Cleaning

Categories: Life, Random

I spent a couple of hours cleaning today. I do that every week, just not always my house. But I get paid when it isn’t my house. Any way, it would appear that cleaning is also a time when I get a lot of good deep thinking in too. I remember when I worked custodial during college. I loved those few hours every night where I was on my own and just cleaning. I got a lot of thinking done then. It was time for myself where I put my body on cruise control to do the job and let my mind go where it needed to go.

So it looks like I get deep thinking done when I’m either cleaning myself or cleaning my surroundings. Maybe it helps me clean out my head. I know that when my apartment, particularly my desk, gets too cluttered, I can’t think straight. It’s as if the messiness around me is reflected in the messiness of my thoughts.

I have also always loved a clean bathroom. That’s probably my favorite room in the house to clean. There is something exciting about a freshly scrubbed clean and organized bathroom. Washing dishes doesn’t excite me so much, but even clean kitchen counters can be exciting. But a clean bathroom, that’s a treat. I love it. My bathroom gets cleaned more than anything else because I enjoy that so much. I think that means I’m weird.

This is my Spring Break at work, and I’ve been needing to go through my closet again. Maybe I’ll squeeze some time in with all the other things I have to do this week to do that. That will temporarily create a bigger mess of course as I pull everything out of my closet to go through it, but it will feel good when I’m done.

Beauty

Categories: Life

Have you ever seen snow covered mountains on a cloudless night under a full moon? It’s beautiful.

Warm days

Categories: Exercise

Today was beautiful. The sun was shining. It was the warmest day of the year, 71 degrees. And I didn’t leave school till almost 5:30 today. I had to look and smell nice for a meeting at 7pm, and I didn’t think there would be time for a run. But the weather was just too nice. So as soon as I got home I quickly changed into my running clothes and went out for a two miler. It was beautiful. I’m so glad I got outside.

Showers

Categories: Life, Questions, Random

What is it about showers that helps me think clearer? Last week I had some rather big issues I was trying to sort out, and I couldn’t figure out what to do. Then while I was in the shower it suddenly came to me what I needed to do. Why is that?

For the most part I’ve always taken showers at night. There are several reasons for this. One, it means I don’t have to get up early enough to do it in the morning. It also meant my hair would be dry so I could curl it if I wanted to. In Brasil we would take showers at night so we could wash off all the bugs we’d probably picked up during the day before they got into our sheets. I’ve also found that a shower is incredibly relaxing to me.

Could it be that when I shower I’m washing all the “bugs” of my day, all the things that are bothering me and irritating my brain cells, I’m washing them off? Is that why I can think clearer? Is it the sound of the water falling? Is it the warm heat? Is it the brain massage while washing my hair?

I’m not complaining. I really enjoy those moments when suddenly everything is clear and it all makes sense. I’m just wondering why they happen so frequently in the shower.

My Tuesday run

Categories: Exercise

Yesterday was perfect running weather. The sun was shining as I drove home from work. And with the windows down there was a chilly breeze. I decided it was warm enough to show of my bright white legs while I ran and opted to not wear my running tights. Since I went three miles on Monday, I decided to only go two and a half yesterday. I also had some meeting last night I needed to be showered and good smelling for. My muscles aren’t terribly happy with my running, but it still felt real good. I did more Yoga after to stretch out my muscles.

Small victories

Categories: Exercise, Health

I like to run. I’ve liked running my whole life. I’m not too terribly consistent with it. But for the most part when I get the urge to go running I can just go out and run for three miles without any problem. I sprained my ankle on New Year’s Eve, and for some reason it took my ankle forever to heal. It still hurts when I surprise it with too much weight. So I hadn’t been able to run for too long for my soul.

I started slowly going out occasionally a few weeks ago, and it was sad. I could barely go two miles, even if I stopped to walk, before I’d feel like my heart was just going to pound it’s way out of my chest. I felt so out of shape.

Today, I was tired, exhausted, but the weather was nice and I thought it would be a good idea to go out running anyway.

I decided I’d aim for two miles since that seemed realistic. After about a mile and a half I thought I’d see, if I stopped to walk for a bit, if I could get three miles in. After about two miles I thought it would be fun to see if I could maybe, possibly, actually run the whole three miles. After about two and a half miles that started to seem crazy, but I kept pushing through. And when I was just a block from my place, almost through with three miles, I was wondering how much further I could go because I felt great! I decided I should probably stop anyway so I’d be sure I could still move tomorrow.

But I ran three miles. It feels so good. I did some yoga stretching for about twenty minutes when I got back and I’m feeling real good. I love when my body works like that.

Sometimes you just need to yell

Categories: Life, Venting

I’ve been too tired lately to deal with annoying people. I almost didn’t come to work today because I realized yesterday I was too on edge and it would be better if I didn’t have to be pushed over that edge. It would’ve gotten ugly. Unfortunately it isn’t that easy for me to just take a day off of work and it usually isn’t worth all the trouble. It wouldn’t have been worth it this time.

But, I was just provided with an opportunity to let off steam. The weather today is very cold, hard rain and lost of wind. So in the interest of student safety, it was determined that we would have recess inside today. Some students have not quite grasped the concept that they are never allowed to run in the halls, and three decided to run down the hall at full speed towards their classroom after lunch, making a lot of noise passed classes that were still in session, mine included. So I went out in the hall, arms folded, feet apart, and made them come back and sit against the wall outside my room. Oh that felt good.

By the end of lunch I had a collection of about 25 students who thought they’d be able to run down the hall. None of them were all too excited that they’d lost their entire recess. But I could’ve cared less. It felt good. It was also fun for me to hear the students around the corner warning each other to watch out for Miss Giles.

So now I’ve blown off some steam and I feel better.