I also danced the whole three hours of Country/Western Dance, 1 tip at the Trail-in Dance, 3 tips at the Trail-out Dance, 2 tips at the GCA School Dance, and I was a checker for GCA School for two days.

Chart first, words later.

It’s a warm but dark day here in Atlanta. The temperature is in the pleasant 60+, but we’ve had sporadic showers all morning. I’m sitting through the third one right now.

The earliest possible dance weekend that I’ve planned for is AACE in June.

Hotlanta Squares will not have a fly-in this year, but we will have our 10-year anniversary dance two weeks from today, with Anne and Tim Marriner calling. In February Roger Loney will call for our Valentine Dance. In March I have the annual Peach State Dance weekend to look forward to. 

Last Saturday night I left 3-Legged Cowboy by midnight, and since I danced so much that night, I had to take a shower after I got home. It was 1 a.m. when I went to bed. I got up at 8:50 on Sunday morning, but still finished my food shopping before 10:30 a.m.

I probably shouldn’t have had a large latte around 5 p.m. on Sunday, because I didn’t sleep well on Sunday night and then lingered in bed until 7:37 a.m. on Monday morning. I missed the 8 a.m. train even after running several blocks. But since I normally leave myself half hour for breakfast, I still walked into office on time.

The rest of the week went well. From Tuesday to Friday, I woke up before the alarm, caught the 8 a.m. train, and felt comfortable for the rest of the day. Nowadays I usually start feeling sleepy by 10:30-ish, so I finish whatever I’m doing by 11-ish, and then soak my feet in hot water for 30 minutes (it’s a family tradition) while reading a book, and then go to bed before midnight. A good night of sleep and a light and relaxing breakfast really makes a lot of difference.

I did not take any days off this week. On Friday I was the only person in. It was a day without distraction, and I finished updating two large and very tedious Excel worksheets, plus some other misc.  It occurred to me that I still need to complete at least 20 hours of continuing professional education before year-end, so I purchased five four-credit hour online courses from Gleim. All of them are personal tax courses. I printed the 80 pages of course outline to use on the weekend, and then left work at 4 p.m.

Like most years, I didn’t do any shopping for Christmas. Actually I haven’t been in a mall in the past 18 months and I don’t miss it at all. I did give my friend Alan a present at his Christmas party tonight, because I happened to spot something interesting when I walked through the neighborhood CVS one day last month. I wrapped it up last night using some gift paper my landlord left in the attic.

My housemate was out of town and I’m feeding his cat. The cat only comes out eating while I’m not around. I have a quiet house all for myself. I finished one of the tax courses last night. It was basically a 40-multiple choice online quiz with open book, since I’ve printed the outline. This morning I got up at 8:15 a.m. I’ve stopped using alarm on weekends, since by now I’ve gotten used to not staying in bed for too long after I wake up. I finished another course this morning, walked to Starbucks for a latte. It was cold and cloudy but not windy, so I enjoyed a refreshing walk outside while sipping my latte. I finished another course around noon, ate a light lunch, read a few pages of a Chinese novel, and then went to Alan’s annual Christmas party.

Most of the regular attendees are square dancers. The number is a little low – about 30 people, probably because of the weather. The meal is usually much lighter than the one on Thanksgiving. I had a bowl of chili, a slice of bread, a little bit of banana pudding and some ham. My strategy for eating ham is that I let everyone else get their slices first, and then I trim the little pieces of leftovers near the center bone. Those are the reddest, most tender and juiciest parts. People also left earlier because they were worrying about the snow. Yes it’s snowing outside! Although the snow “drops” is melting almost as soon as they hit the ground, I think there are enough to be called “measurable”, so this is the first time Atlanta had a Christmas with measurable snow in 153 years!

So it’s been a quiet and relaxing week. I’m not tired, stressed or stuffed, and I’m ready to go out dancing at 3LC at this moment. Merry Christmas to you all!

This is another day that I didn’t write a real LJ post. But I replied three comments; can they substitute for one post?

