Holi-dazed and laid low, now sparkin' up!

 Bah-humbug. I don't enjoy the holidaze. The consumerism, the lack of eco/green-ness (energy and paper waste are each up a third in the month of Dec...for what? not all of it is filled with good cheer....)

This year, I fore-stalled as long as I could, then got rounded up into it via family demands, and ended up stuck, polluting, in traffic, in nasty gray snow, until I hit the highway and shopped at my local co-op for as many things as I could get away with giving from their more earth-friendly wares...fair trade hot chocolate for dad, beeswax, local candles for my sisters and mom, lots of things for baking, and was thus given at least a respite from the walmartXmas monstrosity that so many love so much.

It WAS nice to see my family, and I stayed out of the range of my Bro-in-law who pissed me off a lot by sending out email reprimands re: gifts. I hope I didn't ruin it too much for my sister who I told that I hate xmas. We are ONLY NOW winding down. As Eastern Europeans, with Eastern Orthodox roots, we celebrate both during and after everyone else does. When I was a kid it *was* fun having 2 sets of gifts -on Dec 25 and Jan 7- along with the 13 course almost all veggie feast (one fish course) very time and labor intensive (see Tony Bourdain's trip to Russia to understand food prep). But this year, one sister was stuck in Canada for an extra day, and was dying to be here, while another sister had her agenda of inlaws...they missed seeing each other by a few hours, and never did re-connect; the last one pretty much put a shadow over New Year's. Meanwhile, in the 'real' world, more hostility and fighting, the economy crashing ever further down (not very heartening for someone starting a long stalled job hunt).

So after all that, in the "12 daze of xmas"/kwanza/new year's/13 days of solstice, my PC was on, but I was not. I did some thinking and a tad of drinking, and tried to envision peace, prosperity and putting my affairs in order. Not done yet, but I still have the weekend, I feel, to finish.

So, a mellow time, not much exercise, quite a bit of non-care about diet (though I was happy that I am several sizes smaller than last year) and I officially started my job hunt today, by applying for a job in CA, the day they announced the worst unemployment figures in 2 generations, and that the CA state budget isn't funded for 30%...so I might not get it, but at least I tried.

I also sparked up the exercise yesterday via snow shoveling (though I probably could have gotten more cardio in if I had bothered to do it the day before and also today). I also started doing some qi gong in the new year, but haven't been diligent about it. Okay...so off I go to say hi to all the kind folks that I interact with here. I figure "it's all good" since I am in it for the long haul.

As to the gym, my free one-month membership is up, though I found a free 1-week thing at another gym I might take advantage of later this month. I have been taking it easy but next week will decide whether to try for the local 'biggest loser' free 3-months-of-gym-as-long-as-one
-stays-in-it, along with, at that time, following a more rigourous low-cal, high-health food plan.