The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth

I was going to take a Day Off today, but when The Lightning and The Lightning Bug picked me for their writer of the week, of course I had to join in with their Dare to Share link up! In case you don't know about it, each Saturday, Katie picks a topic for the weekend. You write on the topic, post it and link up HERE. It's one of my favorite link ups, since I frequently blog in "laundry list" form. It gets me out of my laziness comfort zone and encourages me to write about topics I may not explore otherwise.

This week's topic is: Fight For Your Right: write about something that involves standing up for something you believe in. You can stand up for a cause, support your opinion, or just rant about something that makes you mad.

I have a lot of opinions about a lot of things, but generally I do not voice them. I do not fight for as many rights as I should be fighting for. I would rather seethe with anger under my skin than say anything. Actually, I wouldn’t rather seethe, not really. I would like to know how to effectively stand up for what I want, to voice my opinion without getting unnecessarily angry. 

My boyfriend and his family are very vocal. If they have something to say, they say it, and in my mind, sometimes it’s a little much. To them, this is the way they are, honest, sometimes brutally so. To me, it is scary. This is not to say that he or his family are wrong in the way they express their anger and opinions, they just do it differently from my family, which probably has a lot of un-spoken issues, just waiting to explode. 

This makes for an interesting relationship. There are many instances where he is yelling at me to, “tell him what I want” and I am silently staring him down with the evil eye and my mouth drawn tight in a line and my hands clenched in my lap. He thinks I am thinking what an A-hole he is, while really I am thinking of all the things I could have said or should be saying. I am crafting a discussion in my head, as if it were an essay. First I will say X and then, he will say Y. If he says Z, I will say W. But he will probably say V instead. 

So when I finally squeak out my answer from my clenched lips, which of course NEVER comes out the way that it was playing in my head, I never really feel as satisfied as I thought I would. It usually comes out gruffer, more hurt or angrier than I really am. Why can’t I just say what I mean, and say what I want, and say it nicely? Why can’t I stand up for myself without making it a big deal? I don’t know. Maybe it would work better if my relationship were letter based, like in the olden days. 

“My love, I have missed you so much. Perhaps when we finally see each other, we can go to that brunch place I have wanted to try. Love, your sweetheart forever. “

Did those people fight over nothing when they finally met up for brunch?

I am learning, however. Learning that it is better to just say what you want, what YOU need. This may not avoid an argument, but at least all bets will be on the table and you can go from there. You have to SAY what you want to even come close to working to get it. It’s like winning the lottery; you are never going to win if you don’t play. 

As Mick Jagger said, “You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.” 

______

Also on a totally unrelated note, I have a race tomorrow and here is the weather forecast. Bummer. So please everyone, cross your fingers for clarity (and lower humidity) between 7:30 and 9:30 tomorrow morning! Thanks! 

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TONY BREZNIK 06

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Do You Yasso?

Have you ever carried around something that you didn't ever use? Are you an expert packer? Do you love to travel? If you can say yes to any of these, hop on over to Women Rockin' The Road, where I have a post up about Things That I Could've Done Without!

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Where I Run These Days

And now for our regularly scheduled program: Jill's Fitness Friday link up.

My friend Lisa joined a running club recently and although she had her doubts beforehand, she loves it now! She has talked a lot about the fact that they are running less, but longer and stronger and each run has a focus. She has told me some of the details of her training runs and I have taken some of her group's ideas and run with them (he.he.he.)

The other night she mentioned that she had just finished doing Yassos and they had really kicked her butt. I wasn't sure what language she was speaking but asked her to elaborate. She explained them as this.

Take what your goal marathon pace is. For example, mine would be 4 hours flat, since I am attempting to run the half marathon in 2 hours flat. Now, run 800s meters (half a mile) at your goal time, but in minutes. For example, my goal is 4 hours. I have to run the 800 meters in 4 minutes. In case you are having trouble with the calculations like I did at first, that is an 8 minute mile. So I asked her, "and then what?" She said then you have a 400 M (.25 mile) "shag", which is a recovery period, where you run a slow jog. She suggested a 10 minute mile. I looked online and it says to run it in the same amount of time you ran the 800 meter, which for me would have been a 16 minute pace, which is a walk.

You are supposed to start at 4 intervals and work your way up. Her group did 8!! I decided to try it, and the next day, started with 4 of them. First I did a 1.5 mile warm up. Then I did 4 repeats and a 1.5 mile cool down. I did not run at a 16 minute pace during the recovery; I just ran at what felt comfortable.

Let me tell you, these things are magic! I have been doing intervals once every two weeks and hating them, although they DO usually get me about a 9 minute mile (which is my goal pace for a 2 hour half). They are strange because even though you run fast, then walk, then run fast etc, you still end up with a good combined pace. However, the Yasso beat my puny little intervals to shreds.

Don't get me wrong. These were hard. An 8 minute pace for me...is hard! But not impossible. My normal pace is about an 8:45 or 9 (for 6 miles). So my total was 6 miles and my average pace was about 8:25, which is 20 seconds per mile faster than normal! This week I decided to make sure it was not a fluke, so I did 5 of them this time. I ended up running 6 miles at an 8:10 pace. I was tired afterwards, but not completely dead, although I did almost lose my lunch around mile 3. But I recovered.

So, my question to you is this: For my half on Sunday, should I do this, or a variation of this, the whole time? Or maybe just part of the time? Have you tried doing intervals during a long race? If so, at what point during the race -- the beginning, middle or end?

I feel like I may not be sure of what I am doing, since the farthest I have gone on a Yasso day is 6 miles. Will it last for 13 or will I hit the wall somewhere in the middle? What do you think?

Have you tried to Yasso? 

PS EEEKKK... If you've popped out of Reader, note the "1 day and some odd hours left" until the Half!

