Things I heard last night

Here's some advice; this alone is worth the price of admission. The best cover story for laziness is to write a book.

I think that our President, George,
Would be happy to sit on the porch
Giving wedgies and hickeys
and drinking gin rickeys
and lighting his farts with a torch.

Never, ever talk to other people about your marriage. When your spouse bugs you, go do something that they don't want to do. The cure for marital problems is to have fun together. And sex is not the answer. Sex is the question; "yes" is the answer.

Guess who said these things?

Amazing 10 minute podcast

Merlin at 43 Folders has recording an amazing podcast about focus. I listened to it twice, both times slack-jawed at the profundity of what he had to say.

Amazing stuff.

Water Aerobics

A couple of weeks ago, I spent a bundle of money I don't have to join a pool/health club with Little Boy. Three times a week, I go to water aerobics.

It's awesome.

I am very obese, and had been depressed for probably close to two years. (I'm much better now.) I had a lot of difficulty getting motivated to do anything about my weight, because the problem is so large and seems so intractible. But I started reading a book called "Getting Things Done," by David Allen, and one of the tactics he teaches is to focus on Next Actions. When I applied Next Actions to my desire to lose weight, the next action wasn't "lose 150 lbs.," or "exercise every day" or "no more desserts." The next action was "Call the health club." So I did. The next action after that was "visit the health club." So I did, and that action rolled into another action, "write a very large check."

And now, I'm almost not even caring about the weight loss part of it. It'll be a nice benefit (if it happens; it might not!) but I'm just happy to be moving again, to have an elevated heart rate and to stretch my muscles and breathe heavily and to meet nice new people. It's fun! I usually don't even have to make myself go, but when I do, I'm always glad I did, because I feel energized and alive when I'm done...even though my legs feel like they're made of lead for a good ten minutes after.

I have thought about trying to do something on Wednesday mornings, because it's a pretty big gap between sessions from Monday evening to Thursday evening. But I've decided to take it slow. I just started; there's no reason to push myself yet. I'm enjoying this. I'm just going to keep enjoying it, and maybe try something else when I feel like enjoying something else.

Good News Bad News

First, the bad news. Mom is home, and is doing OK physically, but she is not able still to talk, or read, or write, and she is very frustrated by this. My father is taking it so to heart, and Mr. "I can take care of this" is very distressed at his helplessness.

I hope that the speech therapists can at least work with her on mitigating the effects of this. Her mental function is not at all impaired - she can still think and understand and respond appropriately; she just has no way to express her thoughts.

She resumes therap(ies) Tuesday.

The good news is that we finally got our remodel of our family room done. It was a sunken floor, and we had it filled in with concrete. We (meaning DH and Older Son) painted the walls a lighted shaded orange (it's really nice!). The french doors in back have a terra cotta ceramic tile walk off in front of them and the carpet is a light brown with gold undertones. It's beautiful. It now looks like a room you'd want to be in, instead of a grungy place that needs help. Help has arrived, and I couldn't be happier about it.