Tag: Community

ARC, Books, Professional Development

Book 392: Simple Giving – Jennifer Iacovelli

Geoff W

When I read Doing Good Better, I was looking for this. That isn’t a knock on Doing Good Better, it’s a kudos to Simple Giving and Jennifer Iacovelli. And I guess that’s an even bigger kudos to Tarcher/Penguin for sending me a copy because I would never have found sought it out, even though philanthropy is what I do for a living.* Simple Giving comes out next week October 27, and I can’t recommend it enough.

Where Iacovelli succeeds in the breadth of which she covers in this rather short book. She talks about individual and crowd sourced philanthropy, she talks about volunteering and socially conscious purchases and businesses and she spends time talking about how you can engage even the youngest of philanthropists in volunteering their time.

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ARC, Books

Book 387: The Heart Goes Last – Margaret Atwood

Geoff W

I didn’t quite get this one read before it’s release, but considering how busy I’ve been, having it read and posted within a week of its release, September 29, is pretty impressive! Any time there is a new Atwood, I get excited. Margaret Atwood is the Queen of Speculative Fiction, among other things. So when I had the opportunity to request a copy and the publisher, Nan A. Talese granted it*, I was over the moon.

I still have a few older Atwood’s on my shelf to read, but the last I read was Stone Mattress and I really liked where she was going. This being said, I’ve seen quite a few reviews recently of The Heart Goes Last where I’ve wanted to slap the reviewers and say WHAT ABOUT THE BOOK? Mostly people were complaining they had bought the first few chapters on a website and then had to buy the whole book to find out what happened (Hello, single song releases?! Do we not remember the “old days” of the 1990s – early 2000s?) As this doesn’t affect me and most readers, I don’t see why it’s important so don’t let that impact your judgement!

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Workout Wednesday

Workout Wednesday – July 2013

Geoff W

This is a VERY short update mostly pictures. Life’s getting complicated and well I don’t want to talk about it so you get pretty pictures and not a lot to read. I’ve described what the photos are in each photo. I’m not entering my fifth month of CrossFit and I’m still enjoying it and the challenges that it brings. Over the last week and a half I’ve almost walked a marathon distance (as in I went out specifically to walk, so not counting just walking to and from places). I’m going to try to stick with that sort of walking every week to support what I’m doing at CrossFit. In addition I finally splurged and bought the Map My Fitness App (it was on sale for $0.99) so hopefully that’ll keep me going. I’m not sure there was much benefit to it as they still have an ‘MVP feature’ you have to pay for a subscription for and I’m not doing that.

Went on this walk or a similar one in length and course four days last week. I’m going to try and create a 3 mile walk so I can do that one in the morning before work on my non-CF days.
My faithful New Balance minimus. I didn’t think I would like them, but I’ve finally gotten used to them and they’ve carried me through the 23+ miles I’ve walked over the past week and a half (+ CF one day so far).
I thought this was a bad day, but the days got worse! I’ve always been sweaty, but I’m redefining what it means to be a sweaty mess two-to-three days a week.
Don’t be too impressed it’s only 125lbs. We were doing the Clean and Jerk and I had a few moments to quick snap a picture.

On top of the exercising I’ve been relatively good about eating healthier and have stuck with salads for at least one meal a day four days a week! Which if you know me know that’s something shocking. I still don’t think they’re the best things ever, but I’m getting used to them and I’ve spaced out my other food throughout the day so I’m not hungry all the time anymore.

Cherry halves, I pitted and halved myself for salads.
The resulting salad: cherries, marinated steak, mixed greens and feta. Delicious.

Hopefully I’ll start to see different types of improvement with all this green stuff I’m eating 🙂 (Although, honestly, it’s not about the weight or inches lost. For me it’s about getting healthier and reaching my own personal goals.)

Workout Wednesday

Workout Wednesday – June 2013

Geoff W

Time for the second installment of my ‘I’m going to try to hold myself accountable in for working out and eating healthier’ that I only started last month. To start with a picture, because every post should have a picture, here is a gratuitous shot of the salads I’m trying to eat this week for lunch (I still don’t have any salads from the gym, but I’ll try to remember this month.):

2013 06-09 - Yummy Salad

It’s a spring mix salad with grilled lemon-herb chicken with fresh-cut strawberries, dried cranberries and feta cheese. I’m still trying to sort out the portion sizes of stuff and Tuesday was better than Monday and hopefully Wednesday is even better portioned, but overall I’m still impressed I’ve stuck with it.

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Workout Wednesday

Workout Wednesday – May 2013

Geoff W

As I mentioned in my April recap I’m starting a couple of non-book posts each month, the first was Culture Corner, and this is my second monthly series where I’m going to talk about my workout experiences and holding myself accountable.

Commonwealth CrossfitTwo months ago this past Friday I joined Commonwealth CrossFit which is less than ten minutes from my house. For various reasons I’d become incredibly unhealthy and unhappy over the past year and I knew things needed to change. I chose CrossFit for a couple of reasons, but it took me awhile to start because I needed to make sure I could afford it and was mentally ready for it. Well I finally was able to pay for it, yay new job, but I found out pretty quickly how unprepared mentally and physically I was. But that was two months ago and I’m still going strong so go me! And as no post is complete without a photo, I stole one from the Facebook page. This post is mostly just a recap of what I’ve done the past two months and what I’m hoping to get out of it.

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