Through the shredder (for real, this time)

I was introduced to Jillian Michaels' 30-day shred a year and a half ago by my once workout buddy and all around great gal, Hilary. Please take a look at my attitude when I first attempted the Shred. The month of September 2010 became “Shredded September.”

I decided that action needed to be taken when I was lethargic all the time and was winded by a few flights of stairs. I grabbed my trusty Jillian Michaels DVD and figured it would be a good jumpstart to reviving my old habit of going to the gym. I wasn’t naïve enough to expect to shed the 20 lbs that was boasted on the cover of the dvd, I was just looking for something to get me going.

Here’s my experience in a nutshell:

Fiction: Lose up to 20 lbs in 30 days. Fact: I ended up gaining in the end; however, it was all muscle. I have rediscovered my shoulder blades and have some pretty awesome upper body muscles going on.

Fact: The first 21 days were the easiest—the last week was super hard. I got really bored with the video and was ready to move on to something else. I even mixed up the levels just to break routine.

Fact: I will never be able to do 30 squat thrusts. They hurt my knees and make me very cranky.

Fact: Plank position really is the best way to build shoulder and back muscles. I will stop complaining about all of the exercises in plank position.

Fiction: half push-ups or “girl” push-ups are just as effective as full push-ups. Personally, I disagree with this statement. That’s a copout that I used a lot. Finally, I bit the bullet and just struggled through the full push-ups and I found that I was strong enough to do them. They’re just hard.

Fact: I was AMAZED at how easy level 1 was after doing 20 straight days of levels 2 and 3.

Fact: squats and lunges never get easier. That’s why they’re good.

So, that’s what I learned in the last 30 days. Now I’m off to 30 days of running followed by another 30 days of shred. I have a wedding to go to in January and I will look hot for it.

I would recommend the 30-day shred for anyone who isn't a diehard gym goer.I don't think this should be used as a weight loss program, but to discover how strong you really are.

Inspirartion!!

I have stumbled upon some inspiration. When I say stumble, what I mean is I saw my friend do something and now I am jealous and want to do the same thing. My friend Mandee took a shapeless piece of clothing and made it super cute. She got her idea from this fabulous lady (who I now follow religiously).

“Hey!” I thought. “I like to sew. I like to rip things apart. Why not me?” After all, we all remember the 80s monster bridal gown that had to be torn apart and re-vamped.

With plans to meet my gal-pal Heidi at the neighborhood DI (Desert Industries for
all of you non-Utahans – A “goodwill” of sorts) at 7 pm. I put $10 in my pocket and set off to find my soon-to-be masterpiece! I began thinking of all the possibilities depending on the article of clothing I chose to demolish.

I arrived at the DI before Heidi and, mind still full of dizzying possibilities, walked through the front doors. My dreams came to a screeching halt when all of the employees turned and stared at me as I entered. I stopped thinking I must have done something wrong but could not for the life of me figure out what I did.

One of the employees grabbed the store microphone without looking away from me and made the following announcement:

“DI customers- it is now 7 o’clock. This store is now closed”

He continued to stare at me with a smirk as he put the microphone back.

At this announcement, the lights in the store dimmed and my excitement and inspiration were crushed by the rude employee. I dejectedly turned around and walked out the doors.

Heidi found me outside of the store with my hopes for the night broken on the concrete.

“Screw it.” I said. “Let’s go get some ice cream.”


Next time I’ll choose to support Savers, Salvation Army, Thrift Town, or any other thrift store that doesn’t have cranky, tactless nincompoops as employees.

Writer's Block

I find that every few months I have severe writer’s block. Several times during the day something will happen that makes me think “Ooh! That would be a great blog!” I go so far as to write ideas down in a trusty notebook Andy gave me for Christmas. However, when it comes to actually writing it in story form, I can never make it as funny as what I witnessed.

Since my notebook is filling up, I feel like I need to put a few down in non-story form to make sure that these instances get out somehow.

The items on following list are happenings from the past few months that I deemed ‘blog worthy’ but have been unable to put them into any sort of amusing, anecdotal, or worthwhile story.

• A group of fat, old men taking a lesson on how to ride their newly acquired segways. No joke, there were about 15 old dudes with helmets on their segways outside of Huntsman Cancer Institute taking direction from a policeman.

• A worker at a nail salon chewing out some poor, young customer for putting glitter nail polish over her acrylic nails. I’m not gonna lie…I laughed at the poor customer while it was happening.

