Labor Day 2010

A great success. Let's see if this slideshow of my day is as successful. Thanks to Bear for photo documenting the day.

Success!

Sweat matted hair, no makeup, and uni-boob, one sexy look for a 4th date huh? Date 2 involved geocaching on a well-traveled walking trail. It was super successful. S is a natural and he requested doing harder ones in the future, “something more in the forest.” The fear of him raping and murdering me has passed, so into the forest we went. Geocaches are rated using a 1-5 scale for difficulty/terrain. I generally stick to 2/2s and below. Well Sunday morning we went after a 3/3. The notes online said if we came at it from the wrong direction it would be a 3/4.5.

Oh my God, we must have come at it from the wrong direction 4 times over. At one point I was on my hands and knees climbing up a muddy, basically vertical, creek bed. There were frogs. It was so hot and exhausting. We spent an hour climbing around within a tenth of a mile of the cache. We finally ended up on the right ridge and then the “distance to point” numbers on the GPS began dropping like a rock. I started squealing, “That fallen tree, that fallen tree, it has to be there,” I staggered over and collapsed on the tree. At this point I don’t really know my name, the date or the current president. I rolled over and sat up on the log , 5 seconds later he sits down next to me and puts the cache on my lap. It was stuck in the end of the log. It took us an hour and forty five minutes to trek to within 200ft and then 5 seconds to find it. We rested for 5 minutes, finished the Gatorade and then started the hike out. It was better going out, but still took another 30 minutes. I was dead, but it was a real sense of accomplishment. There is no way pre P90X and Insanity I would have been able to make it. There was so much climbing and balancing, my quads and lower back were on fire.

Post a 45 minute break to get cleaned up, we went to The Sterling Family Restaurant for breakfast. I celebrated with a gyro omelet, hash browns, rye toast, and a quarter of a sweet potato waffle. If they would have had a cinnamon roll I would have ordered that too (that was the only disappointment with Sterling Family). I’d go through it again to eat that breakfast guilt free :) Two thumbs up.

New Toys

When I first started The 30 Day Shred over a year ago, I didn't have shoes to wear in the house. So I just didn't wear any. Eventually I started developing callouses on the ends of my toes from doing push ups. I drug my feet (ha) on purchasing shoes because I can be really cheap if I just don't care about something. I finally bought shoes when every single toe was jacked up. I wish I hadn't waited so long, those callouses are taking forever to Ped Egg off. So when I started noticing callouses on my hands from weightlifting/pull ups, I knew not to dick around. I do not want my hands looking like my toes. Enter in these babies. The cheapest ones they had, and green, my favorite color, to boot.



Well I have come a long way from the days of The 30 Day Shred, because then I bought a heart rate monitor. I have started doing cardio interval training and apparently I need to be "in the zone." I think if I feel like I'm going to die, I must be "in the zone." But if knowing exactly how close to exploding my heart is will make this work better; I'm in. So I picked up a monitor. It has continuous monitoring. Basically that function allows me to sit on the couch and try to get my heart rate as low as possible. I feel I am not using the product as intended, but it is addictive. I hit 43 beats a minute at one point, hahaha, me and Lance Armstrong baby!

The Giant Cookie

On my way home from work I pass a sign for The Giant Cookie on Knoxville Ave. It is a really nice sign, it jumps out with a great logo. A Giant Cookie smiling and wearing a chef's hat advertising homemade cookies, ice cream and ice cream cakes. I never stopped because I'm usually in a rush to get home to get P90X underway (exercise mention in a post about gorging on cookies). A few weeks ago I noticed the same sign at 2244 West Glen Avenue. It is in the strip mall just east of the intersection of Glen and War Memorial. That worked out for me to stop because I'm over there Saturday mornings. Basically The Giant Cookie rocks my face off.

The cookies are indeed giant. Family favorites include Butterfinger and Turtle. She usually has well over a dozen flavors to choose from. I think the cookies are $1.25 each, buy 6 get one free. For $5.95 you should get a "mini ice cream cake" It is essentially 2-3 cookies layered with ice cream and homemade toppings. They come in chocolate chip, praline, and peanut butter. Unfortunately they have been out of peanut butter both times I've been in. I think that will end up being Yoshie and mine's favorite. Right now Yoshie prefers chocolate chip while Bear and I love the Praline.

She also sells ice cream by the scoop, and has a few different flavors. I think you can get a Blizzard type item too. I've never done this because I'm usually getting my treats to go. I'm guessing they are probably just as delicious as everything else. One little nit-pick, there is no seating. So you would just kind of have to stand around to eat your ice cream.

