Super Bowl Sunday and Changes to My Bloggy World

I was at loose ends yesterday since I STRICTLY enforce my Sunday rest day (stupid shins) ... for now. Fab Ab February has Sundays designated as rest days too, but at least I did my #plankaday to keep me straight with those pesky @plankpolice. Instead of going crazy with boredom (or working on my Masters paper or picking out a new book to start reading), I started cleaning. Even worse, I started PLANNING cleaning! After stripping every bed in the house of its sheets and starting laundry, I wrote out a list of every major cleaning task in the house (that my parents would let me do), ball-parked a time and frequency, and actually wrote out a freakin' schedule! Yea, besides spreadsheets, organizing and planning are my bread and butter. If I were more outgoing and friendly, I could have made a career out of it.

Dad finally called a cease fire to my craziness when he came inside from washing the cars (somehow mom and I convinced him to wash our SUVs too when he had only planned on washing his truck) and saw that Animal Planet's Puppy Bowl was on! Since we don't have a dog right now, we have to get our fuzzy cuteness quota SOMEHOW! OH MY GOODNESS, YOU GUYS! THOSE PUPPIES WERE FREAKING ADORABLE! And the piggy pep squad?! Squee! I'll admit, I even logged onto Twitter and was following along with Meep the bird's tweets (hehe) ... So sorry if you follow me and were confused by the bombardment of randomness. lol.

I hadn't planned on caring who won the game last night since my beloved Pittsburgh Steelers weren't playing (thanks for nothing, Ben), but I was quickly reminded how obnoxious Tom Brady is. Oh, and he went to the school "up north". That would be University of Michigan for those of you not initiated into the Buckeye/Wolverine rivalry (Born and raised in the Toledo area ... right in the heart of the border battle, baby!). Yes, TEHNICALLY both teams had 2 former-Wolverines playing, but Tom Brady tipped my favor for the NY Giants.

Did anyone else think the game flew by surprisingly fast? One minute, Brady was being pressured into giving up a safety (his first play of the game - HA!) and then there were 2 minutes left until halftime. Sheesh!

Whether you like Madonna's new single or not (and I'm definitely in the "not" category here), you have to admit she's an amazing singer and performer and that halftime show was one of the better ones over the last couple years. I love Cee Lo and LMFAO, but I could take or leave Nikki Minaj and M.I.A (I actually had to look up who the heck she was!).

During the second half, I had just as much fun watching the game as I did watching my mom spazz over the score. If NY would have just kicked the stupid extra point instead of botching the 2-point conversion, mom would have won $25 in her office pool! She was NOT happy. Dad and I kept shifting our eyes back and forth between the tv and the bowl of chex mix sitting next to mom. Lol.

Ted and I, Yellowstone NP. August 2010

As you may have noticed, I'm trying to make some changes to my blog. I want it to be more personal - more of a reflection of who I am and the journey I'm on. I threw together the new banner in about 10 minutes last night when I couldn't sleep (which was when I started writing this post too), and there is still some things I want to work on, but I'm liking where's its heading. In regards to the banner, thanks (x 1 million) to Ted for being an amazing friend and taking the picture (Badlands National Park, August 2010), kevinandamanda for the AWESOME font, and school instructors over the years for INSISTING I know how to use Adobe Illustrator. Anyways, I need to either make it a bit wider or, at the very least, figure out how the center the darn thing. And I have NO IDEA what the heck is going on with the background yet. I just threw in a generic texture from the template library for now. If you have any tips or suggestions, let's hear 'em! Seriously.

I know I've been trying to keep this blog as much about health and fitness as I can, but I've had a couple questions about my "101 Things in 1001 Days" Project, also known as a "Day Zero" Project. If there's interest, I'll gladly devote a tab to it with info and updates on my progress. Just like with my running and diet, putting it out there keeps me accountable. What do you think? Is there any interest?

Anything else you would like to see on here? I'm really trying to make 2012 the year I change my life for the better, or at least make a huge step in the right direction, and I want to be able to share that with all of you in the best ways possible. I'm already working on re-writing my "About Me" to better fit who I am and who I want to be.

Oh, Beautiful Day

Did you vote today? I sure hope so. Issues 1 and 2 got shot down here in Ohio. *happy dance* I was SOOO ready for today. If you're friends with me on fb, you may have seen my rants on the political telemarketers. I really should have posted more on the couple times campaigns were silly enough to make a REAL person call our house instead of a recorded message. I had fun. *giggles evily*

So, if I hadn't needed to be in the lab early this morning, I would have run to my polling location. It's right along the bike path were I like to run. But, I was expected on campus before 8am, so I had to just drive and put off my workout until later in the day. Sitting in the lab was a bit of torture. The construction continues almost directly over my head and we apparently had a mini waterfall going in the stairwell across the hall from my lab. *Sigh* Yea.

