77663 Steps in Week One

It is 11:30 pm on Saturday night and with 10107 steps for the day I am officially declaring week one of the challenge done (at least for me!). I ended the week with 77663 steps and managed to hit 10000 every day. I do admit that tonight involved marching around my hotel room in order to rack up the last 500 steps. I have blisters on my blisters and my feet absolutely ache.

I learned this week that I need to walk at least an hour before work and 30 minutes at lunch or I am going to end up having to walk for hours and hours in the evening (although I enjoyed most of my 4 hour walk on Thursday). I also learned that prior to this week I really did spend a lot of my time standing still - waiting at baggage claim, waiting for elevators, waiting for meetings to start, etc. Now I pace. I am in constant motion through most of the day. Another lesson learned is that an hour on the treadmill seems to take much longer than an hour strolling through London so I need to find some scenic walks when I get back home.

Big applause for all of you that started the challenge this week (whether you hit your goals or not) and on to week two! For those of you that haven't started it's not too late. Start walking today.

So I have a record, here are my steps for week one:
Sun - 12364
Mon - 13076
Tues - 10342
Wed - 11094
Thu - 10370
Fri - 10310
Sat - 10107

The Grand Tour

Today I took City Sightseeing's Grand Tour of Stockholm. This is the first weekend that I have spent in Stockholm that didn't involve winter gear so it seemed like the right time to play tourist. Phase one of the tour involved boarding a double decker bus at the Opera House, putting on headphones, and sitting back to listen to the commentary. Here are some shots from the bus:

It was fun to be able to see so much of Stockholm and to hear the commentary on what I was seeing. Once the bus portion of the tour was completed, we disembarked and boarded a boat to tour the Stockholm Archipelago. We basically saw everything we had see on the bus but this time from a boat. It was interesting to note that they hadn't coordinated their commentary and gave conflicting information on things like the average age that women from Stockholm live (80 for the bus tour, 82 for the boat tour). Here are some views from the boat:

It really is a beautiful and thriving city and I give it two thumbs up if you ever have the chance to visit. The only bad thing about the tour is it involved a bus and a boat (which means plenty of dramamine) and no walking so by the time the tour ended at 4:00 I still had 8000 steps to take.

It's Deja Vu All Over Again...

Having grown tired of sleeping at the office, I moved from the Campus Inn to an actual hotel in Stockholm for the weekend. I triple checked that my pedometer was attached (I had misplaced it earlier and lost half a day of steps as a result!) and headed out to Gamla Stan (Old Town) a quaint area with lots of fun shops and the best hot chocolate in the world. There are a couple of shops I love to visit when I come here so I set off in search of them. As I had never entered Gamla Stan from the direction I came from tonight, I was really turned about. I climbed some stairs and found myself in the Royal Palace courtyard. Not sure how that happened. In my last two trips here I have never ended up at the Palace. I made a mental note to come back tomorrow for a proper tour. I then set off walking away from the palace, moseyed down some side streets, and found myself back at the Royal Palace. I watched the changing of the guards and then I set off in an entirely different direction, wandered down some streets and found myself once again back at the Royal Palace where I asked no one in particular "are you KIDDING me???" I still have no idea what happened but all roads tonight seemed to lead to the Royal Palace.

Victoria and Albert

Today was my Victoria and Albert day in London. I was supposed to move to Bracknell, England today but plans changed and I was able to spend one more day in Central London. I was working today but I started early so I could take a long lunch break. I went over to Kensington and walked through Kensington Gardens, saw the Albert Memorial, the Royal Albert Hall, and then walked down to the Victoria and Albert Museum. That added about 4000 steps to my day as I followed my GPS on what had to be the most convoluted and complicated way to get from point A to point B but I got to see a lot of Kensington. (Although it took so long, I had to rush through the museum and then hop in a cab in order to get back in time for my post lunch meeting). After work, two of my coworkers came into the city and we walked around London and grabbed some dinner. One of them is from our Stockholm office and says she has all sorts of walking ideas for me once I get to there on Wednesday. I think once I get home, people are going to need to provide me with sightseeing ideas in the Centerville/Bountiful area so I can stick to this routine! BTW, if you haven't see the BBC/A&E mini-series Victoria and Albert, I highly recommend it. (PS How are the rest of you walkers doing??? You know who you are.)

12364 Steps in London

The 10000 Steps a Day challenge started today and I got to take my steps in London. It turned out to be a rare warm and sunny day here in London and I took advantage of it by staying outside most of the day. I started the day by heading to Buckingham Palace to take the tour of the State Rooms, where I promptly dropped my pedometer while waiting in queue. Thankfully it appears to still be working. I spent the rest of the day being a tourist, riding a double decker bus, cruising down the Thames, and wandering. I had lunch at the Tower of London and dinner at Waterloo Station. When I got back to my room at about 6:00 I realized that perhaps I had spent a little too much time on the buses and the boats as I only had 6500 steps for the day. After a brief rest, I grabbed my bag and went out to wander some more. I walked around Parliament (taking photos of the clock from many directions), Westminster, and St. James Park. It was a beautiful evening and the crowds were still out enjoying the day. I do admit to being tempted, when I finally hit the 10000 step point, to grabbing the nearest taxi and heading back to the hotel but I prevailed...mostly because I was in the middle of a walking path in St. James Park so a taxi was not an option. I am now safely ensconced in my room at the Marriott County Hall for the night, contemplating my stiffening muscles and weighing the odds of actually being able to move them through 10000 more steps tomorrow.

