Most stupid weight loss suggestion to date...

I get a "Healthy Living" newsletter in my inbox most every day. Today, the subject line was "25 Ways to Lose Weight." Generally, I feel like I do pretty much everything in my power to be healthy and manage my weight, so I thought it might be interesting to read this list to see if I was still missing something.

Way #1 was to drink green tea. OK, so I don't do that, because it doesn't appeal to my taste buds. I kept reading... Eat cereal (check), consider peanut butter (check), etc, etc. Then I came to way #14:

"Weigh down your remote."

What does this mean? My first (naive) instinct was that the author was going to tell me to watch less TV (since the average American watches four or so hours per day), because that would be a great way to lose some weight (I prematurely assigned a "check"). But boy was I wrong...

By attaching a 2-pound weight to your remote (with a piece of string or a rubber band), you'll get a little exercise every time you lift it, says Nonas. "Sometimes people will lift the weight a couple of times between channels or will stand and walk around with it. It gets you going and moving."

Wow, why didn't I think of that?

I'm officially unsubscribed to the the Healthy Living newsletter.

Routines rock!

One of my new favorite blogs, is a "productivity" (really more simplicity) blog called Zen Habits. The author, Leo, writes about everything from being more productive at work (so you can have more free time) to the benefits of exercise.

Earlier this week, there was a post on Zen Habits called "7 Little Habits That Can Change Your Life, and How to Form Them." In this post, Leo talks about the top seven habits that he feels will impact your life the most. (He also briefly describes how to get into habits, which is helpful)

1. Develop Positive Thinking
2. Exercise (got that one down!)
3. Single-Tasking (this is the one I have most trouble with...)
4. Focus on one goal (OK, this one too...)
5. Eliminate the non-essential
6. Kindness (sounds easy...)
7. Daily routine

I have to say, the one that really struck a cord with me this week was the last one, "Daily routine." Due to my frequent travel over the past 2+ years, it has been virtually impossible to have a daily routine. This has definitely impacted my ability to be as organized and as healthy as I would like to be.

Now that I'm working and living in the same place, I have been able to establish a pretty awesome morning and evening routine. It enables me to work out every day, eat well, be less stressed, and read books! The most important parts of my routine are:

- Waking up early and at the same time every day
- Getting my exercise clothes ready the night before
- Eating before and after working out
- Taking some time every morning to read
- Fixing a lunch to bring to work (so I won't be tempted to go out - cheaper and healthier)

If you are able to have a routine, consider yourself lucky. It is truly a life changer.

Now, you obviously don't want to get so obsessed with your routine that you can't be flexible when needed. For example, I stayed up later than normal to see Barack Obama's speech on Thursday (Barack rocks!), so I got up a little bit later to make sure that I got enough sleep.

It's all good.

My new toy!

I have a new toy. It is a Yamaha electric piano (or "Portable Grand Piano," as they tout it). We sold our "real" piano before we moved and I've been going through withdrawals ever since. The cool part about this piano is that you get the good electric piano features as well as a lot of the "keyboard" functionality (think funky sounds, percussion, MIDI, etc). Here is a picture:

I'm soooo excited!!! I'll have the neighbors banging on the walls in no time. :)

Btw, I've seen Mamma Mia! The Movie three times now. This is a record for me. In fact, before this, I don't know that I'd seen any movie more than once in the theater. The movie is sweet, crazy, energizing, emotional, funny, and has tons of great choreography. A must see movie. Not a great plot, of course (since the creators were kind of constrained by the lyrics in the ABBA songs), but nevertheless awesome.

My friend Beth sent me an article attempting to explain why ABBA's music is so catchy. You can read it here. I know I can't get the songs out of my head and every time I hear one, it puts a smile on my face... and I don't think it's just because I'm Swedish.

dream on...

"There is no excuse not to dream."

(Printed in my morning dove chocolate wrapper)

What is this world coming to...?

