Sunday, April 26, 2009

Golden Apples and Mustaches

A good friend of mine at work recently won the Golden Apple award. This is a big award in the teaching field. This friend of mine is a fantastic teacher and completely deserves to be honored in such a public fashion. She was told of her being a recipient of the award on live TV a month ago, given a segment on the news last Friday night, and received quite a bit of do-re-mi to use in her classroom and towards professional development.

This award was to be presented to her officially at a black tie, formal banquet that was held this past Friday. So, I got to get all gussied up in one of my sister's old homecoming dresses and went out with my best girlfriends from work. I wore a strapless, dark purple dress with the bottom outer layers cut at an angle and frilly. (I don't know how else to describe it). I forgot how much fun it was to get dressed up! My lovely dates were two other girl coworkers, one who is single and the other couldn't convince her husband to come out. The three of us had such a blast sitting there, making fun of other people. Seriously, one woman showed up in a dress that looked like she belonged to a polygamy compound.

I didn't make dear boyfriend come with me because the next day was the NFL draft day. Dear boyfriend has a tradition with his friends that they all grow mustaches in honor of "Da Coach", drink shitty 40 oz beers, watch the draft, and act like drunken idiots at dear boyfriends house. He grows a beard every year because he seriously looks like a pedophile when he wears just a mustache. Last year, dear boyfriend shaved his beard down to his mustache a full two days before draft day just to get a kick out of random people look at him weird. I was not about to show up to this very nice black tie event hauling Chester the Molester with me! By doing this, I got a nice evening out with the girls, got to skip helping dear boyfriend clean his house, and got to laugh at every text message dear boyfriend sent me while he was cleaning. He hates cleaning and does whatever he can to get out of it.

Unfortunately, the next day, I came down with the stomach bug that's been going around. So I've spent my weekend lying down on my couch in between the sprints to the bathroom.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Anti-amoeba update

I've got a new plan of attack on the workout. Weekends, when I have more time, will be spent on the longer workouts. During the week, on non-yoga days with the boyfriend, will be spent having my ass kicked by Jillian. I've been doing this for the past 3 weeks or so. It's been working well enough that I can see some baby muscles starting and I don't want to die after each level 1 workout.

I also stepped it up to level 2 and now I want to die. If I'm not around posting and commenting, it's because I've died on the floor of my apartment working out. Only I'm dumb enough to buy actual 5 pound weights to use the day I step it up to level 2. (I had been using giant cans of baked beans/pasta sauce).

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Next Life

In my next life, I am going to come back as a bigwig TV executive in charge of programming. My job will be to make sure there is at least always one good TV show on a night. Right now, Wednesday night TV blows. And they wonder why ad revenue is down?

So instead of sitting on my ass, I'm going to have it kicked by Jillian and then curl up in bed early with a book.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Accountability

I'm one of those *freaks of nature* who can pretty much eat what they want, when they want and seemingly never gain weight. Granted, if I'm not hungry, I don't eat. But a good chunk of the time when I do eat, I eat crap. And if I'm stressed for any length of time? Yeah, lets just say I can drop weight like nobody's business. A year and a half ago, things were not good in my life and I was in a really bad place. I had size two pants falling off of me, even with a belt. I've been blessed so far by not having a need to workout because let's be honest. Working out blows donkey balls.

I used to be one of those uber-athletes that lettered in basketball and softball in high school, but then I stopped working out. The girls I played sports with were my close friends and practicing/off season workouts was yet another chance I had to hangout with my friends. When I went away to college, I lost this tight knit group of workout buddies that used to motivate me to get up off my ass. I also lost about 20 pounds not even trying and everyone complemented me on how I looked. I never was fat before, I wore a size 5-6 in high school. I thought "Why mess with something that's working?" I'm sure a good portion of those 20 pounds was loss of muscle since I was no longer seriously lifting weights 3 days a week. Also, now looking back, I realize I was unhappy about things in my life. I was out on my own for the first time, I had gone through some pretty major life changes, I was stressed to keep my grades up, and I was in a stressful long-distance relationship with a boyfriend from back home. Simple for me. Stressed & depressed = major weight loss.

Needless to say, I eventually got back to a healthy but still skinny weight and kept it that way by walking everywhere on campus. I went to a large Big 10 University, so I had the opportunity to walk long distances everywhere. I don't mind walking, in fact, I enjoy it. I did put on maybe five pounds after I graduated, but all of my clothes still fit me just darn fine, so I didn't really care.

Then I got myself into a bad place again about 18 months ago. I was in a terrible relationship with yet another stupid guy, I was stressed about my job, stressed about my master's degree, family issues were stressing me out and I never saw myself being able to afford to truly live on my own without giving up things like cable T.V. Anyways, my grandfather passed away about the same time I got dumped by my ex-boyfriend. During the breakup, things got really really ugly and I just didn't know which way was up and which way was down. My weight plummetted. During my grandfather's funeral about 3 weeks later, I had a hard time keeping up my brand-new size two pants with a belt on it's tightest loop.

(Luckily I had a good friend who made sure I got out of the house and was really there for me. During one of those nights of being drug out, I ended up hanging out with dear boyfriend. That's where it all began.)

