Random: Workout

Random: Exercise

OK, so I actually have a few things I'd like to post. Most of which involve pictures. But since the idea of getting out my laptop, plugging my phone and or camera into said laptop and going through all the drama of letting the pictures automatically load to my hard drive seems amazingly difficult. You just get a rambling post from me today instead. How exciting for you. Try to refrain from bursting with excitement. However I will give you a moment to happy dance.

 OK, let's see what can I bore you with? Um…

OH! Workout schedule!! Remember at the beginning of the month when I was super optimistic about working out and I was all set to kick my own ass down a few sizes? Well, yeah. I posted a great weekly schedule that was supposed to keep me accountable. Which BTW, none of the 3 of you that read this blog did. I'd fire you, but then I wouldn't have any readers. So I'll just wag my finger angrily at the computer screen for a moment…. OK, done. I hope you feel ashamed. But not so much that you stop reading. Please. I love you. Don't leave me.

Anyway, yeah, so on the first I was super excited and went straight home and worked out on my Wii. Then my crappy left ankle monster said to me "screw you woman! I can no longer perform in this manner!!" So I realized then that I would have to rethink my workout routine. By pretty much not doing it anymore. In my defense however in the 6 months since I last was weighed by the Wii, I somehow seemed to neither lose nor gain a single ounce. Really? How is that possible? But I did get connected back with Spark People and started tracking my calories and exercises again. The following week was my week off and according to the ever knowledgeable internet you burn like 180 calories an hour painting (have I mentioned this before? I can't remember. But I think it's worth mentioning again, because it's pretty awesome), and since I painted for like 3 days solid, plus heavy cleaning and walking. I kicked some ass in exercising that week. But somehow, managed not to lose or gain a single ounce. WTF? I think my Wii Fit is broken. Or enjoys slowly driving me insane. Probably the latter. I suspect that thing is going to try taking over my home one day. Unite with other Wii Fits and take over the human race as we are forever forced to step in rythym to our Mii characters and twirl non existant hoola hoops for the rest of our lives. This is why I threaten my Fit with a baseball bat every now and then. Keep it in line, thus delaying the eventual hostile take over. Your welcome.

I can't remember at all how I spent the third week of June in my little goal of fitness. I think I tried working out on the Wii a bit seeing what I could do without angering the ankle monster. And I tracked my calories like a good girl. Mostly because damn it, I wand those freakin Spark points!!! I have no idea why they are so important to me. But they are. I could probably look back to that week and see in more detail what I did that week, but let's face it, if I don't care enough to do so, than why in the world would you care enough to read about it. So I'll just save us all.

So that leads us into last week. Which happened to be my birthday week. Which I will really recap once I'm not so daunted by picture uploads, so let's stick to the whole exercise/healthy eating stuff. Well as far as the healthy eating goes? You can forget that. Between Thai lunch with the girls on my Bday, birthday dinner at Cheesecake Factory with Chris (where I actually ate so much food I was sick the next morning, yeah, that's embarrassing), second birthday lunch with my dad at Sizzler the day after, and second birthday sushi dinner with my family the day after that, I decided I had no business even trying to calculate those calories. Which I'm sure would have made me lose Spark points (which I don't think they even do, but they probably would have made an exception for my bloated ass), and we can't have that. Or even take that chance. This is real important to me. Clearly.

But!! There is some redemption!!! My birthday was Tuesday. On Sunday Chris and I had our obligatory weekly trip to Target to pay our mandatory $100 on stuff we really need!!!! Really!!! And while meandering through the video game section for my husband to drool over things I don't care about in anyway, I saw that Sports Active had a new update to their Wii workout thing (like how technical I get there?). I was interested, because I liked the Sports Active when I tried it for that one month last summer. Chris asked if I wanted that for my Birthday. And where I really hadn't given much thought to my birthday present, I decided I didn't because well, why have him buy me something that I can probably talk him into whether it's my birthday or not?  I'm sneaky that way.

Well turns out he's sneaky too. Because he saw something that when I noticed it my brain immediately put up blockers and refused to process. Jenny McCarthy's Wii Workout. Yes, that's what Chris got me. Now, you have to understand. I wasn't really upset about this or bothered by the gift at all. I didn't take it as him meaning I needed to workout or anything, because I know that he wouldn't do that. He values his balls me too much.  And I didn't even mind that he had gotten me the workout thing after I didn't want to waste a perfectly good present on something I could get anytime, because really, I had no idea what I did want and had given him no clues and to be honest, I am so freakin spoiled anyway, he could have given me nothing but himself in a ribbon and I wouldn't have complained a bit.

