I climbed a rock wall!!

I tried to post this last night but Blogger kept saying "Internal Errors" when I tried to upload my photos... trying again this morning:

So YESTERDAY I climbed a rock wall :)
Granted I only got up around 10-12 feet but at least I did it!! My friend from school Tiffany was so patient explaining everything to me and helping me do this for the first time. She had extra equipment for me to use and I rented shoes there.

Was I scared? Actually not at first -- I was so concentrating on getting my feet to the next hold... but then after a few climbs, I got to around 12 feet or so and it hit me where I was and I got a little of the fraidy-cats and came down. I had thought maybe I could even try for the top but I think that will be another time!

>And the day before, Marilyne and I went to Lake Natoma for a short hike. It was so pretty -- I really should get out and about here more. There are so many nice places to hike and be outside that are only around 10-20 miles from me here... I have to throw away the lazy me and JUST DO IT!!

We saw some herons and egrets and lots of ducks of course. We even ran into 2 volunteer patrol on horseback (both were women!) who were just riding around making sure of no fires and such. Got to pat a horse's rump which made me think about my desire to get over my fear of horseback riding. When I got home I emailed the trails info for Gibson Ranch to find out when they had rides for scardy cats like myself! I think I will do that too before school starts!

SPARQ yesterday and hiking today!

Well I am still sore from yesterday's SPARQ agility private class I took over at Velocity! It was fun but VERY demanding! Started out with a dynamic warmup -- similar to the warmup from the fitness class, various exercises down a 20 yard row interspersed with standing or against the wall movements -- much more active than the wimpy little 3 minute warmup stretches the classes at the gym usually have. After this "warmup" I was already out of breath!!

Then we did some other running and movement things and finally got to the SPARQ stuff -- ladders, low hurdles, quick-feet stuff... a lot of it is good for strengthening the ankles and getting the brain to think quickly on your feet which is helpful in older age as we tend to trip and fall more often. This helps the body be able to catch itself and get itself to upright without spraining ankles, etc. Well it will help it when you do it a lot. But I already saw in the concentrated 30 minutes of these quickfeet exercises my balance and coordination improving a little. By the end I had sweated buckets and had a lot of fun and that is what I want in an exercise class!

So I decided to get a 10-card for the fitness classes for the rest of the summer (they are small, almost semi-private usually with 4-8 people) since I still have Stacy for Personal Training then in the Fall I might do a once a week SPARQ agility personal training for a while... am thinking about it. It's not as cheap as the gym but I really feel I get my exercise money's worth when I have done a class there!

When I got home I decided to call up another teacher friend, Marilyne, to go for a walk/hike today. We settled on Lake Natoma, where I have never been even though it is so close. I think she is in much better hiking shape than I am but we will just set out and see what happens!

This week Stacy (my Personal Trainer -- who EVER would have thought I would use the word "my" with the other 2 words lol) is on vacation so I am exploring other ways to do exercise. Today a hike and tomorrow I am going rock climbing at Pipeworks with another teacher from my school, Tiffany, who is an avid rock climber. I had told her I wanted to try it before my birthday and so I will!

Updating my Amazon Wish List

Got me thinking tonight about what I really wanted these days... yes I have a few items on my Amazon Wish List for my birthday (before you even remind me to update it Liz!) but actually I can't figure out many smallish things to put on it. I have pretty much done what I always complain about that Andy does -- buy stuff when I want it and not bother to wait to see if someone will get it for me.

I actually took off a bunch of stuff that after thinking more about it, I realized I didn't really care if I had or not... and other things I took off just cause I couldn't really figure out why I wanted them in the first place!

So is a couple of weeks I will be 56 and I THINK for the first time since I have hit 50 I am ok with being in my fifties. I think that is because I have been getting healthier and feel more positive and energetic. Maybe just cause it is summer vacation and I am less stressed. Maybe because finally birthdays don't really matter -- although Andy is planning something he won't tell me about except to tell me to keep the day free so that worries me a little LOL... although yes last time the hot air balloon thing turned out just fine and all -- in general I hate birthday surprises!

SPARQ

I tried a new type of class today and found myself really enjoying it even though it was really hard! It was a different kind of fitness class, one I found when I was looking for places that might have SPARQ training in the Sacramento area. I had heard of SPARQ (SPEED. POWER. AGILITY. REACTION. QUICKNESS) and have been seeing some obstacle course style fitness events on YouTube or on some of the weight loss types of shows I sometimes watch and thought it might be a fun thing to try.

So I contacted Velocity Sports off Sunrise and went out for a class this morning. The class I tried was the adult Velocity Fitness class which they said sometimes has some SPARQ elements in it -- mostly it was a very fast paced, drill oriented always moving, working (I never even sweat so hard in Zumba and I thought I really sweated in there!)... and I was exhausted but so exhilarated afterwards. Gave me a ton of energy!! So I requested an obstacle course class which is actually part of their personal trainer program if you are not in like a school sport or something but that's ok. I will go out on Monday and try that. They gave me a $20 discount from the normal personal training rate to try it for the first hour (today's class was free to try)... so that might give me an idea if that is something I want to add to my future fitness program once school starts. I thought the agility part would be good cause I am sort of a klutz about a lot of things and not really into sports so never play at anything like what they do.