OK, so I know this is yesterday's news (at least I heard about it yesterday), but I just had to comment on the following:

(From CNN.com) "HARROLD, Texas (AP) -- A tiny Texas school district will allow teachers and staff members to carry concealed firearms to protect against school shootings, provided the gun-toting employees follow certain requirements."

The reason the superintendent gives is that the school is a 30-minute drive from the closest Sherriff's Office, so they would have no way to get reinforcement should something bad happen. Right - because in all other school shootings around the country, the police really had time to come stop it.

This is great... Now we are communicating to the youngsters of the world that the only way to fight violence is with concealed firearms. That is an awesome message and will really help us move in the right direction.

Does anybody else feel like we're moving backwards?

Getting organized!

Lately, I've been spending a good bit of time trying to organize every part of my life to be as efficient and productive (and hence maximize free time) as possible. I'm getting some good advice from Zen Habits and coming up with stuff on my own as well.

Today, I got my personal email down to 5 emails in my Inbox. These are all recordings my mom has sent me from our childhood that I still need to listen to when I'm in the right frame of mind for that. These recordings are so much fun that I want to make sure I get to enjoy them properly.

Anyway, next, I want to get my work email down to zero. My goal is to achieve this by the end of the month. I think it's doable. I am trying a new trick when it comes to email which is to check email only 2-3 times per day and do batch processing. It's so distracting to have new emails pop up on the screen every 5 minutes. So far it is working pretty well.

I'll be writing a lot more about these things coming up... I'm definitely on a Simple Living kick that will hopefully last a lifetime. It's all good!

Running...

I'm getting back into it. I've signed up for Race for the Cure here in Milwaukee. I'm pumped! I have a training schedule that will not just allow me to finish, but race (at least that's the claim...)! Training plans really help me. They allow me to not have to think about what my workout should be at 5 AM in the morning. I'd rather be thinking about solving the world's problems.

Todd and I ran our 3.5 mile loop this morning. The Milwaukee air is awesome. No more sweltering heat. Birch trees abound. As do fir trees.

Sophie likes Wisconsin. She gets to go on walks several times per day (because there is no fenced-in back yard... in fact, there is no back yard).

After lunch, Rebecka and I ran around Target trying to complete the school supply shopping. It was exhausting. There were a lot of very snippy parents. I tried to be calm and collected. It would be cool if Target could stock protractors right before school. Seems like they would like to buy a few extra of those during the weeks before school is about to start. Just my two cents...

Off to do some birthday shopping for Todd. His birthday is tomorrow. But first, we must stop at Kopp's for some frozen custard, because the flavor of the day is cookie dough.

Who can pass that up??

We made it...

So, yesterday I tried to blog from my phone. I was thinking that it would be a technology breakthrough for me, but it didn't work. When I realized that it wasn't going to work, I copied and pasted the post I had been working on (while driving through Chicago) into an email and sent it to myself. This also did not work for some unknown reason. To most people, this would probably be a sign not to pursue further the posting of said blog post. However, I am determined to give you some of the "highlights" from our trip (plus I emailed my dad that there would be move coverage on the blog). Hence, here we go again...

We didn't get a chance to leave our house until after 5 PM. At that point, we had to go and retrieve Sophie from the groomer. She smelled good and had little leopard-patterned bows in her hair. We fed her a "special bumper" (bumper with 1/4 of a sedative pill) so she would be calm for the trip. It totally worked. She was awesome.

We had some trouble finding the Comfort Suites hotel where we had reservations. This was mainly my fault, because I missed the exit (I was having fun looking at Indianapolis). Once we finally found it and started the check-in process, the lady at the front desk indicated that dogs were not allowed. I said, "Sure they are. You say so on your website." At this point, her computer system must have told her that she was dealing with an Elite Diamond member, because all of a sudden it was totally OK to have a dog and Sophie was the cutest thing ever. (Which she is.)

The hotel room was awesome. It was a brand new hotel. Sophie was not pleased though. She could not settle down and barked at the tiniest noice in the hallway (she was protecting us). We finally had to give her some more special medicine to catch some shut-eye, since we had five more hours to go in the morning.

