Ladybug Studio

No backing out now…

Tom and I are officially registered for the Intracoastal Waterway Century this Sunday. The fees have been paid and are non-refundable. Here's hoping for good weather! From what I have heard so far, it's supposed to be sunny, with a high of 79. So that's positive. It's also supposed to be windy. Which I find very negative. Tom pointed out that while the wind will be at our faces part of the time, it will also be at our backs part of the time. Damn him and his Glass if Half Full attitude.

We'll have at least Alex, Jeanene, Sean (friend of Alex), Tom and myself for our little group. I'm pretty sure Dallas will be riding and maybe, just maybe, Vicky will want to take a break from packing and moving. Hopefully a few more riders will join us (or we'll join them). More riders means everyone gets a longer break from pulling at the front.

So, a good excuse to eat pasta on Saturday night?

Saturday morning I'm attending a Pose Running* clinic at my CrossFit gym. It's from 9-1, which means no sleeping in that morning. After the clinic, I will go to Cocoa Village for two reasons. First, to pick up our ride packets for Sunday's century. But also, and more interesting, to check out the opal trunk show at Jon's Fine Jewelry.

Last October I happened to visit the store in the late afternoon for some little reason and instead of all of their usual jewelry, the cases were filled with every conceivable manner of opal jewelry. Gorgeous, fascinating stuff. I wasn't able to spend very much time though because they closed soon after I arrived. So this time I plan on having enough time to really take a good look and learn about opals. The man who owns the opal items enjoys sharing his knowledge and I'd like to hear more than I was able to last year. I'll have to leave my credit cards at home though because there were some beautiful tempting pieces that caught my eye!

*I tried finding a clear explanation regarding Pose Running, but couldn't put anything concise together. So if you're interested, just do a search and read about it.

Weekend wanderings…

This weekend didn't start out very well. I went home sick from work on Friday. Nothing major, just that weird cruddy feeling that keeps happening every few days, or every few weeks, whenever it cares to show up. This time is was accompanied by a sinus headache, so I gave up trying to be useful at work as that wasn't exactly panning out anyway. Once home I contemplated lunch. It was 12:30 or so and I was a little bit hungry, but ultimately, decided to just go lie down. I watched TV for a bit, then ended up sleeping for four hours.

When I got up, Tom was outside washing my car. I set up a lawn chair in the garage and hung out with him while he labored. I felt a little bit guilty just sitting and watching, but I didn't feel up to helping either. Finally, when he started drying, I got a towel and pitched in. Mostly because I'm super picky about drying the insides of the doors, inside the gas cap door and around the edges of the trunk lid, and I suspected he might skip those areas.

Saturday morning I felt fine and was able to play tennis. The morning started out a little chilly, but quickly warmed up. I wasn't playing my best, but I had an enjoyable enough time and stayed on the courts until almost noon. Once home I ate a quick lunch then did a little bit of yard work. Jenn and Mark were coming over in the late afternoon and I wanted to make sure the plants looked good for Mark.

And when they arrived, Mark immediately asked who had trimmed our yellow mound. He was impressed with how nice they looked. They can be a pain to trim and I always have to take my time with the electric trimmers. I'm glad my diligence paid off.

Tom and Mark spent a lot of time the driveway, looking at Tom's Corvette, talking about cars and other man stuff. But eventually they were ready to head over to the fall car show in Rockledge. By the time we got there it was dark and we were primarily concerned with getting over to Ernie's restaurant for some awesome burgers. But we did admire some of the cars on our way and Jenn found a photo opportunity or two.

Bianco's Big League Eatery has more than just burgers on their menu. But I've never tried anything else because I don't want to miss out on having a burger. They are that good. Despite the enticing list of specialty burgers, we all ended up with essentially the same thing - a bacon cheeseburger. I can't speak for everyone, but I know I ate more than I should have, and it was worth every bite.

I slept in a bit on Sunday morning and that was very nice. I had gotten to bed late on Saturday. After Jenn and Mark headed for home, I ended up puttering around doing stuff and all of the sudden it was 12:00. I'm such an old decrepit person, I woke up feeling like I had a hangover, even though I hadn't had a drop to drink.

But it was a beautiful day and Tom didn't mind driving me over to Florida Mall in his Corvette. I had decided that I didn't care for the philosophy skincare stuff I had bought two weeks ago. It was an impulse purchase that I regretted pretty quickly. The main reason was because the stuff smelled unpleasant. I know they don't like to put fragrance in their skincare line, but at the same time, it didn't have to smell bad did it? Sort of perplexing since their shower gels and stuff smell so wonderful.

The morning headache never really went away and by the time we were back home again I was feeling pretty poorly. I lounged around in the spare bedroom and watched TV, skipping the CrossFit workout I had intended to go to. So the weekend ended up full circle.