Now why do I want this when I am happy with Zumba and all.... well, it's the variety and the constantly pushing myself to see exactly what I am capable of doing now that I am finding this new found athletic energy in myself that I never knew was there. I sorta wish I had found it 20 years earlier but today is better than never. I just want to know what I am really capable of doing. How fit can I really get myself after so many years of neglectful couch potato life? It is only recently (like the last couple of weeks) I have started noticing myself getting leaner and possibly slowly (very slowly) losing some of this built up flab. Yesterday I was at a store and bought myself a Size 12 pair of pants that fit!! I had been size 16 for many years then "relaxed 14" for this last half year so you can imagine how happy I was that a pair of 12's actually fit me! Now I admit they were a little tight and I may still have days they won't fit well but at least it is coming off! YAY ME!!

Another fun class!

On Saturday I tried out an African Dance class at Sierra 2 near my house and it was REALLY fun! There were a lot of people doing the drumming and people traded off a little to dance and drum. It had kids of all ages in the dance part -- a bunch of younger kids, some high school and maybe collage age and a few of us older types. There was one other older white woman dancing who may have been around my age and said she had been doing this off and on for a few years.

I thought at first since there were so many little kids in the class it wouldn't be very challenging but the teacher (a young woman named Olivia) made it fun for all of us and after an hour I was feeling like I had done some cardio, although not as much as a zumba class. But since there is really nothing else going on at 5-6:30 on Saturdays I figured a little exercise and fun was better than nothing!

I will go back although I am not sure I see it as a weekly item on my calendar just cause it is Saturday evenings.

So today...
I go after my Personal Training to a Body Fat testing at another gym where they dunk you and get a more accurate reading. I am hoping to be able to do this now and then at the end of the year to really see my progress. The body fat handheld monitors at the gyms only give an idea of body fat but are not very accurate. I have seen a slight downward progress with the one at the gym (from 40.6% to 38.9% in the last 4 weeks) but I know the other one today will be more definitive for me.

My highest measurement for body fat has been 42% which was way out of healthy range. The last year or so it has hovered around 40. So now this is what I am working on...

My goals for body fat:
By end of summer (one more month): 36-37
By end of year: 30
By next summer: 24 where it should be to be fit and healthy

UPDATE: back from the dunk tank and my body fat reading was 35.3% so a lot lower than the hand held monitor at the gym! Yay... so the above is my goal with the gym measurements and below is my goal for the dunk tank which I will do every 4 months or so (they recommend that to make sure you are not losing muscle mass with the fat which makes sense when you are eating less to lose weight. If you don't eat enough it is actually not good for you and so this is one (easy) way to tell)...

So according to their data and my lean/fat ratios, next target should be 32-33% in 4 months and if I go as planned I would get to my goal target of 24-26 by next summer. I personally think I can do it faster if I keep using a trainer and doing so much cardio but we shall see. I may have to slow it down once school starts anyway so that's ok too.

This makes me shake my head...

Yesterday morning in the news there was an article about Tony Snow dying of colon cancer at 53. This isn't a blog about this man or who/what he did but the following paragraph caught my eye and just made me shake my head:

"He resigned as Bush's chief spokesman six months later, in September 2007, citing not his health but a need to earn more than the $168,000 a year he was paid in the government post."

Ok he was married and had 3 kids but I know a lot of teachers in that position who make probably $80,000 max a year and manage just fine.

What does anyone need that much money to live on? Better health benefits? If he worked for the government and didn't have more than adequate health benefits then that should say something about health care in our country right there.

Or cause he lived in Washington DC or New York or the East Coast? What does one NEED more than $168,000 a year to live on DO that causes that need?

That is my question. Of course there is nothing in the article about why he needed more money or why he didn't manage to avoid having his colon checked when he was young enough to attempt a recovery from cancer -- we all know from Katie Couric after all to have our colons checked regularly, don't we?

It was just the money question that got me wondering yesterday morning...

Now granted I live a very simple life (well not as simple as the Amish but it's all relative). I don't have kids and I don't live in a big fancy house with a pool or have maids (I wish) or anything but in general I think we do just fine on less than half of that salary and at the moment it is only me working. True I will need a new car again soon but it doesn't have to be a Bentley. And I even manage to have a personal trainer and go to Europe so my life isn't lacking... just wondering why anyone NEEDS all that money.

And yes I know it grows from there when you read about movie stars and divorces and all the millions of dollars they are "accustomed" to having. Why do we value such opulence and the way people squander money?

I better stop and go do some Zumba before this really upsets me! LOL

Zumba makes it to the New York Times!!

Not that it is really "new" news, but zumba actually got a long article in the New York Times online today! And to think I have been doing it since March of LAST year!! Wow!

So today being Friday we went to play pool for a couple of hours. I found that I was making more shots and seeing the ball better (well at least for the first hour!) and I know the more we play the better it will get. It was fun. We were going to go watch a Ladies Night Tournament this evening but I think we forget -- I just remembered and it is already nearly 9 pm so it is a little late to go (even though it may still be going on) but maybe next week I will think about it before we make dinner and plan better!

Then I went to another Zumba class today at my usual Elk Grove gym. There are classes at some of the other branches of the gym but it basically comes back to me liking the teacher at my gym (Kim) when there isn't a class by Pakko or at Spotlight. I have a pretty good weekly schedule of classes to go to now... will be interesting to see how I can adapt it once school starts back up since some of them now are in the day times. I plan on continuing to go at least 3 or 4 times a week even once school is in session.