Five hours - hahahahaha. Driving through Chicago and beyond proved not to be a laughing matter. It took forever!!! At one point, we had to take a break and magically stumbled across a Panera in the middle of nowhere. It was a nice surprise (but not nice enough to balance the painful 10 miles/hour drive).

Anyway, we finally made it to Wisconsin and started the moving in process. I think one of the reasons I love to move, is because I get to create a new home. Going to Target to get the new dishpan, toilet brushes, and doormats is so thrilling. Putting everything in it's proper place and figuring out the best way to organize everything in the kitchen is totally exciting to me.

We capped our busy day off with some custard at Kopp's. We sat outside and it was slightly chilly. In July.

Hello Wisconsin!

Moving Day

This is our last day in Nashville (at least as residents). The movers are loading up the truck as I type. As always when the Greens move, it's been raining cats and dogs. Fortunately, the skies are now clear and we hope that we'll be out of here in a couple of hours.

We have been trying really hard to move as little "stuff" as possible. A lot has gone to Goodwill (btw, check out itsdeductible.com - very cool). We have also given stuff to friends and thrown out stuff that nobody in the right mind would want. We're still at 300+ lines on the mover's inventory. Crazy! Hopefully, we can get rid of even more before the next move.

The kitchen is the main culprit. I keep thinking I'm going to get into cooking more and I may need that 5th pan, if I'm cooking a lot at once... Like on Thanksgiving. I do plan to cook more in our new home. Mostly, because I'm going to be home more and I like to eat home-cooked food. I can honestly say, I'd rather eat a good meal at home than at a restaurant.

Anyway, I'm really hungry. I may need to go make myself a peanutbutter sandwich. That's about all we have left to eat. And Bumpers. We cannot live without Bumpers. We're really hoping our new grocery store will have Bumpers. If not, we may have to order them online.

Bye bye Nashville!

Patriotic Sophie

Sophie's groomer likes to observe the various US holidays when deciding what bow to put in her hair. Here is Sophie on July 4th:

Happy Workaholics Day...?

Yesterday, I made an unusual stop on the world wide web at 123greetings.com to find a birthday card for my lil' sis' (who happens to be born on July 4th). I expected to see a bunch of July 4th greeting cards, but the first one that showed up was a card with a puppy wearing a tie snoozing on top of a pile of papers with the caption "I'm Dreaming About You!."

Yes indeed, July 5th is "Workaholics Day." Apparently, this is the one day during the year that workaholics are supposed to take a break and smell the roses (or sleep). So it is conveniently located right next to a major holiday when most people are pretty OK with taking time off.

Does anybody else think this is totally insane??

Anyway, my two cents is that accusations of workaholism are unproportionately doled out to people in the corporate world. How often have you heard someone call a missionary a "workaholic" even if they work day and night? I think there is a fine line between passion and unhealthy behavior. I prefer to stay on the passion side of that line... However, sometimes it requires reminders from loved ones. Perhaps that is what this day is about? Reminding people to take a break and enjoy some other aspects of life. (And giving the greeting card industry one more opportunity to sell cards.)

So, what does workaholics day entail for me? Let's see:

• Go to the gym and pump some iron


• Purge the linen closet


• Purge the guest bathroom


• Purge the guest bedroom closet


• Purge the hallway closets


• Take high-quality purged stuff to Goodwill


• Re-pack baby clothes and toys into nice (Swedish) Container Store boxes:

• Cook salmon for the family


• Watch a movie and relax (see, I can do it!)

I can't wait to start my day!

The Wedding of the Century (again!)

We had serious doubts that “Apple David” (Rebecka’s 2-year-old version of “Uncle David”) would ever get hitched. I mean he is after all 15 years older than little brother Todd was when we got married. But nevertheless, a couple of weekends ago, it happened with a bang!