• During my last trip to New York, April and I witness several (several= upwards of 50) people, men and women, in black suits, wearing sunglasses, carrying black duffle bags in his/her right hand. All of these observed weirdoes were sighted within 5 blocks. MIB convention, maybe? I was super creeped out.

• How many times in one day I reference South Park. I haven’t given up on this post as its own entry. I’ve had a draft for several months now and it will be completed someday. Allow me to say, I reference South Park an obscene amount of times in one day. I guess that goes for most TV shows and movies as well.

• Random people feeling that it's not only acceptable, but necessary, to touch my hair when I braid it. Seriously. Respect the friggin' bubble, people!

• The re-release of Avatar into theaters. WTF? Is the movie industry so bad that they have to bring a really sub-par movie back into theaters?

These are my favorites from a large list. Some form or other all of the above stories are stored as “drafts” on my blog list. I just haven’t been able to make them anything worth reading.

So, dear readers, you must use your imagination and make each scenario the most amusing you can. Lord knows, I’ve tried and I’ve failed.

I hope to be inspired soon. Don't give up on me!

Judgment

I witnessed a car accident this morning. A woman in a Jeep cut off a man in a Ford truck. Rather than hitting the brakes, as you usually do when someone cuts you off, the truck sped up and plowed right into the Jeep. Whether the woman didn’t see the truck or was purposely cutting him off, I don’t know. Perhaps the man panicked when she cut him off and accelerated instead of braking. Whatever the case, the part that really struck me as horrible was the confrontation of both drivers.

They both pulled off to the side of the road (across the street from my bus stop). The man jumped out of his truck screaming “You stupid son of a b****, what the f*** were you thinking?” so on and so forth in this manner. He approached the Jeep and began banging on the windows. At this point, the woman swung her door open (hitting him in the face; to be fair, he shouldn’t have been banging on the windows) and began screaming just as aggressively as the man from the truck.

I kept my phone in my hand, ready to call 911 should this “conversation” come to blows. I watched with horror and disgust as these two people dressed in business attire screamed at each other on 1300 East at 7:00 AM.

First, I have been in two accidents and never realized how fortunate I was to be treated with such respect and sympathy. Both times, the driver of the other vehicle asked if I was ok. The conversation was civil both times and voices were never once raised. There was no blaming, no accusations. The situation was always treated as “Man, that sucks but let’s see if we can figure it out.”

Second, I was saddened by the state of the world if such a display of conflict management has become normal. To see this anger, hostility, and disrespect from two adults made me sick.

I watched as the police approached the scene and listened with perfect dignity as these two people were screaming at him and each other. He took notes and spoke calmly to both of them. At that point my bus pulled up.

I boarded my bus and watched the scene as we pulled away. My disgust soared to a new level when the woman opened the door to her back seat and pulled out two small, crying children.

Shame on those people for choosing to not think before they spoke and acted. Shame on them for forgetting that everyone makes mistakes and refusing to work together to solve the problem. Shame on them for not using self restraint in the presence of others.


But then again, how often do I have the same reaction in different situations? How often have I been guilty of the judgment I've just placed on them?

Lesson observed and internalized.

12 Days: a sad tale with a happy ending.

12 days ago- I opened the window of our bedroom (as I always do) to let Mort get some fresh air before bed. I finished my nighttime rituals, shut the window, and went to sleep. It was like any other night.

11 days ago- I woke up and realized Mort was not at my feet, not crying for me to turn on the faucet, and not asleep under the bed. I woke Andy up and we did a sweep of the house. I ended up coming home early from work to continue searching. Many tears shed. I was mortified when I realized he had jumped out of the window before I shut it the evening before. He had spent the whole night outside.

10 days ago- Andy and I did a full neighborhood sweep. We went down every alleyway and side street we could find. We (I) went so far as to ask another cat if he knew where Mort was hiding. More tears shed. Humane Society knew me by name at this point.

9 days ago- Another neighborhood sweep. I put out food in case Mort was hiding in the bushes around our house. Consequently, I became the neighbor’s cat’s best friend. Hysterical tears shed. Depression started.

8 days ago- I came home from work and walked around the neighborhood. In my depression, I didn’t clean, I didn’t cook; I just stared out the window and waited for Mort to come home.


7 days ago- I began to get really angry with people who tried their hardest to be upbeat and supportive. Every time I heard “I’m sure he’ll come home when he’s ready” I wanted to scream and throw things.

6 days ago- I painfully came to the realization that Mort was not going to magically reappear. Either someone had to find him or he was lost forever. Andy was very patient with me when I came to this understanding.

