A good stomach ache?

In spite of my vow recently to work out 6 days a week, when this week is over, I’ll have exercised 5 days. Same last week and the week before. I’m starting to think that maybe 5 days is okay. I haven’t felt burned out at all, and I actually look forward to exercising.

I’ve been spending a lot of time at Curves. I usually go on my way home from work, and I usually do 45 minutes to an hour there (vs. the “normal” 30 minute circuit). The thing I really like is that I can stay additional time on any one machine as long as I don’t interfere with the routine of someone else. That’s usually not too difficult as because there are rarely more than 4 or 5 other ladies working out; sometimes I’m the only one. So I’ve been doing extra upper body work…there are about 6 upper body machines, and I usually will do extra time on each one. I've heard some people complain that Curves is monotonous, and I can understand that if you do the same thing every time; but I don’t.

Yesterday, I took B to the park and I wogged (walked/jogged) around for about 30 minutes. After I got home, I felt like I still needed to do something else. It occurred to me that doing one of the “on demand” exercise shows on TV might be interesting. I’ve never tried any of them, so what the heck, it will be fun, right?

Ha ha...

I picked out a 12 minute program called “6 pack abs.” I’m in pretty good shape, so this should be a piece of cake, right?

Ha ha ha...

To be truthful, it wasn’t too bad WHILE I was doing it.

This morning I could barely get out of bed.

I don’t know the technical name for all the muscles in the midsection…suffice it to say that each and every one felt like it was on fire.

So…what better way to loosen up those sore muscles than to do the same routine again? And what the heck...let’s add on12 minutes of “buns and thighs."

BIG MISTAKE...

I’m so sore right now, it’s an effort to breathe much less get up off the couch. Just goes to show you, if you don’t target certain muscle groups, they don’t get exercised. I’m hoping if I do this another couple of days in a row, it won’t hurt so much by next weekend.

In the meantime, please don’t ask me to get up off the couch...unless you want to see a grown woman cry.

~Graciela

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Got Sleep?

I’ve been having an amazing experience with my eating and working out over the last few weeks. In spite of all the stress I’ve been under, I’m still doing great. I don’t know what’s happening/happened to me, but I just hope it keeps up. Sometimes I’m afraid to believe it’s real…

I just found out I’m going to Baltimore for a conference October 27-30. Due to budget constraints, I was asked to make the trip as inexpensive as possible for my City. I had to make my own travel arrangements and I’ll get reimbursed after the trip. I went on Expedia and I’m amazed at the price of trips…I got round trip from Seattle to Baltimore, and 3 nights at the Sheraton near the Inner Harbor (near the Convention Center) for $525. (I could have actually gotten something for around $400, or even a bit less, but I was a little leary of the one-and-a-half star hotel that was offered at that price...lol)

I just found a quote from a study about sleep, and I need to take my own advice:

If you want to lose weight, experts say you need to get enough sleep. Specifically, researchers have reported that women who sleep 5 hours or less per night generally weigh more than women who sleep 7 hours per night.

So…goodnight!

I'm still around

Sorry I’ve been away…I’ve missed everyone so much. I feel so out of sorts when I don’t get my blogging fix. I’m hoping to get a chance to visit everyone in the next day or so. I had to spend a few days at my mom's house helping her with some things, so no internet. Then my 5 year old Mac laptop started acting up.

Here’s a quick update:

The good news is my neck is much better…thank you everyone for asking. The bad news is that now the right side of my jaw has been hurting badly, I think from the braces because I find myself clenching my jaw a lot. I had a massage this afternoon, and now I'm putting ice on it. I have an orthodontic appt next week, so I'll discuss it with my doc then.

As for my computer problems, my laptop had been doing some weird things, none of them good...Sometimes I’d turn it on, and I could hear it running, but the screen would be blank. Then it started going dark while I was working on it. I'd have to turn it off and back on...

