Practice a focus ritual. Every hour or two, do a refocus ritual. This only takes a minute or two. You might start it by closing down your browser and maybe other open applications, and maybe even take a walk for a couple of minutes to clear your head and get your blood circulating. Then return to your list of Most Important Tasks and figure out what you need to accomplish next. Before you check email again or go back online, work on that important task for as long as you can. Repeat this refocus ritual throughout the day, to bring yourself back. It’s also nice to take some nice deep breaths to focus yourself back on the present. More focus rituals.

Past years: 2006, 2007 and 2008.

October 14th, 1914 – December 6th 2009

Happy to finally have a grandaughter

In 1960 Vivian was baptized as one of Jehovah’s
Witnesses. Vivian was a zealous and faithful servant of
Jehovah and a valued member of the congregation. She
loved taking care of her grandchildren and gardening. Vivian
is also fondly remembered for her warm hospitality.

Thursday

We walked around near the hotel

Columbus Circle

For lunch we stopped at a little “hole in the wall” Indian place – it had 7 or 8 tables (seating for ~16 people) that had a lunch buffet. Best Indian food I have ever had, subtle spices, not overly salty or oily. Mmm…

Lunch!

After our late lunch we walked to Times Square, which was busy as it always is. Some streets we closed to traffic – because of the parade I assumed.

Posing in Time Suare

Friday

Friday morning I ran through Central Park

I went for a 4 mile run through Central Park Friday Morning. The weather was overcast, but nice. After a tasty Thai lunch we headed to the Museum of Natural History – spent the afternoon in the space center.

Saturday

Saturday morning run

It was sunny and breezy on Saturday, I had a nice run in the morning. Lunch at Mexican restaurant, then we took a 2-hour boat tour around the island. It was quite chilly on the outside decks of the boat, but I got a couple nice photos:

Skyline

South end of Manhattan

Brooklyn - Watchtower sign!

Sunday

This morning’s run was to the TKTS booth in Times Square

Getting tickets

2pm matinée of “In the Heights”

In the Heights

It was a great show. We ended the weekend with a subway ride to Little Italy and a wonderful Italian dinner. Up early Monday morning to fly home!

All summer I have been meaning to take pictures of my garden to share here, finally this morning I did. The garden this year is rather haphazard – it was such a cold spring – I wasn’t very motivated to plant anything.

But I could let the weeds just takte over the garden, so I planted tomatoes (always), pepper, cauliflower, rhubarb, cabbage and beans. Filled in the extra space with some flowers, and there are herbs and catnip that come up each year.

Last night I flew into Vancouver, BC, I am here for 3 days for work. Woke up at 5am this morning, couldn’t sleep. The sun was rising over the harbor, my room has a great view. Since I was up, I decided to head out for a run. I ran along the harbor, it was absolutely beautiful. All that was missing was my Bailey.

Vancouver is expecting record breaking highs today – quite different than the record breaking cold summer we have been having in MN. It is also much more humid that I expected.

1. What time did you get up this morning? 6:45am (Original: What time did you get up this morning? 6:45am)
2. Firefox or IE? Firefox, duh (Diamonds or pearls? cheese)
3. What was the last Firefox extension you downloaded? Does the google toolbar count? (What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Star Trek – it was awesome!)
4. What is your favorite uStream channel? SpaceVidCast (What is your favorite TV show? Depends on what is in season – right now its The Closer.)
5. Do you check your email before eating breakfast? Not usually. (What do you usually have for breakfast? Eggs)
6. What’s your username? Sherzy (What is your middle name? I could tell you but then I would have to kill you)
7. What sites do you dislike? geocities, lol (What food do you dislike? raw clams, oysters, beets)
8.  What is your favorite social networking site right now? Facebook (What is your favorite CD at the moment? dont listen to CDs- I am all about the radio)
9. What kind of computer do you use? Dell at work, Dell laptop at home (What kind of car do you drive? Honda Civic or Saturn Outlook, depending on weather and mood)
10. Favorite bookmark utility? Loving Foxmarks (Favorite sandwich? I don’t really eat sandwiches)
11. Do you twitter? Yes (What characteristic do you despise? Hypocrisy)
12. Favorite tag? <optgroup> (Favorite item of clothing? jean jacket)
13. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, would proximity to wi-fi be a requirement? daily access at the least (If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? a month or so in Europe would be fun)
14. Favorite blogger? lol (Favorite brand of clothing? none)
15. What would you do if you weren’t coding or surfing? working out or cooking (Where would you retire to? Mexico)
16. Most memorable thread discussion? There used to be some good ones over at vivianlives.com (What was your most recent memorable birthday? Ha)
17. Favorite IM client? Trillian (Favorite sport to watch? Whatever is on the TV when I am at happy hour)
18. Longest amount of time you have gone without checking your email? 2-3 days – crazy (Furthest place you are sending this?)
19. Your rss reader? google (Person you expect to send it back first:)
20. When is your blog birthday? May 12, 2001 (When is your birthday? Jan 2)
21. Do you code better in the morning or at night? night, like all great coders (Are you a morning person or a night person? I used to be a total night person, but have managed to shift to being more of a morning person. But I am still not a happy morning person.)
22. USB thumb drive size? 4 gig (What is your shoe size? 10)
23. MP3 players? I have a Samsung Nano. But now days I use my Treo with bluetooth headphones to listen to mp3s while working out (Pets? Zion – cat, Pepper – cat, Bailey – dog)
24. Any new and exciting news you’d like to share with us? I am doing some exciting new stuff with my sites! (Any new and exciting news you’d like to share with us?)
25. What language did you want to learn when you started programming? Java (What did you want to be when you were little? I dont remember)
26. How are you today? OK (How are you today?)
27. What is your favorite RSS reader? sadly I have only used google (What is your favorite candy? chocolate)
28. What is your favorite FTP client? Filezilla (What is your favorite flower? one that is in my house or yard)
29. What feature of CSS3 are you looking forward to? rounded corners (What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? district convention is always fun)
30. Favorite hobby away from the keyboard? cooking (What is your favorite hobby?)
31. How many browsers windows do you have open right now? 4 – 3 FF, 1 IE (What are you listening to right now? office noise)
32. How many tabs? a dozen or so (What was the last thing you ate? peanut butter on a tortilla)
33. Do you wish you didn’t just close that tab? sometimes – but I think there is a plug-in for that (Do you wish on stars? what kind of stars?)
34. If you were a hex color, what hex would you be? #efefef (If you were a crayon, what color would you be? salmon)
35. Are you sitting near a window? close enough (How is the weather right now? sunny and humid)
36. First person you emailed today. I dont think I have sent an email yet, but I did IM Gabe (The first person you spoke to on the phone today. no phone calls either)
37. Favorite text editor? plain old Notepad (Your favorite soft drink? I do not drink soda)
38. Favorite webhost? my host is kattare, they are good (Favorite restaurant? anything local – I hate chains)
39. Real username? like I would tell you (Real hair color? like I would tell you)
40. What was your favorite toy as a child? a stuffed raccoon (What was your favorite toy as a child?)
41. Google or yahoo? google (Summer or winter? why do they even put this question on surveys?)
42. Facebook or MySpace? Facebook (Hugs or kisses? another stupid one)
43. Blogger or WordPress? WordPress (Chocolate or Vanilla? chocolate)
44. Captcha or Akismet? both (Coffee or tea? both )
45. Do your friends know how to email? some (Do you want your friends to email you back?)
46. When is the last time you googled yourself? its been awhile (When was the last time you cried? its been awhile)
47. Whats in your source code? proper indenting (What is under your bed? junk)
48. What did you do last night? worked on my website (What did you do last night? worked on my website)
49. Are you scared of people googling you? nah (What are you scared of? stuff at the bottom of really deep lakes)
50. Mac or PC? I love to make fun of Mac users. (Salty or sweet? usually salty)
51. How big is your harddrive? 128 gig solid state oh yeah (How many keys on your key ring? 2)
52. Do you have a real job? yeah (How many years at your current job? 2)
53. Favorite CSS selector? :hover (Favorite day of the week? Friday!)
54. How many domains do you own? too many (How many towns have you lived in? 5)
56. How many friends do you have on Facebook? 149 (How many people will you send this to?)
57. How many of them do you actually know? ~140 (How many will respond?)