I finally gave up after lunch and headed home. The weather had turned absolutely GORGEOUS! Slightly overcast and in the high 60's? Yes, please. I didn't want to waste this, possibly last, opportunity to get in a good-weather run at Oak Openings. I busted through my daily dose of 30-Day Shred (more on that in a hot minute) and high-tailed it for the woods. I stuck to the multi-purpose trail since I was still wearing my road shoes (and I just wanted a nice easy run). It didn't seem like much of a PUSH to run the WHOLE loop. It was a continuous run of 3.5 miles. It was slow, but I was enjoying every second of it!

I had a breakthrough with my 30-Day Shred!  I was able to continue all the strength exercises for the whole intervals. I'm still only doing 1 arm at a time during the side lunge/anterior raise(?) interval (Cycle 3), but I don't stop any more! One thing, though. I've pin-pointed the point where my shin starts to bother me. Jumping jacks. Yep, you read that right. My shin splints rear their ugly head the second I start doing jumping jacks. It's a HUGE problem since they come up again and again in EVERYTHING Jillian Michaels does! Ugh. I'm going to look up more strengthening and stretching stuff and hopefully that helps because I really AM enjoying 30-Day Shred.

Dinner with the parentals at Nick & Jimmy's. I had a delicious cajun chicken sandwich. Oh, and I finally found something that makes DAD cover his years and yell "la la la la la" as he leaves the room (for those of you that don't know, that is the standard reaction around our house any time my parents decide to remind us how much in love they still are. I think dad does it o purpose sometimes just to watch the kid brother and I spaz). What is this magic trick, you ask? It started as mom and I discussing how much I enjoy corsets (seriously, I freaking love them!) and turned into me reminding dad of an incident where mom asked him to move laundry from the washer to the dryer and he had a revelation that he'd never seen the "sexy" underwear before, so it must be mine. We heard the cursing and spazzing from upstairs. It was hilarious. 

There IS a UT football game tonight, the last home game of the season, actually, but who in their right mind goes to a football game on a random Tuesday with an 8pm start time? To make it even better, it's being shown on tv (though only on ESPN U, which isn't carried by ANY network in the area), which means the game won't be over until after midnight. And then we'd have to drive the half hour back out to our little town. Needless to say, we stayed home and caught up on our taped tv shows (can I just say one thing? My dad is insane. He'd rather tape shows using 3 different VCRs than just pony up for a freaking DVR. Ugh). 

Now I'm just sitting in bed, watching Conan, typing this, and waiting for my brother to text me the final score so I can go to bed. Oh, and dreading the craptastic-ness that will be the weather from now on this fall. So, awesome day all-around. :)

Weekend Report

Well, I was lazy yesterday. I spent almost the entire day in bed watching college football (GO BUCKEYES and SUCK IT, MICHIGAN) and catching up on my tv shows (thank you, Hulu and Netflix).

A hilarious late-night phone call made me appreciate the end of Daylight Savings Time (and the fact that all my clocks either changed automatically or I took care of them before I went to bed) and that extra hour of sleep time. Since it was probably the last "nice" day of the year, the parentals took off on the motorcycle and I holed myself up in the basement with the tv and exercise equipment. After knocking out my semi-daily session of 30-Day Shred, I jumped on the treadmill. Oh, COME ON! Did you really think I would leave the house to run when there was a decent football game on tv? Puh-lease! I walked the entirety of the 2nd quarter and into halftime of the New Orleans/ Tampa Bay game (3.03 miles in 50 minutes). Then, I decided I wanted to do a short ladder run. I ran 2 minutes at 4.0mph - 4.9mph. It ended up being 1.48 miles in 20 minutes. Short, yes, but I'm babying my shins until I figure out wtf is going on.

So ... except for my high school losing in football Saturday night (playoff game against a team of guys that have 40-50lbs on our offensive line), it's been a pretty awesome weekend for sports. Other than the Buckeye victory and the  Wolverine loss, Kyle Busch was suspended from Nascar for the rest of the weekend over an incident in the truck race (good, I HATE that guy), SMOKE won the race and is now 3 points behind the Chase leader, and Cleveland LOST today. One more thing to make today completely awesome ... a Pittsburgh Steelers win over the Baltimore Ravens. Bring it. Kickoff in 5 ... Later, people.

