Another Weekly Update

In one sense, this was a pretty boring week.  I haven't really done much out of the ordinary.  We had a Revolution game this past Monday, but we're season ticket holders so that's not new.  I went to the archives this week, that's not new.  Was really lax on the exercise this week, not too exciting there.  So, really a quiet week.

The most exciting part of my week (which would belie the above clip art graphic) was the two days I spent encapsulating 1865 Civil War Muster Out rolls.  That was FUN!  Tuesday, I spent the afternoon taking average size muster rolls through the encapsulator (sounds like an impressive piece of machinery, huh?), then we trimmed the excess plastic off and rounded the edges.  We got through about 10 of them.  Not too shabby.  Then Thursday afternoon, we learned how to do over sized Muster Rolls.  They do not fit the neatly pre-cut plastic we used on Tuesday, so instead we had to cut the plastic off a roll.  Very neat.  We got through 8 of them on Thursday, but no trimming or rounding.  The larger the Muster Roll, the longer it takes to encapsulate.  I really, really enjoy doing this.  Sadly, due to the interns officially finishing up today, there is no more Muster Out rolls in my future.  Though, I may try to convince the person in charge to let me do some.  It may work because she likes me.  ;-)

And since that was the most exciting part of my week, I'll get onto the exercise and fitness portion of the post.  LOL!  I'm down another 1.2 pounds this week for a total of 14.8.  Ugh.  So CLOSE to 15 pounds!  I wish I had drank one more glass of water or did one more workout.  I know that sounds dumb, but come on!  So close to 15 pounds!  I'm averaging just under a pound a week, as I've been at this since early May, so 16 weeks.  Wow.  I wish I were a little further along, but 14.8 pounds off is better than not losing it OR (heaven forbid!) gaining it!


Total Down Since May: 14.8 (Doh!  So close to 15!)
Total Loss for Dec. 23 (19 weeks): 37.4 (ACK!)
To Go: 22.6
Exercise: 29 exercise points/3,492 calories burned

I've got a 5 mile run this weekend for my half marathon training.  Haven't done five miles probably since my last half marathon!  LOL!  But, I think I can handle it.  Wish me luck!!

Another end of week recap!

Here we are again, Friday.  Ahhh...Friday.  Such a nice day.  One of my favorites actually.  Time to recap the week's adventures!

Had a great running week so far.  Last Saturday did my lovely 3 mile long run of half marathon training.  Went well.  Hot, but well.  Had two more runs of 30 minutes this week.  Tuesday's run was amazing!  Kept me in a good mood all day!  Thursday, well Thursday wasn't as good, but it was a moral victory for going out there.  Tomorrow is a 4 mile run.  I think I can handle that.  ;-)

Tuesday night we hit the Rail Trail again for a Sunset Scramble ride.  This time we started at Gladfelter's Station and rode north into York.  It was odd riding the opposite of our normal route.  We usually start somewhere and ride south.  We stopped at the Colonial Courthouse in York for a private tour.  One of the main reasons we decided to go on the Sunset Scramble.  LOL!  The bike ride totaled 15.2 miles, not bad for a day with a 2 mile run in it.

We had a nice tour guide who's father spearheaded the campaign back in the early 1970s to build a replica of the original courthouse.  The original was built in 1756 and was located at the intersection of George and Market Streets in downtown York (it was called Centre Square then).  In 1841, the citizens of York decided to tear down the courthouse.  When the bicentennial of the US came upon the nation, the York Bicentennial Committee decided to rebuild the courthouse as a tribute to York's Revolutionary roots.  Did you know the first formal government was established here?  Yup, those good ole Articles of Confederation was designed and signed here.  It was also the first time the country was referred to as the United States of America.

Inside of the York Colonial Courthouse.  The bench at the long table against the wall is original to the 1700s.  (Sorry for the crappy quality, my cell phone isn't as good as it thinks it is.)

