Monday, November 24, 2008

Pilates...again

Wow, I've been neglecting my blog!

Several people have inquired about what I plan on doing with my Pilates certification. I was planning on creating a cardio/pilates class as this is what I felt would be most beneficial for me. And to be honest, a huge reason I decided to get certified in Pilates was so that I could do it too. I have a hard time getting my cardio in at home, and I don't have a gym membership anymore (or at least they haven't been charging me, and I'm afraid if I go, they will realize they haven't been charging me...). So, I thought doing a cardio (bootcamp style) followed by a Pilates mat class would be a great combo. Anyway, I wanted to do a test group beforehand to make sure I could make it run smoothly and see how it went. However, my Pilates instructor/studio owner asked me if I could teach a class starting next week...eeks! A real class with paying customers! So the cardio/Pilates class is on hold for the moment.

I'd love to have any of you out there in the area to come take a class with me at Southern Oregon Pilates. It will be on Mondays and Wednesdays at 6:30 starting on Dec. 1st. It will run for 4 weeks only. Then maybe I can start the cardio/Pilates class....but I have to find people to come to it and pay for it too :)

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Pilates

Today I had my final exam for my Pilates certification, and yeah, I passed!!

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Standing on a soapbox today...

After watching the election coverage last night, and seeing the swarms of people standing outside the White house chanting for Obama, I couldn't help but to feel sorry for President Bush. Today, while perusing the news I came across this article which really summed up all that I felt.

Click Here

Monday, November 3, 2008

Wrap Rage?

I was just perusing my favorite website to shop at ....Amazon of course, and on their main page they have this article about the packaging of products. As you fully understand, because the manufacturers of toys are relatives of Houdini, they like to make it as difficult and frustrating as possible to get the intended item out. So much so, that they have named this frustration "Wrap Rage". Yes, it has an official term. Seems like everything has a diagnoses these days....

Anyway, even though I thought it was kind of silly that they coined a new phrase for the frustration we all feel (especially parents of small children) when trying to extrude a small toy from an ungodly amount of hermetically sealed plastic, metal twisty ties (twisted 47 times), and zip ties (12 of them on all body parts, corners, etc), it is SOOOOOO true. The amount of packaging material that goes to waste on toys is obnoxious. And trying to get some toys out of their packing is like trying to get gracefully put on a full body shaper/squeezer inner.
Other companies (probably sister companies of the toy companies) have started marketing "Wrap Rage Cures"...which are essentially heavy duty scissors to combat against the packaging.

Great Britain did a study and found that 67,000 people reported injuries from opening packing.

Thankfully, Amazon is a smart company.
"Amazon is working with leading manufacturers to deliver products inside smaller, easy-to-open, recyclable cardboard boxes with less packaging material (and no frustrating plastic clamshells or wire ties"

I haven't seen a company do something that made this much sense in a long time. So refreshing that they are using common sense to help make their customers experience more pleasant, even though these are not their products. Way to go Amazon, WAY TO GO!!!

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Mommy time

Today has been a great day so far. Got a great night of sleep, went to Pilates class, went to my parent's house to give them a short Pilates lesson/class. Then went for some extended retail therapy. I ended up buying only things for DH, and kids...although I did get myself some new underwear :)
DH and the kids are at Grandma's ...DH and his Dad are working on a loft bed for Aaron.

Came home and did some mandatory chores, internet surfing, then jumped on the new Wii game DH bought last night. I've wanted this game since I saw the reviews for the Jillian Michaels Wii game got such bad reviews. I really wanted a workout game for the Wii because to be honest Wii fit doesn't keep me occupied for very long. There aren't a whole lot of options at this point, which is why I was really excited for the Jillian Michaels game to come out, but I'm so glad I didn't pre-order it from Ama*zon. While seeing the awful reviews for the JM game, Ama*zon brought up the suggestion of this other game that had gotten way better reviews, called Active Life Outdoor Challenge . In Outdoor challenge, there are a ton of different activities that you can play on your own or with a friend. Last night Steve and I did a sprint competition together...HOLY COW we both plopped onto the couch totally out of breath. He totally smoked me! (I will practice in secret until I win!!)
Today I put my heart rate monitor/calorie counter on just for kicks and did the "fitness" mode. There is a marathon mode where you are running for 10 minutes. I burned 100 calories doing that, then about another 100 doing various other shorter activities. It was a LOT more fun than regular exercise, but it is definitely exercise! My calves were burning during the marathon. If you have a Wii I would totally recommend Outdoor Challenge.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

I'm not good at math, but....

