#cheerpepper

Not yet.

I have some wonderful coworkers, but they are tea snobs. They hold lengthy conversations about styles and flavors of tea. They share loose leaf teas they have discovered. They discuss the merits of this tea ball and that brew basket. They all chipped in to purchase an electric kettle for the office. Not a simple on/off one like I use at home. This one has temperature settings depending on what type of tea you want to brew. It has a warming feature so you don’t commit the sin of reboiling water.

I thought of them as I reused my teabag. The water wasn’t even hot. I was simply changing its color. Even when I do brew tea in the evenings, I make my husband’s first. A friend told me that this reduces the amount of caffeine. That’s one goal but the other is that I don’t like strong tea.

I look at the teabag once more. It has dutifully dyed at least three large mugs since steeping in my husband’s cup.

There’s more where you came from. 

I toss it in the trash.

When I have the office to myself, I can stand up and work. I can walk in place to increase my step count. I can exercise at my desk without worrying how dorky I look.

So if I like getting in early so I can be more active while I work, why do I feel proud and satisfied getting a parking spot so close to the building?

Yesterday, I had plans to walk with a coworker at lunch. She had told me the weather would be clear and in the sixites. “I want to see how many steps we get in an hour,” I said. Peter’s prescriptions were ready at the pharmacy, so she walked with me to and from the CVS a mile away from our office. We took a “scenic” route to get in extra steps.

I was pleased to see that my early morning walk with the dog combined with the lunchtime outing added up to 10,000 steps before the end of my work day. I knew I would rack up at least one thousand more that evening at home.

As I exited the building, I tried to remember where I had parked my car. There it was at the bottom of the steps. I had to laugh at myself. I was so worried about getting my steps in at lunch, I missed the oppportunity to do more walking by parking at the back of the lot!

If I’m honest, scoring a primo parking space is about appearances. You can see who arrived at work first based on where their cars are parked. But if I’m brutally honest, I will admit that my personal appearance matters to me, too. Exercising more will keep my body fit.

So, today, knowing the weather is nice again, you won’t see me parked as close to the building as possible. You’ll see me taking a few extra steps to my office door.

Not only did I find myself awake early Sunday morning, I confused myself by contemplating the old and new time. You know, thinking, This is the old 2:30 am. Or is it the old 3:30? as if it matters what the equivalent savings time was once we resume standard time. Either hour is not the time that I want to be awake thinking about anything, especially the meaning of time, the politics of DST, or any other subject except zzzzzzz.

I think not.

But, in case you were wondering, Philip fell asleep at the new 9:30 pm EST (old 10:30 pm EDT) last night and then awoke at the new 4:06 am EST (old 5:06 am EDT). I stayed up with him until my husband awoke at the new 5:30 am EST (old 6:30 am EDT) so I could sleep until the new 6:30 am EST.

If any of you managed to save some time over the past few months, could you send it my way?

  It’s Day 7 of NanoPoblano/NaBloPoMo and I basically bitched about this same topic one year ago today. Sharing my kvetching at Mel’s MicroblogMondays for good measure.