Unrealistic Expectations

Yesterday's blog entry was about maintaining perfect "streaks" and how it can put a lot of pressure on us.  Later in the day, I was working on the fugue from J.S. Bach's Prelude and Fugue in C major from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II.  I played this piece back in high school, so it's been at least 30 years since I studied it.

The prelude isn't all that difficult for me and I had that relearned and memorized quickly.  It came back very easily.  However, fugues are another story because they are very intricate.  It's easy to get your fingers tangled, difficult to bring out the correct notes, and make it musical, to boot.  In addition, in a fugue like this one, in certain places it's hard to remember which way the notes go in a certain voice when it doesn't have the melody.  It weaves around this way and that... quite complex.

After 3 days, I could play it well with the music but I was very frustrated that I couldn't play it memorized all the way through.  I berated myself a little bit... "What's the matter with you?  Just play how it goes!  You've worked on it 3 times already!"

Suddenly I laughed out loud.  Really, I did.  I thought to myself, "THREE TIMES, Jeanne?"  I had literally practiced this piece for a total of what... and hour and a half over a three-day span.  After thirty years away from it, I was mad at myself that it wasn't memorized already?

I thought of how I blogged about perfect streaks - how I often perceive not maintaining that streak as failure.  I realized this is a similar problem.  I had an unrealistic expectation - and I "failed."   

Will I achieve memorization of this fugue?  I am certain I will.  However, it's going to take longer than 3 days to do it, and so what if it does?  Why did I decide the amount of time I had spent on it amounted to failure??

It can be motivating to set a time or date for a goal, but we have to be realistic when we do.  We wouldn't say, "I want to lose 10 pounds by Friday."   We should look to the future with reasonable expectations, and if we don't quite make it and fall short, so what?  Look at how far we've come.  A small failure to achieve a specific goal doesn't make the entire journey a failure.  So what if the journey will take a little longer than we thought!  Look at the positive.  Re-set and renew!

The Pressure of a "Streak"

We hear about "Streaks" all the time on SparkPeople.  I've got some streaks going - like logging in every day, and blogging every day since January 2nd.  I'm not sure how long I can keep up the blogging one, but it's fun to see if I think of something to write about.

I've got some streaks in my personal life, too.  The first one that comes to mind is cleaning the kitchen every night.  Sometimes my husband or kids clean it, but most of the time it's me, as I'm very particular about it.  I like to wake up to a clean, organized kitchen.  So even if they do all the "dirty work," I will often finish tidying up and making everything extra nice.  It is a rarity that I leave dirty dishes in the sink or on the counter, but it does occur from time to time.

I started a new streak the same day I started back on SparkPeople.  Flossing my teeth.

I really hate flossing.  I don't know why.  It's not like it takes all that long.  It wards off gingivitis and it makes dentist visits more pleasant since your gums aren't as tender.  I flossed my teeth every day at one point - maybe my late 30s? - for a few years, barely missing a day.  But then I missed a couple days, and then it turned into a week, and then a month... and then eventually I only flossed once in a blue moon.

After 3 root canals, it's probably too late to save the rest of my teeth from their inevitable fate, but I am determined to do what I can and set a good example for my children.  (Since they saw the agony I was in for 2 days before my last root canal, I think that may have done more than any positive example I can set, but hey... I also want to show that if *I* can change my habits in middle age, anyone can change anytime!)

So, here I am, a month into my nightly flossing routine.  I've only missed one day, and I'm happy to say I didn't just give up and decide, "Oh well, I failed again!" and lose my resolve.  I think that's the biggest problem for me with streaks.  I often see it as an "all or nothing" kind of thing, and then give up because I "failed."

Keeping track of a Streak can put a lot of pressure on us and contribute to a fear of failure.  A child with perfect school attendance gets sick.  Would you send the child anyway, risking infecting the other students, just to keep the streak intact?  I've seen runners (myself included) keep training through injury so they can get their planned mileage in.  I've seen the tremendous anxiety straight-A students have at the thought of getting their first B since letter grades began on third grade report cards.  The fear is so great that some resort to cheating and risk the chance of punishment.

Then, for some people, once the "failure" has occurred, it can lead to a lost desire to try.  I blogged about this a few years ago in "Falling Down the Stairs."

We have to remember what is is actually important.  What are we trying to achieve?  Perfection?  I don't think so.

