30 at 30

Follow me this year on a journey at:


www.heather30at30.com

I'd love your comments there!!!

Look, I'm 30:

Fitness, Y'all

This is everything I did in the name of fitness yesterday:

-30 minute walk
-Kettlebells - 60 shoulder presses w/ 26 lbs. - 60 rows w/ 44 lbs. - 30 push ups - 50 swings - 5 pull ups
(I wasn't really feeling the swings or pull ups so I didn't force myself do a lot)
-7 mile bike ride
-Soccer practice (this involved more standing around, though, than running)
-7 mile bike ride back home

Good times!  I'm trying to ride my bike more often to commute places rather than drive.  Denver is a good city to do that in.  Those 14 miles took approximately 1 and 1/2 hours total.  Driving would have been about 25-30 minutes total.  So time is a consideration.  Also, I'm trying to work out extra to get ready for a soccer tournament I'm playing in this weekend, and to burn my vacation weight off.  I just back from Hawaii for my friend Carrie's wedding.  It was really beautiful.  And I ate a lot.  A lot of delicious foods.  Plus I'm turning 30 in exactly a week and I want to feel great about myself!!!

And finally, I just really like being active.

Cheers to fitness, y'all!

I Don't Care What You Say Anymore This is MY LIFE

I recently karaoked Billy Joel's classic song, "My Life."  I love this tune.  I've long thought it as a theme song.  This is my life, and I make the decisions for it.  And that knowledge gives me the freedom I've always desired.  I am almost 30.  I love being an adult.  Even though it is hard sometimes, my adulthood is something I claim and own.  Just like my mistakes and my victories.  It's all part of me.  Glorious me. 

I feel like my Colorado life is finally working.  I have some consistent work with a new client editing on an Avid on a PC making car commercials (flashback to the beginning of my career!).  I also have some consistent Kettlebell clients that I'm training.  And I'm doing some promo/demo work for some extra cash.  Feels good to be making money and not going any further in debt.

In addition, I have great friends here and fun things to do and I'm constantly meeting new people.  Life is good.  And I have big, exciting plans for 30.  Stay tuned for those. 

I'm going to Hawaii tomorrow.  Ahhhhhhh yeah.

Post Hiatus

I was doing really good there for a while on deep, meaty posts. Then I stopped. I got busy and lost my free time that I was spending thinking on a deep level. I need to get back there. My scheduled has slowed now so hopefully I'll be digging back into the meaning of life; and/or just trying to figure out how to live best by my standards.

I'll be 30 in less than a month and I have BIG plans for the year. And you'll be included in them for sure. Anyone who wants to be included will be. Weeeee!!!

I can't stop listening to the new The National album called High Violet. GET IT. But warning: it's depressing; but in a good way. Like in a beautiful way. I am sad while I listen, but then immediately happy I listened. If that makes any sense.

Here are two recent pictures that I love:

These are my Dallas friends.  We went on a trip to Florida for Bridget's Bday.  Aren't we cute?

These are my Denver friends at a music festival.  Bridget was in town visiting...so she actually made both pics, but of course she's a Dallas friend.  This photo looks like we're the new cast of a modern Friends.

1 + 1 = No Sum

I've heard, or read, that we are just the sum of our experiences. If that's the case, then every decision we make and every reaction we have is based on our past. Which isn't always a good thing. Our past might have taught us hurt, rejection, fear, inadequacy, distrust, disgust, hatred, etc. So why, on Earth, would we want our present reactions and decisions to be based on such things?

What if we could look at each moment as an individual entity, because really they are, and react to that moment from the present and not get the past involved at all. It would take some separation of conscious and subconscious thought, but I think it's possible.

What is best for me right this second? If I know nothing of fear, rejection, etc...what will I do right now?

It's all part of being who we want to be. It's part of molding ourselves into our ideals. The past is gone. Really all we have, ever, is RIGHT FREAKING NOW.

Spoiled. Rotting.

Maybe it's because I'm nearing 30; maybe it's just because...but I keep realizing a lot of things about my life. It's like I suddenly see myself under a microscope. And I like it; but I hate it. It's hard to ingest truth when it rears it's undeniable and ugly head.

This is the latest little rearer: I am a spoiled rotten child.

My parents didn't/don't spoil me.

As the adult in charge of myself, I spoil myself. I allow myself to be lazy and stagnant. I allow myself to watch too many hours of TV and eat whatever I want and however much I want of it. I allow myself to party too hard and sleep too late.

I sit back and watch as my life goes no where. And I coddle myself. I say, "oh, that's OK that you did nothing challenging today." I tell myself, "well, you don't have any work to do that you're getting paid for today, so there is no need to use your brain today. Just watch some TV and play on the internet."

And there I sit; and there I rot.

I'm a terrible parent to myself. I hope to God if I have kids I treat them better than I do myself. Because good parents don't allow there children to rot. They challenge them, they make them do their homework and participate in extracurricular activities; they encourage them to try new things. Growth is not just encouraged; it's mandatory.

Do you have any idea how much I could have learned since I moved to CO 14 months ago? SO MUCH. At least one foreign language. I have always had so much free time here since work is sparse. I have wasted literally hundreds of hours, hundreds of days. It's disgusting to think about really. I feel like a more self-motivated person in my situation would have soaked up all those hours in learning and growing.

I am mad at myself. And I decided that I was going to change my ways...stop spoiling myself. Instead, love myself. Because I think good parenting comes from a deep rooted love. And I guess that's missing in me - for me.

It's hard though to change. Laziness and ambivalence have become a habit; a way of life that is hard to break. My brain overloads easily as I'm reading a lot now and trying to learn new skills. But I'm gonna keep pushing. Because I want to shine. I want to live.

