What motivates you?
As I have written about earlier, I'm struggling with my weight and I am not really motivated to loose it.

When we are younger we are brainwashed into believing that skinny is better and it will attract a partner/spouse; that's why we should keep our weight down and our looks up.

When I was in high school and in college I was very athletic (strange for a geek, I know) but back then girls did not do weight training. In college I Fenced and did quite a bit of training: stretching, weights, swimming, fencing, running and even playing chess. Each item brought different skills to the game and I was quite good at it. BUT the effect of all this training was I put on quite a bit of muscle. I think I went to college weighing about 110 pounds and I was quite skinny. When I graduated, I weighed about 135 and at one point my father said I was FAT. 

Now that I am older and I have a husband (and not looking to find another one!) I certainly don't listen to those who tell me that IF: I put on a little makeup I would look "more appealing" - Hey my husband likes the way I look. By loosing weight, think of all the great fashion I could wear - No thank you! I am quite happy to wear baggy jeans and t-shirts. Then there are the general health reasons - well I may not be in World Class shape but I am not going to die of a heart attack any time soon (if this post is not finished, maybe I dropped dead here and now).

As you can see, telling me all these "common" reasons doesn't do it for me. I need a goal - some thing to accomplish and everything else is just a consequence. 

Here let me give you an example.  Years ago I was told that I "needed" to learn Java (the programming language) as it would help my career. I started to learn it and got rather bored and set it aside and actually, it has not influenced my career one bit.  Now I have an Android phone. I want to program a few apps for myself and oh, guess what -  I have to now learn Java. Learning Java for just knowing it does nothing for me. 

Basically it come down to this - I need a goal for learning. To learn, I need something to apply it to. 

So were it this all going? Over the past few months I have done some more weight training and just going to the gym to lift weights is not so fun for me. I was taking walks at lunch but I gave up because the results were too slow to appear.  But through all of this I found I was dreaming about RUNNING. Nothing was chasing me, I not running way from anything. I was just running, out along a trail  and I WAS HAPPY, I WAS HAVING FUN.  Hmm, maybe my dreams were telling me something?

So yesterday I got new running shoes; track pants and jog bra.  I have also set a goal of running a 5K in by summer, and no it won't be fast AND I am going to aim for a 10K in either November or December. 

Today I went for my first walk. Here are my stats: 2.14 miles in 29:51 minutes. My average speed was 4.31 mph. 

FYI I am using the free app Google MyTracks which you can use to record distance for all sorts of activities.  I will be posting my progress as I go

Back at the start of February I got a new phone, not an iPhone but an Android phone.

I would like an iPhone, I am a bit of a Mac fan-boy but there are several reasons why I won't. First I won't switch to AT&T nor will I go to Verizon. I like T-Mo and I really hope AT&T won't be allowed to buy them. Secondly, I want to write an app or two and it is much easier (time and cost) to write on the Android platform than on Apples.

I downloaded the software to write my first app and I have a getting started book but then my progress was halted with the OT. So now, I hope to get back on track and get some coding done on Sunday mornings.

The other distractions are games. I am hooked on Alchemy (on the phone) . So far I have 153 items out of 370 items that can be made.  I also am keeping a list of every combination. Yes, I know a list of the combinations can be downloaded but that is not the fun of the discovery. Plus the one list I have seen does not show that some items can be made more than one way - which is what I am working on.   Then there are the items I would make:

• Sound + Ghost == Banshee
  
• Sound + Boiler == Whistling Tea Kettle
• Dust + Dust == Dust Bunnies

If I remember, I will post my combo list when I am done making all 370 items and I will list out my ideas.

Along the lines of Alchemy because you "make things" I am also starting to play Minecraft with some of the guys from work.   Well they play, I am learning it. So far I have drowned because I could not get out of a pool of water and I lost all my energy.  EE set up a server in his house so his son can play with his friends and he has opened it to CL and myself as well. EE's son who is under 10 is better at this than me, I have a lot of catching up to do.  My current goal is to actually gather some wood to build my bench - that and survive the night.