Just like Sunday night, I have planned to write about the dance workshop I attended at 3LC on Saturday. But when I think about writing a dancing-related journal my mind starts to wonder about dancing in general, and then I can’t help but start searching dance videos and music on YouTube, and then my time runs out.

I mentioned earlier this year that I signed up for the Virgin Health Mile program my company offered. At first I wasn’t very enthusiastic about it, and procrastinated for over a month before I finally activated my pedometer and logged on to the VHM website for the first time. I often forgot to wear the pedometer in the morning and sometimes wondered if it was worth the daily trouble to earn the maximum reward of $200 a year. And then I lost the pedometer in the Hilton during the IAGSDC convention. I put it down in a restroom and forgot to put it back on. Nobody turned it in.

So I was just ready to give up, but in August my Dear Employer offered us a ten-day discount period to replace a lost pedometer for $15 (we get our first one for free, but each additional one normally cost $25). At the same time, the maximum annual reward was increased to $500. That was enough to draw me back. I did the math and figured out that there was no way I could earn the full $500 by my anniversary date on April 8^th, because I have wasted too much time earlier this year, but a total of $350 is very attainable. Here’s how the programs works:

Each day: I can earn 20 points for walking less than 7,000 steps, or 60 points for more than 7,000 steps, or 80 points for more than 12,000 steps. I can write two activity journals in the website for 10 points each. The journal points are really freebies because mostly I just need to select dates, time and activity from drop-down boxes. The maximum points I can earn in one day is 100, so there’s no economic benefit for walking more than $12,000 steps a day. This is very easy for me to achieve. I’m one of the few Atlanta residents who don’t use a car to get to work, because I live and work just a few blocks from a MARTA station. My daily commute is at least 5,000 steps, and my walk to the food court during lunch time is another 1,000 steps. If I just stop by at the Decatur library on my way home, I’ve got my 7,000 steps already.

Each week: I earn 20 points simply by logging on to the VHM website.

Each month: I earn 200 points by entering my improved fitness measurements in the website. I can also participate in a monthly challenge and earn an extra 150 to 250 points, such as the “walk more than X steps during the Thanksgiving week Turkey Trail Challenge”. 

Every year: I earn extra points for doing an online fitness assessment and signing a no-smoking agreement.

Here’s how the rewards accumulate: For the first 5,999 points I just get a free pedometer (the lost one). At 6,000 points I climb to Level 2 and earn $75. I reached L2 in September and the money was automatically transferred to my Health Savings Account a few days later. At 12,000 points I climb to Level 3 and get another $125. I earned it before Thanksgiving. The next two levels will take much longer time to reach. I will need to accumulate another 12,000 points to get another $150, which will take me a little less than four months. After that I will run out of time, because my points will be reset to zero on my anniversary date.

Right now I’m participating in another special challenge that offers the biggest reward for the year. I’ll write about it tomorrow. It’s time for bed. Good night.

Saturday:

Got up at 7:50 a.m.; walked 7,000 steps in the neighborhood after breakfast; completed one Rob French C4 tip; read in the library.

Went to Hotlanta Squares’ holiday dance, called by local caller Richard Smith; ate four lemon pepper chicken wings brought by Danny and Bill and two coconut macaroons baked by Dave.

Sunday:

Got up at 8:20 a.m. and went to the DeKalb Farmers Market right after it opened at 9 a.m. I’ve moved my weekly food-shopping trip to a weekend morning to give myself extra incentives to get up earlier.

Surfed on the internet; should have used that time to write a LJ post.

Went to the Chamblee branch library, which has a large collection of Chinese books, and then bought some snack from a Chinese supermarket.

Played a half hour of Wii Fit at Ed’s house before we drove to Hapeville for Matrix South’s holiday dance, called by Hotlanta Squares’ club caller JR. We had a little more than three squares and alternated A2 and C1 for three hours.

I ate plenty of finger foods at the dance, but still cooked a light dinner for myself afterwards, just so that I ate enough vegetables. There was not much time left for LJ after dinner.

Of course I’d like to present my journal in coherent paragraphs instead of sentence fragments, but sometimes setting a high standard is the main reason that I end up doing nothing at all.