Product Placement!

This.

Jen loaned me her video and I spent my morning in my living room, in my underwear and tennis shoes, and had a kick ass workout in 40 minutes. I'm fussy, and this didn't waste one minute of my time. Not only that, but I sweated and maybe even cussed at the tv once. And it makes me happy that I do a lot of the stuff in the video in Tease and Tone. and lastly, I wonder if she's secretly Bret Michael's sister. It's OK Jillian, I wouldn't admit it either.

sigh...

I have a pasty project that I'm working on this week and I got everything gathered and flipped on the ol' country music station on comcast and the first song they played was what we used in our wedding instead of "Here comes the bride"
What a happy way to start the week.

Sailing!

Our friends, Justin and Kerstin, have decided to take up sailing! (First, if you don't know Justin and Kerstin, they are some of our oldest friends. Like, they knew us before we were John and Shannon and when we were just John. and Shannon. We have years and years of shared experiences and the incriminating stories and photos to accompany them. So much so, that I could have a whole blog and just put one of those stories up every day for a year, easy. hmmm, maybe I should, I don't think either one of them read this blog :)) Anyway, Justin was looking for volunteers who were free during the day to come out and sail with him so that he can perfect his skills as captain. I guess a good thing about not having a job is the ability to take advantage of some of that stuff, so I did it. It was a super windy day and we didn't know for sure if we'd be able to go, but it turned out OK, and Justin and I are brave, so we did it. We got the boat all set up, he got inside and gave me my instructions for unhooking it as he backed away from the dock. Just as I unhooked it, a gust came and pushed the boat more quickly than I anticipated and I ended up like this. I hung there for a minute and tried to pull the boat in, to no avail, and then went through my options. I had two. Let go and belly flop into the water, or hold on tight and jump my feet into the water and hang on to the boat and try to pull myself in. Choosing the option with the most dryness, I opted to hold on and let go of the dock with my feet. So then I was like this (but with a cute hat). The worst thing is that I couldn't even swing my leg high enough to get onto the boat and my arms were so sore from the massive workouts of the week that I couldn't pull myself up. Justin came over and reached down to help pull my foot up and I finally got into the boat. Now, in retrospect, both Justin and I should have been clever enough to photo document this, but the story will have to suffice. Once I was in, we had a brilliant time. It was windy, and we sailed more downstream than upstream, but it was an awesome day. We got pretty good with our switching choreography (OK, that might not be quite the right lingo) when the sail had to switch sides and we saw a huge barge up close and watched some serious pro sailors out taking advantage of the big winds. It was cool.


We joked that it will be a while before someone beats me as "quickest person overboard" so this morning he sent me this:

sad...

but I trust the universe. I guess this one wasn't meant to be.

Wordless Wednesday

My gym....

I have put in a lot of miles up here....
You have to make sure you're dressed right and sometimes you get rained on. I do sit-ups and push-ups under a tree and run stairs from one level to the next....
and up and down hills to all the different lookouts towards different parts of the city. It's amazing and inspiring and invigorating.
I love Portland.

Halloween 09

I figure it's only fair to finish last week's Halloween theme with a follow-up from the actual Hallo-day. We were going to our friends Justin and Kerstin's for a zombie block party. They got the permit to close the street and with their neighbors, made a cool little maze of scary stuff for the kids to go through. Those of us who were zombie volunteers wandered around to scare the little bastards. (I mean, cute, adorable little munchkins, of course) Here I am at the beginning of the night, rising from the dead...
Totally scary.
Here is Zombie Preacher Husband. He likes feet and beer.
mmm. feet.
My favorite thing turned out to be hiding near the candy and as the kids were rounding the corner or concentrating on getting their candy, I'd creep up behind them and say "bbbbrraaaaiiinnnnnnssssssss...." It scared most of them. One of them, obviously fearing for her actual brain kept saying "you don't scare me, you don't scare me..." One, when I made the noise that would simulate me sucking his brain out through his ear, looked at me and said "it's not working, please stop doing that...." and then there were a few (demonstrated below by the defiantly crossed arms of my victim) who insted "um, you're not scary."
oh well, we had the best time ever and I think Justin may have started a tradition... Plan to bring your kids to 52nd and Gladstone next year for the Alien Invasion!!
We better start thinking about it now because the costume ideas are endless.