Take-Out

"You deserve a break today."

-- McDonald's ad slogan, 1971

Self portrait 7-8-14

"Cinderella never asked for a prince.

She asked for a night off and a dress."

-- Kiera Cass

Everybody needs a day off from their job now and then.

But the family cook doesn't get days off, or even weekends off.

Meals come around with surprising regularity and hungry boys just keep getting hungry day after day after day after day.

I feel like I've been in the kitchen non-stop lately. And as much as I do enjoy cooking for my family, I'm not immune to burn-out.

So last night we ordered take-out and ate it straight from the takeout containers.

The food was overpriced, unappealing, mediocre and lukewarm. 

But I'm not complaining. 

Take-out is all part of my grand plan to make sure my hungry guys appreciate my culinary prowess and never take for granted how good they've got it.

A Day Of Rest

"Rest and be thankful."

-- William Wordsworth

Self portrait 5-24-14

"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day,

listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky,

is by no means a waste of time."

-- John Lubbock, The Use of Life

I took a day off yesterday, which almost never happens.

If it's good enough for God, I guess it's good enough for me.

By a "day off," I mean I didn't exercise/work out, which is a pretty big deal seeing as I get all twitchy and anxious at the merest mention of being grounded. But with my tendency to overdo it, my body's been paying the price.

When my first thought in the morning changes from "Yay! I get to take a bike ride!" to "Fuck, I have to take a bike ride," red flags go up. When I don't have enough energy to even walk up the stairs without my stiff and swollen legs burning with oxygen debt -- yep, more red flags.

Usually I have to force myself to take a day off, especially when it's a perfectly gorgeous day like it was yesterday. But gorgeous day or not, I simply didn't have the energy to do anything about it.

So I gave myself a -- gasp! -- recovery day.

Instead of hammering 3 hours into the wind, I hung upside down on my inversion machine to get the lactic acid moving out of my legs. I did some mild stretching. I sat in an ice bath, which felt blissfully refreshing. I wore compression tights under my jeans all day, and then even slept in them.

This morning my legs feel much better, but I'm still really wiped out.

So I think I'll do something really wackadoodle and take two days off. I know, it sounds crazy, but maybe I'm getting a little wiser in my old age.

Intellectually, conceptually, I know how important rest and recovery are. But in reality, I've always had a hard time doing it. I've always been a "bigger, better, faster, more" kind of athlete. Sometimes to my own detriment.

But maybe I'm turning a corner, or making a realization, or simply learning a little tiny bit about how to take better care of myself.

Better late than never, right?

Who knows? This could be the start of something good.