Ladybug Studio

Packed and ready…

I've been smiling a lot while driving lately and it's not just because I love driving my car. Whenever I see a car going by with a Christmas tree strapped to the roof, my smile is almost involuntary. It's just such a happy sight. I've also been smiling at the cars with reindeer antlers and a red nose. Not something I'd do myself, but I can appreciate the holiday spirit.

My own holiday spirit is fairly low this year. Don't misunderstand, I'm not moping around depressed. In fact, I allocated my red nano as the Christmas Tunes iPod and have been enjoying Christmas music while driving around since Thanksgiving weekend. But I can't get myself to care much about the holiday while at home.

I have tons of Christmas decorations. A ridiculous and possibly embarrassing amount of stuff. It's usually strewn (tastefully) all over the house well before now. I even have themed sections. For instance, the dining room is Snowman Land. There's an area primarily Santa Claus related and another area for my growing moose collection. This year, other than our Christmas tree, I have a wreath on the front door, a wreath on the door to the spare bedroom, three moose in the dining room and Hula Santa on the counter by the bar stools. And that's it.

While in the attic yesterday retrieving our large suitcase (Joy and I are saving money by packing together into one case) I considered bring down a few favorites. But after looking over at the pile of neatly stacked boxes of decorations, I just shook my head and decided that I couldn't deal with it.

In other news, I managed to get my half of the suitcase packed this morning. Joy will come over this afternoon, add her stuff to it and then Tom will take us to the airport. I have to say, I am looking forward to having a companion for the trip up. I'm not super fond of flying anyway, but hanging around the airport by myself is kind of boring. And schlepping my carry on, purse and jacket with me into the restroom is always a pain. Fingers crossed that our flight is on time!

Legs?…

Oh my gosh, my legs are trashed today from yesterday's workout. The thing is, the workout wasn't exactly leg-centric, so I'm a little flabbergasted. As I've said before, CrossFit can be sneaky. We did a bunch of dumb bell thrusters, three sets of 21. I used a pair of 20 pound weights. With thrusters, you hold the weights at shoulder height, do a deep squat, then stand up and push the weights up, extending the arms and opening the hips. They were hard, I have to admit. I had to do sets of five, then stop to rest and catch my breath. Strength training involves a lot more cardio than one might think.

At any rate, last night I didn't realize how much I had worked my legs and while driving home, considered the idea of running a little bit in the neighborhood, just a mile or two while I enjoyed everyone's Christmas lights and displays. Naturally, by the time I got home, I had already shelved that idea. Which was a good thing. On the way back from retrieving our mail, I attempted to jog back to the house and was surprised at how wobbly and spent my legs felt.

I've thought about it and of course my legs are tired and sore, after doing 63 deep squats, but I suppose I considered thrusters to be more of an arm workout. Just goes to show that, as advertised, CrossFit is not about isolation, but functional movement.

Merry moose…

After much debate, I skipped the CrossFit workout yesterday. I had some errands that needed to be taken care of and it seemed like a good time. It was hit and miss with regards to what I was trying to accomplish however. First, I visited Cocoa Village. There is a new gift/home decor store called Sassafras and a few weeks ago I was there and saw the cutest Christmas place mats - quilted fabric, red with green holly leaves. They had plenty then, but naturally, they only had two left of the rectangular ones. They had a huge stack of circular place mats, but I don't think I'd really like circular mats. I did buy one, just to see, along with the two rectangles. I can always place a centerpiece over it or I can return it. I'm still in the consideration phase. All of their Christmas stuff was 30% off, so I also bought a moose decoration. He's so adorable with his silly pot belly and holiday sweater!

Next I went to Green Apples with plans to purchase a long sleeved Life is Good t-shirt. I practically live in LIG and could use a few more long sleeved tops. But they barely had anything and all were short sleeved.

Next I headed over to Avenue Viera because not too long ago I saw a Belk ad and they had the same place mats I had bought at Sassafras. Turns out I was wrong about that. They weren't the exact thing and they weren't place mats. They were pillow shams. Rats.

I left there and went to Bed, Bath & Beyond to buy some Pumpkin Spice K-cups. They were out. What was frustrating is that I had seen many boxes of Pumpkin Spice at Belk, but wanted to use my 20% off coupon at BB&B. It wasn't worth it to me to go back to Belk.

