some truth in jest.

day two

So last night I had to brave the gym on my own because the SM was so wrecked from going at the beginning of the week with a friend of ours that wanted to get everything knocked out in two days.  I ended up staying for an hour and a half.  I don’t know what gets into a girl when she looks at half-dressed pictures of Jessica Biel, but whatever it is, it worked on getting me more motivated.  I did most of the suggested workout from yesterdays post.  I can’t do the full on sprinting because I am still rehabbing my knee, but I did sprint-like intervals on the elliptical and stepper.  I did loads of lunges and the Russian Twist ab work out with the medicine ball.  I even did the hanging knee raises.  An hour and a half later, I didn’t know my name or my birthday…so I knew it was time to go home.

The SM had cooked up some tasty turkey burgers and homemade chips so the eating wasn’t too bad either.  I am going to get there, one way or another.  I’m actually looking forward to going to the gym some days now…instead of dreading even seeing my tennis shoes and and looking the other way when my sports bra is in the laundry basket and I have to put it away.

So far today…cup of coffee, a lemon-poppy seed muffin and a little bit of trail mix.  Trying to ration the food I have today instead of eating it all before 10…so I am doing a good job so far.

back to the diet.

So today I had a cup of coffee, an orange, some strawberries, a few pepperoni and a piece of cheese, a little microwaveable lunch I made myself (a baked chicken finger, some broccoli and some baked potato) and unfortunately, I broke down and got some cookies from the cafe here. Other than the cookies, I was feeling pretty darn good, and expect to do well tonight for dinner. Gotta make up for those cookies tonight on the treadmill.

Last night, the SM and I watched (again) “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” on HBO and the SM made a comment about how Jessica Biel has such a nice body. Yeah. I noticed…as I scarfed down my dinner. (He DID rectify it by saying the reason he likes her is because she has some booty like mine. Aw.)

So today at work, with a few minutes of downtime, I decided to figure out what Jessica Biel does to have my boyfriend drooling and me avoiding mirrors at all costs. This is what I found. Not a bad idea…and not totally impossible. The running, I’d have to work up to…but the other things I can handle, I think.

Needless to say, this is my game plan at the gym tonight. Jessica Biel Body…here I come!

i’m sexy.

I did a few different quizzes/calculators online asking my height, weight, waist line, etc…and I have determined I need to do something a little more stringent and serious to lose some weight.  I am at a good baby-carrying weight/BMI, but I’m not having babies right now.

These calculators say that my BMI is 22.6.  That is certainly within the suggested range to be healthy, but it is getting a little too close to the top for comfort.  The suggested healthy range for a person 5′6″ is between 115-155 or so (give or take a pound or two depending on what site you’re visiting).  I am 140-ish.

On top of losing a few pounds (I’d like to get back down to high school weight - about 125 or 130), I’d like to get a lot stronger for surfing.  A big problem this weekend is that I couldn’t paddle fast or hard enough to get enough momentum to get into the wave.  I can’t be afraid of working out hard, and cutting back on bad foods.  I have to get motivated somehow.  We went last night and did it hard at the gym.  But today, I didn’t eat all that well.  Tonight, I am headed for Funky Fit…and hour-long ass-whooping of cardio, dance and core workouts.  I am doing the right thing gym wise.  I just have to get better at the eating part.  Here’s to somehow finding it in me to shave off a little of this hynie and get those arms stronger.

I have a while…

Sunday, September 21, 2059.

That is when the Death Clock says I’m out like Hammer pants.  79 years total.  Wow.  I better get to livin’.

camping, surfing and mexican family reunions.

I apologize for it taking a while to get to you guys to blog about the camping weekend the SM and I took down to Myrtle Beach State Park, but some of us have real work to do…slackers.

At any rate, the weekend turned out about as good as I had expected. I assumed it would be either the worst or best weekend and I was right. First it started out with driving down to an area we were unfamiliar with and pitching a tent at 11:00 at night. Not the best idea. But as you can see, the result the next morning was pretty good, considering:

We woke up, got a few groceries and headed to the beach…the windy, choppy beach:

The waves were coming in pretty quickly and looked a lot more hectic than what we were used to, but the SM and I made our way out into the water by paddling and holding our breath. Here is the SM looking a little cautious.