 

Tuesday and Thursday I had the chance to learn how to deacidify and encapsulate historic documents.  Fun!  Tuesday was the deacidication day, where I used the machine to spray 1865 Civil War Muster Rolls to keep them from getting any worse.  The solution applied keeps the paper in the same condition it is in now for the next 100 years.  In reality, we didn't deacidify anything, we just added a solution to keep it from getting worse.  Then on Thursday we encapsulated the documents we deacidified on Tuesday.  This was a really neat process and simple to do (once you learn how).  We got through about 7-8 of the documents.  This coming week, we're going to work on getting the rest encapsulated.  Pretty neat stuff.

I hit up the Lancaster County Photography MeetUp on Thursday night for a presentation on Sports photography.  I just love taking sports images.  Baseball and football are my favorite.  I have photographed a 5k for a local fire company.  I had a good time doing that and may be doing that again this year.  Learned a few things about sports photography and enjoyed the presentation.  

And it was a successful week in healthy eating (and obviously) exercise.  :-)  Down another 1.4 pounds since last week.  Slowly but surely getting there.  And to top it off, I tried on a pair of jeans that didn't fit anymore...that now fit!  Love when that happens!  Course the weather is too warm to wear them anytime soon, but the point is, they fit.  :-)

Total Down Since May: 13.6
Total Loss for Dec. 23 (20 weeks): 37.4
To Go: 23.8

Exercise: 37 Activity Points/5,139 Calories Burned

First Week of Half Marathon Training

Well, today marked the completion of Week 1 of Philadelphia Half Marathon training.  My schedule is a Tuesday/Thursday 30 minute run, with Saturdays being long run days.  Week 1 had me run 3 miles for my long run.  It still boggles my mind that I can start a half marathon training at 3 miles.  There was a time when 3 miles seemed like a joke.  Who could start out at 3 miles?  Why isn't it 1 mile or even half a mile?  But, I am now one of those people who look at three miles and say "only" three miles or "only" a 5k.  Wow.  When did that happen?

This is my path today for my long run.  Tuesday's photo is the same intersection, just going the opposite direction (same side of the street).  I decided I was going to run the hill (you can see it in the distance) so I wanted to do it when I was fresh and not at the end when I would be tired.  I also wanted to push myself a bit today.  I feel like I could go faster if I pushed, so today was a move your ass faster day.

Started out at 79 degrees, which was not pleasant.  LOL!  And since I was pushing myself and going up a big hill, it seemed even less so.  But, I got my butt moving and got up the hill.  I did use the run half a mile, walk 1 minute like I've been doing.  I felt like I was running faster than Garmin was saying, but for the first mile and a half it didn't seem to reflect on my times.  Then, at the 2 mile mark, it showed.  I was at 27:38 for 2 miles.  Wow.  I know that's not much to most runners, but Tuesday I hit 2 miles at 28:35 and Thursday I was at 2 miles at 29:15.  What an improvement!  In 30 minutes (which is the T/TH schedule), I ran 2.17 miles, .08 miles better than Tuesday and .12 miles better than Thursday!  Nice!

The rest of the run went well.  I had high hopes I could do the 3 miles in under 40 minutes, but it was not to be - 41:30.  It's ok.  I stopped 4 times for water and walk breaks.  When I finished I still felt good.  Which I think is the point of the walking breaks, to not feel depleted at the end.  So, not a bad first week.  :-)

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For those interested in the weight loss component of my little blog, I gained .4 pounds this week. Bah!  I knew it was coming.  I ate crap Friday/Saturday/Sunday, which is a no-no for me when trying to lose.  I just need to get back on track Sunday to have a good week and I didn't.  Ah well, I'll survive.  It's less than half a pound.  I can lose that and more this coming week.


