Luckily, I Still Have Time to Change my Route Before Halloween

My LiveJournal Trick-or-Treat Haul
qos goes trick-or-treating, dressed up as A pirate.
_storyteller_ gives you 6 red-orange evil-flavoured jawbreakers.
ad_lumen tricks you! You get a scratched CD.
athenian_abroad tricks you! You lose 1 pieces of candy!
bookchick tricks you! You get a dead frog.
dancingchaplain tricks you! You lose 3 pieces of candy!
godlyperspectiv tricks you! You lose 1 pieces of candy!
gothic_coop tricks you! You lose 1 pieces of candy!
grailquestion gives you 5 red-orange evil-flavoured jawbreakers.
iswari gives you 7 blue cherry-flavoured pieces of taffy.
jaynefury gives you 14 white lime-flavoured nuggets.
qos ends up with 26 pieces of candy, a scratched CD, and a dead frog.
Go trick-or-treating! Username:
Another fun meme brought to you by rfreebern.

The quiz won't let me get greedy. I had more names on my list, but it cut me off here.

Okay, I'm off to drink my protein drink (blech!) and get on the treadmill!

Workout -- and Goals

Yesterday I did ten minutes of weight lifting, and this morning I did 25 minutes on the treadmill. Still not a full workout either day, but I was there, and I worked up a sweat. My strength and endurance will increase again, as they always have. Since making this resolution a week or so ago, I have shown up for my workout every day, and I have not eaten out, either doing drive through or a sit-down meal. Money saved, calories saved, peace increased.

Come to think of it, I also have not bid on anything on eBay, nor I have ordered from Amazon. Also significant. Those are the other two places where I've been spending far too much money.

And I've been spending more time with my daughter, especially with helping her with her homework.

I almost killed my iPod twice this morning on the treadmill. I have a remote control that plugs into the 'pod and then to headphones. It gives longer reach on the cord and a control panel of buttons that is easier to reach -- but mine has a broken wire (or something) near the plug-in, so it tends to cut out one side of the stereo, so I don't use it. The problem is that this morning I was moving my arms so vigorously I twice pulled the 'pod out of the cup holder on the treadmill and flung it to the ground.

The bare, hard floor.

Unbelievably, it is still fine.

But I started using the remote to finish my workout.

A trip to the Apple store is in my near future.

I really like this new icon. Right now, my life is about "Do - or do not," and "To be -- or not to be?" What do I want with my life? Who do I want to be? And what the hell am I doing about it? Anything?

The shadow side of having grown up with the blessings I did was that so much came so easily that I seldom had to exert myself to get what I wanted. Those things that I did want that didn't simply come to me seemed so far out of reach that there seemed little point in trying (the 'interstellar mediator' thing again). Either that or they were of such questionable value to my family and other authorities that there was no support (like becoming a novelist, or a film director). They might as well have been science fiction dreams.

At the same time, the fact remains that I can't think of one time in my life when I went after something I truly wanted that I didn't get it. Whether it was a degree, a thesis, a production of a play, or a person. My history shows that when I put my resources behind my passion, I can make things happen --- either alone or by drawing in people whose talents and dreams have synergy with mine.

The keys are desire and passion.

Two things which have been in short supply in my life for the past few years, but which are coming back, and -- like my physical body -- getting stronger all the time.