I don't think the Knoxville spot is occupied anymore, but I've never asked her. I love that I've only been in there twice, a couple of weeks apart but she remembered who I was and asked if the people at the party loved the cookies. I had to lie, Bear, Yoshie, and I demolished all the cookies before said party. They didn't know what they missed. I'm a little worried that she only remembers me because she doesn't have that many customers. So I'm trying to get the word out. The Giant Cookie is a great local business.

Unrelated to the quality of the food product, I love that she loves her logo. It is embroidered on the polo she wears and she puts a sticker of it on the ice cream cake containers. It is just a really nice operation.

Green Thumb

So I was inspired by my sister's garden adventures and decided to get my horticulture on. Actually, I was inspired by the guilt of keeping a 2ft across aloe plant in a 6 inch pot. That's the beauty of an aloe, you don't water it, keep it in a dark room, in a too small pot and it it just keeps on ticking.

I love succulents. They remind me of Grandma Gryp's home in Geneseo, she had a bunch of Hens and Chickens. So when I ran across a magazine picture of a bunch of succulents in a dish it caught my eye. I decided to recreate it. Bear was skeptical. In fact she was creeped out. Hens and Chickens make her skin crawl. Unfortunately I lost the picture, so I couldn't show her how cool and mod some succulents look. She was a good sport and quickly came around. She actually found me the PERFECT pot at JoAnn's, it is 17 inches across but only 8 inches deep, and a lovely slate gray. It took Bear and I 6 stops at 4 garden centers to make 3 purchases. We love a good treasure hunt. This fed our obsessive compulsive nature like none other. We got to hem and haw and drive in circles to make sure we got it just right. And we did. I give it a 10 out of 1o. Seriously, that never happens. Our life motto is, "I wish...." followed by a nit pick. No wishing here. Love It! Love it so much it got moved from its original home of my bedroom and out on to the dinner room table. Not only did the aloe get breathing room it is now going to have sunlight. Upgrade!

Happy Birthday Xena

Xena, consider this a birthday present for you. So what have I been doing? Umm, not much, hence the lack of blog posts. It is day 45, the half way point of P90X for me, woot woot. Is it working? Yes. Do I look like the infomercial? No. I don't follow the recommended diet plan, so I can't complain. My thighs feel a bit firmer and my stomach does as well. I should have taken measurements and pictures before I started. There is increased definition in my arms, back, and shoulders. And there must be some general change in my torso shape, because when shopping for new clothes I can fit into small shirts about as often as mediums now. However, this is kind of a mystery because my bra size remains frustratingly static. How is that possible? Shouldn't I at least be seeing a decrease in the band size, if not the cup size? I guess I shouldn't complain too much, if the band size did decrease without a corresponding decrease in cup size, I'd be off into unknown letters of the alphabet. Seriously, my whole goal was to get The Rack down to something approaching normal and it just won't shrink. Gee I wonder if it is all the god damn peanut butter and chocolate chips I eat or that P90X is primarily a strength training program and not a weight loss program? Nah, it is because the universe hates me.

So this is the dilemma. I really like P90X because I get off on lifting heavy stuff and I hate cardio. But, if I really want to lift the ultimate heavy thing, me, then I need to lean out. That's right, I'm back to wanting to do a pull up. Problem is, according to the internets I need to drop another 25lbs for this to be realistic. It is kind of sad that I look like an elf, and it is still not enough. Is it realistic for me to get lean? Debatable. It isn't going to happen doing P90X, that is for sure. The 15lbs stuck on my chest is impervious to P90X. The internets says I should start doing the Shaun T Insanity workouts in place of the P90X cardio days to burn more calories. If you told me a couple of years ago I would be ordering exercise programs off of the TV I would have laughed in your face and said screw that I'll be getting the Ron Popiel Food Dehydrator. My sisters and I have wanted that since the early 90s:) Did you know that his daughter Lauren, the one who makes the strawberry fruit roll up with her friend in the infomercial, (she is about 12 at the time) ended up dating Justin Timberlake for a minute a few years ago. How funny is that? So yeah, to lean or not to lean, that is the question. I'm going keep on, keeping on, and at the end of 90 days we'll see where I'm at strength wise. If I don't think the strength is there, I'm not going to bother trying to get lean. If I can do the negative move (lower myself down from the bar in a controlled manner) then I'll probably dive into Insanity, how very appropriate:) So there you have it, Happy Birthday!

Jigga Whaaa?

So I just read a list of 10 "Best New Romantic Getaways" According to Bon Appetit you should "Liven up your winter with a quick trip to these spots that have stellar food, a warm welcome, and a certain off-the-beaten-path appear." On that list....june in Peoria Heights....I mean I am sure it is great restaurant and I am all about the Peoria area getting some good press, but come on! What the heck about Central Illinois screams romantic getaway? I can support the off-the-beaten path aspect, but romantic getaway, ummm not so much.