Accidental Inversion

My schedule has been a bit goofy this week, so I ended up having to do pole dancing class tonight. I thought I was doing Level 1, but I didn't read the schedule close enough because... apparently Thursday night is actually Level 2. Level 2 is almost all inverted spins. You know, climbing the pole and flipping upside down and sliding down the pole with no hands. That sort of thing.

Oh Lordy.

When I realized I was in the wrong class, I almost left right then. But the teacher was so nice and she basically took a few minutes to teach me some Level 1/Level 2 transitional moves that I could work on. And I DID THEM. Yes - I actually did one inverted hanging position then an inverted slide!!

Now, you may say, but Amy - it was only, like, 6 inches off the floor. And you would be correct. BUT still - for that few seconds I was upside down sliding down the pole with no hands. And that is a start.

Quest for NYC - One month down...

It has now been one month since Erik & I originally started our little competition. He is a total shit and has lost 10 lbs. I hate him. Okay, not really but I still think it's just abysmally unfair. But that's okay. Because I am proud to announce I am right on target - I have lost exactly 5 lbs in one month. Yay me!!

But as I originally blogged, this wasn't just about weight - it was about doing better and being healthy. And the thing that absolutely thrills me most is the progress I've seen over the past several weeks. I have moved most of my weights up by at least 50%. I have been able to increase my speed and incline on the treadmill. My pantry is almost empty of snacky treats but my fridge is full of fruits and veggies and yogurt.

I've had to start fastening my bras one hook tighter. My size 10 jeans that I originally just wanted to fit in are now loose. I am sleeping better. My lovely IBS symptoms have subsided. I went to NYC with my mom for a weekend and was able to splurge on a piece of real NY cheesecake without feeling any guilt.

Two months to go, so now it's just keeping the momentum. Plus I have a new reason to stay the course... My best friend is getting married on November 9th and we went to try on dresses over the weekend. The bridesmaid's dress she picked is beautiful - and is nicely form fitting and has spaghetti straps plus an open back. Ladies and gentlemen of the blogging world... I WILL be smoking hot in my dress and I WILL post pics. This I swear...

The Pick-up Artist

I don't know if anyone else out there is watching this show on VH1, but I can't decide if I love it or hate it. I keep really wanting to hate it, but yet... I don't - I find it fascinating. Really fascinating.

Anyway, last night part of the training for the guys to prepare to become a master pick-up artist was to tell a story to a group of elementary school aged girls. The point was that if you can keep a group of young girls interested, you can keep a group of single women at a bar interested. It's all about being able to hold their attention.

I'm going to leave the whole is this sexist and infantilizing women angle out of this blog in favor of this comment: Who needs a master pick up artist when I got myself a man with an actual master's degree in reading books to little kids?

I was laughing so hard at the whole segment that I made my husband watch it again with me. Apparently I am married to the studliest creature in the entire world - a male elementary school librarian!! Who knew??

Franken-Marc

This weekend Erik's dad watched the kiddos while we went on our hot date. Right as we were getting ready to leave, Marc was wrestling with his step-uncle and somehow managed to bite his tongue. Marc started crying and screaming and blood was pouring out of his mouth.

I had him to spit in the sink, at which point he became hysterical - BLOOD!! BLOOOOOOD!!! It took almost 10 minutes to get that damn thing to stop bleeding enough to even see how bad it was. And it was pretty bad. The bleeding eventually stopped but he had a good 1/2 inch gash in his tongue.

Anyway, after the initial freak out because his tongue was bleeding to death, Marc now has a pretty wicked looking nasty cut. And he is SO proud. He's been walking around the past few days just sticking out his tongue at everyone. Look! Look! I almost bit my tongue in half!! Blaaaaaaaaah.

Why Target is really stupid

I love Target, I really do. So it pains me to relate this story, but my GOD this is so dumb.

School starts here next Monday. This is the week for back to school shopping. Every child in grades K-5 in this county needs at least one marble composition book. My son, for instance, requires four.

And Target is sold out. W... T... F...? It's still a week before school starts and they are already sold out? Listen to why...

Because they had a lot in stock all summer and they didn't sell, so they stopped ordering them. And they aren't getting any more in until at least September.

I'm not sure who is in charge of ordering the school supplies at this store, but they must never have actually gone to school. Because they would certainly realize that 99.9 fucking percent of marble composition books will be sold THE WEEK BEFORE SCHOOL. And if you are already sold out and there are still seven days before school starts, wouldn't you order MORE?

I think we need to bring back Weenis of the Week, and ordering person at Target gets my nomination...

A sink!! A sink!!

I have a toilet, toilet paper, shower, sink (w/ running water even) and even shelves and drawers. Plus my husband took me on a real date last night - dinner and a movie. Yay!!!!

This just ain't right

Once upon a time I used to have dreams about sex. All the time. I am one of those lucky people who has lucid dreams fairly often. And it is great, because I quickly learned that anytime I realize I am dreaming, I can have sex with ANYBODY I WANT because it's only a dream and it isn't cheating.

So last night do you know what I dreamed about? Exercising. Yes, I had a dream I was in aerobics class. I mean, wtf?? The night before that I had a dream that I was eating a brownie. This healthy shit really sucks. Dreams about food and exercising... It's a goddamn waste of a dream.

I miss my threesomes with Angelina Jolie and Justin Timberlake.

