Handstand Success

Some times I think it's okay to celebrate, so I'm posting my handstand. It took me 14 months of practicing a little bit pretty much every day. I finally hit it for an extended period of time.

Of course as a yogi I should not be attached to the rewards of my hard work but let's say that attitude is still a work in progress. High fives are welcome! :-)

Fuel Right Program

I don't post much about work. And this post isn't really about work but about food and health. It starts off with Hyland though. This last week Hyland kicked off Good Nutrition Month. The basic goal of the month is to give up drinking soda permanently. Basically the idea is that soda provides two and half donuts worth of sugar with each glass (8oz?) and that by giving it up people would be that much more healthy.

Hyland has won company with the best perks in Northeast Ohio for several years running. As part of that Hyland provides free soda drinks for everyone. There is an irony that this month's wellness program is to get people to voluntarily give up one of the benefits. And this month's program so far has been impressive! Today, for example, we got free fruit (see picture above) and a cup for drinking water. The picture below was my take today! Tomorrow I get a free lunch!

But it really kicked off last week when on Wednesday, we had Kristen Kilpatrick, MS, RD, LD Wellness Manager at the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Center (website, google plus page (+Cleveland Clinic, +Cleveland Clinic Wellness) kick off the month with a presentation. It was a tremendous presentation with an huge amount of information.

Home Projects

Our Home is Our Castle

As I am sure is true for every home owner there is always something to fix, tweak, improve on a house when you are a homeowner.  I'm not including those immediate or emergency things that happen.  Just the things that need improvement.  For example, when we were purchasing the house we had someone inspect the house (@Ron_Gerome)  as is typical.  He found that while we had a whole new breaker box which was clean, well done, at grounded, our other items (water heater, furnace, gas) were not grounded.  Not anything ground breaking but not something that you want to let go forever, particularly since it's "not up to code".  So we have begun the process of getting estimates for these items plus those items that we have noticed we want or have "broken" in the meantime.  For example, Arisa and George did something so now the kitchen sink faucet drips non-stop.  It'll probably be a 10 minute job for a plumber.  So we'll get the estimate for:

1. Electrical (done today)
2. Plumbing
3. Furnace and AC Check
4. Masonry (tuckpoint work)
5. Chimney Sweep (probably not this year)
6. Minimal Roofing Repair (not this year)

This Year's Challenge

As I mentioned in my New Year's post, last year I was able to successfully quit smoking. However, it did come at a price - I gained 30 pounds. Since coming back from Japan and prior to quitting smoking I had already put on 20-30 pounds. So that's about 60 pounds in 5 or 6 years. That's pretty bad.

Now, the reality of it is that the last 30 pounds is what really made it bad. That gain in weight was a direct result of quitting something that is even more dangerous and damaging to my health - smoking. Last year, I knew I was gaining weight and eating more "snacks". I made a conscious decision to not worry about it until this year, or rather after a full year of not smoking. I completed that full year so it is time for this year's challenge.

Happy New Year from the Neohawk.org Family

I tweeted and posted very short messages at midnight. However, those were scheduled as I really didn’t want to struggle to get them through to the network as the rest of the United States did as well. I wanted to take my time for a real New Year’s greeting.

Hopefully this post will fulfill that greeting.

--

2011 was a year of transition for the Neohawk.org family. Overall a good year but what’s a good year without some stress to make sure the gray hairs arrive. Here’s the rundown.

Elly finished her freshman year at American University on the Dean’s List and now an “Honor’s Student”. She spent the summer at home working at Target but took off for AU as soon as she could. And this time she pretty much took everything with her, sort of a message to us that she ain’t coming back to Cleveland “to visit”. It’s bittersweet. I cannot help but be proud and excited for her. At the same time it’s sad to think that it’s over already and that she’s her own person now and not my little Elly.

One of the best things for us her parents was the fact that Elly has had the chance to take up dancing again. She is taking a Ballet class as part of her schedule but she also participated in two other performances as well. Arisa and I went to see the AU in Motion (Facebook page) in November. The show overall was tremendous. Given there was wide array of dancers from good to bad, from classical ballet to hip hop and Bollywood. The dancers clearly had worked hard on everything and the show was fun. To be honest though Elly stood out. That’s largely because her piece is designed that way (she was the Sugar Plum Fairy) but also because she was the by far the best ballet dancer.

Happy New Year! 明けましておめでとうございます

Happy New Year! 明けましておめでとうございます

Neohawk's New Homestead

Most of you know that the Northeast Ohio Hawkins Family moved to a new house at the end of June.  For the first time ever, Arisa and I have purchased a house!

Our new homestead is only 5 or 10 minutes away from our previous residence, so George will be attending the same school - Mayfield High School.  We did move to a new city though and we are now in Highland Heights, but Mayfield City School District includes both Mayfields (Heights and Village), Gates Mills and Highland Heights.  The house is about a 5-10 minute bike ride to and from the school.

The house is not that much bigger than the house we were in previously, but the layout is much, much better.  The house overall is in much better shape and incredibly higher quality of any house we've lived in so far.  We bought it with the idea that it'll be really for just Arisa and I as we'll be empty nesters soon.  George has three more years of high school, but beginning this fall both Ken and Elly will spend most of their lives away from home.  Elly, of course, is a sophomore at American University while Ken is a freshman at Villanova University.

While the house isn't that big we have close to one and a half acres (約6000平方メートル). Which for me means alot of gardening space.  As you know, in our previous residence we did some gardening.  Unfortunately, last year I was traveling too much to take much care of it and this year too much flooding to even start.  And then when it dried up some we had already decided to move so I never did plant a garden this year regardless of this post that indicates otherwise.

