Style Vs. Substance

Sheesh. I've been obsessed with trying to reformat this Blog page every since I started writing it! It's beginning to look like the colors and font styles are more important than what I have to say.

I'll be darned if I'm going to ask Tracey or Linda how they do it. I learn best by making mistakes and trying things out on my own. Of course, that's how I break things, too. Gianni thinks I should be a Beta tester for just about anything mechanical or electrical -- because I'm really good at "investigating" what the problems are in something, but then breaking it as I try to figure out what is wrong. Thank goodness Dad can usually fix it.

Someday -- soon I hope -- my Blog header page will have this pretty picture of me diving in the background, and all my posts will have a little picture of an angelfish right next to the title. I'm sure if I read the help section and reader forums long enough, I'll figure it out.

BUT .... if anyone out there wants to send me a hint, Thanks!

Addictions Part II -- Multi-Tasking

Multi-tasking. Gianni hates it when I do it. But I simply can't do one thing at a time. Yoga asanas and meditation are about as close as I can get to being still. Yet, even then, my mind has a really hard time staying "in the moment."

This morning, for example. I was going to get up at 7:30, eat breakfast, go to yoga, and then off to the PD for more fun (??) with the police mapping/GIS system.

Instead, my PodAlarm didn't go off because I forgot to turn it on after my run last night. I overslept by an hour. Woke up and decided to go outside and pull down the Christmas lights to start think about decorating while eating breakfast. That resulted, of course, in trying to decide which wreaths/trees to put up and finding the lights; then examining them for missing/broken ones realizing everything needed freshening up. "Heck, I don't want to do this now. I need my breakfast."

SO ... let's cut down the bananas from the backyard tree so I can put them on my cereal. Right. The baby bananas are not ripe yet. BUT ... one of my bougainvillea trees is dead and needs to be dug up. It never really recovered from Hurricane Wilma damage, as you can see.

Of course, I have to be careful that I don't run into Ali Dasha, our local alligator, who loves to sun in the backyard. But he's not around. Just a bunch of egrets chomping down on the worms. So I start hacking away; cut down the bananas; trim off all the dead banana tree branches; then cut off all old bougainvillea limbs and dig out the roots.

Of course, now it's 10:30 and my yoga class has just started. I'm in the backyard full of sweat and dirt. And I still have not eaten breakfast. Multi-tasking. Sometimes it is NOT a good thing.

Addictions

Addictions. You would think that, after working for a year in the Substance Abuse wing of a locked psychiatric hospital, I would have learned a thing or two about my own addictions.

Well, actually, I guess I did. I know that I can get totally focused on something, to the point of obsession. Take running, for instance. Running seems to be the theme of the day for me. I restarted the C25K -- "Couch to 5K" -- program in September. I had started/almost completed it during the summer of 2005, but was interrupted by Hurricane Wilma, which pretty much screwed up everything here in South Florida.

So tonight I just finished a repeat of Week 5, Day 2, running the day's program (warm up 5:00 walk; run 8:00; walk 5:00; run 8:00; walk 5:00, and a final 3:00 run home) in reverse. I love running at night. And I find that I'm really addicted to running again -- never thought that I would miss it so much, or that I would find that "runner's high."

Total mileage for the day (home to the 19th Hole Golf Club bar, where I **don't** stop for a drink) was 2.32 miles, at a pace of 12:32. Told you.... addiction. To numbers, to keeping track of my stats (including my weight, which is a whole other addiction), and to figuring out which music fits best with the pace. Found these C25K PodCasts designed for the program --really k000l and make running a lot easier (and faster) than two years ago.

Still believe I have another long race in me -- even with my temperamental knees. Talk about addiction. I plan to run another half-marathon. When is another issue.

Inspiration in Italy

I'm inspired by the artistic Web talents of my friend, Tracey, and of my sister, Linda. A little bored, too.

So, I've (finally) decided to update my blogger and make a concerted effort to post here more regularly. It's more fun and better than a journal. Things seem more real and my life has more meaning (at least to me) when I write stuff down. Guess it's still the bureaucrat in me -- if it's not documented, it does not exist.

I run better (check out my running logs through favorite site links), my motivation to "watch weight" stays consistent, and I still think people might be interested in what I have to say about life -- if I ever get around to saying it! That's the theme for today, anyway.

I love photos and guess that's the one area where I display at least a wee bit of creativity. Guess the other MAJOR thing about me is my husband, Giancarlo. Killing two birds with one stone ...

Here are two morphed photos I composed of the two of us when we traveled to Italy during September 2006. The first was taken at Trevi Fountain in Rome. Of course, we're throwing coins over our shoulders and making wishes that we'll soon return.
This photo is from inside a dungeon in a real, moated castle at Ferrara (near Venice), where Lucretia Borgia and her lover were imprisoned.

Ah, Italy....!