5 days ago – Andy and I talked about what more we could be doing. We decided that our cat, a Houdini of sorts, was not going to be found unless he wanted to be found. Therefore, posters were superfluous.

4 days ago- I caught a glimpse of a white cat that wasn’t my neighbor’s cat. I was convinced it was Mort and began laughing and crying and calling to him. Once I shined the light on the cat, I found out it wasn’t Mort. It was just another neighborhood cat. I went straight to bed.

3 days ago- Andy went to the Humane Society to see if someone had dropped Mort off and he was mistakenly not scanned (for his chip). Andy proceeded to come home and tell me how heartbreaking the cat situation was at the shelter (GO ADOPT A CAT and SPAY AND NEUTER ALL OF YOUR ANIMALS) which inspired more tears, sadness, and depression.

2 days ago- Andy and I began the conversation of how long we wait before we replace Mort. More tears and depression.

1 day ago- I received a phone call. An angel found Morty hiding in her basement and contacted the humane society with his tag numbers (who then contacted me). I was able to pick him up at 5 pm at which point Morty did not let me leave his sight. He was constantly head-butting me and telling me all about his adventures in the scary outdoors.

Today- I am so thankful to have my Morty back. I intend to help him gain the weight he has lost (he’s so skinny). I intend to never open the bedroom window again. I intend to snuggle him until he can’t stand it. The snuggling will commence after his bath, of course.

This picture was taken this morning. The pictures above were taken at an earlier date. He's very skinny and very dirty but I think he'll pull through. He's so happy to be home.

In defense of "My generation"

I work with a woman who drives me crazy. She is an angry child of the 60s who doesn't seem to like anyone. She calls me naïve and often puts me down. She refers to me as "Your Generation."

According to her, My generation:

- Doesn't know how to travel. She was appalled when I told her I'd rather fly than road trip. My argument: "six hours in a plane will get you to a much cooler place than six hours in a car." Her argument: "Your Generation is just too lazy to drive without destination. There's nothing like cruising the open road with a beer in your hand." Fair enough.

- Eats nothing but sugar. This statement came from me offering her a gummy worm. Interestingly enough, she refers to 2pm as "Chocolate time" when she chokes down a pound of chocolate covered pretzels every day. But I guess my generation is the "sugar generation".

- Stole music from a superior generation. As I listened to my 'Glee' channel on Pandora, the song "Let it be" came on. This woman began raving about how my generation can't make quality music of their own so we have to steal from her generation. "When I was a twenty-something I wouldn't have been caught dead listening to my parent's music." I guess this is true. I prefer the The Who over Backstreet Boys any day. Guilty.

- is a generation of posers. This piggy-backs on the last one. My generation can be considered a 'poser' generation because we bring back fashions "they" wore, listen to "their" music, and use slang that "they" invented. Also, she like to remind me that she was a vegan before it got trendy. Would we call practicing veganism trendy?

In the defense of my generation: we are a product of your generation. All of your complaints are your own doing. Leave generation Y alone, hippie.

My husband, the Rockstar

This morning we decided to ditch church and go to breakfast at a delightful restaurant called Finn's. We found our friend, Jamie, there and ordered our drinks, iced tea, hot tea, and diet coke.

As we were perusing the menu and deliberating about whether we should order breakfast or lunch, Andy jumped out of his seat and vacated the table. Before Jamie and I could figure out what was going on, Andy was at the front of the restaurant, assisting an elderly gentleman who had fallen. The man was on his back and very disoriented. Andy was asking questions and gathering information.

Jamie and I looked at each other and exchanged remarks about what a good guy Andy was.

I glanced back at Andy's progress and was slightly startled to see him on top of the man, doing chest compressions. The entire restaurant went into an awkward stupor and watched.

"Breathe," Andy kept shouting to the man who had dropped out of consciousness.

Considering how many people were around Andy asking if they could help, I decided to stay in my seat and simply gape at the spectacle, feeling terribly insulted when the head chef asked the table behind us if they were going to "stay for the end of the show?"

The CPR continued for what seemed like forever. Andy continued his compressions and just being overall fabulous. When the EMTs arrived, Andy turned his attention to the poor man's wife, asked her for her husband's medical history, and explained to her (in layman's terms) what was going on with her husband.

Andy stood by, watched over the EMTs, and stayed with the man until he was loaded into the ambulance.

So, here's to Andy: the serious stud muffin who reacts beautifully in dire situations. You are an inspiration and a lifesaver. I am so very proud.

To Andy!!