AND I decided to continue my strength training as well and luckily Stacy can take me at 4 pm on Monday and Tuesdays. So like now, we will do lower body and abs one day and upper body (and abs) the other. Then I am on my own for either doing more at home or finding a group class at least once more each week to stay on top of it. I have a ton of tapes though (Jillian Michaels from the Biggest Loser is my favorite for busting butt with weight stuff on DVD at the moment), even though now that I have Stacy I am not doing it at home so I don't overdo things. My Saturday WOW class ends in a few weeks though so then I can do my own thing on Saturdays for weights.

I still can't believe this is ME saying all this! But I love it and it is really helping me makeover the old Rhonda and find the new old me! And helping me feel and look better in the process!

A class by myself tonight!

I actually WENT to zumba @5:45 and was the only student there!! Pakko did the class anyway and we worked HARD!!! Yay thanks Pakko!

I actually loved it! Made up for a really wimpy class I went to this morning at Natomas gym. I had wanted to try a class by a woman who I had heard might be good but she wasn't there and her sub was just awful!! It was a Russian guy who had the hips down for Latin dancing but didn't do any of the normal zumba moves and it was SOOOO boring! I worked myself as hard as I could but I think I would have gotten more exercise on the elliptical machine for 30 minutes! Man what a waste of time that was. So I was really happy that Pakko had his very vigorous class tonight!! Now that one made me SWEAT!!!

Came home and took a shower to try to cooooool off!! Man oh man it is hot out there--107 or so today-- I think that is what the weather person said!!

Andy said he was proud of me for not using the heat as an excuse (which I would have done in a flash even a couple of months ago)! I am proud of myself for going too!

yay for me!

Catching Up and an Observation...

Friday we played pool. I thought I might get a chance to go practice during the week but didn't. Andy won most games but I found it a little easier to make some shots I used to be able to do easily. Still, practice will help.

We went to see Wall-E after pool but the show we wanted was sold out and there were tons of kids around so we decided to just wait a few days.

Saturday I had my weights class but felt sort of dizzy again so I didn't do all of it. On the way home I thought about what might be making me dizzy and I thought maybe it is my blood pressure meds -- now that I am less stressed and exercising more, maybe it is too strong and thus making my blood pressure too low? So I made a Dr appt for Friday (soonest I could get on the computer Kaiser appts, although if I am still dizzy today (Monday) then I will call and get one sooner if I can). Didn't do much else cause my shins also still hurt from I guess the fast walking from Thursday? Anyway I mostly bummed out, napped, and generally lazed around.

Sunday morning I didn't go to Zumba cause my legs still hurt so we went to see Wall-E earlier. It was a cute movie, a little heavy handed on the environmental stuff but still funny and totally Pixar cute. Then we went to a new Nugget market which opened on Elk Grove Blvd and bought goodies to devour as usual.

The rest of the day I worked on school stuff and by evening was sort of out of it and grumpy. Andy suggested it was because I hadn't done any zumba or real exercise for a few days and ya know, I think he was right! So I am going to go to a zumba class this morning before my Personal Trainer and get back to moving!

I would rather be tired from dancing too much than being too lazy! Plus I really think it helps with my moods and ability to get other things done. I really didn't get anything else worked on in the kitchen or my office/studio in the last few days and I think that lack of energy was from not exercising. I am going to really have to figure out how to fit it all in when I am back to school so I can keep up the energy level it gives me!

From my sister the fork:

Liz had this on her webpage and I thought it was cute... (and the irony of course is that I absolutely HATE to use sporks!!)

You Are a Spork

You have a playful, eccentric sense of humor. You are creative. You see the world in bold colors. You are a dabbler. You love to experiment. You aren't an expert in anything, but you know a little about everything.

What Utensil Are You?

So I did it a second time with all my second choice answers (or other answers where I could have gone either way) and now...

You Are Chopsticks

People see you as exotic, unusual, and even a bit intimidating. You are a difficult person to figure out. In truth, you try to live a very simple life. But most people are too frenzied to recognize the beauty of your simplicity.

What Utensil Are You?

Goals vs Habits

I have been thinking about this a lot lately both as getting things together for the start of the school year as well as getting myself leaner and stronger. So yesterday I found this online and even though it was written for a business audience it got me thinking more about the idea of setting up habits instead of making goals lists. Two sentences that caught my eye:
"Goal Setting can masquerade as procrastination in disguise."
"The ability to create winning habits may be more important than creating goals."

Another one of his articles was this list of 52 ways to make this your best year (I suppose it could start anytime even if it was meant for the New Year).

How this all works for me:
In terms of school:
Setting up procedures for students:
Last year I didn't spend enough time reviewing and reteaching classroom procedures to students so when new kids came in, there wasn't a really strong classroom "culture" of what to do properly. This year I will teach, practice, reteach, practice as long as I need to and then even longer to really get the kids used to doing things the right way at first and saving me countless hours of frustration. I am rereading the Harry Wong "First Days of School" book yet again to remind myself all the things I already know but really need to remember to do (right the first time) this coming school year. Also spending more time on teachers.net for more ideas.

In terms of myself:
DOING instead of talking about doing.
I have gotten to the point (yay) when I don't exercise for a couple of days I really feel the NEED to move around, to go to a class or do something physical. This is good. For me now, instead of talking about how I want to start walking, hiking, etc. I need to DO it and establish the habit of walking, say in the early mornings with Maggie, and "Just do it"!

