I ran out of reasons not to; so I did.
September 24, 2012 § 1 Comment
It tried meditation.
meditationloos
Since the kickboxing/door-smashing incident, I have been doing a lot of self-physical-reflection and finally decided to give meditation a whirl. Armed with some interweb-research, a podcast and something comforting (because my meditation guide-voice told me to), I and went to my ‘safe place.’ It was remarkable. I will be repeating.
Why now? It felt like the right time for me. No doubt my recent self-side-lining on the exercise front has been instrumental: not only do I have time to do it, I have time to choose to do it. For those of you out there who are (let’s call ourselves) ‘keen’ exercisers, you will understand what it might mean physically and mentally to stop ALL FORMS of higher-impact exercise for more than a week. For me, it’s been almost a month. I have done some walking but gently, gently. For me, that is ENORMOUS news. Truth is, from age 22-32 I did way too much exercise (and spent way too much time thinking about needing to do way too much exercise). Since Law School, I have powered down somewhat due to time constraints and my back/hip issues. In the last month, I finally decided to turn off the ‘but I have to exercise A LOT at ridiculous intensity in order to stay sane/healthy’ mindset. It feels awesome. Freeing.
My body struggles with stress. Hmmm, I wonder if part of my PCOS-hormone-drama relates to the combo of: 1) sensitive Polly with: 2) self-imposed stress of ‘got to do that exercise;’ and 3) the constant physical stresses of actually DOING the exercise. Don’t know for sure but an understanding of the stress-hormone, Cortisol, is developing.
Hence a current new direction. Heretofore, I am including daily moments of deep breathing with sporadic meditation-podcast-listening. AND, I am taking it physically-easier. Since the carbohydrate realization, I think it is time to add in some mental/emotional/physical health slices (to the PCOS treatment pie).
I like to try things that make me feel better. I feel better. And, yes. So does Booie.
Booie?
(he’s yellow)
Also2 in non-tangible-card style…
September 4, 2012 § Leave a Comment
We “went out” the other night. During the school year? Yup. Wowza, that’s crazy talk.
It was really super!! I highly recommend hanging out with neat people as much as possible. Cheers, Chum who hosted for us!!!
scrabbloos
I have to give my chum special mention for being a trooper in the “now, what is it that you can eat, exactly?” department. She tailored the meal to all of our (let’s call them) “food parameters.” It was delish with its turkey cutlet, courgette, zucchini, kale, and accompanying elements. Yay!
A Results-Oriented Side-Bar
June 23, 2012 § 2 Comments
I am going for a record brief post today.
Just the facts, ma’am (ish).
Polly, her recent side-kick, Lower-Carb, and the whole ‘why don’t I go to Law School’ thing have some updates.
The blood test results are in; as are my Law School Year One results.
It’s good news.
I am feeling MUCH better; my blood tests have improved rather dramatically; and she scooped it: I passed my first year of law school.
Protein Polly is relieved (so am I).
proteinpolatopherworld
(the not-so-brief-post-ish part: I owe some big posts on a plethora of topics. I continue to dream of a regular and comprehensive blog that provides entertaining nuggets of interesting info interspersed with my husband’s pics. Then reality kicks in. Can’t do everything all the time. Just some things some of the time. All of this is to say, I will be Sporadic Polly Posting until at least August. Right now I am taking a break from my Fourth Draft of my Legal Research Memo on Entrapment; tomorrow, I will be up early for a jog (maybe if I feel like it), then be doing my Professional Responsibility/Legal Ethics reading before heading over to someplace with a big TV to watch England lose on penalties to Italy in the Euro Cup Quarter-Finals (I’m rooting for you England, I love my nation, but experience tells me not to have high expectations..)). Phew. We are all OK, though. Notwithstanding. Finally, I do want to add a big….
….Thanks for sticking with me Peeps of SheScoops Land. I’m talking to you, you readers, you.
A Scoop of TinyTower (app)
June 3, 2012 § Leave a Comment
On a scoop scale of ten; TT gets, well, 9.99 (recurring).
