Happy Friday, LilyOnTheLam.Com Readers!
I am so ridiculously happy that the weekend is almost here, I could do a Happy Snoopy Dance from Tampa, Florida to Quebec, Canada.
I work primarily from home and as such, I live the life of Wagyu beef or veal. Large animal in small pen with minimal movement. I basically walk from my desk to the bathroom or to the kitchen. I wear a Fitbit activity tracker, so I know that on a typical workday I barely move. You would think seeing only a few hundred or maybe 1000 steps would motivate me to be super active as soon as work is over. But I'm lazy.
I have a big round chair from Z Gallerie. It's called "The Cuddler" (see it here). The chair spins. It can hold me and all of my 827 cats and we watch a scary amount of television and movies from the aforementioned chair.
So about fifty days ago, I decided to challenge myself with one of these "Hundred Day" things that people on social media seem to be doing everywhere. Hundred Days of Happiness. Hundred Days of Gratitude. Hundred Instagram Pictures of My Cat (um or is that just me doing that one?) Well I like being happy. I like to show gratitude. And who doesn't love one hundred pictures of my cats? But I decided to put my own spin on it. I wanted to walk one million steps.
One million to me sounds like a lot, but basically it's 10,000 steps each day for 100 days. Although there's no hard science behind it, the common mythology is that each person should walk 10,000 steps a day. (Which by the way, after I started this journey I read an article saying 7,000 - 8,000 steps is good enough. There's also an article saying walking 10,000 steps a day won't make you thin. The joy and pain of the internet is you can find "an article" backing up anything and everything.)
Anyway, when faced with my current "veal-like" existence I figured my one million steps in one hundred day challenge is better for me than what I am doing now (which is a whole lot of sitting on my butt). So I embarked on the million steps in one hundred days journey.
Lucky for me, trips to New York City and Budapest where I walked 8-14 miles a day helped keep my step count high. But now that I am back from my travels, I have wanted to lay on the couch and stare at the TV. Back to a Wagyu-like existence.
Fortunately for me, my friend Ms. Wisconsin also has a Fitbit and we are linked as "Friends" on our Fitbit dashboard so she could see when my step count started taking a nose dive. Wednesday and Thursday, she helped get me off the couch and raising my step count again. And for that I am very grateful.
On Thursday, I did two walks. The first one while listening to Cary Elwes' "As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales From The Making Of The Princess Bride" on audiobook. Call me schmaltzy, but I just love the movie "The Princess Bride." I was very interested in reading the book but then when I found out many of the actors involved with the movie narrated the audiobook, I chose to buy that instead. I believe it is seven hours long - which equates to seven hours of walking for me. Win-win! I am determined to get my million steps in one hundred days in!
My Thursday was off to a good start. I hit 10,000 steps before 1 p.m. Which for me is pretty darn amazing. I had a lot of conference calls and as usual, I didn't have a break in my schedule for lunch. I have a global job and so the team members from various time zones book up every single minute in my calendar. Lunch generally consists of inhaling something fast while on mute and hoping no one on the conference call asks me a question mid-chew.
I started craving Chinese take-out food. I looked at my calendar - nope, booked solid until 4:30 p.m. My 1 p.m. call was with two of my team members. I sighed and wished that the meeting would cancel so I could walk down the street and get some take out Chinese. One second after I wished this, I received an instant message. My team members needed to reschedule our call.
I did a little "yay, now I can get Chinese food" dance in triumph!
Wish granted!
But then after I called in my order for "House Special Fried Rice" and sautéed vegetables, I thought "Uh oh, what if this was my ONE WISH in the world?" I could have wished for world peace or a billion dollars ... but no, instead I wished for a break in my schedule to get Chinese take-out! OH NO! My life suddenly seemed like The Simpsons' episode where Homer buys the cursed Monkey's Paw!
I will say that the House Special Fried Rice was pretty darn tasty. It's not world peace or all the riches in the world, but in the pantheon of low cost Chinese take-out food it was pretty high up there. Thank you, Plum Tree!
However I did expect my fortune cookie fortune to say something like "You wasted your one wish, SUCKER!" Never have I held my breath before opening a fortune cookie before today!
