Saturday, February 12, 2011

The Long, Slow, Quick Update

I started this post out as a quick update several weeks ago. I kept getting interrupted and it never made it out the door to be published out here on these internets. So I changed the title to The Long, Slow, Quick Update from simply Quick Update.

Tuesday, I officially enter my fifth>sixth seventh week of no smoking. 33 39 days ago I quit smoking and since then have not smoked 674 788 cigarettes. It's astounding to me to think of it in those types of numbers. It would have never crossed my mind. I have also saved $204 and 54 cents $239.66.

Actually, I haven't saved that money but rather re-directed its use to more beneficial purposes. For example buying soy beans so we could make Soy Milk.

Okay, so that picture looks like I made that Soy Milk but that is inaccurate. I helped some, but I was making Barley Soup at the time, so the Soy Milk was Arisa's task.

We had the Barley Soup for dinner and it was quite good. Unfortunately, I put too much crushed red pepper into it so it was too spicy. Other than though it was really, really good. It's easy to make and is fairly healthy for you. Lot's of fiber I'd imagine.

Been trying to eat better, even if I still eat pancakes, I'm at least having whole wheat pancakes.

That was some good pancakes. And relatively healthy too.

So one of the results of quitting smoking has been that I've also been fairly consistently "working out". Now what "working out" really means is playing racquetball with my son, Ken. The normal pattern is 5 to 10 minutes on a stationary bike to warm up, then three games up to 11 but you have to win by two. On the days Ken has homework or work (part time at Target at Eastgate), I will go by myself or with my other son George and do a light workout. The light work out consists of 20-30 minutes on the stationary bike, 20 minutes on the treadmill - fast walking mostly, but a few minutes of jogging thrown in - and some light weight training.

My goal is consistency in the workouts and general health so I'm not too worried yet about more strenuous exercise, and more specifically I really enjoy playing racquetball with Ken so it doesn't even feel like I'm "working out", though I'm getting a good cardiovascular workout I'd imagine. And over the last month since quitting smoking I can notice a very distinct improvement in my endurance. Others are also beginning to notice that I have lost some weight - though again that's not the point of all this change. The point is to quit smoking.

Last weekend we went to a JANO friend's house in Lakewood and met a whole bunch of some very cool people. And now we have some more Japanese friends some of the attendees at the party were participants in "international" relationships, marriage or other, where one "spouse" was American and the other "Japanese". And we added another Uchinanchu to our network! Yeah!

Anyway, the son of the host is seriously into legos. I don't know how old this kid is, but I gotta say I was really impressed with his creation.

The other fun part of the party was the food. Stereotypical maybe, but when you get a bunch of Japanese women together the food available is generally going to be really good. Throw into the Japanese half of food some really good American food (the BBQ chicken was fabulous) and it's just good eating! Thanks for Having us!

Speaking of Lakewood and international marriages, the company I work for just hired a additional Japanese translator. She lives in Lakewood and is married to an American. If she expresses interest I'll introduce her to our new friends we found while we were in Lakewood. I've already shown her the JANO site.

I think it is time to kill this post. So bye for now

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