Tiny Tower. The one and only game I play on my iPad. It’s so simple. It’s so strangely satisfying. I have been restocking, personnel managing, constructing and marveling at the cute “bitizens” for MONTHS. Even with lawschool-work-study-exams-work-lawschool-proteinhealthyfatsbutlesscarbseating… (butless carb seating?)
Typical Polly, though, I have recently begun to question it. Why am I so enthralled with you, TinyTower, that I willingly devote 5-10 precious Polly minutes to you on a daily basis?
In essence, I believe it has my game-nerd heart. Those tiny bitizens. They are very endearing in the 8-bit glory AND they wear marvelous outfits to work. I want to be one.
Tiny Polly
There is some nostalgia in my addiction. It brings up memories of my other all-time favourite computer games from yester-year: come back Theme Park (original 1994 edition/PC); Trap Door (ZX Spectrum); Formula 1 (ZX Spectrum); and Nodes of Yesod (ZX Spectrum); those were good times….
There are some who have questioned TinyTower’s underlying philosophy (I read reviews before I “bought it” for FREE). Could that be so? Well. You get to build things. With money. And with the proceeds. You build more things. Get more money. Build more apartments. Rent to more bitizens because you need them to work in your shops and stuff. Evict anyone who is less-than-stellar in their duties.
Are they right? Maybe. I refused to evict anyone initially. Spent a few months with serious under-performers. That has changed significantly in the last month….
Erm. Pol. Power down. You are over thinking this…. It’s OK to just enjoy stuff without delving into an abyss of analysis…
I see. What you are saying is that though it might be a totalitarian regime where the overlord (moi) gets to control everything, is motivated by financial greed and acquiring stuff and which therefore goes against everything I hold dear, I should just shrug and say, “oh well”?
Sure why not. Seems reasonable.
Well. It IS fun for Polly and she knows that over-thinking isn’t always the best plan so onwards, I guess. Helps that I got a Planetarium recently and that you can rename your businesses: my ice cream parlour was inventively retitled: SheScoops.
They have a wiki, it seems: tinytowerwiki.com
Keas Health Challenge, the #8 (maybe), and Polly (Part One)…
April 20, 2011 § 1 Comment
So – The Keas Health Challenge reached its climactic conclusion at 1159 hours Sunday, April 17 2011 (PST)….
Does your blog title indicate you came 8th or what?
Erm.. Polly didn’t, no but…
Team Kea Power! did. (I think)* See, we were brilliant healthy beans overall especially since we had maintained our top ten placement for many weeks.
As for Polly M’s final placement – 16th (I think)* I deserve a Yay! for that. There were over 500 players total. Not bad, not bad. (8 + 8 = 16; Polly thinks that is a weird coinky-dink). I definitely think it was a massive success all round (personally, start-up-ery, and co-challengers-ery). I sure feel healthier now than I did twelve weeks ago (and, yes, I have SO much more to say on this but patience, readership).
*(so to the asterisk): I have to caveat my final placement reporting with the fact that I don’t actually know who finished where OFFICIALLY. They (the Keas.com wonderlings) have yet to announce it (or maybe it is a secret winners-only circle of knowledge..).
As is my won’t; I ‘commented’ on this phenomenon and so (perhaps) can confirm the Team Challenge Winners…
HealthyKeas Comment Stream
Polly M: So what was the final outcome? I was going to give a “woo” to the winners but realized that the leader board may have changed since this morning at 0001hrs (military time from Polly there).
Challenger (a.k.a. ‘The Points Assassin’ and Team Brothers and Sisters member): we accept your woo
Does that answer the Team outcome? If so, Woo! to Team Brothers and Sisters. Nice job. Bravo; clearly a healthy probably-family-members group.