Friday, November 2 – Fairly calm morning. Slept late, went for my first outdoors job in a loooong time, helped Todd pick up tuxedo (very handsome). In short, this day was very different from the craziness of the day before the last Wedding of the Century.

Around 3:30 PM or so, we headed over to the church for the rehearsal. Both Todd (Best Man) and Rebecka (Jr. Bridesmaid) were in the wedding, so obviously they needed to be there. The members of the wedding party started dropping in one by one. I just sat back, relaxed, and took it all in.

Around 4:45 PM, I drove our rental car (yay for Hertz rewards!) over to the venue for the rehearsal dinner to help with the “technical” setup (i.e. hook up DVD player to projector). The venue was an ice skating complex adjacent to a mall. I wandered around for a while searching for Party Room #2 (“The Den”). I got a little lost. Then I found it and met aunt of Caroline, retired educator and owner of Bed and Breakfast in Vermont. We had some good conversation around whether school systems around the country focus too much on children with special needs (below average and over average) to the point that the “average” kid gets lost or if more funds should be spent on our extra talented kids (as is the point of view of a recent TIME magazine cover story). We were rudely interrupted by the arrival of the rest of the rehearsal dinner guests (I guess that was after all the main point of the evening).

Dinner went well with a good mix of salad, wine, and Swedish fish. When dinner was over, Rebecka talked me into going skating with her on one of the skating rinks. I was concerned about getting cold, but I submitted to her will (as is fairly common). It was fantastic! It had been a really, really long time since I went ice skating and I forgot how much fun it is. Rebecka progressed from clinging onto me and the side of the rink to independent skating in a matter of 30 minutes. We had an enthusiastic audience as the rehearsal dinner was directly above the rink. Then Rebecka got tired and left. I kept skating. I eventually made it back upstairs and joined the relatives until it was time to go home.

Saturday, November 3 – Again, a freakishly calm morning, considering we were at the house of the groom, the day of the wedding. Apparently, Apple D had taken care of everything the previous evening. So organized! I went for another 45 minute jog on the “Four mile” trail. It was crisp and refreshing. Then we began the beautification process (at least for me and Rebecka) with blow dryers and flattening irons galore. Brush, brush, brush that hair and those teeth. Arrive at church way ahead of time for further beautification, bonding, and behind the scenes pictures. Rebecka was on look-out duty to make sure the groom did not catch a glimpse of his bride before it was time. She also had the opportunity to sneak in some Nintendo DS time…

Caroline was like a dream:

All of a sudden, it was time and I found myself sitting in church next to brother-in-law #1. David, Todd and the rest of the groomspeople (yes – there was a groomswoman) stood at the front of the church eagerly awaiting the bride’s party to enter. When Caroline finally made her entrance walking between her parents, the look on David’s face made half of the congregation have to pull out their Kleenex (crap – I forgot to stuff some into my miniature wedding purse!). It was overwhelming love, extreme happiness and excitement all rolled into one. It’s making me tear up now, just thinking about it.

I have to say, Rebecka did a fantastic job as Jr. Bridesmaid. For large portions of the ceremony, she had to hold both her and Caroline’s bouquet. It was heavy! She didn’t fidget and stood there the whole time like a little lady. Good job! Todd was obviously kick-ass too. He didn’t drop the ring or anything crazy like that. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a smoother ring-from-pocket-to-groom delivery.

Once all the wedding guests had cleared out, it was picture time (boring! - for innocent bystanders like me, at least). The photographer was very bossy. I told her as much. She ignored me.

Once all that nonsense was done, we headed over to the reception at the Hilton. We caught the end of the cocktail hour (thank God!). The cocktails for the evening were Green-tinis (so clever…). I opted for wine. I spent some time chatting with Todd’s Uncle Mike. He has a ponytail. He’s not cutting his hair until the war ends. I have increased respect for the man. We asked him to take a picture of us:


The evening proceeded according to schedule (which Todd kept close to his heart in the interior pocket of his tuxedo). Todd was the Master of Ceremonies for the event. He did a fabulous job. He introduced the first dance at the right time…


…and the “Best Man Toast” was perfect. There was much dancing and rejoicing. This wedding was indeed a worthy candidate for the Wedding of the Century title. I think we have a tie!