Total Down Since May: 12.2
Total Loss for Dec. 23 (21 weeks): 37.4
To Go: 25.2

Exercise: 30 Activity Points/4,142 Calories burned

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If interested in the Archives part of my life, I am almost finished my 1918 Influenza Epidemic research.  I have a couple more things to look up, then I can start organizing it for publication on the website.  I'm sad to see it come to a close because it is so fascinating.  I got to look through cadaver receiving books this week, which are so neat.  I know, a bit morbid, but really interesting.  Especially the patients that come from mental institutions.  Once I finish off the last few places to look at (which I have a feeling won't have much, but I still want to check them out), I will then start writing up a finding aid that will be published on the Archives website.  Kinda cool.  :-)

I also cleaned some Muster Rolls this week.  We didn't clean last week, so it was great to get back to it.  It also looks like I'll be able to continue cleaning them once the official interns have left.  I was asked if I would be interested in continuing and of course I said yes.  :-)  Looks like I will be able to go and clean them without oversight come late August and into the fall.  Woohoo!

Weekly Round-Up

Thought I would change things up a bit.  Change can be good.  :-)

* Last Saturday had a fabulous 12 mile bike ride on the Rail Trail.  We keep improving our time, which I'm happy about.  No photos this time around.  We haven't hit anywhere on the trail you haven't seen before. 

* Still working on adding mileage to my days.  This week, my walking total was 10.5 (I believe).  Stupid me forgot to add the mileage to my log.  I have the amount of time, but not the distance.  Note to self - write down distance too!

* Had a really good time at the Atlantic League All-Star game at Sovereign Bank Stadium on Wednesday night.  The Revolution really impressed me with their execution.  Awesome job guys!  I got to enjoy the President's Race and get my photo taken with Teddy!

* Because I'm a big Teddy Roosevelt fan and know all about how he has not won a single race since 2006, I contacted the Let Teddy Win! blog to see if they would want a recap and photos.  They did!  Check it out!  I got credit and my photos were used!!  Nationals racing presidents at the All-Star game

* Archives work keep going well.  Having fun.  Enjoying the people I work with.  I paged this week, researched some 1918 Influenza Epidemic, helped re-box incoming documents, and helped go through paperwork from Ed Rendell, the previous governor of the State of PA.  Never a dull moment!

* Had another successful week on the weight loss front.  Down another 1.2 pounds last week.  Woohoo!  Down a total of 11.4 since early May.  I'll take it!  Just 25.8 pounds to goal!

* Had a nice Friday evening with friends.  Enjoyed some good food, good conversation, and good friends.  A good way to end the week.

* Saturday we hit up the trail again.  This time we managed 15 miles.  :-)  Longest ride yet!  And in 1:29:07.  It makes me laugh that we added on 3 miles from our first time on the trail and we're still about the same time.  Apparently, we're getting faster.  Yea!

* After our ride, we hit up Central Market in town.  We were going to get Maple Donuts, but by the time we arrived, they had closed.  We got iced coffee then tried out the Student Run Bakery from the local culinary school.  Pretty darn good!  And they were really nice to boot!  I think we may have found a great place to get a post-ride snack.

What to look for this coming week (hoping by writing it down, I get back here more often!):

* An interesting comparison of Weight Watchers original points and Lose It!

* Race review of the Harrisburg Mile

Friday Update

What a week!  A long holiday weekend, lots of exercise, archiving, getting drenched.  It sure was adventuresome!  LOL!

The holiday weekend had hubby and I hitting the Rail Trail here in town twice.  We decided to check it out on Saturday since it's a great place to ride without having to worry about traffic/cars.  Saturday we managed a nice 12 mile ride, starting in town, reaching just beyond the Howard Tunnel, and back.  Not too shabby!

How nice is this? The scenery is awesome and with all the shade, it's so much cooler than being out on the streets or at the park!

 Howard Tunnel - A little scary going through since there's so little light, but a really neat feature of the Rail Trail.

Saturday and Sunday we had holiday BBQs.  Had a lovely BBQ with a friend and boating in the early evening.  Then we anchored the boat and watched fireworks.  How's THAT for fun?