Nike had it right although I think I would preface it with something to tell me to stop whining so... for me it's: "Shut up and just do it!".

Machines and Souls

I was wandering around the DavidByrne.com website (this from his journal) this morning and came across some interesting paragraphs I thought post here:

"...Just as Descartes once separated the mind and body, we now separate machines — which we see as extensions of our body and senses — from something we refer to as our souls.

What is a soul? Some suggest it’s what survives death, joining the other evanescent and matterless essences when our “machines,” our bodies, cease to function. Some claim it has a weight, that the body mysteriously loses 21 grams at the moment of our passing. In this view, it is not DNA but the soul that contains the true self, our sacred and immutable identities.

When a limb is amputated, is part of the soul lost? According to convention, no, it is not. When a lobotomy is performed or a person has a stroke is part of the soul “lost” or diminished? Presumably not — even a person in a vegetative state still has a soul, though we don’t know exactly where it is. Where do we draw the line? Would a brain kept alive but apart from its body still have a soul?"

This reminds me of two things: some of the discussion in the movie "Mindwalk" and also it reminds me of the exercise we used to use with kids about what makes someone alive, when each part of a human (finally the brain) is replaced with basically a machine (bionics?) eventually is the resultant "person" still "alive" or a machine? And when does the change occur?

I think I am going to dig up this activity and do it again...

Old photos and memories...

This weekend as I was going through some of the boxes of my old junk I came across some old photos -- this one is of my dad, sister and me from around 1976 in front of the old Toyota I think we gave to my friend Evie who ended up bringing it to Alaska. It was taken outside our San Francisco flat on 28th Avenue. Weren't we so young and skinny then?

This other one adds my friend Evie and my step-mom Elaine to the picture. I think it was just recently Evie's birthday too (June 23 or somewhere near there?) -- I have been so terrible about keeping in touch. I think I will call her this week and say hello! We were such close friends for so many years from end of high school until well into our 20s when we both ended up in different parts of the world. I came back to California and she settled in Alaska. Amazing if I think of it how long it has been!

Exercise and sushi!

Today was a good day for exercise. Started with my usual Saturday morning W.O.W. (Women on weights) class at the gym (4 more after today), then home for a quick yogurt and off to Spotlight for an hour of Zumba and a bonus half-hour after class tone session that the Saturday class offers. I was pretty sore by then from the morning lunges and all but I stayed and worked through it. By the time I got home I realized I had done 2 and a half hours of exercise in a 5 hour period!

Then we went to Oto's to get some maguro to make our own sashimi and sushi dinner. Got a couple of ready made sushi packs (a rainbow roll and some inari/tofu bag and futomaki/fat roll) that they make there to take out as well as some delicious maguro (tuna) for sashimi, as well as some other goodies. I love Oto's -- so many cool foods and fun things there. Not as big as the HUGE Japanese store I love in Portland (Beaverton) -- the one I took you to Liz -- but still it's the best thing around for Japanese food and items. Saves a 2 hour trip to SF's Nihonmachi (Japantown). And the wondrous thing is that it is only 5 minutes from our house!!

Tomorrow I have my morning Zumba class and then not sure what I will do the rest of the day. Probably keep working on getting these boxes of stuff put away/purged-thrown away and things like that. When I am on vacation, the idea of "weekend" doesn't really apply cause I don't do things any differently on weekends than during the week, just have different exercise options. (Did I really say that? Wow, I am even impressing myself!) There is also a cardio-kickboxing class at the gym tomorrow evening that maybe I will try. Haven't been to it yet and it's at 6 pm, which is an awkward time for the idea of dinner, so I just have to change my idea of when dinner should be and do it anyway!

Clean workspace!!

I finally have the room put together enough to actually start doing art again!! There are still a ton of boxes out in the hall and living room that I have to put away (a lot of them have old school stuff I just have to sit down and weed through)... but I felt so inspired last night I started laying down background color for new journal pages!! And more this morning!
I am doing what we learned in Teesha's journaling class of laying down a lot of pages of color then being able to go back to them anytime without having to stop my journaling momentum and wait for paint to dry. I am even doing two journals so when this one is done I will already have colors in my next one -- with a lot of blank pages in between in case I decide to do something different by then!

Some changes still to come: get rid of that ugly rainbow sheet over the window once I find the curtains I am looking for (or make them which is more likely): black and white polka dots! I had nice curtains hanging before but they were sort of beige and do not look good with the yellow walls so we just covered up the window with the sheet until I get something else. It looks right out onto the street so Andy didn't want it left uncovered. I agree but for a different reason -- it looks right out onto our messy front porch that is too ugly at the moment to look out onto! Eventually I hope to get it cleaned up out there too and be able to open the curtains for light and to see my front yard when I am in here working. I hate it that our house is so dark cause all the shades and curtains are always closed. I need light!!

Animoto

I discovered a cool program online where you can upload pix and music and it makes short videos of them -- much more flashy than a regular powerpoint... am already seeing applications for school use! It's called ANIMOTO and this is my first attempt with it. Need to make all my pix the same size for next try and maybe add more... lots of possibilities!



And hopefully I just figured out how to embed it in blogger (they make it pretty easy so even I can do it! lol)

Thoughts on George Carlin.

George Carlin died over the weekend.