But, what I did hesitate on what JENNY FREAKIN MCCARTHY. Me, working out to Jenny freakin McCarthy. The girl that I just remember as a C lister farting on MTV. And enforcing the false belief that vaccinations causes Autism. Really? What in the heck could Ms. Usually annoys the crap out of me have to possibly offer me in a workout? Now granted she looks great and I appreciate that she's no longer farting her way across my TV, but still, really? I may be a bit of a snob sometimes. Chris had seen that this particular workout came with a camera, to scan my moves and judge my workout from that. He remembered (isn't that cute!) that my biggest complaints about the Active and Fit were that the equipment (the hand controllers and Fit) tend to get in the way. And where the Fit definitely has its advantages, holding onto controllers and exercise equipment at the same time can get annoying really fast and that was definitely the Active's biggest weak point IMO.

So he got this workout with the hope that the camera would make it easier to workout. And you know what? I actually really like it. A lot. I've worked out on it a few times; the workout has several different workout options so you don't get bored. It's fast pace, without being killer. You can choose the level of intensity you want for the day. You can choose the length of workout that you want. It builds in warm up, workout, cool down and breaks and it flows really nicely. The moves are easy enough to follow along to. Jenny isn't nearly as annoying as I had feared.  The music isn't NEARLY as annoying as other workouts both on Wii and regular videos. It sets up a regimen, but it's not so strict that you feel yelled at if you don't stick to it. I'm really liking it. Plus monster ankle doesn't seem as annoyed by these workouts.  So far I haven't lost anything I actually gained a pound, but I haven't been all that consistent and don't forget the million calorie week last week, so the fact that I didn't gain 15 lbs I think is a miracle.

OK, that ended up being way longer than I had anticipated, so I'll release you from my blog with just that for now. I'll throw more random stuff at you later. I have a feeling this week will be kind of low key in the workout/health arena. I need to start tracking again, but I'm ashamed to return to the Spark page. I will definitely be doing the Jenny McCarthy workout though.

Disclaimer: I pretty much wrote this post exactly how my brain thought it out. So here's a peek inside my brain. Thriling, wasn't it.

Back to Work

My week off was wonderful. My co-worker dubbed it the Nestcation because I was spending it getting my house settled. And I am so glad I decided to take a week off just to devote to my house. I was able to get so much done. So a brief recap:

Saturday was supposed to be my first day of vacation, but since work offered some overtime, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get some extra cash, so I worked in the morning. It was work, nothing much more to say. Then I came home and got ready. My BFF turned 30 the week before and since February I had been planning to surprise her and take her to go see The Lion King, which she has been dying to go see for years, but never made it. So we drove down to the OC and had an awesome Sushi dinner, her first and she loved it, then I gave her the card with her ticket. Her face was priceless. The play was absolutely beautiful. Very well done. I think it has become one of my favorites. We had such a fun night together. She lived about an hour away and we both work full time so we don't get to see each other as much as we'd like to, so it was really nice visiting and catching up.

Sunday, Vanessa spent the night because we got back too late for her to drive back. Chris and I watched some TV while she slept in and I made everyone a yummy breakfast. Than Chris and I started on the house. We replaced the blinds in our middle bedroom because they broke. It sucked because they were really nice blinds and we just put up the cheap venetian blinds. I'm not in love, but they get the job done until I decide what I want to put up. I can't remember what else we did that day. I think just some house cleaning.

Monday I got started with the clean up. I got up had some breakfast and got to work. I made sure to stay away from the TV and computer. They can be great but also some major time suckers and I really wanted to make some progress this week. I threw away a ton of crap. I didn't even bother with a "yard sale" pile. I just wanted stuff gone. I was happy to fill up the recycle bin before the truck came so I could put more stuff in it. Since I wanted to switch the rooms, I put a lot of stuff in the garage to be brought back in when the furniture and painting were finished. I also finished painting in the middle bedroom. It was PINK!!!! when we bought the house. Bottles of Pepto Bismo look better than this room did. So it was the first to be painted when we moved in, but moving day came faster than finishing the paint job and it's had a pink corner for the last six months. So I made the PINK!!!! disappear. That night Chris and I moved the twin bed from the back room to the middle room.

Tuesday was a day I scheduled a break. My brother had given me a Spa Finder gift card years ago, but I was too lazy to find a place that took it. Finally I decided I needed a facial after faire to clean out all the dirt. So I found out that International Skin and Body Care accepted the gift card. I had never been, but I had heard good things. So I made an appointment for a facial and tub soak. And oh my, was it heavenly. The whole experience was wonderful. Everyone was so nice. I will definitely be going back. After that incredible morning, it was back to work. I went to Home Depot and got the paint I wanted to paint the back room. I then finished organized stuff in the garage, emptying out the back room and throwing stuff away. That night Chris and I taped off the back room.