Mysteries still remain: who won the individual honours and do I get to take a ‘Polly came 16th and is very chuffed with herself’ victory lap?
questioningscoop
Oh – though I may not have won in the rankings – guess who did receive a lovely FIFTY bucks last week courtesy of Keas.com? Yes, me. I got it simply for filling out the Keas.com survey! Yay!
Believe it or not.
No, Dad, it wasn’t rigged to have me win. Why would they even do that, eh? (note to Dad: I obviously appreciate how highly you imagine Keas.com think of old Polly but I am your daughter; being biased in my favour comes with the territory). I just filled out the survey with my musings on the Keas Health Challenge and got entered into the RANDOM drawing for so doing (yes, I considered the fact that my odds would have improved were I the ONLY one to fill the puppy out).
Though the winners are out there someplace and the challenge is over; fear not on two counts: 1) I will be posting my random in-direct-to-Keas feedback on the Challenge via this blog in coming days; and 2) the aforementioned wonderlings at Keas.com haven’t taken the site down – we are all allowed to keep playing (without the cashola incentive, she adds, but curiously – some weird health things have emerged from this)… Yay!
So as if this long blog post wasn’t enough already:
to be continued…
***LATE BREAKING UPDATE**** @ 9.31am (PST) Polly received the OFFICIAL announcement of winners courtesy of her HealthyKeas Health Stream HomePage thing… (Dad, I can give you the deets when I see you on Skype later; everyone else, sorry, details will be forthcoming either later tonight (PST) or first-thing tomorrow (also PST). oh, Polly! No fair!)
Mum, I have a cuddly ovary…
April 8, 2011 § Leave a Comment
This is part WonderCon story; part health musing; and all for my Mum.
Part WonderCon: as soon as I walked into the Exhibition hall last Friday, I knew I was going to buy something. I also knew that it would fulfill ALL of the following criteria: squashy, smiley, and a ‘cuddly toy.’* Well, we were in Graphic Novel/Comic Book Land; thus the opportunities for Merch (a.k.a Merchandizing) are inherent. I did not imagine, however, that I would find something that not only fulfilled the necessary criteria but that also connected me to my health so brilliantly.
Enter Iheartguts.com.
I want to thank this company for existing. I am now the proud owner of a cuddly ovary.
ovaryscoop
Part Health Musing: it is hard for me to capture how remarkable it is for me to own a cuddly version of an ovary. In the words of the tiny card enclosed with my new friend: “the ovaries produce eggs and release sex hormones estrogen and progesterone, which control all kinds of female reproductive mayhem…” Mayhem is right. Estrogen and Progesterone: the hormones I ingest daily (in pill form) because my body struggles to produce those guys for itself. I really believe that holding and being conscious of my cuddly ovary (with its obvious connection to my real ones) will help me. That old mind-body connection thing in full force.
So, please check this company’s website out; maybe purchase a prostate for a male loved one in your life (reminding them of the importance of prostate health while you are at it).
The designer was at WonderCon; I feel privileged to have met her.
This post is for my Mum because I forgot about Mum’s Day – UK – 2011. I am so sorry, Mum.
If it is any comfort to you; I definitely thought about you on the day in question (I always do when we are in SF and I was carrying around this cuddly ovary knowing you would love it too). I am genuinely ‘gutted’ to have missed that date.**Happily, one of the good things about this situation is that I get another attempt to remember my Mum ‘officially’ with the US Version of Mother’s Day (since it doesn’t occur until about May). Must spare a moment to thank my brother for: 1) not forgetting about mumsy’s day; and 2) taking her out for dinner.
*CUDDLY-TOY: the descriptive term used by us British people (or at least all those that I grew up around) for all things soft and designed principally for kids. I understand that the US version is ‘Plush Toy’ or ‘Plushie.’ It actually took me over eight years of US residence to realize that a translation was necessary for ‘cuddly toy.’ I would also like to add that I have yet to use that other ‘P’ word; it doesn’t sound anywhere near as comforting or lovely as my cuddly toys are (yes, though I am no longer considered a ‘kid’; I have many such squashy, smiley things and there is no indication that I will ever stop acquiring new versions).