From Yahoo news today:
"Carlin's jokes constantly breached the accepted boundaries of comedy and language, particularly with his routine on the "Seven Words" — all of which are taboo on broadcast TV and radio to this day.
When he uttered all seven at a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested on charges of disturbing the peace, freed on $150 bail and exonerated when a Wisconsin judge dismissed the case, saying it was indecent but citing free speech and the lack of any disturbance.
When the words were later played on a New York radio station, they resulted in a 1978 Supreme Court ruling upholding the government's authority to sanction stations for broadcasting offensive language during hours when children might be listening."

And to me that is the irony of it all -- you hear little kids saying all those words any day now all over the place and of course they are allowed on "cable" but the point is, they are still offensive when said by children on an everyday basis yet parents never do anything to stop them because the kids learn the words from them! But you can't say them on tv! (Not that I want to hear them all the time anyway, I hear them enough teaching middle school! Oh wait, that is by the teachers... lol)

Carlin had such an insightful way of looking at life. I remember when he was on television when I was a kid. I haven't thought about him recently but you know how it is when someone dies, suddenly all thoughts are on that person.

Here are some of my favorite George Carlinisms, found online various places, thank you Google (Some sound like Steven Wrightisms, but maybe he got them from Carlin?):

How come wrong numbers are never busy?
Can a stupid person be a smart-ass?
Does killing time damage eternity?
Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard?
Why is it called lipstick if you can still move your lips?
Why is it that night falls but day breaks?
Why is the third hand on the watch called a second hand?
Why is it that when you're driving and looking for an address, you turn down the volume on the radio?
Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor, and dishwashing liquid made with real lemons?
Are part-time bandleaders semi-conductors?
Can you buy an entire chess set in a pawn shop?
Daylight savings time - why are they saving it and where do they keep it?
Did Noah keep his bees in archives?
Do jellyfish get gas from eating jellybeans?
Do pilots take crash-courses?
Have you ever imagined a world with no hypothetical situations?
How can there be self-help "groups"?
How do you get off a non-stop flight?
How do you write zero in Roman numerals?
How many weeks are there in a light year?
If a jogger runs at the speed of sound, can he still hear his Walkman?
If blind people wear dark glasses, why don't deaf people wear earmuffs?
If cats and dogs didn't have fur would we still pet them?
If peanut butter cookies are made from peanut butter, then what are Girl Scout cookies made out of?
If space is a vacuum, who changes the bags?
If swimming is good for your shape, then why do the whales look the way they do?
If tin whistles are made out of tin, what do they make fog horns out of?
If white wine goes with fish, do white grapes go with sushi?
If you can't drink and drive, why do bars have parking lots?
If you jog backwards, will you gain weight?
If you take an Oriental person and spin him around several times, does he become disoriented?
Why do the signs that say "Slow Children" have a picture of a running child?
Why do we sing "Take me out to the ball game, when we are already there?
Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?
Why do they lock gas station bathrooms? Are they afraid someone will clean them?

Played pool!

I didn't have my usual Zumba class this morning because my teacher had some other training to go to so Andy and I went out and played pool for the first time in, oh I don't know, maybe 7 or 8 years? We went back to our old favorite sort of neighborhood place (Jointed Cue) and ya know, some things places just don't ever change.

It was like time had stood still -- same old photos on the wall, same old timers there just older, more pot-bellied and balder, same funky AC unit on the wall, same powdered Boraxo soap in the bathrooms (hell on the hands just it does get chalk and grease off!), amazing... We went Sunday morning cause that is a nice time to go and just play -- not too noisy or crowded yet. Luckily in California, places aren't smokey anymore -- that used to be a big problem with that place around 15 years ago when we used to go and even play at night. I haven't played for so long, even though I played for maybe 45 minutes in Oregon when I stayed at Edgefield after visiting my sister a couple of weeks back -- I could barely hit anything and I was just practicing by myself! Luckily Andy hadn't been playing too much lately either so we both sort of bullied our way around the table for a couple of hours this morning.

Next week his summer school classes start and he doesn't have anything Fridays so we might go again on Friday morning and see how it is to play then. I would love to get a little of my old skills back... although it sure is harder now!

Melted!

Well today started off slowly as I had not slept very well last night due to the heat. I managed to get to my Saturday weights class and home but since then I have sort of faded. I only got a little done in my art room and now its after dinner and I am just melted -- even with my new AC unit! Unfortunately the rest of the house is still sweltering and even with all our fans, since it didn't cool off last night the house is really hot today. That is the main problem with an old house and no central AC. Usually the walls are thick enough to keep it cooler and when we open all the windows up at night it cools off... but when the nights are in the 80s, forget it! I am hoping tonight is a little cooler so we can get back to being a little more comfy here in the next day or two.


The one thing I did get done today was to move my art supply bins back along the wall just to see if I could make some sense of what I had. You can see the new AC unit in the center picture -- I need to paint the wood around it still. (Sorry nothing is in focus, still experimenting with my new camera and there wasn't any room to move back!)

I need to still move a table and this desk over to do the last 2 walls which will happen in the next few days. Then I need to start putting stuff away from all the boxes I have from when I just threw stuff into boxes to get it out of the room to get started. I swear I had a good system going at one time but after a year of taking things out of bins and not getting everything back, I have more things out and in boxes than I do where they belong. That has always been a problem for me -- putting things away. Ever since I was a kid, I have always hated putting things away. This is really strange to me though because I LOVE a cleaned up tidy area. So go figure...

That combined with too much stuff leads to a very junky messy house. Andy and I are both major pack rats and even though I am working on becoming less of one, it is a real uphill battle around here to declutter and make the house livable. But one step at a time and eventually it will get there.