Today DH and I had some interesting and intellectually challenging conversation on the way to Costco. You see, DH often thinks he is right.

By often, I mean always. And I must admit that he is knowledgeable in a lot of different things, in which I don't even pretend to have knowledge in. Usually, if I don't know the answer I say "I don't know" whereas DH usually pulls some retarded answer out of his....well you know where.

So in the car Aaron asks if more air came out of the vent when it was on high vs low, to which I said yes, and DH says no. DH proceeded to fervently argue his case giving analogies about pipes and water and the like. I, however, believed that if the fan was pushing air out at a faster rate, then of course, more air would be coming out. DH continued to disagree wholeheartedly, and starting talking about molecules, and other technical sounding information, at which point I knew his theory was faltering and he was just trying to talk big in order to try to confuse me. This probably works for him in some cases. Anyway, after having this conversation we went straight into the following one...
We've been considering areas in our budget that we could cut back on or cut out in order to save more money.....


Me: maybe we could cut out the bug spraying (we get the outside of our house sprayed every 2 months to avoid bugs coming in the house...DH hates ants and I hate spiders).

DH: Hmm

Me: That would save about $300 (it's $54 every 2 months)

DH: Um, I beg to differ...it would be more like $600 dollars

In my head I'm thinking...well I know I'm bad at math, but I'm pretty sure it's $300

Me: Um, no if it's $54 every 2 months or every other month, wouldn't that be $300

DH: No, it's $600

Me: huh? How do your figure, if it's about $50 x 6 months, 5x6=30....that's $300 dollars.

DH: No.... say we start in January, that would be $50 (for simplicity's sake), then in March, if we're adding, it would be $100, then in May it would be $150, then in July it's $200....

At this point I'm laughing inside because I know I'm right and when DH gets to the end of his brilliant example that he is going to see the error of his ways, and it is going to be sweet victory for me... whaahaahaa

DH continues: then in September it will be $250

I can't believe he's still counting, he must know that he is wrong by now

DH continues: then in November it will be $300

Me: Haahhaaahhaaaahaaa......brilliant!

It's small victories such as this that keep me going :) He will not live this one down....for a very very long time.


And by "very long time", I mean probably not ever.

:)

Monday, October 13, 2008

Hmmmm, choosing your battles...with your kids...

Yesterday after church we went out for a late breakfast. I love breakfast foods!! However, it is often hard to go out to eat and have anything close to a healthy breakfast. Anyway, we went to the Black Bear diner, which has notoriously HUGE portion sizes. I ordered an egg beater omelet thinking that would be healthier than the 3 egg omelet. However, I was sorely disappointed when it arrived as there was butter or some other oil oozing out of every crevice. So, what did I proceed to do. Spread butter and jam on my big 'ol biscuit and enjoy every bite :).

Okay, back to the title of this post. My dear 4 1/2 year old daughter is not much of an eater. She eats like a bird. She loves ham though, so I ordered her a breakfast sandwich, which came with eggs (not her favorite), cheese (mostly okay), and ham (favorite) on an english muffin (she loves bread like her mother). However, she was about as enthused with her sandwich as I was with my omelet. After I cut it up for her, and she had maybe 2 bites of ham, I looked over and she is munching away on the small piece of kale garnish they had on the plate. Dear husband was getting irritated at her because she wasn't eating her breakfast, and I'm thinking, well at least she's getting some great nutrients in. She proceeded to eat everyone's garnish off their plates. She also ate all the strawberries off the small bowl of fruit that had come with her meal. So all in all, she had a very nutritious, if not darn right healthy meal. Maybe I should order like her. I'll take the garnish and the fruit, hold the meal......