You Want Me to Do How Many Push Ups?

On the first day of Boot Camp, we measure our fitness levels, or yes, the obvious lack thereof, in five exercises: Push Ups (real ones--Boy Push Ups), Crunches, Squats, Knee Push Ups (I call them Girl Push Ups without shame) and Steps. This is my second round of Boot Camp, thus the second time I've established my base line of fitness.

How did I perform? Do you care? Of course you do!

Boy Push Ups: 21 in 1 minute (First round of Boot Camp I did 10)
Crunches: 209 in 2 minutes (First round I did 80 or something)
Squats: 104 in 2 minutes (First round I did 68 or something)
Girl Push Ups: 41 in 2 minutes (First round, I think I did 18)
Steps: 201 up, up, down, downs in 5 minutes. (First round, 163)

We (the proverbial "we") are progressing nicely! I am certainly doing, feeling, performing much better than week one of round one. Baaaad memories. I can perform all of my daily hygiene by myself, without pain! Including brushing my teeth without needing to rest between upper and lower. I'll let you know where things shake out at the end of this thing, 8 weeks from now.

Even more frightening is that I also have a baseline weight (aaaaccckk) and measurements for every available body part. Subjecting myself to that was quite unpleasant, but I want some results at the end of this--good, bad or just plain ugly. The next measurement happens in three weeks: oh, perfect--the peak of the holiday eating and drinking extravaganza. The thought of being weighed and measured will be enough to make me give up at least a couple of pints or the third glass of wine with dinner.

And that will make all the difference. It will! It will!

It's all I can do, get off me.

Maybe, just maybe, I'll share the results. Bwah ha ha! Yeah, right.

Bring it On!

If you read the blog lately, you may have determined that I'm a bit overscheduled at the moment.

I am not under the illusion that busy equals happy. I do not believe that doing more in a day makes me a better person or even a good person. I used to do more for others (people, organizations) than for myself (and my family). I thought I was doing good things, but I was not happy and my husband was not happy and my animals were not happy. Turns out all of us needed more of me, even if that meant I was *just* sitting on the couch with a book (provides ample lap area for two needy felines).

So, while I am currently juggling a few balls of various shapes, weights and materials, I'm feeling pretty, pretty, pretty good about it (props to Larry David on that one). Here are my haps:

NaBloPoMo: writing every day. What could be better?

NaNoWriMo: writing every day. Again . . . better? What?

Boot Camp, Round 2: Hey, I wore a skirt Saturday night that I couldn't fit my ass into last winter. Damn straight I'm signing up for another 8 weeks of this magic disguised as torture.

Starting a copywriting business on the side while running a business: getting paid to write. . . even better than just writing every day!

This is what is not happening in my life:

Making a big deal out of having twelve people for Thanksgiving: I'm over the "all must be perfect" stage of my life. I was driving myself and everyone around me nuts. We're just going to relax and enjoy, whether the house is immaculate or not.

Volunteering for anything: Sorry, community, I need a break!

Cleaning: The house is messier than it used to be. Get over it.

Everything I'm doing is for ME! Yay! For Me! I'm giggling over here.

I'm a NaBloPoMo ER Too

Am I seriously deranged? Do I not have enough going on in my life? I'm writing close to 1700 words a day in my *new* novel for NaNoWriMo, (uh, what happened to the one I started a year ago??) and now I've taken a vow to post to my blog every day in November. Oh, what the hell.

It's all about the writing. I want to write, don't I?

So what if I have a trip planned to NY for six days, and then family visiting for Thanksgiving for five days, a business to run and Boot Camp to attend (I signed up for another eight week session despite my back, which is currently attached to a heating pad and my knee, which I hit with a dumbbell on Friday), movies to watch, books to read, a business to run, dinners to cook, a dog to feed, a business to run. . . something is going to be neglected. It will be interesting to see who or what it is.

I hope it's the business, my least favorite activity of the lot.

Who wants to work for a living when one could be reading, writing, taking the dog for long walks and hikes, doing yoga, learning to sail, making fabulous meals, keeping the house clean, watching movies? Work sucks! Let's blog instead!

I have a list of things to blog about, something I didn't expect to need to do, but I can't remember shit, so writing the thoughts down as they arrive in the sad brain is helping.

So what the hell, why not? Let's write this beeeyotch!

So, What's the Fuss?

In my town, as all across this great (ahem) land of ours, citizens will be marching to the polls on Tuesday. My marching shall take place at the kitchen table, as I fill out my ballot with a sharpie and put it in the secret envelope. Must be careful to place it in the pre-wrapper before the outside wrapper to prevent ANYBODY SEEING MY VOTE.