**ooh, clever link between a British colloquialism and that aforementioned company, Polly.
WonderCon – 100; Keas Pointage – 0 (well some)
April 4, 2011 § 2 Comments
April 1-3: Polly, Husband and WonderCon 2011.
We just spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday in attendance at the San Francisco Wonder Con and it was awesome (literally: multiple moments when Polly was in awe).
It was lovely to get away from all the house, financial and full-time employment element of our worlds for just a spell. This even included being completely off-line in the inter-web sense the entire time. Surprisingly, I didn’t miss my lack of interweb browsing at all. So much so, in fact, that when I got home and thought – ‘ooh, maybe I should look up the weather forecast so I can plan my Monday work outfit accordingly’ I mentally followed up with the ‘nah, can’t be bothered.’
So the Weekend was Brilliant. Alas, the Monday Morning @ about 5:27am was not so much…
It was during my dance-cardio ‘cool down’ section that the realization struck me: I completely forget to log my Keas Health Challenge activities for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I can’t lie, the feeling was horrible – points?? team??? I even did a double-take: wait a minute – is it still Sunday? Is there yet time? Oh I had so hoped that it were so but, alas, my early morning brain fog had not caused a time-shift; it was Monday and the points were gone forever.
Sorry team, Kea Power! – being offline means I have missed a chunky amount of points for us. As for my personal total – I was doing pretty well and still had hopes for a top ten finish (call me Overly Optimistic Polly since permanently hanging out around the 25th position mark does not a Top Ten finish make…). So many points are lost that I am even putting off logging in to find out how bad it was until I have had my second breakfast (some time after 9:45am PST)…
So with some degree of horror still churning in my belly; I submit and confess my error.
All of that said, there is something to the fact that I was off-line and did not miss it for just a spell. It’s that work-life-balance thingy-whatsit. I am typically on my work computer from 7:30am to about 4:30pm (with a walking 30min break in the middle); I will even get online again when I get home while me dinner is in the oven (it’s not that much different on the weekend, either). So I reckon it’s got to be a bit healthy to step away from Firefox (my current browser of choice) and do something else fun for a change.
It was certainly very WonderCon (now a verb) to have some uninterrupted time with my dear husband and I learned many comic book/graphic novel related InfoNuggetCons (sorry, couldn’t resist) along the way.
I have a plethora of stories from our weekend yet to share and will post some of the highlights once husband is able to send/create some graphic representations.
Say, I have a new idea for a Keas Health Challenge To-Do – how about points for being consciously ‘off-line’ for a spell? Why, that’s a super idea Polly except: 1) the Keas Health Challenge is designed to be ON-line; and 2) there is bound to be at least one silly head who goes off-line on Sunday when that is the last day to log their personal points for the week.
***SILLY POLLY UPDATE ALERT**** I have since posted an update that caused me to become Sheepish Polly for a spell…
A Polly Update (woefully behind)…
March 30, 2011 § 2 Comments
Hi readers.
Apologies first: sorry, I’ve been an absentee poster.
Excuses second: we are in the throes of selling our homestead in order to make room in our daily lives (financial and commute-wise) for….
LAW SCHOOL!
acceptedscoop
That is correct, readership, Polly got herself accepted to her Law School of choice. I will divulge more about this at some point (nothing is completely ironed out details-wise – I refer specifically to the ‘Big Two:’ 1. financing law school; 2. the make-room-in-our-lives-and-still-share-time-together aspect of 30 hours+ per week studies ON TOP OF my full-time employment). Minor details….
Nonetheless, Polly is chuffed, excited and (obviously) a tiny bit daunted at the prospect. First hurdle cleared, though: i.e. being accepted. Trying to rearrange one’s life for Law School and then not being accepted would be unfortunate.
So woo! Hurrah! Self-congratulatory dancing around the for-sale homestead while ignoring the reality of the aforementioned ‘Big Two.’