Now a side note before I continue with this story "A Miracle At Starbucks." Back in early Spring, I was in Las Vegas. I have a rule of thumb where I believe that new slot machines based on recent movies/TV shows never pay out. Even with this theory, I still stuck a $5 bill into "The Walking Dead" slot machine at The Bellagio.
And I won.
Over $350 dollars.
So much for my rule of thumb!
When I giddily took my cash voucher to the redemption machine, out came three crisp hundred dollar bills. And on one of them was stamped a tiny Hello Kitty.
I'm not sure who "LMC" is and why he/she is rolling around stamping hundred dollar bills with Hello Kitty, but I have already determined that this person is "super awesome amazing cool."
If you are a regular reader of LilyOnTheLam, you may know that I am 952 years old and I am obsessed with Sanrio's Hello Kitty. I proudly own this dysfunction. I am single, geriatric and have 847 cats. I am a walking cliche.
So needless to say a hundred dollar bill with a stamp of Hello Kitty on it was like my version of seeing Jesus' face in my grilled cheese sandwich.
I vowed that I would not spend the "Kitty Benjamin" hundred dollar bill. I took it with me to New York, Budapest and Raleigh-Durham ... and each time, I chose not to use it.
When I returned from Raleigh, I was scared I would accidentally give the one hundred dollar bill to someone thinking it was a $10 or even worse a $1. I am not a high roller and if I have a bill as big as a $20 in my wallet, it's a good day. I am also absent-minded, so handing out a $100 instead of a $1 is sadly highly plausible in my universe. Because of my real fear, I pulled the $100 out of my wallet and left it in my car before shopping one day - and kept forgetting to take it out of the car.
OK now back to my main story ...
My last conference call of the day was with two Executives and it was warm-fuzzy-wonderfulness. Lots of kudos for me and great motivational discussion. I was very happy.
After the work day was done, I set out for Walk #2 of the day with Ms. Wisconsin. I was determined to make up for several days of laziness and get my step count nice and high for the day. We had a good walk with good conversation and by the time we said goodbye, I had over 11 miles on my Fitbit for the day. Not too shabby!
I decided to reward myself with a Trenta (i.e. huge huge huge 31 ounce cup) unsweetened Passion iced tea from Starbucks. I pulled into the drive thru and placed my order, then I drove forward. The drive thru has cement curbs on either side - kind of like bowling bumpers, but taller ... and I guess in this scenario, I am the bowling ball.
Well as I navigated between the bumpers, I came to a stomach-dropping realization. I didn't bring my wallet with me! I just had my cell phone, keys and ear buds in my wristlet for my walk with Ms. Wisconsin. I hadn't brought any money! OH NO!
My mind raced - I had pretty much cleared out all my quarters I had in the car weeks before. There were cement bumpers so I couldn't drive off with a "Ha ha, sorry Starbucks!" What the heck was I going to do to pay for my monster-sized iced tea?
Then I remembered the Hello Kitty Hundred. I winced. NOOOO! I have held on to this hundred dollar bill for seven months! I couldn't blow it on a $3 iced tea! Argh! I turned on the light in my car and started ransacking for change. I had a handful of coins from my center console. I started picking through them. "God, WHY SO MANY PENNIES?" I was fishing out dimes and carefully counting them ... argh, I had like $2.30 max. Why did I order the Trenta like some high roller? Was I too good for the Venti or the Grande? Damn me and my champagne tastes!
I looked at the SUV in front of me. The guy was paying with the Starbucks mobile app. WHY, WHY DON'T I HAVE THE STARBUCKS MOBILE APP? I can tell you why - because if I had a loaded Starbucks card on my phone, I would be stopping at Starbucks every day. And seriously, I don't want to be the crazy old cat lady who says "I can't go on my sailing vacation because I paid $6 for coffee every day for the past year." That stuff adds up quick!
But frankly in a moment like this where I'm about to lose my beloved Hello Kitty stamped one hundred dollar bill, I really wish I had the Starbucks app with a loaded payment card. I grabbed a few more pennies and drove up to the drive thru payment window with a wincing sheepish look on my face. "Ummm, how much is it for my iced tea?" I asked like a big loser.
The incredibly cheerful Starbucks lady said "The guy in the car ahead of you paid for your drink order!"
My jaw dropped open and hit the pavement.
"WHAT? You're kidding me - is this a joke?" I asked, my hands still cupping all the coins.