Homecoming, Lazy Sunday, and Whatever Today Was

Sarah and her daughter, Elliot

U of Toledo's Homecoming was this Saturday. Being a good alumni, I went up to the UY alumni tent and hung out during the parade, cheering on my brother and the rest of the UY members walking in the parade with their cow-spotted and 10-gallon-topped short bus. Probably the best part of the parade was seeing one of my former mentees and her stinkin' adorable daughter, Ellie. Sarah kept her pregnancy a secret from all of us so I was a little surprised and hurt when I had to find out from facebook that she'd had a baby, but that emotion is long gone and I enjoyed getting to spend an hour with them. Sarah and I really haven't seen much of each other since Ellie was born, but that's just as much my fault as it is hers. The couple of us standing there enjoyed helping Ellie fill up her Dora The Explorer bag FULL of candy. We MAY have stolen a couple pieces of our favorites out of the bag for ourselves, but I don't think Sarah would ever mind. I made a joke of telling Ellie while I was holding her, "Now, remember to eat 5 or 6 pieces right before bedtime so you and mommy can have LOTS of fun all night long." Sarah laughed and told me that Mitch (Sarah's fiancee [finally] and Ellie's dad)'s mom wanted to take her for the night, so Ellie could eat as much candy as she wanted before Sarah dropped her off that afternoon. Ellie is WAY too young to understand why we all thought that was so funny.

Here they come!

Instead of tailgating or going over to the volleyball game, I decided to head down into my basement lab to get some work done. Well, I ended up curled up on the one semi-comfortable chair in the lab and watching movies all afternoon. Had I known that more of my friends were going to be up tailgating, I might have wandered over to Rocket Hall. Oh well. I know it was a cop-out for me. I have this thing now about not wanting to go places unless I'm invited because I've had too many experiences where I've over-stayed my welcome and wasn't aware of it. Sometimes it's just easier to be alone when I'm not with my closest friends.

The only reason I stayed on campus all day was for the football game. That's all I was really interested in (other than possibly running into a certain guy ... but that wasn't to be, apparently). Toledo stomped on Miami (GREAT football game, GO ROCKETS!) and I got to spend some time with Dan and Annie, which was nice. Actually, I think that was the first time I ever got to have a conversation with JUST Dan, except for when he was showing me the new house first time I was there.

I had planned on getting in a workout Sunday, but it turned into the ultimate lazy day. I slept in late and then laid in bed all day watching football or movies and playing games on my computer. Mom and I made bubble pizza for dinner (Yummy!) and I retreated back to my bed to read the rest of the evening. I couldn't fall asleep until around 3am when the thunder and lightening started, so I didn't hold high expectations for today either.

Today I managed to get myself up at a decent time, despite the lack of sleep, and get some work done. I knew I would be staying home as soon as I woke up. I'm just more productive from home on Mondays when I can go do OTHER productive things away from my computer when I burn out on my paper and schoolwork.

I went through my Jillian Michaels 30-Day Shred workout this afternoon. I still wasn't able to keep up with the people on the dvd, but it was better than the last time I did it. I'm wondering if I should use lighter handweights for a while or keep toughing out as much as I can with the 5-pounders. I guess I'll give it a couple more times and just not move on to Level 2 until I feel I have mastered Level 1. You wouldn't think you'd get much of a workout in 20 minutes, but Jillian KICKS YOUR BOOTY. Seriously.

After JM, I decided I needed a run too. I felt so weak and so slow. The first mile wasn't bad, just slow, but my right lower shin decided to tense up the SECOND I passed the 1st mile marker. I toughed it out for another half mile or so until I gave up and stopped to stretch it out and walk for another half mile before trying running again. That seemed to help and I ran most of the way back home. It was a 3.25 mile "run", not including my warm up or cool down, so I guess it was worth it. It was a lesson in humility and injury management, at least.

I guess all I can do now is relax for the night, watch "Castle" (I seriously have a thing for Nathan Fillion), and try to figure out what I'm going to dress up as for Halloween. I was invited to a party Saturday night where I won't know anyone but the one hostess, so I guess I need to find something cute to wear and a guy to flirt with. lol. It'll be good for me, at least. I need a night out and I need to push my confort zone a bit. The other party I was invited to on Monday night would have at least a couple more people I would know, but I thought about staying home to see the trick-or-treaters.