The Red Pony

I started something new yesterday: I am giving myself points to reinforce healthy habits.  I wanted stars, just like in elementary school, but Target didn't have any, so I bought the round, mardi gras-colored stickers, which are easy to write on.  Here's what gives me points:

• Eating intuitively
• Engaging in movement (for fun or profit)
• Flossing
• Meditating
• Doing all my chores

The last one is in there as an incentive for me to not let dirty dishes linger in the sink.  I decided that movement could be done for fun or profit (that is, regular exercise), because I'm still allowed to move around on my rest day, and wouldn't want to lose my movement point simply because I didn't go for a 30-minute run.

Yesterday I earned 4 points, since I didn't do any meditating.  I have yet to decide what these points will go towards.  I might make a list of exchange rates with special random treats for myself--like a movie, or a latte, or a Sunday morning spent in bed with a lot of comic books.

Totally unrelated to comic books, last night I finished the last two stories in John Steinbeck's The Red Pony.  When I went to the library, I wanted to check out The Grapes of Wrath, but the downtown library didn't have a single copy.  Remembering the scene in Matilda, I checked out The Red Pony instead.  Beautiful.  Simply beautiful.  The details were so wonderfully rendered, the characters were all sympathetic, yet realistic, and I found myself transported to that ranch in early 20th century California.  What it interesting to me, upon reflection, is the way that each story follows the protagonist, Jody, but after the final climax of each, there is so little feedback from him.  Instead, the reader is allowed to be swept up in the actions and emotions and feel their own conclusion to each vignette.  I recommend this book to everyone.

I'm also currently reading Jack London's The Call of the Wild, and may dip into a book of Virginia Woolf's short stories, if I get called in to the county court to hang around waiting for potential jury duty.

Yep, I exercised this morning!  It was very similar to Monday's weight lifting.  Bodyweight rows, bench push-ups, hanging knee raises, assisted pull-ups, farmer's walk, and a little bicycling.  Picked up a copy of "Women's Health" magazine from Dec 2009 to read while cycling, and it was horrible!  So much misinformation.  Calorie shaming, a core-strengthening workout they imply will shrink your stomach fat.  'Cause everyone knows that spot-reducing totally works.  [Insert comedic eye roll and sarcastic prat fall.]  I don't think there were any useful load-bearing exercises in the whole magazine.  But there were certainly lots of products to buy!  This is why I much prefer "Men's Fitness" magazine, because that, at least, will give me a clever new weight lifting routine to try.