We might not log into SP, exercise, or floss our teeth.  We might get a disappointing grade on a report card.  Our team might lose after several undefeated seasons.  We might make poor food choices.  We might get sick or injured.  However, these are just inevitable bumps in the road.  What's really important is the learning and personal growth we gain on our life's journey.

I wasn't always a kitchen "neat freak."  I left dishes in the sink for days when I was in college.  What changed my ways was finding roaches in my apartment kitchen.  Yuck.  I decided to never again leave anything out that might tempt a bug or rodent of any kind to come out of hiding and crawl across my countertop.

As I wrote this blog, I realized my nightly kitchen routine is technically not a streak, because it's not perfect - and that's totally okay.  It's a habit.  It's a way of life.  Even when I have the occasional "failure," I don't see it as one.  For 25 years, 99.9% of the time, I've kept a clean kitchen, which made me think of it as a streak.  I'm sure at some point, one night I'll forget or decide not to floss my teeth.  However, I hope my new habit "goes the way of my kitchen."

May we all get to the point where we don't beat ourselves up or give up due to our small "failures" as we focus on the lifelong habits we are trying to create or maintain.

"I Hate the Cold!!!"

Every Fall, my husband says he's going to keep a tally of how many times I utter this phrase until Spring arrives.

"I hate the cold!!!"

I think I blogged about this once years ago, as I seem to remember writing the sentence, "There are not enough strong words to emphasize how much I hate it."

I got up this morning, put on my running clothes and said, "OK, I'm going to get a long run knocked out so I have the whole day to work on schoolwork and other things."

Then I looked at the weather station info.  14.2* F.

14.2* F?????

14.2* F!!!!!

What the heck?  Is this Virginia or Maine?

So, here's the dilemma.  Run long on a treadmill (not a terrible option) or get suited up and as Nike says:  "Just do it."  The photo below is an old one.  I'll let you know which one I chose.

In case you are interested in my get-up there... I'm wearing an earband covered by a balaclava, a long-sleeved technical shirt (I'm guessing) under my running fleece, special mittens with finger glove-like things inside them, running tights, SmartWools, and Hoka shoes.

Waiting for Tires... While Avoiding That Spare Tire

I sit in Starbucks as I write this.  If anybody out there has read my blog for the past few days, you'll notice three of the entries mention this Starbucks visit.  Since I write my entries a few days in advance, I'm getting the rest of the week's blog entries knocked out while sitting here, waiting for the garage to put the tires on my car that it needs to pass inspection.

I spent a decent amount of time poking around SparkPeople and writing my previous blog about my socks.  Then I figured I ought to get busy taking care of my responsibilities.  I'm taking a Health class right now at the community college (which I blogged about a few weeks ago in "A Full-Body Workout - in Our Minds.")  So I started reading.

The current chapters are about nutrition and managing one's weight.  Oh, how ironic.  I thought of the things I've eaten today at Starbucks while waiting.

I ate breakfast at 8:15 (the lower-calorie egg/cheddar English muffin - with a splurge on the high-caloric White Chocolate Mocha, I admit.)  Then I bought a decaf coffee around 10:30.  Since I had been sitting here for two hours, I figured the least I could do was buy something else.  1:00 rolled around, and I was a little hungry.  So I got their "Power Lunch Special" - a tomato/mozzarella panini, a bag of white cheddar chickpea puffs, a string cheese, and a 24-ounce bottle of water.

So, after reading the chapter on managing weight, I thought to myself, "Maybe I ought to enter everything I've eaten here in the nutrition tracker."  Holy smokes... even though every time I went to the counter and checked out the nutrition information (which seemed like - ok - that's not so bad), in the end it all adds up to 1,316 calories, with 38% of them coming from fat.  And it's only 2:00 PM.  Yikes.

I have to go help with the orchestra seating auditions later today, so to get that run in, it will have to be much later... like the last thing I do before bed, most likely.  I suppose I will also have to make sure my dinner is nutrient-dense and low calorie.  I'm not sure what that will be yet, as I doubt I'll have any time to make anything.  It might just have to be snack-type things, like yogurt and nuts.  A piece of fruit would probably be good.

In any case, my Health book mentioned that Americans who eat fast food 3-4 times a week are far more likely to be overweight or obese.  I believe it.  Even though the things I ate were somewhat lower calorie options and had nutritional value, they had a much higher calorie content than what I would fix at home.  Sometimes we can't avoid eating out, like today, where I'm a stuck until my car gets its new tires.  But on days where multiple restaurant visits are in order, we need to be extra vigilant not to let our choices create or add to that spare tire around our middles.