However, one good thing happened - the Hallmark store next to BB&B sells Life is Good! I saw a display through the window so I went in to check out their stock. Plenty of short sleeves, but not many long. I ended up buying a men's medium long sleeved shirt. It didn't look necessarily "manly", so I think it will be okay. I also found a short sleeved tennis themed shirt in the 50% off basket. Score! While I was at the store, I also selected Christmas cards. I may be addressing them while I'm up in North Carolina, but at least we'll get our Christmas greetings out this year.

On the bench…

I was so sleepy yesterday. All I wanted to do after work was go home and take a nap. And I seriously considered it. But I knew if I skipped a workout, I'd have to make it up at the end of the week, and I have other things I need time for at the end of the week. So I forced myself to go. I was motivated by the fact that it was a rest day and I could choose my own workout. Saturday's WOD was bench press, which interested me. Plus I knew it would be a fairly quick workout.

Bench press doesn't come up very often as a CrossFit activity. In fact, I've only seen it once in the six months or so I've been a member. I was curious to see how much weight I could press. The workout called for 10 sets of 2 reps. The general plan is to add weight every set, every other set or so until you max out. Some guess work was definitely involved, but the trainer started me out at 55 pounds and I made it to 95. I tried to do 100, but couldn't quite pull it off. At least now I know what my next goal will be. As an added bonus, I did better than two of the three women who have posted so far. By quite a lot! I'm so used to being at the bottom of the group as either the slowest (most often) or the one lifting the least weight. Apparently, bench press is my thing.

'Tis the season…

This is the strangest Christmas season of my life. Everything feels upside down or something. I've mentioned that we aren't buying gifts this year and on one side it's actually rather nice. But it's also rather disappointing. Whenever I find myself at the mall or at Target, I see all of these gift sets and glittering items and feel that I should be buying something. In addition to not buying gifts, I've put myself on a Christmas diet. Which means trying not to see all of the cute decorations, ornaments, gift wrap and all. Tom tries to help me by walking between me and the Christmas stuff to block my view. But I see it all the same.

We have our tree up and decorated, but not much else. The snowman light is down from the attic and I asked Tom to put it together today. I had planned on decorating over the weekend, but spent most of my time on the computer. I may go up and root through the boxes and find a few favorites, but there's no way I'm bringing it all down this late in the game. So our house won't look as festive as it usually does during Christmas. And to that I say, "Meh." I'm just not feeling it this year.

Besides all of that, I have a continuous dull ache in my tummy and my heart feels like it's beating too hard all of the time. I'm thinking it's due to the stress of Tom's job situation. I usually deal pretty well with stress, but this is something entirely new. It's even beginning to take me longer than five minutes to fall asleep at night and that's virtually unheard of. I can usually turn off the day and dive into dream land in no time at all.

A week from today, Joy and I are flying up to North Carolina to visit Ann for a couple of days. Then we will all drive down to Florida together. Yes, Joy is joining me on my annual trip this year. Maybe the change of pace and venue will bring me out of this gloom.

Run fun…

Finally made it to a CrossFit workout last night. It was a rest day so I got to pick which workout I wanted to do. Well, none of them looked particularly fun. Actually, they never do. One was strictly weight lifting and I thought I wanted to do something that would involve a little more running around and sweating. Both of the other workouts from this week involved running (ugh) so I picked the one with the shorter distance, 400 meters.

I also had to do 10 burpee box jumps (do a burpee, followed by a 20" box jump), 10 sumo dead lift high pulls (45#) and 10 thrusters (also 45#). Rest one minute. Then do it all again - for a total of 5 rounds. That turned out to be a lot of work and it took me 43:45. I was pleasantly worn out afterward.

…

Manicure yesterday - and another day without a workout of any kind. Once home, I got started on freelance. Had a brief dinner break, then back to the computer and that pretty much sums up my evening.

If only the rest of the day would go so calmly and event free. Our regular lead is out for the week and the acting lead is freaking out about everything and causing loads of stress in the office. I have had nearly a constant stomach ache from all of the drama. If I can just hang in there for two more days…

Strings…

I was not looking forward to tennis yesterday. The last time I played, last Tuesday, it did not go well. Which is how I found myself finally booted off of court 6. I had a long run of it, but I guess my time had come to an end. I was irrationally upset about it, for some reason. I didn't even play on Saturday for fear of a repeat performance.