Side note: If you decide to go and move dusty boxes and get all sweaty and gross immediately after a facial that opens up all your pores. Expect a few zits to show up. I think I was rather lucky, but I did have one pretty nasty one show up by the end of the week. Could have been much worse.

Wednesday I started painting. Nothing to interesting about that. Except my brother showed up to help and we were able to get all the walls done. Did you know you burn close to 200 calories and hour while painting? According to Spark People you do, so I didn't mind when A few days I went over my calorie limit a bit, I figured my body needed it.

Thursday was another break day. My mom made reservations for us to go and have tea and The Huntington. Chris took the day off of work so I left him home to tape up for painting the trim and gave him a few other projects and my mom and I went off to The Huntington. I just love that place. I had only been there once before, but couldn't stay long because it started pouring. Made it rather difficult to look at all the gardens. My mom and I only looked through about half of them, there are just so many. Tea was so much fun and so good. They had a little buffet of finger sandwiches and fruit. I was so full by the time we were done. Then of course we hit the gift shop up and spent way too much money. It was a lot of fun. Great birthday present from my mom. I came home to see the back room had all been taped off for me and Chris had done his tasks. I painted just a bit of trim to feel like I had accomplished something that day and called it a day.

Friday, Chris and I finished the back room. Painting the trim and doing the touchups. Then moved stuff back into the rooms in an organized fashion. Well as much as possible.

Saturday morning we brought the desk and hope chest that I had left at my parents house since I moved out over to our house finally. My mom was very thankful for this. And that was pretty much all we did on the house for the week. Chris Spent the rest of the day trimming the trees and bushes that were starting to get a little over grown with his new electric hand saw while I went to a birthday party. Then we went to dinner and had Sushi again. Sunday was half lazy and then we went to visit Chris's grandparents.

So that's pretty much it. There is still a lot to be done. Some of the stuff in the garage still needs to be moved back into the house. I didn't get a chance to clean out the closets to either room, so those need to be cleaned, organized and switched. We bought book shelves yesterday so I could put away a lot of stuff that was hanging in boxes. I feel so much better having those boxes gone. I didn't get as much as I wanted done, but I feel like it was still a successful week. Both rooms are so much more functional and look so much better. I'm no longer embarrassed to show them to people. I'll have pictures in the next post. I promise!

I also called Ashley Furniture yesterday to get an ETA on our couches. Right now they're saying June 25^th is the soonest. Which puts them at almost 4 weeks since we bought them. Sigh. I hope we still like them when they get here. They might be out of style by then!

The Great Cleaning

So a few weeks ago I realized I needed to take some time off or I'd lose it, so I decided to spend one week dedicated to finishing the projects that were started when we moved it and were going to get to "in a little bit" We've now lived here for seven months and nothing has been done. My goal this week is to correct that. The list? Is pretty long and a little overwhelming. But I think I shopuld be able to at least make some significant progress.

I'm really looking forward to cleaning out and throwing stuff away and getting some order to our house.

Looking Productive

So, I’m supposed to be pricing office supplies right now. Which I’m not doing obviously. I hate pricing office supplies. It’s a part of my job that followed me from my old position because there is no one else to do it. Overall I don’t mind being the ordering person. But price checking is by far the worst part. So, in an attempt to still look productive at my desk and not be doing something on the internet that’s traceable I’m writing some blog posts that I’ve been meaning to write down. So I’m still being productive, just not in a way that my boss might particularly agree with.

OK, so I promise that this will not turn into simply a weekend recap blog, but it was an extra long weekend, and a lot happened so I’m going to share anyway. I had scheduled to take off Friday before the holiday months ago and I sooooo needed the extra long weekend. By the time I hit Thursday, it was all I could think about. I wanted to spend some time in my own home and get started on some projects there that I’ve put off since January.

Friday I planned to get my pile of faire crap in some kind of order. This is kinda big for me. It’s not unusual for me to come home closing weekend, throw all the crap into a corner and leave it there for 8 months until I need to get it out and in a panic somehow get it all cleaned and organized before Saturday approvals. So Friday morning I had a slightly lazy morning until I went in and tackled the crap pile. The Wii is in the back room and in an effort to use it again for the first time in months I popped in the Netflix streaming CD and watched some Eddie Izzard on the Instant Queue. I just love him so much. How in the world is a man that wears makeup better than be just so damn sexy. Incidentally, if you haven’t ever seen one of Eddie Izzard’s shows, holy crap what are you waiting for, go to Netflix NOW and get yourself one or all of his shows. I recommend starting with Dressed to Kill. Freakin Brilliant.

Anyway, dear Eddie made the whole thing go much smoother. I sorted and organized and washed, underthings and dishes. I tossed my dress into the backseat of my car to drop off at the cleaners. I was so proud of myself. There was only so much I could do because there is a lot of sewing crap that will have to be better organized when my sewing corner is set up.