Lists

I make lists. Lists of things to do, shopping lists, lists of calories of what I am eating, lists like "things to do before I die" as well as "things to do this weekend". I like lists. They have order and when I cross things off, a sense of accomplishment. So this summer I have become a super list maker and I am actually getting things done!

Today's list includes some fun stuff (go to Oto's and buy maguro and daikon for dinner and go to Cost Plus and look for the insulated summer glasses we like) as well as the mundane (wash bed quilt, clear off dresser top by my bedside, wash bathroom sink and the glass shelf near it). I find if the items on my lists are concise and chunked small enough to get done in a small amount of time, it is more likely I will do them. "Clean the bathroom" just AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN! But "clean sink and glass shelf" will get done in a few minutes and it is one step closer to the whole thing. And I am sure to include some fun stuff along with the chores so I don't just chuck it all and go lay down. Oh yeah, note to self, add "nap with the cats". :)

I know it is just mental manipulation but it works for me and whatever works to help me accomplish my goals this summer is good.

And the GREAT thing is that now that I am working out (who are you and what have you done with Rhonda?) and doing more cardio I am finding I have a TON more energy for all these list items!

Two days before official summer.

I have recently really noticed how much longer the days are getting. Maybe it's because Perseus seems to wake me up earlier now that I am on vacation (today he held off until 5 am before he started bothering me and I managed to push him aside for nearly 45 minutes before I got up). Or maybe because I am able to do so much more now that work doesn't claim so much of my time. At any rate, in two days it will officially be summer!

So my room is slowly coming along. One wall is totally painted but we are still putting in the AC unit so I can't move things back over to that wall to do the other walls until probably tomorrow. Andy got the whole unit in yesterday and then when we turned it on it kept cycling off! We had tried it before hand to make sure it worked but maybe didn't leave it on long enough or it wasn't so hot then. At any rate, I think Andy was ready to throw it through the window but he showed amazing restraint and we took it back to Costco and got another one. We will try again today. Poor guy, I am using his little week of vacation before his summer school starts for house things and this has to happen and take more of his time.

Oh but I did forget to say he fixed the fence out front by the driveway and repainted our mailbox a nice bright red so even a nearly blind mailman can't miss it! Slowly but surely this place is getting fixed up. Yay!!

Today I am going to spend time working on putting more stuff away in the kitchen and making some head room with all the junk we had boxed up when we put in the new counters. This is one Christmas project that is taking way too long to finish!

Then I have my third weekly personal training session today. I have been pretty sore for this last week but this morning I feel great! Even though the weight is slower to come off now that I am building muscle I feel better and I can see a little difference in the mirror and how my clothes fit. Looking forward to how it will be at the end of summer!

They got a name for everything!

So my muscle soreness that has really been loudly proclaiming itself since I started strength training is called "D.O.M.S." (delayed onset muscle soreness) and my trainer (Stacy) says it might last the first couple of weeks then I will get more used to the muscle use and won't have it so much. But it was to be expected and just keep stretching!

And for the time I am with her I need to cut way back on my (red meat) beef and pork consumption (cause of the saturated fats) and focus on turkey, chicken, fish, and other non-meat sources of protein. Not all that hard but I do love a nice roast beef sandwich!! It's ok though cause deli roast beef still has a lot of salt and I just hadn't been getting around to making a roast beef here at home for the week.

So I am trying a few new things: tempeh (which is supposed to be good stir fried and with flavorful sauces), and also got some non-milk cheese to try. And a lot more veggies and sprouts and more fruit. I don't have to make a lot of revision to what I already eat but I need to cut way back on my carbs and munchie things and have more fiber to fill me up longer. AND I still need to drink more water!! That is so hard for me since during the school year I have to train myself to not drink liquids since I can't leave my classroom whenever I have to pee. Hard to retrain myself for the summer.

So I am off to my second official day of training in a few minutes... it has been good to have to think about my eating habits and how I exercise. I have not been losing weight this week yet though and I know some of that is due to the muscle stuff but a lot of it was from all those waffles last weekend! But it will come off! I am already feeling better and I know I have more energy already.

Monday Monday...

Woke up thinking of that old Mamas and Papas song...

Well this last weekend was a lot of errands and some exercise... and by last night after my W.O.W. (Women on Weights) Saturday class at the gym and a hearty zumba session on Sunday my legs were pretty sore! I think the next few weeks as my body gets used to more exercise (and more intensity with the strength training and all) I will be sore a lot!

It was a weekend of getting stuff I had been thinking of for a while too. First at Costco I got a small digital camera that I can eventually bring to school for those activity moments I always wish I had a camera on hand for and a new cell phone, BT headset and service. I switched from Sprint to Verizon and got a phone with a camera and Bluetooth ready since in a couple of weeks it will be against the law to use hand-held cell phones while driving in California.

Then at REI I got a really comfy pair of Teva hiking sandals so my feet can breathe a little better when I am walking. One of the things that really overheats me is when my feet get so hot so I will try this idea out. I wore them the rest of the day yesterday while we were out running errands and they were really comfy.This picture is from my camera phone! (I sent it to myself then had to lighten it a little and cut out only the shoes which I did in PaintShopPro... the quality isn't great but it was an experiment!)