"Nope, he paid for your drink."
I broke into the biggest smile ever. The Hello Kitty hundred was safe! I took a big sip of my free iced tea and drove home.
Free iced tea from a stranger tastes really good.
I have heard of people paying for other people before, but I don't think I have ever been a recipient of this type of stranger kindness. And frankly, I really don't deserve it. Yes, I was scrounging for coins to buy my iced tea and I was in grubby workout clothes. But I was also driving in a BMW. I wasn't projecting "Homeless, please help me!" However the timing was crazy fortuitous - so to the kind man in the SUV who drove off before I knew he paid for my drink, I have to extend a BIG THANK YOU! You really made my day.
And now of course, I need to pay it forward. Maybe I'll go downtown and feed quarters into parking meters for people who have run out of time. I volunteered twice last weekend and I will be volunteering twice this weekend, so maybe I'll run into someone who really needs $3.
Of course with guilt and Monkey's Paw thinking, I also thought "Argh, another wish wasted! Chinese take-out and a free iced tea - I should have wished for billions ... oh and an end to all wars too!"
But I do believe that sometimes the best things are the little unexpected things ... a break in the day when you could really use it. The kindness of a stranger to save a Hello Kitty hundred dollar bill.
Ms. Wisconsin had texted me to make sure I got home OK - I called her and said "You'll never believe what happened after our walk."
My fortune cookie fortune did not call me a sucker who wasted my magical Monkey Paw (Hello Kitty Cat Paw?) wishes. Instead it said "The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does." Which is similar to one of my favorite adages: "Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have."
On Thursday, I had time to actually have a lunch break with some pretty tasty Chinese take-out. I had a good day at work, a friend who helped me out of my veal-like existence and a free iced tea from a stranger.
It may not be glamorous or cool, but all in all I think it was a pretty awesome Thursday. But best of all, it reminded me that there are good people all around me - even people I don't know who want to make sure I have a great day. That's a really great world to live in.
Now it's time to pay that forward.
Have an amazing, awesome, terrific weekend, LilyOnTheLam Readers! I hope the universe you inhabit is filled with free iced tea from strangers and people who pull you off the couch to inspire you to do better.
And as always ... thank you for reading!
I am so ridiculously happy that the weekend is almost here, I could do a Happy Snoopy Dance from Tampa, Florida to Quebec, Canada.
I work primarily from home and as such, I live the life of Wagyu beef or veal. Large animal in small pen with minimal movement. I basically walk from my desk to the bathroom or to the kitchen. I wear a Fitbit activity tracker, so I know that on a typical workday I barely move. You would think seeing only a few hundred or maybe 1000 steps would motivate me to be super active as soon as work is over. But I'm lazy.
I have a big round chair from Z Gallerie. It's called "The Cuddler" (see it here). The chair spins. It can hold me and all of my 827 cats and we watch a scary amount of television and movies from the aforementioned chair.
So about fifty days ago, I decided to challenge myself with one of these "Hundred Day" things that people on social media seem to be doing everywhere. Hundred Days of Happiness. Hundred Days of Gratitude. Hundred Instagram Pictures of My Cat (um or is that just me doing that one?) Well I like being happy. I like to show gratitude. And who doesn't love one hundred pictures of my cats? But I decided to put my own spin on it. I wanted to walk one million steps.
One million to me sounds like a lot, but basically it's 10,000 steps each day for 100 days. Although there's no hard science behind it, the common mythology is that each person should walk 10,000 steps a day. (Which by the way, after I started this journey I read an article saying 7,000 - 8,000 steps is good enough. There's also an article saying walking 10,000 steps a day won't make you thin. The joy and pain of the internet is you can find "an article" backing up anything and everything.)
Anyway, when faced with my current "veal-like" existence I figured my one million steps in one hundred day challenge is better for me than what I am doing now (which is a whole lot of sitting on my butt). So I embarked on the million steps in one hundred days journey.
Lucky for me, trips to New York City and Budapest where I walked 8-14 miles a day helped keep my step count high. But now that I am back from my travels, I have wanted to lay on the couch and stare at the TV. Back to a Wagyu-like existence.
Fortunately for me, my friend Ms. Wisconsin also has a Fitbit and we are linked as "Friends" on our Fitbit dashboard so she could see when my step count started taking a nose dive. Wednesday and Thursday, she helped get me off the couch and raising my step count again. And for that I am very grateful.