I made myself an appointment to get my hair done, like I talked about a little in my last post. It came out great. I love it. I have no idea why I look so pissed in these pictures though. Possible because I was concentrating on clicking the button. That was pretty difficult. At the end of the appointment I immediately made myself another one in 10 weeks. I figure I can save up or if it looks like money is tight I can cancel, but this keeps me from getting lost in time, being too embarrassed to call and all that jazz. The appointment is made, and it’s all upkeep from here. :)

Before

After

That afternoon I found myself with very little to do for the first time in months. I ran by Home Depot and picked up some sample paint that I’d like to paint the office/sewing room. Other than that I pretty much just wasted an afternoon on the couch. It was so nice. :)

Saturday, was back up to faire site one last time to help with tear down. Not much to say here except it was HOT and I got to use power tools. I worked hard enough to get some blisters and cuts and feel like I did my part. Its hard work, but really I love it. I feel like I accomplish something when I can get down and dirty with a power tool. That’s not a euphemism, get your mind out of the gutter.

Anyway, Saturday Chris was down at his grandparent’s house finishing up painting their house, and that ended up taking the rest of the day, so I got another lazy day on the couch alone. It was nice, but I was missing my husband by then.

Sunday, we were both actually home. I made breakfast, we had a nice slow and lazy morning. We went down to Chris’s grandparent’s house in the afternoon for his grandma’s 88th birthday. And we stayed there pretty late.

Monday was another nice and lazy morning. We were invited to about 4 different Memorial Day things, but since we had hardly spent much time with each other since faire started, we wanted to spend the day together. I also wanted to get something else accomplished so I dragged Chris out to go look at couches. 2 stores and several hours later e finally found our couches. We both really like them and that’s probably the first time we could say that about any set. They’re comfortable, the right size for our living room and we both liked the color. We got the couch, loveseat, oversized chair and ottoman all at 20% off. Which is great because after you add in the tax, delivery and protection plan, they were quite pricey. Enough that it looks like we will have to pass on the cruise this year. But the Couches are worth the sacrifice. We’ll hopefully enjoy them for much longer.

Here are some pics. Sorry for the poor cell phone quality. They are actually much darker than they look in the pics. We have to wait a while for them to be delivered because they didn’t have any in stock, which kinda sucks, but at least gives us time to get rid of the old stuff.

Couch and Love Seat

Chair, Ottoman and some sexy guy hanging out

We spent the late afternoon BBQing steaks, drinking and crying over the huge amount of money we just spent.

All in all it was a great weekend. One I very much needed. It was great to have so much down time and be able to catch my breath. Something I felt like I didn’t get a chance to do all May.

I’ll post some plans for the week off soon.

Seriously, Where Did May Go?

Holy crap May went by fast!! I swear that was one whirlwind of a month. Work was insanely busy and with my weekends so packed, there was very little time to relax. Because of that I have been looking forward to June like a five year old waiting for Christmas. I specifically planned June to be a month with built in relaxation to make up for May.

It's also the month that I start all my changes. I started back on Spark People yesterday with tracking my food. I bought a TON of fresh fruits and veggies at Sprouts and their yummy organic chicken and beef. And have been focusing on drinking more water.

I also plan to start working out again. I wanted to start yesterday, but we had friends over for dinner and that took pretty much the whole night. But, I am going to post my weekly workout plan here and at the end of the week what I actually did. Sort of a way to keep myself accountable. I'm starting off with small chunks. So:

Wednesday June 2^nd: Wii workout for 25 min
Thursday June 3^rd: 20 min jog with Wii
Friday June 4^th: Wii workout for 25 min
Saturday: Wii yoga workout (going to try, Saturday is going to be busy)

So I made that up just now, but it looks good. So we'll see how it goes. The Wii Workout is a mix of cardio, strength and yoga. I'm sure there will also be some bedroom cardio in addition, but I may or may not include that in the weekly workout wrap-up. ;) 

Anyway in addition to my ultra long weekend off last weekend, I only have to work four days before I'm off again. The week will be mixed with house stuff and relaxing. I have a facial scheduled for next Tuesday and my mom and I are going to The Huntington for Tea on Thursday. Both I'm really excited for. This Saturday I'm taking my friend to go see The Lion King in Orange County and introduce her to Sushi for her birthday. :)

Later in the month we have a friend's baby's first birthday, at least one trip to Disneyland and I'm having a little after faire get together with some of my faire family. Our first party at our house since New Years and our first in the backyard. Hopefully it isn't too hot.

So I think June will go by pretty quickly too. But I think it'll be a lot of fun. As I said, I've really been looking forward to this month the last few weeks. I especially love summer and I can't wait to get this one started. Not so much looking forward to the triple digit heat, but I'll manage. I definitely like the heat better than the cold.