I'm back... once again

So the last few weeks have been absolutely insane!!! I don't quite know where to start.

Looking at my calendar, it appears as though these are some of the events which transpired:

10/20/07 - Eyebrow wax with Nicole. Ouch!!!! I'm not sure why we put ourselves through this pain... This time I asked for no waxing above the eyebrow which greatly reduced outbreak. Yes!

10/22/07 - Drive down to Atlanta in the morning and then fly out to Wisconsin the same evening.

10/23/07 - Sign up for an additional cell phone line and order pink phone. Yes, my 10-year-old now has a cell pone.

10/26/07 - Attend wedding in Wisconsin. It was beautiful. It was also beautiful that we got to ride to and from the various venues in a limo. Good thing since I have never tried to find my way around in downtown Milwaukee.

10/31/07 - Back home and time for Halloween! Rebecka and I dressed up as each other. At least one person recognized her as an executive (success!). And I got a "That's cool!" from one of her friends (double success!). Trick-or-treating was fun. Especially with Sophie. Although, I'm not sure how thrilled she was with her pumpkin outfit.

11/1/07 - Eye doctor appointment. I'm completely out of contacts (except for the ones I'm wearing). I left my insurance card there. It's still there.

11/1/07 - Head to Washington DC for wedding #2. Getting to the plane was an adventure in itself. In my infinite travel wisdom, I had decided we would leave the house 90 minutes prior to departure which should give us plenty of time to get to the airport (20 minutes), park in the economy lot (10 minutes) and be at the check-in desk an hour ahead of time (luxurious!). We set off perhaps 6-7 minutes later than planned, but I didn't worry about it. However, we soon realized traffic was slightly worse than normal. Actually, not slightly, rather a lot worse than normal. As we crept towards the airport, we wavered between hope and despair. Ultimately, we decided we were going to go for it. I came up with the following plan:

1. Tabita to drop off Todd, Rebecka and all check-in bags at terminal.

2. Tabita to drive to short term parking and park the car.

3. Todd and Rebecka to beg to skip to the front of the line and check in bags at Southwest counter.

4. Tabita to grab remaining bags and sprint to security line.

5. Todd and Rebecka to go to same security line.

6. All to run to the gate (which happened to be very, very far away).

It worked!!! We were the last people on the plane and we didn't all get seats together, but we made it.

11/2/07 - 11/3/07 - Wedding stuff. Separate post to come.

11/4/07 - Say bye to family and fly to Boston for a day of UIE conference. Fantastic and inspiring!

11/5/07 - Fly back to Wisconsin. Get sick with sore throat, etc. Sick!?!?!? I don't get sick.

11/7/07 - Fly home. Home sweet home. Still not feeling well.

11/10/07 - Make it back to the gym after one whole week of no exercise. Panic. Decide to work out every day until New Years. Play Brain Age for first time in three weeks (the computerized Dr. was not pleased with me). Clean entire downstairs (with much help from Todd). It feels so good!!! Blog.

Yep - that's pretty much it. Time to freshen up before company arrives in 38 minutes. Todd has already started working on the chili. I should probably get going.

Tired...

Tired, tired, tired... Really tired. I'm going to go lie in bed and watch LOTR III (take three). It takes me about six evenings to get through that movie. Because I fall asleep. Because I'm exhausted. I need help.

Todd wants everybody to know that he is officially "spot worthy." Apparently some big muscle man asked Todd to spot him at the gym yesterday. He was about to lift more than he had ever lifted before. Todd was really glad the guy didn't drop the bar. Todd was even happier the guy picked him above all the other people at the gym for the spotting honor. Babe, next time, I'll let you spot me!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

My 500th post...

Just signed on and Blogger informed me I have previously written 499 posts. I'm not sure that I've even paid attention to that count before, but there you have it.

