certain days.   Plus I've felt the need to try a (very) small ski area that is very close to my house.  Drum roll......here are the 5 downhill ski locations and planned dates:

• Chestnut Mountain, Galina, IL http://www.chestnutmtn.com/
• free ticket from Warren Miller, either before Dec 24 or after March 5
• target date: Sunday, Dec 20
• Granite Peak, Wausau, WI http://www.skigranitepeak.com/ 
• free ticket from Warren Miller, either before Dec 24 or a WEEKDAY between Jan 5 and Feb 5
• target date: Friday, Jan 8 (vacation day)
  
• Tyrol Basin, Mt Horeb, WI http://www.tyrolbasin.com/
• $12 every Tuesday, 10 am - 9pm or $12 Friday nights, 7:30 - 11pm
• target date : Friday, Jan 12
• Nordic Mountain, Mt Morris, WI http://www.nordicmountain.com/
• $11 Ladies day on Fridays
• target date: Friday, Feb 12 (vacation day -approx 3 hr drive)
• Highlands of Olympia Ski Hill, Oconomowoc, WI 
• very close to my home, less than 30 min drive
• they don't have a web page which is concerning to me 
• target date: Tuesday night in Jan (5,12,19.26) - pick actual date based on expected weather conditions