Speaking of the homestead with its permanently ‘staged’ aesthetic; my dancing was made 200% easier by having tons of extra space in which to do it. Yes, indeed, we live in a ‘show home’ and spend time each day putting almost everything away (stuff deemed either ‘distracting’ or ‘not-so-aesthetically-pleasing’) for the benefit of any potential buyer. This includes everything from the shower-related stuffs of shampoo/conditioner/soap to the kitcheny-related stuffs of knife-block-dispenser thing and everything else save the new stainless steel rice cooker (‘coz it looks pretty); the stainless steel toaster (same reason, I guess); the old-yet-still-cute espresso machine thing and the iPod player whatsit (does that make us look young and technologically savvy?).
Not an ideal way to fill our days but we want to sell the thing and it looks lovely as is. In addition, I get to play the ‘where is the…(knife, sponge, washing up liquid, etc..)’ game every night – that can be highly amusing….
In future posts I will muse some more for you on the health-related aspects of this house situation; unfortunately, the key word here leans toward ‘stressful.’
For now, I will just note that in spite of the house-selling drama; Polly is taking time to celebrate her Law School acceptance because it feels pretty neat (and she gets to add a new category to her blog).
Week 5 (& 6): a Point Extravaganza
March 2, 2011 § Leave a Comment
They went and did it, didn’t they…
Keas Health Challenge To-Do points for dancing!
OK. Well, really it was for doing ‘any vigorous activity for 60mins 5 times this week.’ That was all the encouragement I needed to dance cardio my way around my living room and earn a plethora of points for myself and my team.
And the points? Oh, the points! They were a smashing FIFTY-FIVE! That’s neat. For the record, the To-Dos with the highest available points are what I lovingly refer to as ‘the sixty-pointers’ (so original, Polly, we would never guess that they involved receiving sixty points for completion).
scooppoints
The start of Week 5 was almost a revolution in terms of new features and fun stuffs to be had/select for pointage. I picked two of those aforementioned sixty-pointers and the aforementioned fifty-five for my dancing regime.
Sixty Pointer – Part One:
Polly will plan and shop in advance for all the week’s meals and snacks
If you recall from my earlier post: Local Peeps – you will know that hubby and I have this 60-pointer in the (grocery) bag.
Sixty Pointer – Part Two:
Polly will cut out high fat dairy this week
OK, so this was a bit of cheat since I haven’t had ANY dairy products since the 1990s but I did confess that on the comment stream; so there.
Thus – One Hundred and Twenty Points were all mine for stuff I already do. Brilliant, no? Cheating? I can justify it with the simple fact that I am doing what the challenge sets out to do – to help get us on (or help us to maintain) the path to our health. To quote my super point-scoring Team Leader: these puppies are ‘healthy habit points’ (yes, the word ‘puppies’ was my embellishment). The fact that I already do them means I am super (and modest…) but it also means that, in at least some areas, I have some good habits already under my hopefully-not-tightening belt.
It’s Wednesday and guess what that means? It’s Bonus Points for Quizzes day! The Keas super-engineery-health-folks post (surprisingly hard) health-oriented quizzes every Wednesday and you get bonus points. I have also learned a ton of new health nugget factoids on topics from stress (know what the #1 world-wide stress-causer is?); Exercise (go Australia!); and Food stuffs (which California native fruit beats the Banana in the potassium-containing stakes?).
Current Standings:
Kea Power! (my Keas Health Challenge team) are officially super.
As I type this; we are in 8th place. Out of 32. Curiously, I am also 8th in the individual rankings! How neat. Oh wait, time has passed since I first typed that – I am now 13th (still neat but not so much of an 8 and 8 situation as before).
Still thoroughly enjoying the daily logging in of healthful habits and the associated comment stream. I promise to review the cash incentives next time (since our team point total means we are close to qualifying to be entered in the first raffle and a chance to be $50 richer).
For the record, we are actually on Day 3, Week 6 because I am behind with updates.
Oh, and in case you were wondering: Money and Avocados.