On Thursday, I did two walks. The first one while listening to Cary Elwes' "As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales From The Making Of The Princess Bride" on audiobook. Call me schmaltzy, but I just love the movie "The Princess Bride." I was very interested in reading the book but then when I found out many of the actors involved with the movie narrated the audiobook, I chose to buy that instead. I believe it is seven hours long - which equates to seven hours of walking for me. Win-win! I am determined to get my million steps in one hundred days in!
My Thursday was off to a good start. I hit 10,000 steps before 1 p.m. Which for me is pretty darn amazing. I had a lot of conference calls and as usual, I didn't have a break in my schedule for lunch. I have a global job and so the team members from various time zones book up every single minute in my calendar. Lunch generally consists of inhaling something fast while on mute and hoping no one on the conference call asks me a question mid-chew.
I started craving Chinese take-out food. I looked at my calendar - nope, booked solid until 4:30 p.m. My 1 p.m. call was with two of my team members. I sighed and wished that the meeting would cancel so I could walk down the street and get some take out Chinese. One second after I wished this, I received an instant message. My team members needed to reschedule our call.
I did a little "yay, now I can get Chinese food" dance in triumph!
Wish granted!
But then after I called in my order for "House Special Fried Rice" and sautéed vegetables, I thought "Uh oh, what if this was my ONE WISH in the world?" I could have wished for world peace or a billion dollars ... but no, instead I wished for a break in my schedule to get Chinese take-out! OH NO! My life suddenly seemed like The Simpsons' episode where Homer buys the cursed Monkey's Paw!
I will say that the House Special Fried Rice was pretty darn tasty. It's not world peace or all the riches in the world, but in the pantheon of low cost Chinese take-out food it was pretty high up there. Thank you, Plum Tree!
However I did expect my fortune cookie fortune to say something like "You wasted your one wish, SUCKER!" Never have I held my breath before opening a fortune cookie before today!
Now a side note before I continue with this story "A Miracle At Starbucks." Back in early Spring, I was in Las Vegas. I have a rule of thumb where I believe that new slot machines based on recent movies/TV shows never pay out. Even with this theory, I still stuck a $5 bill into "The Walking Dead" slot machine at The Bellagio.
And I won.
Over $350 dollars.
So much for my rule of thumb!
When I giddily took my cash voucher to the redemption machine, out came three crisp hundred dollar bills. And on one of them was stamped a tiny Hello Kitty.
I'm not sure who "LMC" is and why he/she is rolling around stamping hundred dollar bills with Hello Kitty, but I have already determined that this person is "super awesome amazing cool."
If you are a regular reader of LilyOnTheLam, you may know that I am 952 years old and I am obsessed with Sanrio's Hello Kitty. I proudly own this dysfunction. I am single, geriatric and have 847 cats. I am a walking cliche.
So needless to say a hundred dollar bill with a stamp of Hello Kitty on it was like my version of seeing Jesus' face in my grilled cheese sandwich.
I vowed that I would not spend the "Kitty Benjamin" hundred dollar bill. I took it with me to New York, Budapest and Raleigh-Durham ... and each time, I chose not to use it.
When I returned from Raleigh, I was scared I would accidentally give the one hundred dollar bill to someone thinking it was a $10 or even worse a $1. I am not a high roller and if I have a bill as big as a $20 in my wallet, it's a good day. I am also absent-minded, so handing out a $100 instead of a $1 is sadly highly plausible in my universe. Because of my real fear, I pulled the $100 out of my wallet and left it in my car before shopping one day - and kept forgetting to take it out of the car.
OK now back to my main story ...
My last conference call of the day was with two Executives and it was warm-fuzzy-wonderfulness. Lots of kudos for me and great motivational discussion. I was very happy.
After the work day was done, I set out for Walk #2 of the day with Ms. Wisconsin. I was determined to make up for several days of laziness and get my step count nice and high for the day. We had a good walk with good conversation and by the time we said goodbye, I had over 11 miles on my Fitbit for the day. Not too shabby!
I decided to reward myself with a Trenta (i.e. huge huge huge 31 ounce cup) unsweetened Passion iced tea from Starbucks. I pulled into the drive thru and placed my order, then I drove forward. The drive thru has cement curbs on either side - kind of like bowling bumpers, but taller ... and I guess in this scenario, I am the bowling ball.