So not much got done in my room this weekend. Gotta pick up the pace this week and if I can get it finished by next weekend so I can start putting away all my art stuff and actually have some space to CREATE! Ok maybe by 2 weekends from now :)

Today someone is supposed to come out and fix my broken window so we can put in the air unit as well. Oh boy! After all these years I can finally be comfy in here! Took me long enough!!

My official personal training sessions start today too! Last week she appraised my sorry state of muscles and will have a plan for me today. I was sore even from the assessment exercises last Thursday and Friday so I can imagine today... And I am supposed to work on abs every day even at home. Did on Saturday with WOW and sorta forgot yesterday. Well not true exactly... I remembered when we weren't home then by the time I got home I had forgotten again. Ok gotta work on that one!

Hot Friday the 13th!

Another fun-packed full day! Up early to go for my 2nd Physical Trainer Assessment and today she really worked me! Yesterday was legs and back, today arms and abs -- oy! And the REAL deal doesn't even start til next Monday! But it's good -- I KNOW I will feel results with her. She will not let me slack off! "Come on just 5 more! You have it in you Rhonda, you can do it! Remember your goals!" She is very on top of what I want and need from a trainer and I know I will hurt! LOL

Then Andy had to use a half point for Southwest to get another free ticket so we rented a car to go to Isleton to the Crawdad festival. He got upgraded to a jeep which had super good AC so I was happy. The crawdad thing was sort of hokey and it was really hot and dusty so we didn't stay long. On the way back to the car however we did stop in at a local place and got crawdads. They are tasty but dang too much work for what you get to eat! However we did justice to a few pounds of them then on the way home for some reason I had been really wanting a waffle (for some reason I figured there would be a booth with them, maybe I was thinking of funnel cakes although I don't like them too much)... so as we were coming back up 160 home, there was an IHOP we hadn't seen before so we stopped in and had a waffle and eggs for dinner! LOL One of those all things are so weird that they just work out right days!


Then we got home and I started painting the small part of my room which I had base coated last night. It is nice and bright yellow. Not sure if these pix really show it but the ugly blue was before and the yellow is now. So that was about 1/6 of the room -- got a long way to go to finish it but little by little it will happen! (And ignore the state of the molding! It will be neatened up before I'm done! Or painted over!)

A few pix from Oregon and a tired Thursday!

Here is my cute happy niece Sarah!

And this is my sister and her husband Thomas with Christopher and Sarah!
And so far today I have been to the gym to get Part One of my Physical Training Assessment done, went to Lowe's with Andy about my window and decided to just get new glass put in instead of getting a whole new room window (the one we are going to put the AC unit in has cracked glass), sanded down the first little part of my room where I puttied in some cracks last night and put the first coat of base coat over the sorta darkish (ugly) blue that has been in this room for 20 years and I hate! It will take me forever but I sort of have to do it piecemeal since I have no place to really remove all my stuff to so I can paint it all at once.

Making an early dinner now (some fish we got at Nugget which so conveniently happens to be near the West Sac Lowe's! Then at 6:30 I have my NIA class. I have a feeling I will have no trouble sleeping tonight!

Home again!

And to the cats it's like I never left. Perseus started trying to get me up at 5 am this morning like usual and I was able to keep him at bay until around 5:30 when he won and I got up! It's ok really cause it's summer and the days are hot so I prefer getting up earlier and getting started when it is still cooler. I can always take an afternoon nap if I need more sleep (and believe me the cats would LOVE me if I did, since of course napping is their specialty!).

I got in yesterday and on the way home we went to Costco to get a small window unit air cooler for my (art/office) room. I decided if I was going to spend any time in there this summer I really needed to cool the room off this summer. Andy has the same unit in his office and it really makes the room more tolerable. Both of these rooms are on the south side of the house which is so much hotter in summer. So he is going to spend the next couple of days (thank you Andy!) fixing my window and making the frame for this swamp cooler and getting it put in. Meanwhile I am going to start packing up stuff in the (very messy) room and getting it ready to paint -- bright yellow!! I decided to make the room more conducive to being creative in and I really love Teesha Moore's art studio look (top photos) so I am going for that sort of thing (well my room is only a small square room but the colors anyway).

Beautiful sunny day in Eugene!

After a couple of days of grey cloudy intermittent showers, today is GORGEOUS! Sunny and bright, but not too hot. I hope it stays that way up in Portland area for tomorrow too (although the weather report said rain tomorrow boo).

My little niece is sooooo cute! It's been fun visiting my sister, her hubby and 2 kids but man oh man, kids are exhausting!! I don't really see how she does it on a daily basis! LOL But they are really cute. I will post a coupla pix later. I am using Andy's cute little new digital camera and I have the thing to put pix on the computer but I am using my brother-in-law's computer and I don't see where I can plug it in and I don't want to move things around on his desk. Anyway I will need to shrink them and everything which is just as easy to do from home so I will post them in a couple days when I get back.

I went to a NIA class today here while the rest of the gang was at church. I really needed to have an hour to move around after all the sitting and eating we have been doing here! It was fun -- always interesting to see how another teacher does the same sort of stuff. This teacher was fun and similar to Kelly who I take classes from in Sacramento (when I am not being lazy). I am going to another of her classes tomorrow on my way back to Portland since she has one at 9 am and then I can hope on the road from there and get to where I will be tomorrow night. I am going to be staying at this really cool place called McMenamin's Edgefield. The hotel has the coolest art on all the walls -- sort of a throwback to the 60's -- I will post pix of it later this week. I was there a couple of years ago and really enjoyed the place. Also they make their own beer (the company is famous here and has I think around 200 different ales throughout the year)... good food, drink, art, and gorgeous grounds... can't wait! Hope it doesn't rain though cause I do like to walk around up there!

