Just Getting On Base

Lately, I am not swinging for the fences in any area of my life.  Instead, I'm all about doing the best I can to score some points and preserve my energy for the next at bat. 

I actually went out with girlfriends in a limo on Friday night, staying out past 1 AM enjoying champagne, a drive to sausilito, a delicious dinner, and dancing.   So that gets me mad social points despite essentially doing nothing else social this week other than BBQ and an impromptu brunch with friends who came to us.  Lesson learned? The best way to wait for someone's late flight is circling the airport in a limo while sipping champagne with friends. 

Our night out included a timeless San Francisco Institution

In addition to our monthly books, one of the members of book club suggested that we may want to do an online course on Science Fiction and Fantasy.  I love the idea of developing a stronger knowledge of this literary form, and I hadn't read most of the required reading, so I signed up.  I'm 2/3 through the first set assignment: The Lucy Crane Translation of Grimms' Household Tales.  If this week is any indication, the reading is likely to be several hundred pages a week.  Doable, but a bit more than I typically read (with my eyes) outside of work.  Thankfully, the writing assignments are 270-330 words each week, and we only have to peer-review 4 submissions each week, so that will not take much time.  The trick will be to figure out how to either (i) get the books each week and fit in more reading time at the gym; (ii) justify even more time at the computer reading the online versions; or (iii) cheat and go for audiobooks.  Unfortunately, despite it being the easiest solution, I'm guessing I won't find audiobooks to meet my goals here.

Side Note:  Ashenputtel (the German Cinderella) is a *much* darker story in the Grimms' version than the one you probably know.

In other news, the low-travel plan for June changed, and E's now traveling for 13 days in the next 4 weeks, while I'm traveling for 14.  Flights have been changed, more hotels booked, driving routes calculated and recalculated.  And, of course, I still need to book a rental car.  Not surprising.

More travel?  Yes, please.  I had to drop a race, and we'll have to host less BBQs, plus find a way to deal with the laundry and time zone madness, but overall, I'm excited for both of my trips.

Work has been *very* busy.  I took on several new clients and projects in May.  I've been paying for it with late nights, some weekend work, and insomnia.  I woke at 3:45 AM last Thursday and couldn't go back to sleep.  So, at 4 I plodded to the computer and worked uninterrupted for 3 hours.  The good: work stress levels dropped.  The bad: had to cancel the PM yoga studio session, I was too exhausted.

More work?  Hmmm... I guess I said yes.  And I guess the main thing I gave up was sleep.  Perhaps I can find a way not to do this one again.  

Japanese studies so far have been less than half of what I'd hoped to do.  My online progress report at japanesepod101.com informs me I've done 19 lessons for 16 hours 29 minutes of total study.  I've maybe done an additional 5 hours of time away from the computer.  Keeping this rate up is unlikely to make a huge difference.  But, like most of the stuff I make space for, it's better than nothing.  If I were to choose a big pie-in-the-sky goal with Japanese, it would be to know the kana before I depart for this trip.  If I can do that, I'll consider everything else a bonus. 

More Japanese?  Ideally, yes.  But if not, then at least I'd like to keep it at this level.  One change I could make is to swap out Japanese for audiobooks in my running and chores.  The problem is, language study is even *more* mentally demanding than audiobooks and will slow down both my running and chores.  Right now, I'm not willing to make this change, but perhaps the last month before we leave?

Work-out wise, I'm also just doing fine. I hit my target mileage (35.48) for the week, and did okay on the quality workouts (9% sub 10 min/mile including 6X1 min @ 8 min/mile and a decent 8 miler with the local running ladies today).  I made up a few tabata and then missed enough to be worse off than where I started last week (current status: 6 to make up).  And, as I noted above, the yoga studio session was cancelled due to lack of sleep.   But I just booked this week's session, so that optimism has to count for something right?

More workouts?  I'd love to, but at least for the next month or two, I think just aiming to keep it roughly where it's been is ambitious enough.  I'm looking forward to a visit to Seattle and the Rock 'n Roll half this weekend, where I'll be pacing a friend.  After that, I have no races on the calendar.  So perhaps I will be able to find a local goal race to work towards in July or August. 

The garden is limping along, but it really needs some attention, so hopefully I'll get to that this week as well.

And there you have it.  Lots of singles.  No home runs.  But I'm playing the game, and doing my best to enjoy it.