This summer for me was mostly be about planning and preparing for next year.  I will be planting at least two gardens and a third one eventually.  For the most part, these will be vegetable gardens, though I may throw in some flowers for variety.  In fact, we have a little "hill" that's up against the Euclid Creek where I am planting some native flowers such as the purple cone flower and some others.  Hopefully, these flowers will fill up the area instead of the weeds that were there until Elly and I ripped them out.   In addition to this area, I will be building a raised garden in front of our shed. The plan is for it to be fairly big but we are building it in halves. The first half I'll do this fall, the second half next fall. There is no reason to rush any of this since we'll be here for a while (knock on wood).

One of the big things we need to figure out is what trees to cut down and/or trim. There are three maples next to the house that need to go as they are pushing up against the foundations and will probably cause leaks. We also have two beautiful but massive oak trees in the yard. Both 50 - 70 years old. Unfortunately between the two of them they pretty much shade the whole yard making it very difficult to figure out where to put gardens. But it is more than that - we have probably 6 maples other than the first three I mentioned, 3 pines, another oak tree, an ash tree, a hickory tree and some spruce/evergreen trees and shrubs. Oh, and a dying cherry tree.

I intend to cut down some myself, others we are debating to keep them and, therefore, only trim them. Others we just aren't sure we want to pay to cut them down. So it's a problem we're trying to figure out. And in the meantime I am dreading the fall when all these trees shed their leaves.....

That's enough for now for this post as it has already taken me close to two months to write it. Time to get it out of the way and move on.

How to calculate calories?

As I mention in my long, slow quick update, I've been working out less to lose weight than to quit smoking.  So I haven't really been focused on losing weight.  The funny thing about exercise though is that almost by default you start to lose weight.  Well, actually not weight per se, since it seems that I have stayed pretty much the same weight, but I have certainly gotten thinner.  The jeans I wore yesterday are a testament to just how much I lost. Trust me on that.

Anyway, even though I haven't been focused on losing weight, I am more conscious of what I'm eating particularly since all of my numbers were elevated thought probably not death sentences yet.  So I've been eating items with more omega-3s, fiber, etc., etc., yada, yada, so forth and so on.  I've largely switched from drinking milk to soy milk, for example.  In fact, I'm probably drinking the soy milk more than I ever drank milk.  But I'm also replacing milk in recipes with soy milk, at least sometimes.  

I've also recently downloaded a bunch of 'droid apps that hook up with web sites that help you track your workouts, calorie intake, etc.  But the one thing I don't get is how to calculate calories for something home made.  Most of the apps have pre-defined calorie counts and other nutritional information available because the food they are referencing are commercial products and provide that nutritional information.  But  what about the omelett I made for breakfast this morning?

My Breakfast Omelette

• 1/4 cup egg substitute ( = 1 egg)
• dash of soy milk (1/4 cup? less?)
• 1 tablespoon Parmesan cheese
• 1 green onion chopped
• 1 slice of small onion chopped
• 1/4 green pepper chopped  (if you think of the green pepper as having 4 corners, the 1/4 is just one of the corners)
• 1 garlic clove chopped
• handful of shredded mozzarella cheese
• 2 strips bacon cut in half
• 1 tablespoon Canola oil
• 1 slice of bread

So how do I calculate the calories contained in the above?  I know the cheese and the bacon are my real gotcha's on this ingredient list, but you just gotta have them or it's not a proper breakfast!

Note, along with this I would have some fruit and probably some yogurt.  Those I can figure out, particularly the yogurt.  But what about my omelette?  How do I get the nutritional information for that? 

So I'm headed off for a workout to burn off probably 300 calories(?).  I'm guessing, no hoping,  that'll use up the calories from my breakfast.  Then I'll be sitting pretty on the calorie count front today.

僕とケンも合格！

このあいだ、ジョージが日本語能力試験合格通知が届いたと投稿しました。そのときに僕とケンも試験を受けたにも関わらず、通知が届いていないことでちょっと気になっていたんです。　気にすることはなかったですね。　昨夜、仕事から帰ったら僕とケンの通知がとどいていたんです。

禁煙、ヘルシー食事、運動

昨年末には医者さんのアポがありました。ちょっと恥ずかしいんですが、本当はかなり久しぶりに医者さんのとこに行きました。でも、ありさに約束していたし、年末に余った有休の残りを使う必要がありましたのでアポを取りましたというのhが建前ですが、本当は一番メインな目的がタバコをやめるためにChantixのprescriptionをもらうためでした。それが出来ましたけど、やはり色々なテスト結果があって、もっと健康的な生活を送らないと危ないなと思い始めたのです。ありさに言わせれば、やっと大人になったって、この面に限っていえば。。。笑。

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.

Almost 5 Days

This has been a tough week for me. Don't mistake me, it was not tough at work, or no more than usual anyway. Nor was it tough at home But it's still been a tough 5 days.

I have now gone over 4.5 days without smoking!

2010年感謝祭 - Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

今年の感謝祭は自宅でした。母はボストンに行っていますので、5人家族だけでした。特にエリーがワシントンDCのアメリカン大学にいってから始めて帰って来ていますので5人だけで楽しく過ごせました。

Visit to Lake Erie

Today, Arisa and I headed out on some errands, one of which was to head over to Rick Case Hyundai to ask a few questions and get another key for the car. So we took a little side trip to see Lake Erie. Other than seeing it from around the Great Lakes Science Center, or driving along the Shoreway, Arisa has never been to Lake Erie. And it's been many, many years for me.

I must say, it's a damn large puddle. Of course, we lived a 5-10 minute walk from the beach in Okinawa (East China Sea), it's been a while since we got this close to a large body of water. I miss the sound of waves.