Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Rain, Rain, Go Away...

Debby can leave any time now.  At first I was pretty relaxed about the rain, winds, and so forth.  In fact, overall I'm a fan of wild weather which is probably a good thing considering I live in Florida and made it through the 2004 hurricane season where my area of the state was pummeled by three (count 'em, three -- Charley, Frances, and Jeanne) hurricanes within 6 weeks.

I also literally rode out Opal in 1995 up in Alabama in one of the city's patrol cars (back in my reserve police days), and the next morning I got the call from our Lt. after about 4 hours sleep to come in for damage surveying.  It was a long 36+ hours.  But I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

All that said, I never personally suffered major damage from any of these storms.  Sure, a cracked window there, a roof vent flying off here... but nothing major.

And still, thus far it's nothing major, but I draw the line at freaking water spots on my bedroom ceiling.

This storm has gone on about a day too long.  Or two.  I don't know.  What I do know is that I covered my bed (new mattress *headdesk*) and the floor in plastic before leaving for work today, and I'm praying the leaks don't spread.  I don't have much hope on that end, though, because there were only two spots when I went to bed last night and by the time I woke up there was a third.

Murphy clearly isn't listening.

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Speaking of Murphy, the new trainer seems decent.  She's not my original trainer, but we got along fine, she was able to push me, and she's not scary-uber-cutesie even though she's all of five-foot nothing.  Bless her.  Our plan is to see out this week with the training schedule, and then look at what the switchover to L.A. Fitness brings.  They'll either refund my money for my training sessions, or let me continue with her (assuming they keep her on).

So it's still frustrating, but at least we have a workable solution for the moment.  Sadly, that "moment" ends July 1st.

Oh well, onward and upward!

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Progress!

New trainer alert!  Thank goodness.  And yes, it's taken this long.  Good grief.

I meet with her tonight, so I'll let you know how it goes.  We spoke on the phone last night and she seemed pleasant enough, so here's hoping.

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After an unfortunate run-in with Pizza Hut (emotional eating -- I really shouldn't be shocked) and the resultant sodium bloat, I'm back down where I'm supposed to be, weight-wise.  Whew.  Dodged that bullet.  But just because I dodged it this time doesn't give me a free pass to go loony on the processed gunk, so it's back to normal eating for me.

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The belly dance group had its hafla this past Wednesday, and our beginners' class had its first public performance.  Yipes!  Fortunately it was very informal and I appear to have survived.  I even plastered a smile on my face for the entire duration of the choreography:


As I said, VERY informal!  I'm wearing yoga pants, a coin scarf, and my "Shut Up and Shimmy" tank, along with enough makeup to out-whore any whore in Whoreville.  September will bring the school's annual recital, which means not only will we be in full costume (although don't expect to see me in a bra top -- my upper arms still aren't quite ready for primetime :P ), I'm going to have to set my makeup phasers past "call girl" and well into "streetwalker" for stage-level performance.  That should be entertaining.

Sorry I'm so brief -- it's a workday and I'm taking shameless advantage of a break in production to crank this out.  More later, once I have a better bead on this trainer.

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Murphy, You May Leave Now...

Dang I'm bummed.

Remember my way-awesome trainer? Well, she remained awesome but unfortunately it appears our gym is being sold to another company and when that became official, my trainer resigned. I can't say I blame her. Google L.A. Fitness buyouts if you're interested -- it's not pretty (specifically the Minnesota and Atlanta area buyouts), so I'm more than a little concerned myself.

Unfortunately I still have 6 sessions left on my contract. And although I was told I'd hear from the facility manager on that, I still haven't and it's several days later. So now I'm not just bummed, but I'm also stressing. It may be over nothing; I'm sure there's a ton of stress over on their end as well, but I'd like to know how we're going to handle my remaining training contract.

I'm just so annoyed! I finally get to re-join the gym after a decade hiatus, find a great trainer, and whammo. She's gone. Bleah.

Well, this could be a sign I should just resign my gym membership and go ahead and join the Y. I've had a great crash course in re-learning how to use the weight equipment and I've got some excellent workout routines, so it may be that the frou-frou gym's time has passed. Besides, we can get an entire family membership at the Y for less than 2 full memberships at the current gym... plus a discount on gymnastics classes for The Gum Zombie. So really, it could all work out to our advantage in the long run.

But still... dang!

Sigh.

Tuesday, June 05, 2012

Present!

Still here, workout schedule still holds.

In fact, this week I had an extra workout. My little sister was down from NYC and we abandoned our children (she is the mother of The Divine Miss M) to take a walk.

More like the Bataan Death March. Anyway, 6+ miles in 90+ degree heat and two bum hips later we made it home. Yes, apparently my hips are also joining in the "Amanda's Aging, Ha Ha Ha!" -fest. About four miles in and they were actually burning, in the hip sockets.

This isn't the first time that's happened to me either. Back in 2010 when we went to Glacier I had the same burning-hip-joints thing happen to me on the Loop portion of the trail following our Highline hike. It was only due to sheer force of will and a stubborn refusal to be airlifted out that I made it off that damned mountain under my own steam (okay, Choreboy helped. Like, alot). But that was 11.4 miles with over 2000 ft of descent mere months after I recovered from bilateral stress fractures, not just some 5-or-so mile walk over relatively level/ slightly rolling terrain when I am theoretically in great shape!

Good grief.

I guess I'll add that to the list of fun stuff I'm going to ask my doctor about. Yippie? Well, we'd better figure out how to fix it because we're heading back to Glacier in 2013 and I want to do the Highline again.

If I am confined to Hidden Lake, I'm gonna be bummed.

Anyway, must shut down so I can race home, feed the boys, and get my aching joints to the gym -- later, y'all!