What?!

Set your dvrs for Tuesday night!!

Paused.

Thursday is my day with no obligations. I don't let myself go to the studio at night just because John will be at the gym. I only have one workout to do on Thursdays and I can do whatever I want. Today, it was a long, relaxing jog around Mt. Tabor in two combined routes. It was fun. I have some things on my "soon" list that I want to do, but they are kind of waiting for the job thing to happen to kick them into motion. I have some good irons in the fire, job-wise, and am focusing my energy towards them and am hopeful that one post in the near future will get to be broadcasting something I am very excited about. But until then I feel like I'm on hold a little. It's OK, and I've certainly had time to go through everything in my life and evaluate it and am pleased to say that I don't have anything that really needs changing (aside from the job status). I've actually come to appreciate these obligation-free Thursdays and this afternoon, I got a cup of coffee and looked on the intertubes for a while, then cleaned the house. Another thing about Thursdays is that diet or no diet, if I want a beer, I'm going to have a beer. I'm having one now :) Husband worked until after midnight last night and was right back in the office today and according to his Facebook status (the only way I've talked to him today), he was busy all day. Now he's at the gym with Trainer. I assume he will come home tired. One of the things he said about me when we first got together was that he loved to come to my apartment because as soon as he walked in, he breathed a sigh of relief and felt his blood pressure drop. The fish, and the inevitably clean house, and the typically calm feeling of my life. So tonight when he comes home, the house is clean, his lunch for tomorrow is fixed, a bottle of wine is open, candles are lit and everything is peaceful.

Wordless Wednesday

You know what's awesome?

Having a frog in the tank. I also love the crab trying to show off in the background...

You can tell by John's boring tv show in the background that there is nothing better to do than video my pets :)

Presents and Jewelery and Girlfriends, Oh my!

My lovely friend Amy is moving to New York to go be fancy and live in the big city. Amy and I danced together in Spankasaurus Rex, we shared the Epic Summer of Girls' Nights and then most recently, we danced together in Sugar Q. The girls of Q all met up on Saturday at Amy's Deluxe apartment in the sky for a belated holiday celebration and a final goodbye to our dear friend. We also got to rifle through all her fabulous things that were not going with to New York. By the end of the night, we were covered in her jewelery and we might have had a little bit of wine.
OK, enough wine that we couldn't stand up for our group photo :)

The Bird

I love my digi-frame so much and I keep it running all the time. That way, every time I walk through the room (or when John is watching something boring on tv) I glance at it and see some snapshot of our awesome life. I'm getting close to 4500 pics on there so I don't even see the same pics on a regular basis. What I do see though, are some themes. I wear lots of bikini tops and hats. John gives me a "thumbs up" a lot. We have lots of pictures of horses and fishing trips and us with our bikes when we used to bicycle. We kiss a lot. Not that it's all love though, because this theme also surfaced....

Some tips for your workout at home!

Start off with some simple stretching. As you get warmer, deepen the stretch. Point your toes!
After you are warmed up, try some full body motion. touch your toes!
You may want to add some hand weights to increase your strength and tone your arms and back.
If you need a little extra inspiration, try a workout video!
Special thanks to our Fitness Model, LBK

Wordless Wednesday

Getaway....

It was time. We try to get away about once a month. To escape the city, separate ourselves from our day to day lives, look from the outside in, and make sure we're on track. We talk about things that maybe we don't have time to talk about at home, or the time isn't right. We love the freedom of the road, and the opportunity to stop at something that looks interesting, discover something new, or stop for a picture. In the summer, it's easy. We hop on the bike and go. The winter is a little harder, but the need to get away is more pressing. We got up on Saturday, got in a little workout (to make up for at least one of the forthcoming beers) and got our rental car (Nissan Versa. a solid B) and headed towards the coast. We have a favorite route that we decided to duplicate. It lands us in Newport, where we drink some Rogue beers...

Then, we headed down to Yachats, where we grabbed a room and a quick dip in the pool before heading out for an evening of drinks and a burger.
We may have had 1 too many drinks, or maybe not quite enough food, so we woke up a little tired, but happy. It was a rainy, beautiful morning and we went to have breakfast and then came back to pack up for home. We drove through the rain, stopped for a cup of chowder and a little time on the beach, and headed towards home... It was awesome.

