A desperate cry for help
For a few months, I have been looking for a dance studio nearby that offers adult classes. Some offer "all ages" classes that end up being populated by high schoolers, some say "adult" and mean "senior citizens". it's been a challenge. And I'm not looking to become a professional dancer either - I want something that will be fun and offer a good cardiovascular exercise. Well, I found a place that has adult classes. And by adult, I mean "No one under 18 can take these classes because their parents would sue us." Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Flashdance (potentially NSFW). They offer pole dancing, stripper dancing, dancing your grandmother would not approve of, "pole-ates", and the classes I will probably end up taking - Cardio Latin and Beginning Hip Hop. One of my co-workers is using her lunch break today to scope the place out (during an Erotic Stripper Dance class), and she's going to report back this afternoon. If all goes well, there's a group of us that will start going on Wednesday nights.
Since there are six other days of the week I need to fill with exercise, Veronica suggested I take her holiday group fitness challenge. I'll spend an hour at the gym well before the crack of dawn on Tuesdays and Thursdays for six weeks, and I'll do a mostly cardio workout along with her and 6-8 other people. She suggested it as a way to save money on training while still getting to hang out with her; I'm looking at it as a way to get my cardio in. And on Mondays and Fridays when I would normally be at a personal training session with Veronica, I'll be at Bodypump (taught by Jason's college marching band section leader - small world!). That just leaves the weekends, and I'm expecting Nicole and I will get back into our Saturday morning Bodypump routine, with me showing up early to do some cardio. Woo! After we get back from our "Christmas" vacation, I'll go back to personal training again.
I'm also considering going to see a doctor about my nutrition and fitness - Dr. Craig Reese. Several of my co-workers visit him monthly (they've taken to calling him "Dr. Love" for some reason) and swear by his help. He's more holistic than most, functioning as a sort of chiropractor, mixing in acupuncture, analyzing your diet to find the parasites that are keeping you unhealthy, and overall focusing on wellness. And he's fairly inexpensive, so I figured I'd give it a try. My one fear is his diet - at your first meeting, he analyzes your blood, looking at thyroid levels and all sorts of other goodies to figure out what your insides are doing and how your body is reacting to the food you eat. And then, based on that analysis, he puts you on a restrictive diet (restricting the type of foods, not calories) to help flush out toxins in your body. Three of my coworkers have had their first appointments in the last couple of months, and they were all miserable for the first week when they realize all the stuff they can't eat anymore (namely, sugar). But after a couple weeks they avoid sugar like the plague because they feel so much better. I have this strange, sick feeling that after our first meeting he'll put me on a vegetarian diet or something. And then I'd starve.
Would anyone who lives near an IKEA be willing to send me a catalog? We're thinking of going the IKEA route for cabinets instead of going through Home Depot for the built-ins in our loft, but since we don't actually live within reasonable driving distance of a store, the powers that be at IKEA corporate won't send me one. Boo!
apple-icious
I think I'm figuring out how people get addicted to eBay. It's interesting to see people's strategies and how they time their bids. I've been selling some of my stamps, and I habitually visit the "My eBay" page to check on who's tracking each item. As the listing's end date gets closer, suddenly more people are tracking. maybe someone makes a bid. drama! All my auctions are ending in the next 24 hours, and I'm excited to sit back and watch the endgame play out. I also need to find more things to sell.
Less than a week later, I still love my computer. The chaturbate processor makes a huge difference in the speed of things; I was concerned about running CS2 with only 1 GB of RAM, but it zips along much faster that my "clunker" PowerBook. And I can actually use the Dashboard now, since I don't have to press my hotkey and then wait 10-15 seconds for the Dashboard to actually appear. And the computer has completely reorganized how we hang out around the house. Jason installed MythTV on our server and frontend clients on all our computers, so I can now watch live TV or anything we record on my gigantic screen. So it's become another TV, and we end up hanging out upstairs watching TV while I mess around on the computer. We're on the lookout for a decent small-scale sleeper sofa to put up in the loft so Jason has someplace comfy to sit when he's up there (and Melissa has a place to sleep in case the whole family is here all at once).
Is it possible to love a computer? I think it is.
So, we're not moving. We've been talking for the past several days about the pros and cons, and the decision came down to two major factors: 1) the market sucks and is only getting worse, and 2) we love our house. When faced with deciding between staying in the house we love and have worked hard on and have a comfortable mortgage payment for or selling the house and barely breaking even to buy a smaller, more expensive place. the choice was fairly easy.
Once the decision was made, we felt so much better. Jason was afraid I'd be disappointed and upset with him, but in truth I was happy to know one way or the other where we'd be living this time next year, whether it was our house or a loft to be determined. The will-we-or-won't-we stress of the whole process was weighing on us more than we cared to admit, and we both feel lighter and happier now that we have a direction again.