Monday brought us back to the Rail Trail for another ride.  This time we parked at a different station and managed 14 miles (in the same time we did 12 Saturday.  Go us!).  Had a really nice ride again.  A little stickier than Saturday, but I'm telling you, that canopy of trees really helps!  Had an enjoyable ride.

Hanover Junction Museum - Abraham Lincoln changed trains at this stop in November 1863 on his way to Gettysburg to give a speech.  ;-)

I look like such a dork!  Riding the Rail Trail.  I brought my own water bottle along since it was hot and I knew we were aiming for 6-7 miles one way.  Hanover Junction was great as I refilled my water bottle there for the return trip!

In archiving work, I finally finished off the George Washington research I had been doing and got that in the mail.  Phew!  Wednesday, I paged for the research room, which is such fun!  Basically, if you come in to do research, you look up the information you want, write it down on a call slip, then either an archivist or a volunteer goes into the big tower and gets it for you.  I spent a lot of time going up and down the tower getting boxes, maps, and books.

Pennsylvania State Archives

I also got to get back to my 1918 Influenza research.  I know I'm weird, but it's fascinating.  I'm currently looking through patient admission records through the War Department and determining how many were admitted for Influenza.  July and August had maybe 4-5 people a week.  Late September picked up with 20-25 per week.  I'm now up to October 6th and the number of patients being admitted is up to 40 a day.  I really enjoy finding information on the Influenza Epidemic.  

The weather around these parts have been HOT.  But, I have been trying to up exercise by walking more throughout the week.  I've arrived a little earlier in the mornings to the archives so I can add some miles in.  I then head out at lunch for a 15-30 minute walk, depending on how much time I have.  And then in the afternoons I try to do the same, walk a little bit more than just the half mile to my car.  In a normal week, I would walk 3 miles.  This week, with some concentrated effort, I walked just under 7.5 miles.  Not bad.  It would have been more had a deluge of rain with lightening and thunder not opened up on my head Thursday.  As I left the archives, on the advice of the National Weather Service at 3:30 p.m. rather than at 4:00 p.m., it POURED.  It was supposed to start raining until 4:00 p.m. (thanks NWS!).  I got soaked.  I suppose it wouldn't have mattered adding in that extra half a mile, but the thunder and lightening were a bit scary.  But, not bad for trying to add some miles in during the week!

And all of this comes to the lovely surprise of losing 2.8 pounds this week!  Yea!  So, since the beginning of May, I'm down 10.4.  I'm very happy with this.  I have a goal weight in mind before we hit Jamaica and I want to hit it.  I have 27 pounds to go!  23 weeks to lose 27 pounds.  This equals out to 1.16 pounds a week.  That seems manageable.  Let's up so!

Friday!

It's Friday!  Woohoo!  I've always liked Fridays, even when I wasn't doing anything (like the last 2 years) because even if it meant nothing to me, at least hubby wasn't working.  But, now with the archives, Fridays are great again! 

It was a busy week at the archives.  Monday, I learned how to mend historic documents.  Which was awesome!  Tuesday, I spent my day doing research into documents written by or to George Washington.  Yup, that George Washington.  Wednesday, I spent the morning researching some more, but also learning to page in the research room.  This means, when people come into the archives to research, I head up into the Tower to grab the box or carton they want to look at.  So, looks like I'll be adding that to my duties as well this summer.  Thursday, I continued working on the Washington papers, then spent the afternoon cleaning Civil War muster out rolls.  What a fun week!  There's always something new and fun going on.  :-)

We had a bit of a scare this week with Elizabeth.  She's our little kitty, who is generally pretty unadventuresome.  The other evening, hubby couldn't find her.  Which isn't that unusual.  She tends to sleep alot and sometimes hides when she does so.  But, he was in the kitchen and started hearing noises in the ceiling.  So, he asks if I've seen her and since I hadn't, we started wondering where she could be.  He heads upstairs to the bathroom and sees the cabinet door open and Pooka staring into it...straight into a hole in the wall.  Turns out our unadventuresome kitten had crawled into the hole and was wondering around inside the walls!  I grabbed the treat bag, called her name, and shaked the bag.  She came out.  Phew!  Silly little cat!  We are now being more careful with that cabinet.