We each went our separate ways as to not run into each other and as I finally got far enough out and picked a wave to ride, I saw the SM standing on the beach, watching. He had gotten out because he couldn’t see me over the waves and wanted to make sure I was ok.

As the wave I picked approached, I began paddling and slowly felt the push of the wave building under me. As I felt the pressure, I attempted to arch and pop up to ride the wave into shore, however my balance was slightly off the the push was too much. The rest was pretty much a blur. I do remember falling to the bottom and being raked backwards with the rip current back out to sea. I tried to stand and catch my breath, and suddenly, another wave chopped me in the back of the head and plunged me under again.

The first time down, I was half expecting it, so I had my eyes shut and breath held. But the second wave took me by surprise so I opened my eyes and breathed in through my nose. I eventually got my bearings and grabbed my board and shuffled out of the water, out of breath, with lungs full of seawater. The SM ran up to me on the beach and took my board. At this point I couldn’t talk - I just had to regain my composure. My heart was racing and I had about a gallon of briny water filling my sinus cavity. Funny, I wasn’t scared of drowning until I got out and was safe. That’s when I realized it was close. I sat down and took some time to recover.

I inspected the damage. Huge bruise on left hip. Cut on right hand, cut and bruise on left crelbow. Scrapes from shells and sand all over. Oh yeah…and a slight bruise on my neck (apparently) from my leash choking me (you can barely see it above). I had to call it a day. The SM had a few successful rides, so he wasn’t disappointed that I needed to take the rest of the day off and give it another go the next morning. Thank Goodness.

We decided at that point to clean up and head into town to check out some of the surf shops and get some authentic seafood. We found some good deals on bathing suits and what not…and then headed to Seafare Restaurant:

This place was pretty much a trip and a half. First, this enormous crab was on the building. Secondly, all the wait staff were dressed like pirates. Third, but certainly not least, they had real cannons (that were “shot off” all through dinner) and waterfalls in the restaurant….and the waterfall oasis area had a mermaid in it. A real chick with a costume on. The raw bar was amazing…prime rib was off the chain and the crab legs were out of this world. I think we had 4-5 plates a piece. Seriously. Oyster shells do tend to take up a lot of space though.

After a little shopping and eating, we had to take a walk down the fishing pier to move our food around and help digest.

As we walked down the pier, the SM noticed a big group of people gathering down on the beach a few football fields away. I figured it was just a family reunion or church group or something, but I didn’t say anything, thinking the curiosity would pass. But alas, it did not. The SM had to go down and see what the commotion was all about. He was convinced it was some sea life washed up on the shore; a shark or a dolphin, more specifically. We could see the flash of pictures being taken and people were still in the water…so as we walked, I said that I just thought it was a family reunion.

We walked the 3-4 football fields down the boardwalk and as we got closer, we took the path over the dunes to inspect closer. Di dwe find an washed up octopus….a rapidly-respirating and dying shark? Not so much.

Over the dune, there were about 50-60 Hispanic individuals walking around, and taking pictures by the ocean. Kids with soccer balls, babies in strollers. Old folks hunkered over and talking to one another. A FAMILY REUNION. We walked back to our camp…the SM dejected and me, laughing at what a waste the trek was.

Back at the camp, under the shade of our trees, night was falling so it was time to start a fire.

This wasn’t too much trouble for us because we had bought wood, got a starter log and had a back-up with lighter fluid just in case. We sat around for a while just enjoying the quiet and warmth, chatting and resting after the long day at sea and shopping. We roasted up some hot dogs and sat around some more. After a few hours, we decided to start in on the s’mores. We had to start using some of this trash that we bought to cook with.

After maybe an hour more, we made some popcorn and retreated into our tent for the night for some much needed snuggles and snacks while we played Boggle. Somehow I was beat at my own game and got torn to shreds on a word game. Un-heard of! But we did have some pleasant camaraderie while we played and eventually crashed out. The next morning we got up extra early to check the beach out again and see if I couldn’t redeem myself from the day-before’s epic fail. Fortunately and unfortunately, the waves were a lot less ferocious. Sadly, they weren’t really strong enough to carry a person. But I was going to try anyways.

I paddled out a total of three times and waited for a wave big enough to carry me in. I finally saw one and tried to get onto it…got on my feet and promptly fell of again just because it broke so quick. Oh well. I tried. In the grand scheme of things, I’ll be surfing a long time. I’ll catch my wave.