12 in 12

So today I worked on my new years resolutions. I am either 8 months late or 4 months early - you can decide. As I have heard many times it takes 30 days for repeated activity to become a habit so I have decided to start a new habit every month to see if I can form 12 new habits in 12 months (hopefully good habits)! With great timing, my friend Debbie invited me to join a 10000 steps a day challenge starting on the 23rd and running for 8 weeks. Therefore, I have made walking 10000 steps a day my habit to form in September. Although the challenge starts on Sunday, I took it for a trial run today. Do you know how many steps you have to take to hit 10000 steps??? That's right, you have to take 10000! That's like 10 miles a day. Going for a walk this morning and then doing my usual routine for the day netted me 5000 steps for the day. Clearly I need to figure out how to add another 5000 steps to my day. Suggestions anyone? Also, if anyone wants to join the challenge, go get yourself a pedometer and start walking on Sunday and then share your progress through email, Facebook, your blog - whatever you are comfortable with! Let the walking begin...

The Orange Bag

On my way home from New Hampshire, I had a layover at JFK. I was sitting there people watching, amazed by the chaos as a flight was being boarded. There were people pushing and jockeying to get on the plane as soon as possible, others crowding the desk trying to get seat assignments; it was crazy, noisy, and stifling. Pretty soon it was lottery time as the gate worker starting calling out the names of the lucky people who had gotten those last available seats. Finally, the doors were shut and the plane was on its way. The gate area was calm and peaceful once more. It was at this point that I noticed there was a lone orange bag just sitting there. Somewhere out in the world that night, someone was saying, in some language, "hey, where's my orange bag?" (probably followed by phrases like "what do you mean you don't have the orange bag" and "I thought you had it"). Sadly, if the often repeated security warnings are to be believed, the unattended baggage was confiscated and destroyed. Poor little orange bag.

Good Friends

Every now and then the stars and timing align to make good things happen. I am working in St. Paul this week and it just so happens that my former team from Audatex is having a meeting in Minneapolis this week as well. Last night I had the chance to have dinner with two of my former employees and now personal friends! It was so much fun to sit and talk with them about life, love and the pursuit of happiness. To hear about their work pain but not be responsible for resolving it. To ask about things in their personal lives without worrying about crossing some invisible human resource line. As I was walking back to my hotel after dinner, I thought about how lucky I was to have worked with such amazing people and how even luckier I am that we moved so easily from coworkers to friends. Thanks Tara and Ylrick - it was great to see you again! (Don - I missed seeing you. Stupid flight delays).

Don't Talk At Me!

I was sitting in a meeting and two people were coming at me with opposing viewpoints and strong opinions on a decision that I needed to make. My brain was about to explode when I found myself saying "to quote my two year old niece - Don't Talk At Me!". They laughed and settled down and we reached a decision. I just want to send a shout out to Elli to thank her for teaching me how to say "SHUT UP" in the language of a two year old. Love you!

New Hampshire 2009

I spent last weekend in New Hampshire to celebrate my niece and nephews 8th birthday. It was such a fun weekend! My dad rented a 12 passenger van so we could all ride together which was definitely the way to do it. We toured the University of New Hampshire where my brother is earning his Ph.d; had lunch at Calef's which is one of my favorite little shops in NH; we headed to Nubble lighthouse - once in the rain and once in the sun; did a little shopping in Kittery at the outlet malls; we had a marvelous lobster dinner - what could be more perfect than eating lobster from Maine while in Maine; we spent a beautiful sunny day at York beach (and Laura and I have the sunburns to prove it); and of course we attended the twins baptism and confirmation. I had so much fun hanging with my my brothers family, getting to know his in-laws better, and spending some quality time with my own parents. What I didn't seem to spend much time doing was taking pictures so I will refer you to my mother, my sister-in-law Laura, and her mother if you want to see more (and infinitely better) pictures!

Somewhere Out There 2008

I got the idea from one of my friends to turn my blog into a book - sort of like my journal for last year. Pictured above is the final result! It's great to have a hard copy of the year and I am looking forward to doing it again this year. I promised my sister-in-law I would pass on the website. I used http://www.blurb.com/ which was a little pricier than some of the other sites but gave me more editing flexibility. One of my friends uses http://www.blog2print.com/ and has been happy with the results she got there. You can also do a search on google to find other sites. The things that were important to me: 1) The ability to easily import the blog in for publishing; 2) the ability to choose whether to print comments or not and to delete comments if desired; 3) the ability to edit (go spell check); 4) the ability to add additional pictures; and 5) the ability to move entries around so that I could group shorter blogs onto a single page. For all you bloggers out there, I highly recommend creating your own masterpiece!

Friday Flashback - Swim Lessons

I was with my family on vacation in New Hampshire this last weekend. One night at the pool my youngest brother Mike was teaching his kids how to swim and I was telling them how I helped their dad learn to swim. When we were growing up we had a pool in our backyard and I remember being very worried that something would happen to Mike or Matt (Mike's twin) if they didn't learn how to swim. I would get in the pool with them and make them practice kicking and blowing bubbles and floating. I might have been a wee bit bossy about it. I promised Mike's kids that I would post the picture of me teaching Mike to swim so here it is. Isn't he so cute!?!