Food: Hubby and I were on a diet the first part of the month in preparation for our vacation. I cooked some tasty diet food that I would like to document, including: Lemongrass chicken, zucchini lasagna and turkey lettuce wraps.

Fitness: I lost some weight (~10lbs). Cardio every morning and night. Very little strength training. Went on vacation, gained some back. Want to get back to lifting and running outside with the dog more. Yesterday I ran to Anytime just as the mega-snowstorm was starting for a quick workout. I did 5 min cardio warm up followed by a short full body circuit (squat, deadlift, lunge, lat pulldown, pushups, bicep curl, shoulders). I can feel it in my quads today, both surprising and good. 10 minute run on treadmill this AM.

Web: I need to research Internet Explorer 8. Bleh. Launched www.prudentialnewjersey.com at work.

Random: Went to Cancun for the first time ever – February 17th-23rd. Had a really awesome time, lots of good food and sunshine. Need to go through our pics (we didn’t take enough) and post some. Tonight we are going to a play at the Gutrie Theater. Were supposed to go last night, but a huge snowstorm rolled through, so I postponed until tonight.

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before? Went to Disney World. Broke a bone. Made Sangria.
2. Did anyone close to you give birth? Nope.
3. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008? 2 functioning arms for the entire year.
4. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? Watching fireworks from the British Pub in Epcot. Thanksgiving weekend in New York City.
5. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Losing ~15 pounds and dropping 2 sizes.
6. What was your biggest failure? Not updating this site enough. Not having an interesting enough life to merit updating this site.
7. What was the best thing you bought? Bluetooth headphones, Polar running watch.  Saturn Outlook.
8. Where did most of your money go? The usual bills.
9. What did you get really, really, really excited about? LOLCats, Stella’s happy hour. Split pea soup (recipe coming).

I added in some triceps work in the 3rd circuit. If you have the time you should do 3 sets of each circuit, but my lunchtime workouts leave me time only for 2.

Today I used 2 new favorite workout tools: Bluetooth headphones and Perfect Push-up.

First, the headphones. I have actually had these for awhile, but forgot about them. I bought them to use with my Palm Treo Smartphone after reading online about how the Treo if often overlooked as a mp3 player. These are the Motorola Bluetooth Active Headphones S9, I really like them, but I also have never used any other Bluetooth headphones. The “battery pack”, it a little heavy and bounces when I run, but it isn’t too bad. There are controls on each ear – you can change song, adjust volume, pause/play, and answer calls. Range is good, I have been able to walk all around the open area of the gym without interruption, but walls will cause the Bluetooth to cut out some.

Second, the “Perfect Push up” – I really don’t like doing pushups, I never have. But they are really great for you, so I have been working on them. Then, a few months ago I break my wrist. Turns out broken wrists take a long time to heal to the point of being about to do a pushup. But I discovered these at my new gym – I can do pushups using them because they keep your wrists straight, which I can do. And the swivel feature allows you to easily do pushups with different hand positions, but I really haven’t played with that much.