Jumping for joy…

My foray into the world of CrossFit training has given me many gains so far. I am definitely stronger. I dead lifted 225 pounds on Monday for a personal max rep. I can almost do an unassisted pull-up. Currently using the skinniest band, I am hoping to learn the kipping pull-up with trainer Melanie tomorrow. But one thing I'm very excited about and proud of is learning to jump rope.

Silly, right? I mean, come on. Who can't jump rope? Uh, me, that's who. But now I can! Yesterday I jumped rope 450 times! Not all in a row, but still.

Of course, I wasn't able to do the workout as prescribed. It actually called for 50 double unders. That's when the rope passes under the feet twice on one jump. Yeah. Ridiculously hard. And something I definitely cannot do. So the scaled version is to do triple the amount in singles.

The WOD called for 3 rounds of: 10 front squats (I used 45#) and 50 double unders. So I didn't do the jump rope singles all at once, but split into three groups of 150. My calves are a tiny bit sore today. Wonder how they'll feel tomorrow?

But me… I'm jump roping for joy!

More weird weather…

So far, this October has brought us some very strange weather. At the beginning of the month, we had unseasonably (for Florida) cool temperatures. Which were then followed by what was basically an unnamed tropical storm. Then we had a couple of gorgeous days, followed by another tropical system. This one came with dire warnings about wind and rain and tornados. But it was sort of a no-show in our area, though south of us got quite a wallop.

Tennis was canceled yesterday in deference to the pending doom. Which seemed like the right call at the time, but as it didn't start raining until around 7:30 last night, I suppose we could have gotten our three sets in.

But I was okay with the night off, really. 'Tis the time of the year when I start getting stressed out over my calendar work. Every year seems to get worse, with regards to the work coming in late. This year may be the worst yet. The owner's lazy ass brother had been ignoring the ad account envelopes piling up on his desk. Finally someone stepped in to start sending the work to me, but it's much too late.

Which really ticks me off because I could have been doing freelance in a leisurely pace throughout the summer, but instead, I'm going to be frantically trying to get everything completed with very little help. Jolie is still working with me, but the guy up in Virginia can't help this year. Honestly, unless I clone myself a couple of times, there's just no way everything will be done on time.

In addition, I'm just not willing to give up everything I enjoy doing this year. I have sort of settled into my routine of going to CrossFit workouts and tennis league and manicures, pedicures and such on weekday afternoons. The there's Saturday morning tennis and mountain biking on Sundays. Doesn't leave much time for freelance. I sure wish I could give it all up, but I'm sort of financially dependent on it, particularly with Tom still being unemployed. I've been working two jobs for many, many years and it's getting quite a bit old.

Bicycling weekend…

Saturday morning I participated in the 3rd Annual Tour de KSC. Employees and up to five guests were allowed to ride their bicycles on KSC property. There were four loops to pick and choose from and naturally, we rode all four, totalling about 37 miles. Dallas, Vicky and Matt were my guests.

The weather was pretty much perfect. The temps were comfortable and the skies were slightly overcast through most of the ride. The big highlight of the event was the opportunity to walk inside the VAB and see Endeavour in Highbay 4. Vicky and Matt had never been in the VAB, so they were pretty excited for that part of the ride. I've only been inside about three times myself. The building totally fascinates me, it is so enormous.

The ride itself was good. We had a core group of about a dozen riders and we splintered into smaller groups throughout the ride. After we had completed our miles, Dallas, Matt, Vicky and I decided we didn't really want to stand around in the sun, eating pizza washed down with tepid water (there were no other beverages) so we headed into town and had lunch at Pumpernickel's. Yum. (what diet?)

On Sunday Tom, Matt, Vicky and I went mountain biking. With last weekend's record rainfall, we figured much of Econ would still be under water so we headed north to Sugar Mill. At least, that's what we call it. To most mountain bikers it would be known as Doris Leeper Spruce Creek Preserve. The trails are well maintained and marked these days. But we started riding them many years ago and referred to the trailhead as Sugar Mill because it's near the Sugar Mill golf course.

It used to be a little more confusing there, but now there is a well defined loop that's just over 5.5 miles. We rode two loops and that was plenty enough for me. After the ride, at Vicky's suggestion, we went over to New Smyrna Beach to eat at The Breakers. What a neat place! It's right on the beach and you can sit on stools lined up along a wide window ledge that looks right over the ocean. The window directly in front of me was open and it was heavenly, feeling the fresh ocean air. I ordered a mushroom burger and crispy fries. Yum. (what diet?) The Breakers was a perfect end to a good weekend of biking.

Say no to tennis…

Yesterday I decided to skip the CrossFit workout. I was just so tired, all I wanted to do was go home, laze around and maybe even take a nap. I called Tom to let him know that I would be coming straight home from work for a change.