Frankly, I could give a rat's behind who knows where my loyalty lies. Frankly, I find it difficult to become riled up, as it were, over the local races. And don't get me started on the presidential race. I cannot believe we've had a summer of debates already. I am sick of it all already.

Back to the locals. . . I have observed that hundreds, no! thousands! of my friends and neighbors are putting much energy into who becomes our next mayor. Our next mayor! Like, when did that become a great, big, huge, hairy deal? Apparently I missed something in my move from major east coast metropolitan area to little small west coast sleepy town. People here care about who's running the show. They care deeply. They volunteer to be campaign managers. They write position papers. They design websites. They throw house parties. They doorbell on Saturdays. They do phone tree calling on Sundays. They write letters to the editor.

Call me crazy, or just lazy, but I haven't been able to get lathered up about this race. I have a sign in the window of my business. I am an "official" supporter of one of the candidates because I went on his website and put my name there. But that's it. No doorbelling, no partying, no campaigning. It all makes me feel a little funny inside, anyway. Why do people support a candidate so strongly? What's in it for them? What kind of power do they feel around this political circus?

A friend of ours called the other day and left an urgent message for us. I returned his call, thinking he needed something important from us and when I reached him, he asked if we would make one hundred phone calls for "our" candidate. "They'll give you a script and a list of numbers," he said. "R U KIDDING?," I wanted to shout. I work fifty hours a week, do boot camp three hours a week, volunteer for a women's networking group several house a week, have a house and a yard and a bunch of animals and a husband and laundry, dinners, dishes, grocery shopping, and blogging to do plus did you know that I'm participating in National Novel Writing Month AND National Blogging Month? Over Achievers Anonymous, I hear you calling. . .

Um, my November is a little busy. I'm sure our guy will make it through without my help. And if he doesn't? Oh, well.

If only we could just vote for Oh, the Joys' little Mayor and get it over with. But sadly he is not running here.

Writing: My New Obsession

Remember those Calvin Klein Obsession commercials from the 80's? My new obsession has nothing to do with sex or bodies writhing on the page. It is the words that are moving around on the screen that is my page. Words connecting, overlapping, touching--like bodies, like sex. Creating new life. Making something real out of nothing.

I'm continuing on my novel writing project. It is Day Two and I'm creating characters, scenes, dialogue from nothing. I have vague ideas about who these women are, whom they love, what their lives look like. I think there is a secret that will be the undoing of one of them. I'm interested to see who that will be and what it will look like.

Maybe you'll see it someday, too.

I'm a NaNoWriMoER

At least that's what I think I'm called. I signed up for National Novel Writing Month, and for the unaware, all the info you could ever want is here.

And now I'm all written out since I just produced my daily 1665 word quota on a novel that I started, oh, a couple of hours ago. I have no outline, I have no plot. A few weeks back, in preparation for this craziness, I listed a few ideas that came to my naive mind. And today, the first day of the thirty-day blitz, after a rough day at work and a nice dinner and pint of single-hop ale with my hub and a friend, I came home, looked at the list, and picked a topic. And started writing. The idea is to write 50,000 words in thirty days. Quantity counts. Quality is quite secondary.

Who knows what crap will come out of these lightning fingers. Stay tuned. It should be an interesting experience. What am I, crazy?

Some Things I Learned Today

First, I learned what the Zoundz from Zizzle is. My kids (employees) call it the shizzle. It's a toy that makes music with pawns that light up and change the sound. You can record into it and mix the recording into the music you create. Or you can stream your Ipod (or other brand of MP3 player) into it and become a real DJ!

Wow!

And here I was, thinking that I'm not altogether up on the latest toyz for gurlz and boyz, but I know about zoundz, and that makes me very current.


Next, I learned that some sad and aimless individuals, for no apparent reason, simply have NO MEMORY. Zero memorization powers. Ixnay on the emorymay. I thought I was getting bad because I can't remember any of my friends' birthdays or phone numbers (yeah, but just ask me and I'll tell you the phone numbers of the house where I grew up, plus my parents' store, my grandparents' house, and my best friend's childhood home), but I'm officially in my mid-forties (sweet jesus) and have killed an awful lot of brain cells over the years. I have an excuse. I don't know what this guy's problem is, except for a simple case of CRS* syndrome. I tell him something, the next week he asks the same question. A customer calls, they have a long and friendly conversation, and a few days later he cannot remember what they talked about. This happens over and over--and these people WANT TO BUY STUFF FROM US. It's maddening.

I just hope he can remember to leave me off any future former employer reference lists.

*can't remember shit, of course


Finally, I learned where one of my cats (who has remained anonymous thus far) likes to poo when his tummy is upset and he can't make it to the litter box on time.

This is my previously-white bathroom rug. Eww. Stinky.