Well as I navigated between the bumpers, I came to a stomach-dropping realization. I didn't bring my wallet with me! I just had my cell phone, keys and ear buds in my wristlet for my walk with Ms. Wisconsin. I hadn't brought any money! OH NO!
My mind raced - I had pretty much cleared out all my quarters I had in the car weeks before. There were cement bumpers so I couldn't drive off with a "Ha ha, sorry Starbucks!" What the heck was I going to do to pay for my monster-sized iced tea?
Then I remembered the Hello Kitty Hundred. I winced. NOOOO! I have held on to this hundred dollar bill for seven months! I couldn't blow it on a $3 iced tea! Argh! I turned on the light in my car and started ransacking for change. I had a handful of coins from my center console. I started picking through them. "God, WHY SO MANY PENNIES?" I was fishing out dimes and carefully counting them ... argh, I had like $2.30 max. Why did I order the Trenta like some high roller? Was I too good for the Venti or the Grande? Damn me and my champagne tastes!
I looked at the SUV in front of me. The guy was paying with the Starbucks mobile app. WHY, WHY DON'T I HAVE THE STARBUCKS MOBILE APP? I can tell you why - because if I had a loaded Starbucks card on my phone, I would be stopping at Starbucks every day. And seriously, I don't want to be the crazy old cat lady who says "I can't go on my sailing vacation because I paid $6 for coffee every day for the past year." That stuff adds up quick!
But frankly in a moment like this where I'm about to lose my beloved Hello Kitty stamped one hundred dollar bill, I really wish I had the Starbucks app with a loaded payment card. I grabbed a few more pennies and drove up to the drive thru payment window with a wincing sheepish look on my face. "Ummm, how much is it for my iced tea?" I asked like a big loser.
The incredibly cheerful Starbucks lady said "The guy in the car ahead of you paid for your drink order!"
My jaw dropped open and hit the pavement.
"WHAT? You're kidding me - is this a joke?" I asked, my hands still cupping all the coins.
"Nope, he paid for your drink."
I broke into the biggest smile ever. The Hello Kitty hundred was safe! I took a big sip of my free iced tea and drove home.
Free iced tea from a stranger tastes really good.
I have heard of people paying for other people before, but I don't think I have ever been a recipient of this type of stranger kindness. And frankly, I really don't deserve it. Yes, I was scrounging for coins to buy my iced tea and I was in grubby workout clothes. But I was also driving in a BMW. I wasn't projecting "Homeless, please help me!" However the timing was crazy fortuitous - so to the kind man in the SUV who drove off before I knew he paid for my drink, I have to extend a BIG THANK YOU! You really made my day.
And now of course, I need to pay it forward. Maybe I'll go downtown and feed quarters into parking meters for people who have run out of time. I volunteered twice last weekend and I will be volunteering twice this weekend, so maybe I'll run into someone who really needs $3.
Of course with guilt and Monkey's Paw thinking, I also thought "Argh, another wish wasted! Chinese take-out and a free iced tea - I should have wished for billions ... oh and an end to all wars too!"
But I do believe that sometimes the best things are the little unexpected things ... a break in the day when you could really use it. The kindness of a stranger to save a Hello Kitty hundred dollar bill.
Ms. Wisconsin had texted me to make sure I got home OK - I called her and said "You'll never believe what happened after our walk."
My fortune cookie fortune did not call me a sucker who wasted my magical Monkey Paw (Hello Kitty Cat Paw?) wishes. Instead it said "The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does." Which is similar to one of my favorite adages: "Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have."
On Thursday, I had time to actually have a lunch break with some pretty tasty Chinese take-out. I had a good day at work, a friend who helped me out of my veal-like existence and a free iced tea from a stranger.
It may not be glamorous or cool, but all in all I think it was a pretty awesome Thursday. But best of all, it reminded me that there are good people all around me - even people I don't know who want to make sure I have a great day. That's a really great world to live in.
Now it's time to pay that forward.
Have an amazing, awesome, terrific weekend, LilyOnTheLam Readers! I hope the universe you inhabit is filled with free iced tea from strangers and people who pull you off the couch to inspire you to do better.
And as always ... thank you for reading!
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