It's a weird world folks

I kid you not.

I saw an ad on television promoting Peed Plumbing. Look them up next time your pipes are plugged. Not only can I not imagine growing up with the last name of Peed, but to have your family be in the plumbing business? I think I'd be changing my name to something less, um, urine-like. Perhaps, Brown? Well, maybe not, I guess someone could read something into Brown Plumbing too.

And here's a product you just can't live without: Bacon Salt - Everything should taste like bacon. Here's the kicker: It's kosher. If you eat kosher, you shouldn't know what bacon tastes like, but apparently, if you have a jonesing for a little bacon flavor, this is just the ticket. I'm totally into turkey bacon myself, but if I ever see this stuff in the store, you can bet I'll probably try it out.

Yesterday I did Day 1 of Week 4 for Couch to 5K. I thought I started early enough to avoid the worst heat. The rotation was lengthy, so I wrote it on my hand because I thought I might look like I was consulting Running For Dummies (isn't that what I'm really doing?) if I carried a print-out.
It. Was. Wicked. Hot. AND Humid. The last 5 minute jog was torture. Torture! I did it though. Even when the 2 walking ladies took umbrage at being asked to let me pass left, I kept on going like the Rayovac bunny (cause I most certainly wasn't Energized by then).
I've figured out that I'll either have to get up before the sun rises. (1) Or buy a treadmill to keep this Cruisaziness (2) up with the intense heat we've been suffering through. In the meantime, if you see a chick passed out on the side of the road wearing trainers and a pink camo hat, please take me home and give me candy. I deserve candy!

(1) Oh yeah, I am so NOT a morning person. If this happens, expect the Hell to freeze over and children to start doing their chores without complaining and without being asked. Snort!
(2) That pesky consideration issue in my marriage. I'm pretty sure treadmills cost over $100 which means I won't be getting one anytime soon since the hubby thinks the outdoors is Nature's Perfect Treadmill. For those who don't know, Cruisazy is what some people say when something or someone is spectacularly crazy as in Tom Cruise gone all crazy. Hence Cruisazy = running in this oppressive heat.

Looking for your dream job

And love chocolate? Possibly more than your significant other and preteen? Or quelle surprise ~ art supplies, flea markets and a retirement community yard sale?

Look no further than this: DOVE Chocolate at Home®

Imagine life surrounded by lovely, delectable chocolate and getting paid for it?!?
I'd be half-tempted to try it if I weren't more than sure that I would eat my own inventory in no time flat. If you, however, were to start this up or host a show, I'm sure I could throw some business your way as long you throw some chocolate my way!

~Week 3 of Couch to 5K kicks off tonight at my daughter's track practice. My knees are already quaking with fear. Or that might've been because I already did a workout this morning. Wish me luck as I get smoked on the track by 4 year olds wearing flipflops and shorts they have to hold up with one hand while toddling past or they'd moon everyone.

~We have another bird nest. This time in our cherry tree! It's big. Not a robin. Momma bird is stealthy and we haven't had a good look at her yet.

~My daughter who obviously leeched the remainder of any athletic skills I had whilst in utero, long-jumped 13ft 4.5 inches on Saturday! The kid can fly. I, on the other hand, hobble.

~We have new neighbors who are renting the house behind us. First thing they did was hammer a No Tresspassing sign on the porch post. Wow, how neighborly of them. I'm fighting the urge to go over there anyway with a lime gelatin-shredded carrot mold just to see their reaction to both the hideousness that would be the gelatin mold and my perky smile on their porch steps. Pray that my naughty tendencies can be repressed and they realize that really, we aren't out to inundate them with molds, cookies, brownies and broccoli casseroles. I make no promises however about NOT leaving bags of produce on their porch once the tomatoes start to crowd my kitchen later this summer. I guess I could just turn the tomatoes into a Tomato Aspic (blech!)?

OMG!!!!

Second week of Couch to 5K is MUCH. HARDER. THAN. THE. FIRST.

In print, it looks easy peasy. This week is a 5 minute brisk warm-up walk, followed by a 90 second jog/2 minute walk rotation for the next 20 minutes. Let me tell you missies, 90 seconds seems painfully loooooooooooooooooong. I keeeeed you not. Tell me again why I'm doing this?

Oh yeah, because I keep telling myself I'm more stubborn than my fat. Phhhft.

Am I going to do it again? Yeah, even bought a danged running skirt from Target which practically screams fitness commitment (and well, it IS cute). Tally ho to running again tomorrow, eh?

