avoiding the keyboard

I’m not avoiding the workouts, but I am avoiding the keyboard.

Thurs morning is a blur. I went to the gym – Stairmaster and full body workout with weights and medicine ball – that’s all I remember.

Thurs night was karate. Worked on Penon 1 for over 20 mins. If I can perfect it, I’ll learn Penon 2 during this forms rotation.

Fri I skipped core class because I was a bit achey in my back and shoulders and felt like I needed yoga. I did 2 yoga classes I had DVRed.

Fri night I went to the Mommazine launch party with a couple of girlfriends. We all wore great tshirts from tip top living, to help promote the great woman who makes them. The guest speaker was the author of 365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy. She gave her husband intimacy every day for a year as a 40th birthday gift. She spoke about finding balance and a connection, and how that had a greater effect on all other aspects of her life. She opened with, “Raise your hands if you thought to yourself, ‘I’m going to get married and never have sex again,’ or ‘I want to have kids that never leave the house’.”

One tip from Charla (the author): Have your babysitter arrive an hour before you think you need to leave for where ever you’re going. Tell her, “Here’s the pizza, here are the rented movies, here are my kids. Now I’m going to go finish getting ready.” And then sneak back to your room and have sex with your husband before you go out. Then what you guys eat, drink, do or say won’t effect intimacy later in the evening.

She was a great speaker because she was so REAL and accessible. Her book is not about sex, it’s not raunchy – or in her words – it’s not salacious.

Saturday morning we went to a friend’s bat mitzvah at synagogue. After the kiddush luncheon I drove up to a friend’s house in Clearwater Beach with my girls. We played Mah Jongg, chatted a bunch, made dinner and went to see “The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1)“. It blends Greek mythology with modern day tween adventures.  Wendy had to read it the summer before 5th grade, and all 3 girls in our house (that includes me) ended up reading and enjoying it. Alice actually breezed through the whole series. The series was written for the author’s son, who, like the book’s hero, was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia. The movie has some great creepy characters, and Percy encounters many dangers throughout his adventures, but overall the movie is not very scary – young kids should be just fine in the audience with an adult’s hand nearby. And it’s great for big kids to watch Percy find the strength he needs to overcome all the challenges that he encounters (with some help from his friends). I also love that he is very respectful to his mom and is not ashamed to show he cares for her.

Today is Sunday and first I got all the cleaning taken care of, made enchiladas, did the grocery shopping and recycling with Brian, then more cooking, and now I am chilling for half an hour before my friend brings her kids over for dinner and some Wii time so she can go out for V-Day with her husband. She’s taking Wendy home with her to sleep over, and Alice has a slumber party to go to, so Brian and I will have some alone time tonight and tomorrow.

I’d like to congratulate my friend who had her salacious photos on display at MUSE II art & BODY ART Party @ ARTpool Gallery. (You know who you are, hot stuff…) And congratulations to me for killing off my to-do list this weekend. I might even find time to do my nails tonight!

2010 goal update: 3160 crunches, 79 minutes of plank remaining.

Share

Keep on Keepin on

Sunday afternoon we were at a pre-football party and someone brought a Jack Daniels ice cream pie. I swear, I have been dreaming about it the 40 hours since. Oreo crust held on by caramel to some kind of chunky ice cream goodness. I literally had only one bite of Brian’s, and then the whole pie was gone (because of the other people there, not because of me.)

Monday was nothing special. 22 mins on Stairmaster and full body weight workout. Lots of squats – with and without weights. Music during the workout was boring, but music at work included Yael Naim. You know one of her songs from TV. She has this blend of English, Hebrew and French that I like, because those are the languages I have dabbled in.

For dinner I made chicken fricassee for the first time. It did not have tomatoes or mushrooms, like some of the recipes I’ve seen online. My fingertips kinda smell like garlic still. Someone said to rub them with a half a lemon. Seems like a waste of lemon, it’ll wear off today I’m sure. It was quite tasty!

Tuesday (this morning) my lower neck/upper spine felt tight so I started with 25 mins of Yoga. (I have Yoga for Runners #1 from yogadownloads.com on my MP3) Then 1.5 miles on the treadmill. The girl next to me was doing a walk/run program and I wanted to ask her to keep running because we were at almost the same pace and it was motivating hearing her along side me. But I didn’t recognize her and didn’t want to freak her out. I focused a lot on obliques today at the end of the workout – side crunches on ball, diagonal on captain’s chair, bicycle crunches on floor, etc. Feelin’ tight!

Tonight is karate - we’re back in our forms unit. Wendy is excited! Forms are a series of movements we memorize in a specific order to learn proper form. They represent a fake fight. As you go up belt levels you need to learn harder forms as part of testing. Here’s a video of a beginner form – 2 tests ago for Wendy.

Do you use the Stairmaster? When I do, I add back kicks, side steps, skipping steps, etc. so I don’t feel like I’m just doing the same motion for a half hour. Do you mix up your Stairmaster workout? Let me know if you have ways to make it more exciting…

2010 goal update: 3300 crunches, 79 minutes of plank remaining.

Share