Flash forward to the present. About a month ago, dear boyfriend and I were at my parent's house. My sister was making fun of me as usual about how I have zero muscle. Dear boyfriend chimed in and commented that I was like an ameoba and had lunch lady arms. It was all good-natured teasing, but I decided that maybe if I tried a few home workout videos, I could get them to stop teasing me.

I started doing the Biggest Loser Yoga, Biggest Loser Bootcamp, and the 30 Day Shred. I know my size twos fit me just damn fine, and I don't need to lose weight. I just need to tone. The reason I picked these videos? Totally thought that since they were for people overweight and out of shape, they would be easier to start with since I'm way out of shape. They have kicked my ass from here to the moon in less than 45 minutes. Jillian? Kicks my ass in 20.

Last week was a bad week for me and I didn't make fitting in a 20 minute workout into my day at all. I wasn't motivated. Luckily, dear boyfriend came to the rescue again. He doesn't know it and never will so it doesn't go to his already big head. He's always been one of those that goes to the gym just to keep his weight from getting out of control. About 3 weeks ago, dear boyfriend saw the infomerical for that p90x system and started doing that to change things up. I can see the difference in him already and he keeps bragging about how good he's going to look when we get to Aruba. I can't have him looking better than me. We can both look good together. So rather than tell him about my sadistic goal, I'm confessing it here. I will hold myself accountable here to look hot on that beach in my bikini.

I've been doing this about a month now. I went from not being able to do 3 girl-style push ups to 5 actual push ups and 20 girl-style pushups in 30 seconds. Dear boyfriend now checks at least once a week to see my "growing abdominals" like they're a little baby in there. I think I have a shot to be one smokin babe on the beach.

(If I ever find my cord that goes from my camera to my laptop, I will post the before pictures. After ones will come in June.)

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Male Stupidity

"So how much more is this expensive trip going to cost me besides the flights, taxis, and the room cost?"

"Sweetie, it's all-inclusive. Outside of tipping the taxi drivers/waiters/bartenders, parking at the airport, and your souvenir money, it's all paid for. So, in other words, not much more than $50 and souvenir money because I'll split the tipping with you."

"So how much more is food going to cost?"

"Already been paid for."

"Alcohol?"

"Yes you giant dork! All-inclusive means everything besides tips and souvenir money has been paid for. How many times have I told you this?"

"Oh. Sweet."

After all the craziness of getting this trip saved for, planned, and now booked, dear boyfriend still has yet to figure out all-inclusive means food and drinks included despite me telling him this repeatedly. Guys are dumb. You think my opening line a year ago of "Free unlimited booze for a week" would've had him.

*Disclaimer, we will actually tip more than $100 while we are gone. He just doesn't know it yet and I've learned if he's bitching about $$, pretend it costs less*

Monday, April 6, 2009

Aruba, Jamaica, oooo I Want to Take You

For over a year now, dear boyfriend and I have been loosely planning a trip this summer. First, we were going to go to Mexico in the first part of June because it's way cheap. It's the off-season and while it is technically hurricane season, it's so early, the odds of us having our trip ruined are slim. But then even the Cancun area has exploded in drug violence, so we decided not to go. I had looked into other Caribbean all-inclusive resorts, but they were way out of our price range. All-inclusive is the way to go for beach vacations because literally, outside of souvenirs, you know exactly what you are going to spend on the entire trip. Food, drinks, alcohol, it's all paid for. (It comes in handy when you've had one too many tequila shots and just have trouble finding your room key, let alone remembering to close your tab in a foreign country). So I had mentally decided that I was not going to get my vacation this summer after all.

Then, one snowy day a few weeks ago, I was looking at all-inclusive Caribbean vacations dreaming of warmth and as many alcoholic beverages I can get with umbrellas in them. I noticed that prices were extremely down. Like, we could go to an island down there and stay at a low rent all-inclusive. I had heard trip prices were down, but I thought they weren't the all-inclusive vacations. We then discussed it and after me threatening to go *by myself without him since we had planned a trip for over a year*, he agreed to go.

So I spent a few weeks looking at different places and had pretty much settled on a low-rent place in the Dominican Republic. Dear boyfriend mentioned to a few of his buddies and their fathers over sports related hangout times that we were taking a trip to somewhere in the Caribbean. One of the rich, very well travelled fathers, said Aruba was by far one of nicest islands in the Caribbean. I was open to it, but it priced out of our range.

Dear boyfriend had asked me to hold off on booking the trip for a few weeks, so I did. Yesterday, he called me, told me he trusted me, and instructed me to book the trip without him. He couldn't come over because it was FREAKING SNOWING IN APRIL here. Looking at prices again, I saw that things had dropped even further. We could now afford on our very very modest budget to stay at upscale all-inclusive resort in the Dominican Republic and Aruba.

Last night, I booked our trip to ARUBA at a freaking 4 star resort. Take that Mother Nature and your April snow storms! I eventually will be as tan and drunk as can be in a warm climate. Oh, and did I mention I'm taking my very hot boyfriend with me?