Goal tracking, Peter Doig, and pics of the day

One of the goals we’ve been making headway with this year is cooking more. We’re playing to our strengths in that I’m doing the planning and creating the grocery lists once a week and my husband goes to the store. The cooking itself we’re sharing, and so far it's working really well. We’re eating healthier and saving money, too. I think that there is also a side bonus in that we are both more careful not to let the kitchen get too messy. The fact is that we’re both more inclined to cook when the kitchen is clean.

I’ve also managed to avoid buying even a single lunch at work so far in 2014! Yay me. However, I have bought a number of breakfasts and tons of coffees, so that’s something that has to change.

I want to change other things in my life, but I’m not sure how. I want to get more out of my day. It seems to me that it is not full enough of the things that matter. But there are so many things that matter and scarcely enough time to do a quarter of them! Oh well… all I can do is keep trying, I suppose.

Last night was a perfect example of  the right kind of busy-ness . We went to the opening of the Peter Doig exhibit, which I LOVED (and I’ll definitely be going back around midday sometime soon, away from the crowds). Then, after quick supper of leftovers at home, I headed over to knitting circle, where I got to hang out with a dozen wonderful women, knit four or five rows of my hat (yes, I’m a slow knitter), and enjoy yummy wine and lemon meringue pie.  All I can conclude is that I really have nothing to complain about! Except the weather. Always the weather.

Lapeyrouse Wall by Peter Doig

I was asked to show some of the pics I’ve taken as part of my photo-of-the-day efforts:

Mid-January, in snapshots

Clockwise from bottom left:

- Kid-friendly noodle casserole – a definite hit, but needs to be less salty next time, for my taste.
- Our brand-new coffee table the day it arrived! We’d planned on another, but this one has wheels and storage, both things we realized we needed.
- A selfie trying to capture a lip colour to add to a review I wrote on MakeupAlley. (After almost nine years as a devoted reading member, I finally decided to write some reviews of my own.)
- The Aquarium Channel. I guess this is what the Yuletide Fireplace channel became after the holidays. They play the most bizarre and amazing retro dance music!

What do people think about while they're running?

I went to the gym again today, for the third time this week.  I haven’t really engaged in any kind of exercise since before my wedding…which was more than seven months ago now.  I am not much of an exercise person, really.  I love dancing, and walking to get somewhere, but the hampster-wheel stuff I can usually take or leave.  (I think, in fact, I've documented somewhere on this blog the one and only time I've had a true endorphin rush from running.  Once!  Clearly I'm not doing it right.)  I think regular walking is much better for you than sporadic, intense running anyway.  But for now I have to take what I can get.

I don’t scrutinize anyone too closely at the gym…mostly because I’m too busy trying to stay alive while running or stair climbing, but also because I’m hoping nobody is noticing me either.  Every once in a while, though, you see somebody who is working out really intensely… the guy or girl who has been on the elliptical machine for over forty-five minutes and who is going faster than anybody else in the whole row of exercise machines, including the people on treadmills.  There was a girl there like that today, with skinny arms and legs that looked like nothing but bone and muscle.  Of course, there are all sorts of body types, and I would never assume somebody has an eating disorder....because how else do skinny, super-fit people get to be that way besides vigorous exercise?   Every so often you see somebody, though, and you wonder.  Or I wonder…probably a side-effect of having worked on this book for years.  

Yesterday, I started comparing everyone’s demeanour as my mind wandered.  Mine: dreamy, resigned.  The girl next to me: annoyed.  The guys in the free weights area: a mix of swaggering, hopeful, joking, determined.

What do you think about when you're at the gym?  

I usually like to imagine I'm in some kind of movie montage where the heroine is suddenly getting fit and turning her life around.  It's a good time to cycle through goals and do some visualizing.  I did this a lot when I was trying to finish putting together the manuscript of Mother Superior before I started querying publishers.  I thought about what was still left to write.  I pictured the pages piling up.  I pictured somebody saying yes.  I pictured holding it as a book.  I imagined it getting reviewed in the Globe and Mail.  

Maybe everyone else is planning their novel, too?  Or their screenplay, their dissertation?  An impending breakup?  I wonder.