Month: September 2016

Your favorite 1:37 story

/ rachelgoes262 / Leave a comment

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It all started Saturday night. I knew something was wrong when I woke up completely drenched in sweat. I just had a nightmare that I was pitching for the Yankees in the World Series. Pedroia was at bat for the Red Sox. He walked right up to me and snarled, “I’m making a line drive for your head, traitor.” Why was I pitching for the Yankees? I have nightmares about baseball every single time I have a fever. They typically involve the World Series.

That nightmare was warranted; my temperature was 102.7. If those numbers were a radio station, the call letters would be FLU, and the program completely sucks.

I’m home through Wednesday, at which point I am considered to be no longer contagious. In the meantime, I feel like I’m dying.

I’ve pretty much been sleeping since Sunday. I wake up every 3-4 hours. I’ve been awake about 3 hours in every 24. Today is a stretch – I have been awake almost 5 hours. I’m sure I’ll pay for it later.

Being home from work is not very fun. I woke up this afternoon and decided to turn the TV on. I was looking forward to some Price is Right on my TV set. Instead, there is no Price is Right. It’s Jerry Springer and a bunch of judge shows. Although I skipped my 20-year high school reunion this year, I was able to get caught up on everything today. I am pretty sure everyone on Jerry Springer is someone with whom I went to high school. I did not have to drive 2 hours to see the drama; I got it in a 30-second TV clip. I would much rather be at work.

Deciding that TV is a lost cause, I decided to pop in a Cheers DVD. It just so happens the first episode up is the one in which Coach and Sam accidentally leave Norm in the locked bar overnight. Right before leaving the bar, they had a discussion about the time – the 1:37 moment. Coach commented that although 1:37 used to be his favorite time, he is more of an 8:15 guy now.

I’d like to be an 8:15 gal now too. But right now, I’m a little all over the place. I never came back 100% from the allergic reaction I had last spring, so I am hoping that after the flu, I can come back okay. This is totally not the best time for me to be sick right now. I am definitely not a 1:37 girl. Unless that’s 1:37 pm.

What’s your favorite 1:37 story?

 

 

The Price of Convenience

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I had an errand to run on my day off yesterday in a city about 40 miles away from my house. It was a good drive with little traffic. I had no frustration in my travels. I realized that it took me the same amount of time to reach this city 40 miles away as it does to drive the 10 miles to work every day. That’s how bad the traffic and parking situation is in the city where I work.

In my efforts to slow down my life, I have been trying to cut out all of the unnecessary fluff so that I have more time, money, and resources to devote to things truly important to me. The fact that I spend 2 hours commuting every day to a place 10 miles from my home is ridiculous to me, but I really like my job.

While I was trying to save money by giving up my parking pass for my work location, doing so added an hour to my commute every day. Not only was I fighting traffic, but it typically took me an additional 60 minutes to not only find a parking space but also to walk the 1-3 miles from the parking space to work. That was one hour out of my day that could be spent doing something else that I want to do – like spending time with my sick family member.

So, I bit the bullet and decided to pay for a parking pass for work again. I decided that spending $80 a month for parking is worth 5 hours a week of my time. I now have 5 hours per week more to be at home that I am not fighting to find parking and then having to walk from a parking spot to work.

This is the price of convenience.

Life seems like an endless series of opportunity costs. Which do we value more – time or money?

It depends.

Mostly, I value my time.

Another cost of convenience that I have been evaluating recently is car repair. I have my vehicle maintained and repaired in the city in which I work. I have been doing so for at least the past 15 years. The logic is that if I have to leave the car to have work done, that I can walk to work, and then walk back to pick up the car later in the day when it is done. What has been happening lately is that I get an appointment, and end up having a few hours to kill in between the appointment and when I go into work.

There is not enough time to go home; I end up stuck in the city in which I work with some down time. Again, this is down time that I could be using to do other things that mean something to me.

Starting next week, I will be having my vehicle repaired some place close to my home instead of my work. Of course, that means if I need a significant amount of work done, that I may have to take a day off from work and stay home. To me, that situation is a better scenario than being stuck in the city where I work. At least if my car is repaired closer to home, I can be home, and it alleviates the stress of trying to figure out how to get from point A to point B (mainly from work to home).