I don't want to rot.

Rebellion No More

I'm gonna tell you a truth that I am embarrassed about. I just want to get it out there while I am working to solve it. Here it is:

I am a compulsive and/or over-eater. I hate this about myself and it's been going on since I was about 12. I can trace it back to selling chocolate bars in middle school for a cheerleading fundraiser. For whatever reason, I ate a whole bunch of them one day alone in my room and it felt good. I felt sick, sure, but something about sneaking around eating something I wasn't suppose to gave me a rush. But the end of eight grade, to my surprise, my cheerleading uniform barely fit.

I understand a lot of people are emotional eaters. They eat instead of feel...or as it's been said, they eat their feelings. But my case is slightly different. Through years of discovery, I figured out my eating was some form of self-sabotage and/or rebellion. It seems to get worse the better I look. And most recently, the last 7-8 months, I look the best I ever have (due to kettlebells), and it's continually getting worse and worse. And it makes me feel crazy and hopeless. Like, why can't I let myself just look great? Why am I sabotaging this with calories?

Then I started reading this book, Women Food and God. It's good...like, really good. Close to the end, Geneen Roth (author), says something that hit home for me.

"It's never been true, not anywhere at any time, that the value of a soul, of a human spirit, is dependent on a number on a scale. We are unrepeatable beings of light and space and water who need these physical vehicles to get around. When we start defining ourselves by that which can be measured or weighed, something deep within us rebels."

Obviously, this is why I rebel. Because, deep down, I don't want to be defined by my body. But I allow that to be so. And since moving to Colorado, I've felt like I don't have a lot of other stuff going for me. I even said to a friend once, "My life is kind of crappy, but at least I look good." No wonder I am rebelling.

So if we stop defining ourselves by a number on the scale or a size on a tag, there is nothing to rebel against. We are all so much more valuable than what our vehicle looks like. I have to get in touch with my self-worth. You should too. We are, after all, unrepeatable beings of light and space and water. Unique.

Thoughts from the Airport

DIA...gate C39...here I am again. It's the DFW gate. I'm headed to Dallas then Houston for my good friend Liz's wedding. She is the first of 4 good college friends of mine getting married this year. FOUR. That, coupled with the fact that I'm turning 30 this year, makes me feel like an old maid. But mostly, I don't mind much. My life is pretty rockin'. I can't sit around thinking about what I don't have when I'm blessed with so much as it is.

My best Denver friend, Aly, is on her way out to Peru this week. I am sad. Denver is not gonna be the same without her. But I'll make it through. More Avett's: "Things change and get strange with the moving of time, it's happening right now to you." Here is a little video I made for her to highlight the fun times in the Mile High City.

Aly in Denver from Hub Productions on Vimeo.

The wifi at DIA kind of sucks. I'm trying to watch Food Inc. on pbs.com, but it's not buffering very well. The older I get, the more health conscience I become. In my younger years, I was "health conscience" in a "I want to be skinny" kind of way. So I ate a ton of fat free stuff...which I know now is all crap for your health. The word healthy has taken a different shape. I want to eat real, fresh, natural food. Not overly processed poison...even though that shit taste good and is easy to get. But I urge you to eat healthy is a real sense...no pesticides, hormones, preservatives, etc. Eat clean. Be healthy. Your body will thank you by performing and looking great.

Boarding.

Home. Home?

I just saw The Avett Brothers play 2 nights in a row in Boulder. Which was an absolute pleasure, as always. One thing is for certain: listening to them makes me want to move home. They have a lot of lyrics about family and missing their Carolina home while being on the road.

I've actually been thinking about Dallas a lot lately. I love Denver, but my life doesn't really work that well here. Do I have a ton of fun? Oh yes, indeed. Do I make much money? Oh no, not much at all. Is there any hope of that changing in the near future? I doubt it.

As much as I enjoy my life here, I don't feel secure in my life here. And it's been like this for well over a year. I'm going to Dallas next week and I'm gonna think and feel really hard about where my whereabouts should be.

"Changing the plans I've been setting on, scared by the way that my life is getting gone, [Texas] one day I'll, someday I'll come home. [Texas] one day I'll, someday I'll come home."

"Always remember, there is nothing worth sharing, like the love that let's us share our name."

"One foot in and one foot back, it don't pay to live like that. So I cut the ties and I jumped the tracks, for never to return."

Newness All Around

Hello faithful few followers! I have some things to tell you.

1- I'm still just completely over men and dating. So that last post wasn't as fleeting as you may have thought it was.

2- I am now HKC Certified! That means I can teach people to use kettlebells! I love this new job pursuit. For now, I am training out of my basement with 5 kettlebells. I have 6 clients and they seem to be loving it. I am too! I was worried I wouldn't like training, even with kettlebells, but that is not the case at all. It's AWESOME. After my first day of training, I couldn't even sleep...I just laid in bed thinking of how I can better explain technique to my clients. It's so satisfying and I am happy to be helping people get stronger, leaner and happier!

3- Next week I am headed to Monroe, Louisiana to be a part of a film crew that is documenting 12 year old Zach Bonner's philanthropic walk across the U.S. to raise money for, and awareness about, homeless youth in America. I will be working with a crew of 3 dudes shooting and editing webisodes and capturing footage to be used later in a documentary. Read more about Zach's 6-month journey at March Across America.

4- One of my best Denver friends is moving to Peru in 2 weeks! I am gonna miss Aly so much but I am so happy for her. I made a cameo in her announcement video. You can see that, and follow her journey, at Aly in Peru.