~Baby robins flew the coop on Sunday. That's 2 weeks from hatchling to solo flight. If only raising human babies were that easy....
~Oh yeah, I watched American Idol and did a happy dance when David Cook won!
~If you are/were/want to be a Club Scrap addict; I've posted a LOT of kits and stamps for sale on their message board: ClubScrapChat.com • Index page We're raising money to help my daughter Kirsten get to Mexico for a mission trip! Pass it on to your scrappy, stampy, artiste friends.
~Here's the site for Global Expeditions, her mission group: Global Expeditions / Matamoros Z / Trip Basics
~My honey just asked me out for a date tonight, so I'm outta here! :)
~

I covet

the Wii.
And Wii Play.
And now, worst of all, Wii Fit.

Bad, bad, bad Casii!

How is it that in this house, the tables are turned and while my hubby is perfectly happy to never watch television (except for the odd Johnny Cash special), play ANY type of video game or enjoy the benefits of seeing Terri Hatcher's enormous pores via HDTV while I, the girly girl, want a Wii so desperately that I make wild, keening phone calls to hubby whenever I see one in a store? I'm pretty sure he chalks it up to PMS. And apparently I have PMS at least once a week according to his estimation.

I cannot help that I have not so subtly suggested that a Wii game system would make a great gift for me since, oh, about 6 months before they even released one. The want, nay, need, has never gone away. I want to box, bowl, play tennis and now, watch my Mii blow up to Teletubbie sized proportions when I do Wii Fit.

The problem is this darned thing in our marriage called consideration. We don't make big purchases without discussing it. Anything over $100 is considered a big purchase (hmm, except for make-up, the odd purse, Italian chandeliers and the ENTIRE collection of Heidi Swapp's new releases, but that almost never happens. Really.). Oh he has his moments too. Don't ask me about the time he brought home a whole house fan and was going to cut an enormous chunk of plaster out of my ceiling for it. Just don't ask. I won't mention the time he bought a van either. Or the time I came home to a trailer parked in my yard. I just won't mention it.

I'm considering going without the new MAC collection and a shopping trip to Lucketts to save my own darned stash and buy my own darned Wii, so the wild weekly phone calls can stop (and hubby can turns his attentions to other personality deficits of mine. Like how I hate to be cold while he hates to be warm.). In the meantime, I must live vicariously through other lucky Wii folks. One of those posted a hilarious video on YouTube regarding his opinion of Wii's BMI estimation for him. Must. See. This. Don't drink and view or you are liable to spew your Propel all over the screen like I did.

YouTube - my wii fit made me fat...by trix

Update on the Couch to 5K: My excuses got to me this week. We've had rain. Non-stop rain at the exact same moments I've wanted to hit the trail (can you see how wishy-washy I can be?). Monday was good. Felt the pain in my knees and hip sockets on Tuesday. Today I headed out before I could talk myself out of it and pushed it through. The plan looks easy, but it doesn't take into account that people will actually see you out there.

I can only imagine it looks kind of odd. A person attempting to be incognito by wearing black workout pants, a dark sweatshirt and dark sunglasses. Only this person walks for a while and then breaks into a painfully slow jog during which watchers must assume that the person has finally warmed up to their job. About that time, the jogger stops and becomes a runner again. Cycle repeats for 20 minutes. Add in that I'm trying to do this to get into shape which means one must understand this dark walk/jogger is also hefting a great deal of weight as she jiggles her way down the pavement. So, the average person sees chubby, ill-outfitted ME huffing and puffing away. Can you see that this is not exactly a boost for the ego or incentive to continue on with this madness?

The only thing keeping me going on is that I'm trying to convince myself that I'm more stubborn than my fat, so I CAN do it and I WILL succeed.

Of course, this is also the same determined stubborn attitude that will eventually net me that Wii when DH gives in to the weekly PMS attack in a moment of weakness. Ha! I'm so totally getting that Wii!

Ask me later

how I'm doing with my new running program.

Like after I've actually started doing it?

I have about 6 bazillion excuses to put off today what I might really decide to do on the 2nd Tuesday of next week:
~It's raining (this one is true for most days out of the past 2 weeks)
~I'm already working out 6 days a week (also true)
~I can't find comfortable running shoes (okay, this one is true because I have odd feet. I atttribute this to the fact that my parents were 5th cousins [no lie]. This is also why I have bad skin, bad teeth, bad eyesight and no pinky toenails). My feet are massively wide with no arch. What this really means is that to find a decent trainer, I have to go to the real runners store where they will put my tubby butt on a treadmill to watch how I run (read: snicker at the jiggly) in order to fit me with a suitable shoe. What is also means is that I will be expected to spent the equivalent of a month's worthy of grocery budget on a glorified sneaker. If anyone from Nike is reading this and wants to send me a lifetime supply of Shox, I'm not too proud to accept!
~Much like my loathing for the treadmill, my limited running experience leads me to believe that I'd rather be caught by a cop making out with my hubby in the back seat of his beater car than punish my shins & knees while looking for that 'runners high' (aw, come on, does that really exist?)
~I've already mentioned that the best time for me to exercise is in the morning and I am NOT a morning person. Now multiply that by lacing up my new trainers to run at the butt crack of dawn. Um, not exactly what I'd be leaping out of bed to do on any given morning. In fact, let's roll over in bed and go back to dreaming about lovely Creme Brulee with crunchy sugar topping or luscious Tiramisu or to die for Cheesecake....