So Sunday, Hub and I went shopping at the Apple Store and I got a new 13" MacBook Pro. They transferred all the stuff from my old one to the new one, so I didn’t have to do that either. I just picked it up yesterday afternoon. It is one sweet machine. While I feel kind of guilty saying goodbye to my old computer (*sniff*), I’m totally in love with my new one! It’s kind of like my old one got a facelift, because the desktop looks almost the same as the old one.

Now, on a completely different subject...I'd like your opinion on a situation that happened to me last night (and sorry, this story is kind of long drawn out and boring, so bear with me...)

I’m a volunteer member of my neighborhood Citizen Advisory Committee (CAC). I'm one of 10 citizens and we work with a lady from our City's planning dept. Not to get too much into the details, but we’re in the process of writing a neighborhood plan, which is basically a "vision" of what we'd like to see our neighborhood look like over the next 5 to 20 years. We've been meeting every other Monday for 3 hours in the evening (from 6 – 9 p.m.)

Most neighborhoods complete their plans in about a year. Not my committee..we are well into our second year and still several months from completing. The reason is that there are a few people on the committee who like to hear themselves talk. They argue, ruminate, question, go off on tangents, and basically just talk...Talk...TALK...until I’m ready to freakin' SCREAM. The chairperson tries to keep the meeting focused, but to be honest, he is one of the biggest offenders. I’ve brought the issue up a couple of times, both in private to the chairperson, and in our meetings (in a nice way, of course). It doesn’t seem to do much good.

I had a particularly harrowing day at work yesterday…and I’d been up since 4:30 a.m. to get to work early, because I knew I had to leave my office early to get to the meeting on time. The committee has a set amount of work we should be finishing each week, but we are way behind because of the talkers. We’re trying to prepare for an open house next week, at which we're going to present what we've done so far to our neighbors, so we had to complete everything last night.

About 9 o’clock, we were still trudging away and no where near being finished with what we needed to accomplish last night. This had been a typical meeting and at that point I was already exhausted. Then one of the talkers started splitting hairs about something totally stupid. All of a sudden I felt like I was having an-out-of-body experience. It was like I was watching myself do this: I got up from my chair, put on my coat, picked up my notebook, and quietly said to nobody in particular...”I just can’t do this anymore.” Then I left the room without a backward glance and drove home.

(BTW, I wasn't meaning "I can't do this anymore ever." I just meant I couldn't do it anymore that night. But I don't know if they knew that.)

Most of the people involved are retired, so I maybe they have a lot more energy for wasting time than I do, or a lot more tolerance for BS. All I could think was…”I’m missing Dancing with the Stars for THIS??"

I was SO worked up by the time I got home that it took me an hour to calm down. My husband knows some of the people (including the talkers) and knows how they are, so I was ranting and raving to him and scaring the dog.

So, my question is…was I out of line? How much are people supposed to put up with before they are allowed to get angry? All day I kept thinking of whether to apologize to the group, or talk to the chairperson (again), or the City representative, or just tender my resignation.

Then, I (we...all the members) got an email today from the City rep, which said:

Thank you for your suggestions last evening; your continued dedication to the neighborhood planning process is exemplary.

In only a few months, we’ll deliver the plan to the City officials and begin work toward adoption. Please know that the City truly appreciates your work and many look forward to the resulting plan. I want to highlight a special attribute of your CAC: all ten members remain committed to the neighborhood and to the process. I look forward to continuing my connection to the neighborhood throughout implementation of your upcoming plan.

This seems like she was trying to tell us (me) that she knows how frustrating this process has been; and who knows what was said after I left last night. I know I'm not the only one on the committee who has issues with the way it's being run.

Seriously...what do you think I should do?

1. Don't mention it again and go on like nothing happened?

2. Apologize to the group?

3. Talk to the chairperson and/or City rep again?

4. Tender my resignation?

5. Or something I haven't thought of?

I hate being in this situation.

~Graciela

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