Elizabeth the Kitten, who crawled into the walls of the house this week.

On the never-ending battle to lose weight, I am down another pound this week.  Finally!  I am in the next 10 pound range!  I haven't seen numbers like these since May 2010, before we headed to Europe.  Shesh!  I'm very happy to be here and am hoping to keep going.  I have 27.6 pounds to go by the end of the year.  It's totally doable!

Thought I would update the goals for June (because I tend to forget I set goals).  Not too shabby!

1. Lose 2.5 pounds. - down 1 this week, 1.5 to go
2. Run 20 miles (I'm already at 13 for the month.) - up to 16 miles, with a 5k this Sunday
3. Bike 50 miles (I'm already at 38 for the month) - up to 47.5 miles 

So, not too shabby with those goals.  I see hitting goals 2 & 3.  We shall see about goal 1.  I don't mean to sound pessimistic, but weight loss seems to be coming in 1 pound increments lately.  If I miss my goal by .5 pounds, eh.  No biggie.  It's still a loss and that's what matters in the long run.  But, I'm going to try hard to hit that 1.5 pound mark by Thursday!

Future

A few years ago (well...maybe more than a few) I headed off to college to a small, liberal arts school in Central PA.  I enrolled as a Communications major to gain a degree to go into radio.  I wanted to be a DJ.  Which was just one of several career aspirations I had growing up.  I had also wanted to be veterinarian and a singer.  I realized I'm not a math or science person, so the veterinarian quickly fell by the wayside.  I then wanted to be a singer (country), but then I realized I would have to go to Nashville all by myself and I didn't think I could do it.  So, I figured the next best thing would be to work in radio.  Logical, right?

Well, I hit college and started taking classes in Communications.  Then I realized I wasn't all that into the radio thing and I started hearing it is a really hard field to work in.  So, I switched concentrations to Public Relations and graduated with a major in Communications, concentrating in Public Relations.  Oh, and a minor in History.  Which is a passion, but the only thing I could think to do with it was teach and I just wasn't into that.

After graduating, I decided I wanted to go back to school to obtain a MA in history.  I was working full-time in non-profit fund raising, but I really just enjoyed my history classes.  Then I got engaged and money was diverted. No more school.  Then in 2005, I went back to school in the hopes of finishing the degree I started at a new school, as we moved to Central PA from Southern NJ.  I took one class and again withdrew for monetary reasons.  Ugh.

Then in Jan. 2008, I applied to a new school and entered into another program.  This time for American Studies and 2 years later I graduated with an MA.  Yea!  I decided on this journey that I no longer wanted to work in fund raising.  I wanted to work in a museum setting.  So, I worked my tail off (while working full-time) and graduated in December '09 with a 3.93 GPA (yup, bragging a bit).

So, today, I met with several people at the State Archives to see if I could start volunteering there.  I had a great meeting with them and got a tour of the archives.  And it looks like next week, I AM VOLUNTEERING AT THE ARCHIVES!!  There is a group of interns coming in next week for their summer internships and I'll be treated like an intern more than a volunteer, which is nice.  This means I'll be doing more than just photocopying and filing.  I'll get to work with documents, answer inquiries, make documents that will be put on the website.  I am sooo excited!  This is what I've been wanting to do for the last several years and all I kept saying in our discussion this morning was, "that sounds fun."  It seemed they do not often get people "interviewing" who responds to their suggested projects as fun.  :-)  But, for the first time in a long time, I think I will enjoy getting up in the morning to go to "work."