So why am I whining about it at all? Haven't started. Hate the idea of it. Right?

Only, this summer I'll be on a couple of trips where popping in a workout dvd isn't an option. Camping with 25 teenagers with no electric or indoor plumbing does usually mean no dvd, right? Staying at my Nana's house, I don't think she'd appreciate me moving her furniture each morning and turning my club dance music way up (cause sweat just feels better when the tunes are LOUD).

I've already written about how easily I fall off the fitness wagon. I could turn a hang nail into an excuse to lay on the sofa and read fitness magazines rather than actually partake of any fitness activity. After working so hard at getting into a routine, quite honestly, I'm petrified to just let it go for a few days for fear I'll never strap on a sports bra again. I've got to come up with a plan to keep it going.

What's my plan you ask? (well, you probably didn't, but I'm telling ya anyway)
Cool Running :: The Couch-to-5K Running Plan
From what I hear and what I've read, this plan can get you running 5K or about 3 miles in a month. I'll be leaving on my first trip in just over a month, so this is doable. The time commitment seems reasonable too; just 3 days a week.

So excuses aside, I think I can find 3 days a week where there's no rain or it isn't so bad. I think I can pull myself out of bed and get it done. I think I can submit myself to finding a shoe that will work. I've looked at the first week and it's definitely possible. Here's to being the Little Engine That Could, right?

We have triplets!

And they're so cute! In an ugly, baby birdie sort of way! Mother's Day brought 3 little baby robins freshly hatched from their brilliant blue eggs. What a happy day for the new, very protective momma robin. Each day they are growing by leaps and bounds. This morning, I see they're getting little pin feathers on their wings. I'm a sucker for this kind of nature's entertainment. Oh yes I am! Here's their 'ultrasound photo' and their 'first day scrunchie baby in the hospital photo that we gotta buy because they ooh and aah over our red-faced, precious darling' photo.

The continuing saga of the workout regimen carries on. A few people have twittered (skinny, blankety, blank chicks who desperately need a deep-fried Twinkie), then asked me what, exactly, am I doing? Well, besides the obvious answer of working off 19 years of baby fat, Cadbury Bars and Wags burgers & fries (Wags, my love for you will never die) that have earned me a massive badonkadonk and what I lovingly refer to as a front butt (if you really want to know, ask me on an empty stomach)?

It all started last year when Danielle started Weight Watchers and I wasn't going to have her be skinny and cute alone, so I started it too. We've been plugging away at this thing for almost a year during which I've made a lot of eating modifications and lost more than a few pounds, but after eating one too many pieces of pecan pie at Thanksgiving, I went on several weeks of holiday festivity type of eating which derailed me. When I tried to get back on track with my Weight Watchers points, my body cried foul and decided to go into a lengthy plateau.

If you don't know what a plateau is, it's when your fat laughs in your face and sucks itself tight to your body in a stubborn refusal to exit the premises. Plateau fat hunts down any fat in your diet and recruits it to form a massive fat army which will dog your every effort to lose weight. Sadly, the fat war can go on for MONTHS to the point where many give up and take solace in a pint of Ben & Jerry's Phish Food (or 2 pints if it's on sale with a coupon. Hey, what's a chubby chica to do?).

This time though, I'm trying to fight back. A couple of years ago, I had ordered something called Turbo Jam from an informercial when I had insomnia. Got it. Tried it. Loved it. Lost several pounds. Got the flu.

Doesn't take much to derail me, does it? Plus, I am so NOT a morning person. Try to shake me awake and you are liable to pull back a stump. But, shopping in the section of the store that's not called MuuMuu Hideaway gets me out of bed. (and who in Hades thought that womanly women would want to wear a sequined Winnie the Pooh sweatshirt anyway?)