These simple changes in life will hopefully free up more of my time to be home and to do the things that I want to spend my time doing. I want to be more in control of situations, not simply responding to whatever crisis presents itself at the time.

What “conveniences” in your life take time away from what matters most? Evaluating the simple things we do each day and why we do them can help to figure out solutions to challenges that may not have been available before. By changing my perspective on how I look at things that need to be done, I am freeing up more time for people and things I love to do.

My Yoga Pants Went To Yoga

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Yoga pants are an essential part of a marathon runners’ wardrobe. Once you complete running 26.2 miles, yoga pants are pretty much the only things you can wear for the first 2-3 days while you recover from putting your body through the equivalent of natural childbirth. Your legs kind of flop around like a fish on land, and yoga pants are very forgiving with the first few days post-race.

I have two pairs of yoga pants. They have never been to yoga.

Until today.

I have been to yoga many times, but I do not usually wear yoga pants to yoga, I usually wear shorts. Since it is a little ridiculous to pay $45 per one-hour class to take yoga in the city in which I work, I decided to do a yoga class in the city in which I live. It was a much cheaper rate. Actually, I am on a free trial.

Thank goodness it was free. It was the first, last, and only time my yoga pants have ever been to yoga.

When I entered the facility, the instructor seemed exasperated that I came with only a mat – no blocks, no leash, none of the other yoga props – just a mat. Hey, at least I came with a yoga mat. I’m not new to the scene here, but I’m also not a hard-core yogi. I do what I can, and when I can’t, I just relax.

Her exasperation over my lack of accessories only served to strike fear into both my head and my heart. In my experience, yoga classes that require props translate into situations in which I am either going to get physically hurt or poses into which I either cannot get into, or once into, cannot get out of. Yoga classes with props give totally new meaning to the phrase, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” I typically do better with classes that do not require props, and when I can’t do the pose, I just lay there peacefully. This woman was like some sadistic combo of drill sergeant and dominatrix. I can’t tell you how frustrated she was at my lack of a leash.

For the record, the only leashes I want to deal with are those attached to my surfboard, or, if I had a dog, the one we use on walks. I digress.

I attend yoga mostly for relaxation, and also for some light stretching. I tore the patella tendon in my knee a few years ago, and every once in awhile, it gives me pain. I know better than to do anything overly pretzel-like. I have also had multiple head injuries, with at least 5 documented concussions, so I know I am a fall hazard if they are trying to get me to balance in some type of ballerina position. This class was obviously going to be much too rigorous for me.

I rolled up my mat and started to leave once I realized that this was not going to be the peaceful and relaxing yoga class I had envisioned. That seemed to only perplex the instructor further. She just could not understand why someone would need or want to leave her yoga class. To her credit, she did suggest that the senior citizen chair yoga class may be more my speed. I smiled and nodded politely. I have indeed taken the chair yoga class with the senior citizens years ago after my most recent head injury. I have actually successfully graduated from that class and done several gentle or slow flow yoga classes with no problem in the city in which I work. I didn’t tell her that, though. I’m just thankful for the free trial. At least I did not have to pay $45 to learn that lesson.

This year is the first year in well over 30 years that I am not in school. September has been a very hard month for me. I’m sad, I’m frustrated, and quite honestly, I have absolutely no idea what to do with myself.

My two biggest coping skills have always been running and school. I have always played the two off from one another. When school was not going well, I ran. When I had an injury that I had to rest from running, I focused more on school. Now that I am retired, I don’t have school anymore. All I have is running.

I love running, but I know that I will not be able to do it forever and I need to have a second coping skill for those times when I cannot run. I have been trying different activities. I am trying to get myself onto some sort of schedule. I like having more time to do things since I have slowed my life down, but now I don’t know what to do. I miss the structure that came with the semester and having to go to class and do schoolwork. I need to replace it somehow.

I am not sure how this is all going to shake out, but I do know that I am not going to be a yogi. I have some more activities I plan on trying to see if they fill the void I have in my life by not being in school. You never know what is going to work until you try.

For today, my yoga pants went to yoga. It was so overrated. I think they should be called marathon pants instead. I’ll have to write Victoria’s Secret to tell them I am renaming their pants. These yoga pants aren’t going to yoga again.