I think I also have blogging anniversary right about now. Yes indeed, I just passed my 3 year blogging anniversary on 10/11. Good times.

I ran 3 1/2 miles today!!! I haven't had this good of a workout in a long time. Elliptical is just not the same. It took 38 minutes, but who cares!?!? My knee didn't even hurt that badly afterwards. I'm excited. I've really, really missed running. I think it's been bad for my mental health.

This afternoon, I took Rebecka to see The Game Plan. It was cute. I left my phone at home. I still don't have my phone (I'm at Panera now). It's weird and panicky and kind of liberating. I am also not able to get to my email. Hopefully, the world has not ended. I guess I'll find out when I get home.

I guess technology (or lack thereof) and my airheadedness are coming together to force me to take my vacation day seriously.

Time to browse some usability articles!

Sweden - a welcoming country

Apparently, Sweden is the top country when it comes to welcoming immigrants.

Read more here: BBC Article

Church at the Lake

This morning, we decided to worship at the lake. It was a fabulously religious experience.

Up close and personal.

Serenity...

Shhh - don't disturb the rest of the congregation.

Thank God for Sundays and nature and life.

New stuff...

My new backpack arrived this week. No more carrying my backpack backwards through the airport because the right shoulder strap is broken. :)

I also replaced my sunglasses today. The old pair broke last week. I generally don't replace stuff until the previous item breaks or becomes useless in some way (like goes out of style...). My new shades are even more movie star like. (yes!)

Today, I purchased a new dress for the autumn wedding lineup. Yes, I am going to re-wear it, because the two weddings are mutually exclusive (aside from Todd). This dress is different. It is black. Apparently these days it's OK to wear black to weddings as long as it is "festive." This is festive alright - in a very "witchy" way.

We also received a box full of shoes from Zappos. One of the pairs worked. Yay! They're cute.

Rebecka also got a pair for the wedding she is going to be in (Apple David and Care Bear). Everything is coming together... (amazing)

Hmmm - what else? Sophie got a pumpkin outfit for Halloween. It was too big. I'll have to exchange it for a size small.

I feel like I have fallen into the pits of consumerism... I better not buy anything for at least a week to make up for it.

I'm back!

Sorry about the blogging hiatus. It's realease time in my world, which is like finals week. The difference is that your entire grade depends on this one program and it is a group project (eek!).

Anyway, I know it's been hard for you, my faithful audience (of 3).

Sad things today:

- I ate the last of my favorite Swedish cereal (Crunchy). I've had it since June. That is what I call rationing!
- Todd bit his tongue. It is still bleeding.
- Rebecka beat me severely in Dance Dance Revolution.

Happy things today:

- We're going shopping.
- I'm still in my pjs.
- I get to spend time with my favorite people.

Bye now.

Workout Notes

There is a new, fancy, flat-screen TV in the hotel workout room.

I turned it on and automatically turned to channel 34 (VH1) hoping for the best. This channel hasn't been working for several weeks, so last week I filed a complaint about it (I can't workout properly without VH1!). Now it works! I'd like to think it's all because of me, so that's what I'll think.

Some favorites that were played today:

"Nolita Fairytale" by Vanessa Carlton
"Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day
"Waiting On The World To Change" by John Mayer

I'll have to ask Rebecka to download these. She is my iTunes manager. I buy the cards and she finds the music and magically puts it on my red iPod. It's a wonderful thing.

So I decided to get on the treadmill to see how long I could go before my knee started complaining. It ended up being the traditional 15 minutes. What the heck!?! I can't keep going like this. So I took a 15 minute elliptical "break" and got back on the treadmill. I was able to go for 20 more minutes!

I would have gotten back on the elliptical after that, except a slightly pregnant young woman reading Parenting Magazine (cute!) had stolen it. So, I returned to my room for some strength training and stretching.

Life is good when I can workout.

PS. I have been in a consistently happy/content/relaxed state for 48 consecutive hours. I'm not sure what I'm doing right, but I'm going to keep doing it...