Super Socks

I'm sitting in Starbucks waiting for my car to be inspected.  I'm reading SparkPeople and thanking members who have kindly commented on my blogs and/or given me words of encouragement.  It's becoming one of my favorite pastimes, and yet I'm not enjoying it as much as usual today.  The reason?

My legs are cold.

It's winter in Virginia (mild compared to where many of you live, so please just bear with this southern weather wimp!)  The outside temperature is 19* F.  When I got dressed this morning, I knew I'd be sitting in Starbucks while I waited.  I opened my sock drawer and looked at my choices.  I started to grab long socks but then thought, "Oh, I'll be running later, so I'll just wear the short athletic ones.  I don't feel like dirtying extra laundry."

What a mistake!  Every time someone opens the Starbucks door, the cold air comes rushing in and I feel that 19-degree air on the little strip of bare skin between the end of my pants and the top of my socks.  Oh, why oh why didn't I wear my long socks?

Enough self-pity, here.  It's really not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things.  But it nudged me to think about passing along this helpful hint for those of you who hate to have cold feet in the wintertime.  My absolute favorite socks in the whole wide world are called SmartWools.  I learned of them years ago just before my first winter ultra trail race.  The race was Holiday Lake 50K, and you run through 4 streams... well, 2 streams - but you run the 25K loop one direction and then turn around and run it back the other way.  So - 4 stream crossings.

The weather was slated to be about 10 degrees at the start.  I had never run in such cold before and was a little concerned about what would happen to my feet after getting them wet.  The running shop dude told me about SmartWools.  I never realized that wool retains heat even when wet.  Wow, what a great revelation!  So I bought a couple pair of SmartWool ankle socks and yes, he was right.  The stream crossings actually felt good on my feet - like a quick dunk in an ice bath, and then my feet warmed right back up.  It was downright refreshing.

A few years later, I was at Dick's Sporting Goods and I discovered SmartWool ski socks and DRESS socks!  Wow!  So now we've all got SmartWools that are knee-length and mid-calf length.  My kids wear them for marching band competitions in the Fall because that's one thing I remember being miserable about my own marching band experience - my cold feet.

Thanks to SmartWools, my family and I no longer have cold feet or legs... at least, as long as we wisely remember to put on the proper length sock for the activities of the day.  The socks are quite expensive, so I generally buy them when I've got a good coupon at Dick's.  SmartWools for a family of 5 can add up.  Take good care not to lose them.  Ours last for years and years.  The athletic ones last me hundreds - maybe thousands - of running miles before finally becoming threadbare in the heel.

If you are interested in looking for SmartWools for yourself, go to Amazon and put it in the search bar.  You'll see all kinds of socks in all kinds of lengths for all kinds of activities.  Here are two direct links to the ones that we like to wear to church (and also on a daily basis) in the wintertime.
SmartWool Women's Cable socks
SmartWool Men's Dress Socks

Wow, I've never searched Amazon for these before.  I just learned they have a whole lot MORE than socks... glove liners, long underwear, regular underwear, hats, balaclava, shirts, neck gaiters... oh my!  I feel like I just found a treasure trove of snuggly goodness!  Stay warm, everyone!

Fitting In

Because I'm a real planner, I usually write my blog entries a few days in advance.  Ideas pop into my head - things I'd like to write about - and so I keep a running list of topics.  The topic of "fitting in" came to mind, so I jotted it down.  Then I went to SparkPeople and I found this posted to my SparkPage by 1CrazyDog:  "Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner."  - Laozi (philosopher)

Funny how that works sometimes.  Time to write.

Fitting in.  I suppose whether it's good or bad depends on why you're doing it.  I can think of plenty of times when it's necessary to fit in - like if you're joining the army.  I've not been in the army, but from what I understand, you pretty much better learn to take orders and do what they say.  An army can't be very effective with a lot of people questioning orders, saying, "Um, no, I have a better idea..."

However, I suppose that's not what Laozi was talking about, and I think the quote was very relevant to my thoughts of that day.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog entry about strength training - medieval style - with the Society of Creative Anachronism.  My daughter and I planned to attend the big annual get-together in Salem, VA called "Ice Castles," where they were going to have a combat tournament as well as hold court for the investiture of the new Baron & Baroness of the Barony of Black Diamond (where we live in the Kingdom of Atlantia.)  People were bringing their sciences and crafts and it all sounded so interesting that we couldn't wait to see it all.

