Aaaand it's Monday

Nnnnoooooooooooooooooooooo.

I had two days off work due to Thanksgiving weekend.  I wish I could have a four-day weekend every weekend.  University students have it easy.  If they're smart (and/or lucky), they can arrange their class schedules such that they can have Monday AND Fridays off every week.  I was able to do that all of senior year....which was GREAT looking back.  The downside was that I had 9 hours of class non-stop every Tuesday and Thursday BUT even then, that is less time than I currently spend at work every week.

Earlier this month, I came across an online deal for customized Christmas cards through a vendor called Mixbook.  For $20 (plus $6.98 shipping), I get 40 5"x7" cards+envelopes that are supposedly "silk-finished."  I guess "silk-finished" means that the printing is shiny?

I like the overall result and I am hoping that the prints turn out okay, otherwise I will be sad =(.  Before I set up the print on Mixbook's website, I re-sized my picture to fit almost-perfectly on a 5x7 card but for whatever reason, this was the best I could make their interface do.  During the process, I learned to increase the dpi (aka dots per inch), which controls how well an image can be converted from a digital image (seen above) to print.  If I was smarter, I would have asked a friend who does art & printing as a side job/hobby...well, now I know.  

Bustin' the Booty

I signed up for the Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge on Sunday:

Participants can earn points for eating right or being active (running/walking/swimming/etcetc) and win prizes.  I only glanced over the points system briefly, but there are Advanced/Intermediate/Beginner levels, regular challenges for participants to earn extra points, and points for getting your daily value of fruits and veggies, among other things.  It's a kewl way to motivate myself to work out and track my progress.

Since I'm still in the initial phases of physical therapy (more on that later), I have to take it easy on the weights.  I realized that just the act of pumping my arms while running was very tiring after several minutes because it involved more movement than my left shoulder is accustomed to post-surgery...so no crazy arm-flailing sprints for a while :)

I ran 2 miles at a 2.0 incline on a treadmill and worked on my core for 20 minutes.  While I was proud of myself for being able to run that much after over a month of sitting on my butt, a 2.0 incline is not very impressive considering San Francisco has hills insane enough to hold an annual event like this:

(The video is from an event called Bring Your Own Big Wheel which is held on one of the city's more steep and twisty inclines.  It's basically a bunch of adults riding down a twisty hill on their kids'/nephews & neices'/best friend's kids' toy bicycle.  It's free and draws a huge crowd every year on Easter Sunday.  )

Studying

Instead of studying last night, I fixed my computer and re-installed software for better outlining (facepalm of shame).