Yay it's summer!!!

School's out!! Yay! Andy and I went out to dinner and had celebratory margaritas. And in a few hours I will be embarking on the first part of my vacation -- a trip to see my sister and her new baby girl!

The big news for me is that last week I committed myself to my goal of doing some strength training and signed up for a 20 session personal trainer at California Family FItness Gym. I had heard of this one trainer named Stacy who is supposed to be like Jillian on "The Biggest Loser" -- a kickbutt and take no hostages in your face "remember your goals" sort of trainer which is exactly what I need. She told me I would cry but she WOULD get me meeting my goals -- I can do that!! LOL So I am looking forward to starting when I get back. The 20 pack comes with 2 pre-training evaluation sessions and the first one starts exactly in a week, next Thursday. She game me about an 8 page questionaire for me to fill out all about my eating and activity habits as well as goal setting, why I was doing this, etc... a real look into myself that was a good thing to see. I am feeling good about this trainer. I have tried 2 others over the years who have been very nice, and that's the problem. I don't want nice. I want Army drill sargeant trainer. Stay tuned!

Oh and the other small news is that I did reach my goal of losing 15 pounds over the last 3 months! I set the goal beginning of March to lose it by the time school was out and I did it!! Yay!! No diet, just being a lot more aware of how much I am eating and controlling my portions and at least 3 days of Zumba or other activity. I can do it!! YAY!!

Ok, off to finish packing. Thank goodness for spell checker on this blog cause tequila doesn't know how to spell very well :)

Almost vacation!

Not that I am counting (yeah right) but only 4 more days of school and then vacation!!! This has been a really rough year so I am more than usual looking forward to it.

So I have been spending time this week cleaning up my classroom since we don't have our usual last day minimum day to do that. This year the principal had the great (right) idea that ALL the teachers wanted to go to the 8th grade promotion so we all HAVE to go. Most of the 7th grade teachers I talk to have no interest in going (one of the reasons we teach 7th instead of 8th is to avoid all that) but no, we have to drive over to Florin HS and sit through 2 hours of "promotion" of kids that managed to get out of 8th grade. The last 2 years have not been stellar at Rutter so if nothing else I guess we can cheer that at least they are gone!

But of course the worst of them are being retained so they will be around yet another year to cause more trouble. Another reason I prefer not to teach 8th grade. Some of them are getting so large (and old --15 even!) that they really should not be in our school. But if they were retained in elementary school (once is all that is technically allowed but I think some of them end up being retained twice cause they move or get expelled and have to go back to other schools) and then once again in middle school, they are by now getting pretty old (not necessarily wiser obviously).

So in thinking already for next year I decided to go ahead and register a domain name for my school classes and work on it this summer. We have to use a site called School Loop but it has some major limitations so I wanted an outside web page for my kids to be able to come to for info, extra credit, and other outside info. I will post it here once it is more put together. I am using the old framework from my ms_friz page but have a lot to update.

As for house updates: the cats have started to claim all the empty counter space in the kitchen... this morning I saw lots of little footprints on the black counter top! I am being sort of obsessive about making sure dishes are washed daily and counters are kept clean this time because now that I spent so much time last weekend when Andy was away I don't want junk to get put on them and have to do it again. Also making sure laundry is always put away and the bedroom stays cleaned up. Andy is probably getting annoyed with me but I am really going to insist that what is already cleaned up STAY cleaned up!! Then I can keep moving forward to another area that needs cleaning up.

Ok time for breakfast then off to Zumba class then to see the Indiana Jones movie!

It rained yesterday!!

From record heat last weekend to the night before last rain and yesterday in the 60s, grey and gloomy! What a weird set of weather we are having lately! But I actually like the cooler temps and even the rain -- I can get a lot more done when it isn't 100 degrees!! It's supposed to be a lovely week too -- high 70s into low 80s.

Andy is in San Diego with his mom for this long weekend so I am spending time cleaning up the house -- for some reason I can get a lot more housecleaning done when he isn't here than when he is at home. Yesterday did the bedroom, today is the kitchen and tomorrow I will tackle the living room. It will at least make a dent I hope!! I have a million "to do" things on my list for summer so whatever I can shave off now will help.

Going to zumba in an hour today. I signed up for "WOW" (women on weights) at the gym which will start next Saturday. It's an 8 week small-group (max 8 women) weight training series, costs extra but it is a lot cheaper than having a trainer for those 8 sessions. Actually I will miss one of them cause I will be in Oregon visiting my sister and kids but still it's less that $20 a session even then. I do plan on getting a personal trainer for a few weeks this summer as well to really get me moving on the body fat loss-lean muscle mass gain that I really have to focus on now. I am doing okay with the weight loss (pretty stead 1-2 pounds a week since March) with aerobics and being more careful about what I eat but my body fat is still high (40%) so I HAVE to get that down with strength/weight training. For that I find I really need a trainer cause I don't do really well trying myself. I need someone to push me -- like Jillian Michaels, the hard-nosed trainer on Biggest Loser. THAT kind of motivation!! I don't work hard with "nice" trainers.

So it will be a busy summer even staying here -- self and house makeovers!! Well that and some time for fun, movies, etc.