However, we were a little worried about fitting in.  We are totally new to this.  We don't know all the proper ways to speak, such as the way to greet people.  We don't have any medieval garb of our own and it was going to be cold and windy outdoors, to boot.  So we borrowed some garb from a woman in our local group, and we layered up with 3 shirts and 2 pairs of running tights/track pants underneath our dresses.  We hoped that would be enough to keep us warm as we didn't want to ruin the atmosphere by wearing modern outerwear.

Then I saw the quote that 1CrazyDog shared.  I realized that by worrying about our appearance, not only was I making myself a prisoner - but I was most likely only making myself a prisoner in my own mind.  Probably the people at this event would not care if we wore a coat if we were cold.  If we didn't know what to say or do, probably all we'd have to do was ask.

And that's exactly how it was.  We brought our coats in case we needed them, but we ended up being warm enough in our layers.  We did wear regular hats, gloves, and scarves, however.  We met many nice people who explained what was going on at court and on the field, and we enjoyed ourselves very much.  At the tournament, we even saw a few spectators come who weren't in period garb at all.

So I am glad we got out of our comfort zone and tried something new, without worrying too much about fitting in.  Here's a picture of my daughter with Signy, the current Princess of Atlantia.  She happens to be the twin sister of my running friend Carter (aka Thora - the former Queen of Atlantia), who I mentioned in my other blog post.  My daughter thoroughly enjoyed watching Signy fight in battle, and hopefully we'll be able to attend the event where she becomes queen.

So all this is a reminder to me and a lesson to my daughter to get out of your comfort zone sometimes - don't worry too much about fitting in.  Don't be shy.  Just introduce yourself, ask questions, and be unafraid to try something new.

Have you been lurking on SparkPeople?  Maybe today is the day to join the discussion!

Press Any Key

Some of you know, from reading my mother's blogs last year, that I'm a trained concert pianist.  I spent much of my young life in piano competition all over the country.  I liked it, but not enough to make it my life's work.

So it was a surprise to many people, myself included, when a year ago, I decided to enter the Cliburn International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs, after 25 years away from playing virtuoso-level repertoire.  I was curious to see if I could still compete in an elite international field.  I literally had to dust my music off before beginning to practice.  Long story short, I did very well at Cliburn.  Out of 159 applicants, I made it all the way to the final 12.  

Suddenly, what I thought would be a "bucket-list" item - doing this one thing to see if I still could - took on a life of its own.  I was contacted by people asking me to enter other competitions, to solo with an orchestra, and to perform solo recitals... including one in Germany.  I can still hardly believe it.  

I like to make people happy, and so I accepted all the gigs unless I had a conflict, like my kids' orchestra concert.  I've now done more solo recitals in this past year than I did in all my years COMBINED as a child and teen.  

As I've mentioned in a previous blog, I've been dealing with tendinitis in my arms and hands.  This causes me great anxiety about my upcoming performances.  In addition, I hear my music in my head at night as I try to sleep.  It's very annoying, to say the least, and at times, it is terrifying, like if suddenly my fingers get "tangled" or I have a memory slip (remember, this is all going on in my head.)

I never had any performance anxiety as a child and I don't know why I'm like this now.  The funny thing is, you hear about stage fright.  Well, when I'm on stage, I'm absolutely fine.  I spoke with my good friends who are a professional violinist & cellist, and they said it's totally normal... that a lot of performers feel that way, and in their experience it gets worse as one gets older.  The person is a wreck leading up to it, but once they're onstage, they just get out there and do it - and even enjoy it.

What a roller-coaster of emotions.  No wonder so many performers drink or do drugs.  Seriously.  

Some turn to help from medical professionals. Many of my fellow Cliburn performers took Beta Blockers before going onstage to lower their performance anxiety symptoms.

I really don't want to take medication and I don't want the empty calories from alcohol (not to mention risking alcoholism.)  My friends' solution is not to do any more solo gigs.  Right now I'll admit that sounds like a pretty good solution, but I'm not sure it's what I really want.  So I'm not going to say I'll never compete or perform again.  Do I just need a break after I fulfill my latest obligations?  Maybe.

In the meantime, a friend shared a funny cartoon that I made into my Facebook cover photo a few days ago.  I need to keep it all in perspective... if I mess up, so what?  Just keep going.  

I will try to remember this in my daily life as well...   when something is troubling me, I'll control what I can and try not to worry.  Just press "any key" and continue.  This too shall pass and life goes on!