#1

My dad has been farming for over 40 years. When he started, he and Mom lived in a tiny house (the same house they live in now, but back then the entire house was what is now the entry, kitchen, and dining room) and he farmed with his dad and brother. After Grandpa died, the brothers continued to farm together and split the land up when Harold's son wanted to join his dad in the farming. The main crop of the valley is Sugar Beets. They also grow wheat and barley and corn. The beets need to be irrigated so you have to dig ditches into each field and each field is full of rows. You carry out a hundred or so irrigation tubes and use your hand to start each one siphoning water into it's row. You continue to check on it for a couple hours until the water reaches the end of the row, then you pick them all up, move them to the next hundred rows, and repeat. Sometimes that repeat happens 3 or four times a day, or night. Meanwhile, you are being stung by mosquitoes... Also, the whole crop is dependent upon the weather. One bad storm at the wrong time can totally wipe out your crop, or drastically damage it. For example this fall during beet harvest, it got super rainy and stalled the entire harvest for a couple weeks. If they would have gotten an early hard freeze, the entire valley of crops could have been ruined. but it didn't, and they were fine :) In the summer, big storms out there are amazing to watch, but if you're a farming family, you spend the entire time wondering what's going to be left in the fields the next day. Beet Harvest is the coolest time... Every able body is assigned to a beet truck ("you take that one over there, there's a pillow to prop you up in the seat and be careful, the brakes don't work very good") and they wait their turn at the field to be filled up by the beet digger and then they drive to the beet dump, where they wait in line and get weighed, dump their beets, get weighed again, and then repeat.

My brother Casey went to college and moved to Vegas, where he lived the life of the beautiful people and was a bar back for some of the fun places you visit when you're down there. (Coyote Ugly, yes) He met Kim and they lived the night life for a few years and after little Brock was born, they moved back to be on the farm and raise their family the way we kids were raised. Casey has been farming with dad for 3 years and the first year back, they made the top 10. Cool, because Dad hadn't been there very many times before and it was nice timing for Casey to start out with that. (Top 10 is based on tonnage and sugar content) This year, they were in top 10 again and as they were counting down each farm, it turns out that they were number 1!!! Super cool. Way to go guys!
This picture has nothing to do with sugar beets, but I took it and I love it.

Fitness Friends

I've expressed my love here before, and if you hang out with me at all, you know that I love me some Jillian Michaels. I bought the video I had been borrowing from Jen and also got the 30 day shred at the same time. I love both videos and have been doing them in different combinations and with running (and danc,e of course) over the past few months. Awesomely enough I have some friends who started doing the 30day shred in the past couple weeks. Two of them (Cate and Amelia) and blogging it out and Fanny Pax is doing it too, minus the interwebs. Our Jens also do it. (do it, hee hee) It's fun to talk about it in little groups and share stories and make jokes and all have the same tool in our belts as a common thread. I'm proud of us for wanting to be healthy and look good and feel good about ourselves and within ourselves. Go Team Girl :)

Wordless Wednesday

Double take

I grew up on a farm and we have an outhouse. We also have a normal bathroom, with a shower and functioning toilet. But we do have an outhouse, and use it. no big deal. but I know it's weird to some city-folk. (btw, it's not like the ones at Oktoberfest, used by hundreds and smelling of disinfectant) Anyway, I had to look twice when I walked into the womens' room at the bowling alley and the first thing I saw was this:I kind of looked around and then realized that there was another door behind me. phew, that could have been awkward.

Let's bowl, let's bowl, let's rock and roll!!

We gathered up our collection of Jens and went bowling yesterday! Bowling is fun. I learned to bowl with my church youth group and when I went to college, they had college night every Tuesday, so I went to that too (well, I liked bowling and the cute football players were always there..) I'm not super good (yesterday I got a 115 and a 113) but I love it. JJ isn't usually a fan, but he got high score for both games yesterday! maybe it's because his wrist strap matched the shoes. I flat out think Jen called ahead so she could coordinate her outfit.If you have bowled with me before, then you have already made fun of my bowling stance. If not, you can use this as preparation for your jokes. At least I have good turnout.
Our bad ass selves...
and um, the cutest bowling group photo ever!! We're even stacked up like pins. Damn, that's good.