In addition to not wanting to join in league play, I had a nasty headache going on. The kind I just knew was going to get worse and worse. But I had to play. Three other people were counting on me being at the courts. I apologized ahead of time, in case I acted grouchy.

The warm up wasn't great and my racquet just didn't feel right. So I switched to my old racquet and started hitting much better. I believe my newer racquet needs re-stringing. A couple of strings have frayed spots that seem concerning. Several guys who string racquets have examined the strings and said they're fine. But just for peace of mind, I'm going to go ahead and do it anyway.

So the night went fairly well. I didn't have the highest score, but I had the second highest score. The guy who beat me was technically subbing for someone else, so I think I'll move up next week, but I'll have to wait and see what the administrator officially posts. She has a… ahem… quirky way of doing things, so I'm not counting on it until I have it in writing.

The headache sort of came and went while we were playing, but was an official migraine by the time I got home. It felt like my head was exploding. After three Aleve and a quick shower, I told Tom I was going to lay down for a bit. And that was that. I was totally cheated out of my evening.

(just got the email - I'm back up to court 6!)

Tree…

Our Christmas tree is all decked out and ready for the holidays. Rachel and Tori came over yesterday afternoon and decorated it with only a little help from me. I hung a few ornaments, but they did the majority. My most important job was manning the hot cocoa maker. They liked the Salted Caramel Hot Cocoa, but we all decided that the traditional was still the best.

Okay, I'll admit to being really anal and fixing a couple of things after they left. A few that ended up facing inward and a few that weren't dangling, but were resting on branches below. But other than that, they did a great job and saved me quite a lot of time. Plus it was just nice to spend some time with them and catch up on their busy young lives.

My weekend…

My weekend started out poorly, with overtime on Friday night. Which kept me from attending a CrossFit workout. I am having the toughest time staying consistent with CF lately. Every time I get on a roll, something happens to mess up my attendance. I did manage to go last night, but that was mainly because I knew I wouldn't be able to go tonight - and the rest of this week is looking sketchy too.

I skipped tennis on Saturday because, strangely, I just didn't feel like going. Sleeping in had much more appeal to me. The day kept me pretty busy. I worked on freelance in the morning, then some time after lunch Tom and I got the Christmas tree and ornaments down from the attic. While Tom worked on putting the tree together and fluffing up the branches, I unboxed a plethora of Hallmark Keepsake ornaments, placing them in box lids for ease of decorating. The girls were coming over on Sunday, so I wanted to be as prepared as possible.

Saturday night Tom and I had dinner at Ernie's restaurant, then met Vicky, Matt and some of their friends for roller skating. It was Vicky's birthday and that's what she wanted to do. Tom and I brought our roller blades and I found that it was a bit tricky on the super slick floor of the roller rink. If I pushed out too quickly, I would lose traction. Tom hadn't been on his blades in a very long time, and even then, he hadn't used them much. (they still look brand new) He was quite nervous about falling and busting his butt (and his ego), but he did fine. He wasn't moving super fast, but he wasn't flailing about, windmilling his arms or anything.

After everyone was done skating, our group went to Coasters Pub in Eau Gallie. We sat in the Biergarten and drank and talked for a few hours. (you know me, just had a Coke) We got home pretty late, which meant getting to bed pretty late, around 1:00. Sleeping in on Sunday morning was a given.

Once we were up and moving on Sunday, Tom finished his job with the Christmas tree while I puttered around with the ornaments. Then I got a text from Rachel that she wouldn't be able to make it over for the tree decorating. A similar text from Tori soon followed. A little disappointing for sure. They asked if they could come over on Monday night instead, which wasn't as convenient but what could I do?

So I made a trip to Publix, then ate lunch while working on the computer. To make up for missing out on Monday's CF WOD, I went to the Sunday 5:30 class instead. It was a rest day, so I could choose my own workout. I have no idea why I chose to do the one that involved lots of push ups, but that's what I did. Rowing and push-ups. Feeling a bit sore today.