Go over here

for more Friday hoppers!

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Guitar Lessons Online - Basic Guitar Lessons for Beginners

If you have looked online to find some free, easy guitar lessons you probably have found that most of them are not so very useful. Yes, there are many websites that you can look at but not all of them will help you in any certain way. And what is worse is that while some will show you tips, they might actually not teach you anything.Whenever you venture into learning anything it is

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Free Guitar Lessons On YouTube

People with guitar lessons to sell are taking advantage of the general public's appetite for video clips on YouTube. There are guitar lessons covering any genre you care to name at any level of technical competence. And guitar students all over the world are lapping them up.The trouble with making use of the guitar lessons available on YouTube, you need to already have some guitar

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Popular Acoustic Guitar Songs

When I think of popular acoustic guitar songs, I can't help but think of Peter, Paul And Mary. No, not the biblical ones, the folk group from the sixties. At that time in America and England there was an interest on the part of the younger generation in the folk music of their respective countries. One of the few groups to cash in on the folk boom to any great extent was Peter, Paul And

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Is there any way how to improve your guitar improvisation?

Guitar improvisation is a technique when the guitar player can  create melody progression to any kind of background music.Guitar improvisation is a craft that can be learned, it is just a matter of information, resources and practice! It is definitely a skill you are able to grow first and it can take some time. This article is here to give you some advantageoustip and tricks for guitar

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Birthday Bar Display

Today is my husband's birthday (Happy Birthday!) so I am throwing a small dinner party in his honor.  It was also the perfect opportunity to stock our bar/butler's pantry.

I had initially been inspired by this display at the Ralph Lauren Store that I snapped:

And then garnered even more inspiration when the Society Social Magalog came out with pages of bar set-up inspiration:

Images via The Manifesto Magalog

Here is our new display complete with my new Missoni martini glasses, shaker, and shot glasses:

Cheers!

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Guitar Lessons

There are many people who dream of being able to play great guitar rifts to impress friends or leave their own legacy.Everyone has some music ability and learning to play the guitar is an easy way to bring that ability out.You do not have to worry about music theory or a music teacher trying to tell you the right way to play.The numerous guitar lessons and courses available online provide lots

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Summer 2011: Berlin, Germany

July 17-19, 2011 -- Berlin was the third city I visited this summer after London and Brussels. It was also the most interesting. Perhaps no city in the world has been defined by events of the 20th Century than Berlin. The city has survived Nazism and Communism to become the liberal, tolerant city it is today. Berlin is the capital of a unified Germany that is a model democracy. The city that has suffered so much has triumphed over its tragic past.

I stayed at the Grand Hostel, which is consistently rated as one of the top hostels in Germany and the world. The historic building, constructed in 1874, is located in the Berlin borough of Kreuzberg-Friedrichshain overlooking the Spree River.

I highly recommend taking the New Berlin Free Tour, which leaves every day near the Brandenburg Gate for a 3.5 hour walking tour. The guide will ask for a tip at the end if you liked the tour, and most people give him around five euros. It is an excellent introduction to the amazing history of Berlin -- from its days as the capital of the Kingdom of Prussia; to the capital of the Third Reich; to when the city was divided by the Berlin Wall; to its development into a world-class city.

Seeing the Brandenburg Gate, Reichstag Building, Gendarmenmark, remnants of the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie and other historic sites were amazing. But it was the brief twelve year period from 1933-1945 when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party ruled Berlin that was most intriguing to me.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is a moving memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Walking the 4.7 acres (19,000 square meters) through the 2,711 concrete slabs brings about different emotions to different people. For me, I felt how orderly, vast and inhuman the Nazi extermination system was.

But as much as Germans have gone out of their way to honor and remember the victims of Nazi tyranny, they have also chosen not to remember the perpetrators. Case in point is Hitler's bunker, which is located underneath a car park a few blocks from the Holocaust Memorial because German authorities don't want it to become a shrine for neo-Nazis. There was not even a plaque to mark the site until the 2006 World Cup was in Germany. After 66 years, the feelings are still too raw in Germany to even attempt an archaeological excavation of the underground site where the Fuhrer married Eva Braun before they both committed suicide as Russian soldiers closed in.

Another few blocks brings you to the only Nazi-era building still standing after the Battle of Berlin and the Allied bombing campaign in 1945 -- the Ministry of Aviation Building, where Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring was in charge of development and production of aircraft, primarily for the German Air Force (the Luftwaffe).

The government building was a vivid reminder of the cold, calculated centralized bureaucracy behind the mass murder of millions. This building was a typical government building in Berlin during the Nazi era. Thousands of bureaucrats making life and death decisions every day. The most disturbing thing about it is that the building wouldn't be out of place in Washington, D.C., Paris, Beijing or any other world capital.

Bebelplatz is the site of the infamous Nazi book burning ceremony, which took place on the evening of May 20, 1933. The Nazis set fire to 20,000 books by many authors including Heinrich Heine, whose tragically prophetic quote from 1820 is engraved at the site of the book burnings: "Where they burn books, they ultimately burn people."

A memorial by Micha Ullman consisting of a glass plate set into the cobbles, giving a view of empty bookcases, commemorates the book burning.

There are stories of ordinary Germans who did extraordinary things during that dark period in human history. One such figure was a local police officer named Otto Bellgardt, who on the night of Kristallnacht in 1938, when Nazi mobs were destroying Jewish businesses and institutions across the city, saved the historic New Synagogue on Oranienburger Straße by drawing his pistol and telling the mob it was a protected historical landmark and he would uphold the law in protecting the place. The crowd dispersed and the synagogue was saved.

Click here for more observations of Berlin on Green Center Blog.

Here are more photos from Berlin. Click here to see the set on Flickr.

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