Here's the video I took of us all at the bowling alley yesterday:

Brrr.

I want to go for a jog, but as I sit here and look outside, I wonder if I should just succumb to the cold and do a workout video instead. Then I take a minute to remember where I came from and decide to stop being such a wimp and go put on my warm gear.

Dance Video!

This is a routine that I taught when this song was newer, but a student requested that I bring it back and I did! I'm so glad, I love it!

oops!

Wordless Wednesday will continue next week at its regularly scheduled time. ...on Wednesday.

Reflection: January 6, 2009

The hardest thing I've ever had to do was leave John so they could prep him for surgery. It physically hurt me to walk away from him as he was lying in the hospital bed with the nurse starting various pre-op procedures. She let me stay 5 extra minutes while she went to get the last of her supplies and then I had to tear myself away and walk into the hall by myself. By myself. What was going to happen? The surgery was going to be 5 hours long and anything can happen. Would he come out of it? Would they get the cancer? What if the cancer had done damage to his pancreas? What was going to be left when they were done cutting? Would he ever leave the hospital? What was going to happen to the rest of our life? his life? my life?  Was I going to be a 33 year old widow? All those thoughts raced through my head as I walked through the white hallway, leaving John in the hands of the nurses and doctors. Now I knew it would be a hard day, but knew that it needed my positive thoughts to contribute to it's success. I prepared for my day by getting a bunch of pictures printed and brought my scissors and glue and photo album with me to keep me focused on all of the good things in our life. As I was sitting there with my project, a little old lady came up to me and told me how smart I was to bring my pictures and album to do while I waited. She said that she had a stack of pictures and should be doing the same thing. She asked if she could sit down with me while she waited for her appointment. I continued to work on my album as we chatted. I don't remember everything we said, but I told her about John's surgery and the seriousness of it. She talked about living alone and her son and how he usually brought her to her appointments (she was alone today though). Before she left to go to her doctor's waiting room, she asked what my husband's name was (I guess I had been referring to him as "my husband"). I remember thinking that it was weird that I didn't want anyone with me that day (although people offered, and thank you to them) but that I enjoyed talking to her. A little while later, presumably after her appointment, she came back and said that she wanted me to know that she had lost two husbands and that I would not be losing mine that day. She reached down and touched my shoulder and said "Whether or not you believe in God" (we hadn't discussed it) "I said a prayer for John, and he's going to be just fine." I got tears in my eyes and thanked her and she walked away. Now I don't know if I believe in angels or not, but I can't honestly tell you if she walked out through the doors or just simply vanished.

I might have done that backwards....

Yesterday, I posted about a super awesome, nature-filled, serene way of starting our new year. That happened after a day of recovery from spending NYE partying like it was 1999 2009 !

(Always wear cute panties. You never know when the opportunity to take part in some acrobatic feat will present itself... )

Out with the old, In with the new.

We are happy to leave 2009 behind. It was a rough year for a lot of people for a lot of reasons. Not that it was devoid of good, but in general, everything seemed to be harder than normal last year. In the spirit of looking forward and thinking positively, we (JJ and me and our partners in crime, The Jens) decided to start the year with a beautiful hike around Silver Falls.
There are so many amazing waterfalls and about half of them, you can walk right behind!!
To lighten our loads and make room for the good that 2010 has to offer, we stood behind one of those waterfalls and got rid of that which has weighed us down.
While I didn't have any baggage to burn, I did have a goodbye that I hadn't quite finished, and I brought a little rock with his sharpie drawn picture on it and gave it a final squeeze and tossed it into the water.
I also have a lucky penny that I found a month or so ago and I tossed that over the side as well, hoping that it will come back as my job. As we walked around each beautiful fall, we talked about our goals and plans for the next year. Everything we want is attainable (except the lottery, that might need a little help from the luck department) .
The fact is, we have to roll with the punches. It's not always easy and that which does not kill us, does make us stronger. I trust the universe and find myself stretching my arms wide and ready to fall forward into what I think will be a really great year.