Quest for NYC - Update #2

The scale is sloooowly moving down. I emphasize the ooooo in sloooooowly. I think the world should be like Celebrity Fit Club where I step on the scale and a cute doctor tells me I've lost SEVEN POUNDS since my last weigh in. But in the real world, it's more like ONE POUND. Actually it was none, but then I realized I had been drinking coffee all day and hadn't had time to pee, so after I went to the bathroom, I had lost an entire pound. That is kind of sad, really.

And in other news, I have a toilet now. Still no shower and still no sink and still no husband, but at least I have a toilet. Unfortunately, I can't find the toilet paper. Sigh.

I miss my bathroom

There is temporary insanity at my house. Hubby is in the process of re-doing our bathroom. It still had the original sink, cabinet, mirror, lights, etc from when my parents built the house 30+ years ago. Also, it had carpet, and we've wanted for a long time to take that out and put down tile. I also wanted new paint on the wall.

Silly me, I had no idea what sort of undertaking this was going to be. I came home from work Wednesday to find that the bathroom was totally gutted. The toilet was sitting inside the tub. It is still there. Don't get me wrong - Erik is making tremendous progress and is working SO hard. But it's taking some time.

And I miss my bathroom. I miss my toilet. I also miss my bed, since the bathroom is right off the bedroom and I couldn't sleep there #1 because of the paint fumes, then #2 now because Erik is working in there until 3:00 a.m. every night and it's too damn loud.

I can't find anything - all my toiletries are in boxes stacked up in the bedroom. I can't find my razor blades, my floss, my feminine hygiene products - it's so frustrating. I have to walk across the house whenever I have to pee. I have to use the kids shower. None of this stuff is really that bad... It's just... annoying and frustrating.

Not only that but since Erik has been spending insane amounts of time working on the bathroom, everything else in the house? Not so much. Including the kids and the laundry and the dishes, etc.

I miss my bathroom, people. I miss my comfy toilet seat and my hairbrush (which I still haven't found in the boxes) and my shampoo (which is trapped behind the toilet sitting in the shower) and my bed and mostly my husband. Sigh.

Quest for NYC - Update #1

First of all, I'm having a difficult time deciding what exactly my starting weight should be for this little quest. I'll just share too much information so you'll understand my dilemma - the first time we went to the gym, I was just getting over a severe bout of IBS (yes, my doctor actually told me once after a colonoscopy that I had the most irritable bowel he'd ever seen) so I think that weight doesn't count because I'd been shooting liquid fire out of my ass for 48 hours.

Then, as is so often the case with so many of us poor folks who suffer from IBS, following the colon on fast forward comes the colon on pause. So then the next time I weighed in, I hadn't passed anything out of my ass for about 3 days. I told Erik I'd gained 3 lbs and he said, You are so full of shit, and I said, yes exactly!!

So, that's that. Today I was at the exact same weight as the first weigh in, but I'm not discouraged by that. I know I'm making progress - I've increased all my strength training weights by at least 5 lbs and I was able to raise the incline and speed on the treadmill tonight as well. I am happy with that.

I've also been very good about keeping a food diary. This is the only thing that works for me. Being forced to think about how many calories are in that slice of chocolate cake makes me think again about eating it.

In other news, ALL MEN SUCK - Erik has lost like 5 lbs just by thinking about working out and cutting out, like, one slice of cheese a day. It's just so unfair.

BTW, you can read my hubby's blog here.

Watching them grow

Today as we were leaving the gym, both of my kids ran from the childcare room over to the water fountains. Marc took a drink from the tall one, and Lisey took a drink from the shorter one.

This may not seem like any big deal. But I had to stop for a minute and catch my breath. Because I had this flash of carrying Lisey in my arms because she couldn't even walk yet, while balancing Marc on my knee to boost him up so he could reach the water fountain, and him being drenched all the way down the front of his shirt because he hadn't quite mastered the skill of pushing the button while drinking.

I had to take a deep breath and literally fight back tears. I know it was just such a small thing. But I suddenly had this overwhelming sense of time passing too quickly and I felt dizzy, like the 3 1/2 years between when Marc first used that water fountain and that moment had just gone whizzing past my head. They grow so gradually I don't notice it until instances like this, and then it just surprises the hell out of me how big they are.

I came home to find that a set of birds has again used my lavender wreath on the front door to build a nest. There are three baby birdies in there, peeping away while the mother bird is sitting on the nearby dogwood tree having a fit that my cat Charlie is out sleeping on the porch. And life goes on.

Antonia's Line

I've been utilizing Netflix lately to catch up on all those foreign films I've always wanted to see but could never convince my husband to rent with me. Since I have MY VERY OWN QUEUE, I can fill it with subtitled movies without bitching and moaning from him.

Last night I watched Antonia's Line, a Dutch film that won the 1996 Oscar for best Foreign Language film. And it was wonderful. I loved it. I laughed, I cried... It moved me.

In a nutshell, it's a movie about a woman who moves with her daughter back to her hometown following WWII. Her mother has passed away so she returns home to take over the family's farm. It is really a celebration of life and love and the passing of years and seasons and the cycle of birth and death. It encompasses five generations of women and their relationships, both with each other and the myriad of other people that come and go in their lives.

There are certainly some difficult parts to watch and some parts were terribly sad, but then other parts were so beautiful, and other parts were so funny - Just like life. The film ends with Antonia's death (don't worry, I didn't give away a surprise ending - you know it's coming because it starts at the same moment), with her lover and her daugher and her granddaughter and her great-granddaughter and her friends at her side. And I cried right along with them.

I don't blog often about movies I've seen, but I had never heard of this film before (Netflix recommended it to me because of my recent run of foreign movies) and I wanted to pass the recommendation on!!