Then I got a phone call from a tennis friend, putting together a foursome for some evening doubles. Naturally, I said yes. So I called Tom back and said, "Don't be mad…"

He wasn't mad. He's used to me being away from the house a lot. In retrospect though, I probably should have said no to tennis. We were to meet at Singleton at 6:00, which gave me just enough time to go home and relax for a bit. Enough time to sink into the sofa and not want to get up again. But I did, and it was a warm, humid, sticky, buggy evening. The three that I played with are a family - parents and son - and they are all really good. I was clearly out of my league. Though they were nice and we were just playing for fun and exercise, I really felt like I was bringing down the level of play.

We finished up about 8:00. Because it was so late, I cruised through Arby's on the way home. Tom, bless him, had recorded Survivor for me (I completely forgot about it), so we watched it while we ate our mostly unhealthy dinner. As a result of getting home and eating dinner so late, I ended up going to bed late too and now I'm even more tired than I was yesterday. No workouts or exercise or activities are planned for today though. I'm having a manicure instead. I just hope I can stay awake through it.

No pain no gain…

Well, I'm barely back to my blog and already whining about being in pain due to a CrossFit workout. At least I'm consistent.

So anyway, ouch! Yesterday we did dead lifts and handstand push-ups. I hurt from my shoulders to just below my knees. And speaking of my knees, they are bruised! Yes, from the workout. I can't do real handstand push-ups so I kneel on a 24" high box. I had a towel underneath my knees, but I guess it wasn't cushy enough. (I just realized that most of the boxes have a piece of gym mat on top, but that one didn't)

It's rather hard to explain, these modified handstand push-ups. This is the best video I've found and you'll just have to imagine kneeling on a box (shaped like a very condensed letter A) instead of legs out like this guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8otkimtZXY

Tough stuff, let me tell you! Oh, and I can't do them that quickly. Yesterday, we had to do a set of 21 (after doing 21 dead lifts), a set of 15 and a set of 9. Thank goodness Allie and another athlete were there to help me off the box after the last one or I probably would have landed on my face.

Fun times!

Weird weather weekend…

The first two weekends of October this year have been rather unusual. With the first ushering in an early bit of cooler weather and the second bringing forth nearly a tropical storm. I much prefer the former.

The rains actually started first thing Friday morning, causing a completely soggy newspaper, and increased throughout the day. The forecast called for heavy rain all weekend, so tennis was obviously a no-go. I awoke several times during the night to the sounds  of torrential rainfall.

I enjoyed sleeping late on Saturday morning and spending the day in the house wasn't all bad. I baked brownies for Tom (the corners are mine though!), worked on the computer, watched some TV, had lunch, took a nap, worked on the computer again. In the evening we braved the elements in order to make a quick McDonald's run. But otherwise spent the day at home.

On Sunday morning, the 5:30 am CrossFit class had been changed to 10:00, which was a great time to attend. Being a rest day, there was only one other member there. Holly and I chose to do the same workout and definitely motivated each other.

Cindy: As many rounds as possible (AMRAP) in 20 minutes:
5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, 15 squats

My pull-ups were stronger (and I used a less helpful band), but her push-ups were stronger. I think we were about equal on squats. But ultimately, Holly was able to do 9 rounds plus the pull-ups and some squats and I was only able to finish 8 rounds plus the 5 pull-ups. Guess I need to work on my weak upper body.

Getting out of the house was nice and I guess I'm pretty used to being on the go. So after showering and having a quick lunch, I drove myself over to Florida Mall. One of my favorite Happy Places. My earrings were inspected and cleaned, then I visited most of my usual haunts, Sephora, Coach, Godiva, and a few other stores.

I spent the most time in Nordstrom though. I always park at their east entrance and make my way into the mall from there. The last time I was there with Joy I discovered a wonderful shampoo/shower gel/bubble bath from Philosophy called Autumn Air - a tangerine cider fragrance. Heavenly. I decided that I had to have it, so I stopped by the Philosophy counter on my way in. After verifying that they had a bottle for me, I told the sales lady that I would stop by to purchase it on my way out. So I did, and the lady offered to show me some of the new items, which was nice. She asked me what I was doing for skin care and it got crazy after that.

I explained that I didn't currently have a true routine, that I was using a few products from different lines, but that I had just purchased some Origins products. Turns out she used to sell Origins and was very familiar with their line. Loved their products, too. However -

By the time I left - 45 minutes after the store and mall had closed - I had a bunch of Philosophy skin care products and plans to come back soon to return the Origins items I had just purchased. Oh yes, according to P. T. Barnum, a sucker is born every minute. And I am a contender for the number one spot.