After the plateau had been going for 3 months, I dusted off the Turbo Jam dvds. Then I ordered something from Beachbody.com called Rockin' Body which promised calorie burning fun. Fun being the key word here because I'd rather get my teeth cleaned most days than get on a treadmill. I started following their little calendar that came with the dvds and checked out the Beachbody message boards where there was a community of fellow plateau war veterans, chubby chicas and newly svelte peeps who are all there to cheer me on. I'm nearly 5 weeks in to a 90 day challenge and still pushing play each morning. Yep, some mornings I hate it, hate the dvd, hate the sun shining through the windows and if you try to talk to me, prepare for the stump. Doesn't help that some mornings, I'll get a kid who will lay down on the sofa to give commentary while I'm sweating the previous night's martini off.

It still a struggle. Especially when my skinny jeans which aren't really so skinny still have a considerable muffin top going on. I try them on each week in hopes that the belly fat will have finally let go of my abs and moved on to some other poor, chunky soul. Until then, you'll find me trying those hateful suckers on each Sunday morning and if you see me on the kneelers at church, it's because my cursing definitely means the muffin top was still very much in evidence.

This one's for Kevin

Because he chided me for not blogging in a month. : )
I've come to realize that time management is not my bag. Not by a long stretch. I have the best of intentions, but I don't function well by the clock for long stretches of time. If I go back and look at my blog, my posting rate went way down when I started a regular exercise program. Don't laugh. Yes, I've been exercising. Anyone who laughs better watch out because there's better than a good chance that I'm now fit enough to kick your butt.

A couple of weeks ago, I joined a 90 day Summer Challenge called "Murder", an appropriate name. This morning, I've already worked out for about 100 minutes. Not bragging, but I have a small measure of well-earned pride I hope. The major time commitment to my health combine with recovery and shower time takes up a lot of my time, so then I feel 'entitled' to kick back and relax for a while and this is where the time management concept flies out the window....

The well-intentioned list starts to get mentally edited until my only task for the day that absolutely must be completed is something simple like brushing the dog. Oh, I get a lot more done, but the first couple of hours after an intense fitness session are something of a time to regroup. During this time, you may find me flipping through a magazine, reading a book on the porch swing, playing with the dog or doodling art plans in my dream journal.

What else have I been doing while trying to get ripped (Oh I know the 6-pack is under the chub somewhere!)?

~Just got back from NC and the fabulous Inspired art weekend! So laid back and creatively driven. Plus we chowed down on some fab NC BBQ which I never pass up.

~My oldest turned 19. Dudes, I ain't that old. I don't feel more than 19 myself most days. He's doing his own tax returns, has a girlfriend (yikes!) and is finishing up his freshmen year at college next week.

As a side note, the US Postal Service has issued a postcard stamp for a limited time to honor his school's Bi-Centennial. It goes on sale nationwide May 12 and I can point out his dorm room in the photo! Here's an image:
Mount St. Mary's University Stamped Card - 2008 United States Stamp Program Im

~Track season is well underway and both girls are doing great. The youngest has quite the gift for the long jump. Probably from years of eluding her siblings.

~My sis and I went to see Hairspray at the Warner Theater is DC last weekend. Before and after the show, we were thoroughly spoiled by the 2 waiters who took care of us at Old Ebbitt Grill. I loved the show. It was my 2nd time for Hairspray, but I had forgotten so much and the chick who played Tracy Turnblad was amazing. I love the Warner; so old and grand and intimate. What I love, also hate, because intimacy during the show translates into a crush of bodies during intermission as we all rush to the ladies and bombard the concession booth. For a few seconds I was intimately acquainted with a very petite Asian lady who never wants to have her head stuck under my armpit again. Sis and I had a great night just hanging out with each other. Hey K, let's do it again soon, eh?

~Speaking of, her birthday is today. Happy Birthday! I remember having to share a room with your newborn self and you wailing like the damned in the middle of the night. I still love you despite all that, so there!

~I've been playing in the studio. A lot of lay that doesn't end in a project, but results in more sketches, ideas, lists, lightbulb moments. There are a few things I have complete, so it's not a total day spent playing. I got request from 2 of my daughter's friends to make them altered journals for their birthday presents. One I don't have a photo of and I wish I did; total skull, pink, bling funfest. The other is way more girly to suit the receiver. Hunting down photo...

I should've corrected the lighting and cropped it for ya, but that time management thing might go off the rails again.

~The daffodils have come and gone. The lilacs are blooming up a storm now. We have some lilac bushes that I planted as little 6 inch twigs I got at the Philadelphia Flower Show the year after we moved into this house. They are now taller than any of us and absolutely breathtaking. The roses should be blooming by Mother's Day. We have a mother robin who has built her nest on the railing of our porch where she is hidden by the Zephirine Droughin rose vines. Three vibrant blue eggs are warming with her care and we can't wait for babies! (pics of that soon)