At that point, it was about time to head back to Charlotte because the SM had a meeting that night at work, so we went back to camp, packed up our stuff, showered and headed back into town to grab a quick bite before we blew out of town. And my blow out, I mean the following:

As we pulled into an outdoor mall area to walk around a bit before we headed back and to get a bite, I blew out my front passenger tire, absolutely shredded it on a curb when I was looking where to go/park. A huge hole immediately flattened the tire and we were sidelined. We had to get back from the SM’s meeting and honestly, I was exhausted and just wanted to get back home. But no. Just our luck we were stranded.

I called AAA and had them send a tow truck to get us and take us to a place that could fix our tire. the SM got a little preachy with the “learn how to drive” diatribe so that didn’t improve anything…but we did get to a Firestone and get a new piece o’ rubber slapped on so we could leave. $200 later, we were back on the road.

The ride home was slightly treacherous just because of the sheer fact I was so exhausted, but I did make-up with the SM and he kept me alive and awake for the ride with some beautiful singing and some shenanigans, such as eating raw hot dogs like the nasty boy he is.

So that was it. I got the dog from our friends, and came home and crashed the second I hit the threshold to the apartment. It was a great weekend….beyond the complaints of putting up a tent at 11 pm, nearly drowning and almost ripping the wheel off my car. Right. Great weekend.

*See the rest of the pics over in my Flickr account to the right.

hoping to improve this weekend on…this:

Ashleigh surfing

stfu.pdf

Is it wrong if I start giving less-than-appropriate filenames to the work I do? One of my responsibilities is to find images for the websites for which I work. really, the objective is to name it something you can remember so you can associate it with a post later…right?

So far I’ve done bffs.jpg (for Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin) and iranianguy.jpg…for some Iranian guy.

I am just afraid there is a fine line between being funny and not giving a shit about my paycheck; a very fine line I may some day cross. When I start naming things stfu.pdf and suckit.png, I’ll know it’s time to call it quits.

vacation or excuse to shop? best of both!

Apparently I am a real masochist because I am considering going to Target again on my lunch break. but I actually have a good reason or two to go. First of all, its the only place around here that I know of that is of a Targety nature. If there was a Wal-Mart or something else, I’d probably go there, just to spite the satanic Target people. But alas, I work in a big city. Wal-Marts are hard to find.

Secondly, I really want to do it right this weekend and be as minimalist as possible. If we are going to rough it out in the woods, on the beach, I was thinking I’d like a good old fashioned backpack like back in school days, to pack for the weekend. Normally I’m the kind of girl who brings another bag just with shoes on the long weekend trip, but this time, I want to limit myself to my rashguard, bathing suit, a pair of flip flops and a toothbrush. A pair of jeans and a few tanks since we’ll need to get some groceries and shop the surf shops at some point.

Patrick asked me if this was a surfing trip, a camping trip or an excuse to shop. I told him it was the best thing ever; a mix of all three. Now all i need is an excuse to drink and I could die a happy woman. Gotta make a little space for some tequila in there.

giving hobos mortgages at alarming rates.

Congratulations!  You’ve been pre-approved!

So with most of this week in the books, I’ve been trying to motivate myself by looking at beach pictures and imagining myself picking out my wave in just a little under 48 hours. If I close my eyes hard enough and shut out the clatter of fingertips on keyboards, I can almost feel the sand between my toes and smell the salty breeze of the Atlantic. Unfortunately however, I am tossed back into reality by the chimes of emails and looming to-do list growing on my desk.

My coworkers and I joke pretty consistently about the fact that we could really give a shit less about a majority of the work we do. Of course, there are moment of pride peppered into our weeks, but on the whole…not so much. In a passing conversation via IM, a comrade and I were talking about our worst jobs, mine being the month or so that I spent underwriting mortgages. If any of you know me, you know that I write, I drink tequila, I surf. I don’t do finances. So when I mentioned this past career detour, my coworker laughed. He said, “Knowing how you are now, I couldn’t picture you working for a mortgage place. ‘Hobo off the street that smells like whiskey? Here’s a mortgage because I don’t give 1/64th of a shit.’”

Yeah. That’s pretty accurate.