Ms. News Goat

I did the Oklahoma City Memorial Half Marathon yesterday, and it was great! The race was well-organized and had so many supportive volunteers and people cheering that I think I ran on adrenaline most of the way. I finished with a 2:29 chip time, which is about what I expected. And none of the marathoners beat me—at least according to chip time—which made me happy. I lost 5 minutes or more in line for a port-a-potty during the race… I think I read somewhere how to avoid that by controlling liquid intake better, so I’ll have to work on that. Other than that, I was really happy with the whole experience. Next up: running a marathon.

It’s been about six weeks since I installed the Life Balance app on my PC and my Palm. I’d highly recommend it to anyone who wants to get a better handle on things. Life Balance works especially well with the Getting Things Done (GTD) system, though I actually started using the app before I read the GTD book. Both systems work on the premise of breaking your projects, goals, etc. into manageable actions that you keep track of… For example, a project like “do taxes” is too big for your mind to manage, so you need to determine the individual tasks involved, like “buy tax software” and “collect medical receipts.” Having the next step lined out for me keeps me from procrastinating so much—I know exactly what I’m supposed to be doing.

One thing I like about Life Balance is that it lets you assign levels of effort to an action. So things I dread doing—like a phone call I don’t want to make—can be listed as taking extra effort. Life Balance then gives you something like extra points in your little pie chart when you do that thing. Somehow it makes it a little easier to force myself to do difficult things if I know I’m getting extra credit for them. Of course, the pie chart of what I’m doing with my life is pretty cool too!

For a to do list, Life Balance isn’t cheap (currently $79.95 for the Windows + Palm version), but they do offer a free month-long trial so you can decide if it works for you.

I’ve now logged 209.3 miles for the year. I passed the 200-mile mark on my long run (11 miles) last Sunday. For my reward, I ordered a training shirt from the upcoming OKC Memorial Marathon (where I’ll be competing in the half-marathon) and a collapsible water bowl for my good running dog.

It’s spring in Oklahoma—which means the flowers are blooming, the people are sneezing, and everyone is suddenly a weather expert.

I hate tornado season, and not just because you can count on weather reports interrupting the last 10 minutes of your favorite TV show (which is especially annoying when you’re watching it three days later on your TiVo, but I digress). I’ve been afraid of tornados since I was a little girl—I have vivid memories of running to our storm cellar whenever the sirens sounded, and staying huddled there listening to the weather radio for what seemed like hours. My worst nightmares always involve tornadoes. And last year, a small one passed within a mile of our house!

I decided it was time to feel a little more in control of the whole situation. I’d like an underground storm cellar (the best hide-and-seek spot ever) in our garage, but we can’t afford that right now. So I started by making a disaster kit.

There’s various lists online of what to include in a disaster kit. I started with this one, and made various adjustments to fit our situation and the space we have available. I’m keeping everything in a backpack in our downstairs bathroom—which happens to be the only lower level, centrally-located room in our house without windows. (That’s the best place to be if a tornado’s coming. It can be fun squeezing 2 adults, 2 good-sized dogs, and 2 frightened cats into a bathroom, though.)

We also came up with a general plan for keeping our kit updated, which mostly involves things like stealing some cans from it now & then whenever we run out of things, then replacing those the next time we’re at the store. We’re trying to keep it pretty simple.

Hopefully we’ll never need to use the kit. But the $40-ish I spent to set it up really isn’t that big of an investment, especially compared to the huge amounts we pay for house insurance, car insurance, etc. And maybe I’ll feel just a tad less nervous the next time the weatherman interrupts Desperate Housewives for a severe weather report…