To "celebrate," we're buying ourselves some goodies. Mine is above - a shiny, new, massive 24-inch iMac. It is so, so lovely. And Jason is getting a fancy mountain bike, so he can thrash. Rock!
So I'm very glad it's Friday
If I had to come up with an analogy for the last week or so, it would involve a large truck and me sprawled out in the middle of the road - being run over, backed up over, and then run over again. Repeatedly. Nothing bad has happened. Actually, lots of good things have happened. But they've come in tall, pounding waves that knock me down and then slam me again just as I'm regaining my balance. But my pile is getting smaller and I can see light up ahead. (Okay, so that's, like, three or four analogies.) I've been working consciously for the last week about managing my time, checking things off my lists. getting things done (not that way, but my own special homebrew way).
One thing we have not done is made a decision about the house. We looked at a place last weekend that has pretty much everything we wanted in a loft, and our jasminelive agent asked the seller's agent about making an offer with a contingency for selling our house. And the sellers turned out to be completely open to it. The big problem with making that sort of offer is that our house isn't even on the market yet. We need to paint my bright green office, unfortunately, and dejunkify our basement (and my office, since I mentioned it) and do a whole host of other things to stage the house, and we need to decide whether we really want to go it alone - and potentially lose a month or two of time before we realize that this isn't the market to go FSBO and hire a realtor - or go ahead and sign with a realtor right off the bat. The 5 percent they could potentionally shave off our profits is a nice chunk of change. The decision is complicated by the house around the corner that went up for sale two weeks ago; the sellers paid $12K more for their house than we paid for ours (although our money was better spent, in my humble opinion), it's roughly the same floor plan, and because they're being transferred out of state and are motivated to sell, their price point is lower than we'd want to ask.
Veronica has been a nice help in keeping my head on a level plane - I started back to my morning workouts last week, and the sluggish, lethargic slothness I'd been wallowing in since surgery is finally being shrugged off. I didn't lose any muscle strength, so we jumped right back into weight training. My cardiovascular endurance, however, has taken a blow. But we're working on it, and next week I should be back to a regular routine.
And I will be celebrating surviving this week by leaving work early with my department and having some margaritas at our usual happy hour spot.
I want a kitten.
I'm enjoying the new Justin Timberlake album. It's very different. Very danceable, but not at all "pop." I like it. [ETA: My current favorite track is "Let Me Talk To You Prelude / My Love"]
Colophons should be required on, like, everything.
The cafeteria at work excels at soup. I've had two good ones this week - "Fat Tire Beer Cheese" soup and "Organic Red Potato and Bacon" soup. A large bowl and a large salad with a Diet Coke only sets me back $5.
We're celebrating Christmas this year at the beginning of December instead of the end. One of Jason's cousins is getting married December 2nd, so we're going to leave for the OC the week of Thanksgiving and come back after the wedding. And that will be our Christmas vacation. We haven't seen most of Jason's family since our wedding, including his sister (MEL!), so rather than make two trips in quick succession, we'll just do this one up right.
I've started creating Keep-Sell-Toss piles around the house in anticipation of putting it on the jasminlive market and downsizing. I'm kinda sad that Jason doesn't have to get rid of nearly as much as I stuff as I do. But then, he doesn't have as much. And we're certainly not getting rid of the piano.
Kayne was my favorite Project Runway designer, and I almost always disagreed with the judges when it came to his clothes (the exception being his jet-setter outfit - just making the pants straight-legged would have made a huge difference). I'm not at all worried about his career from this point on, but I would have liked to see him get further than the jerkoff with the neck tattoo.
Jason and I have been make a concerted effort to eat at home more often. We always have plenty of food in the house, but sometime in the middle of any given week, we'd look in the freezer, then look in the pantry, then look in the fridge and decide we didn't like any of the food we had. And we'd go out. The past few weeks we've been planning our meals, buying only what we need, and cooking meals every night (except date night). It's working out really well, and we've also been getting better at eating leftovers. Our grocery bill will probably drop by half for the month, as will our eating-out tally. It's like we're all grown up or something.
My 10-year high school reunion is in a couple weeks. I decided not to go - I'd rather save the money we'd spend traveling, and while there are a few people I'd like to make contact with, there are other ways to keep in touch. Plus, if I'm going to hang out with peple who haven't seen me in 10 years, I want to look good.
In daily life
I had my almost-final appointment with Dr. Tuchler yesterday (he'd like me to come back at six months and one year), and everything is healing beautifully. I've been released to exercise again - any type of exercise I'd like - and I can also wear underwire bras. I celebrated like anyone with healthy new boobs and a Victoria's Secret gift card would - I went shopping. The uber-helpful salespeople at Vicki's measured me, stuck me in a room, and brought me one of every bra in the store in my size to try on. I left with a new wardrobe of undergarments, and my boobs feel lovely.
This also means that it's time to give Veronica a call. It's been roughly seven weeks since I've done any exercise more strenuous than walking (my short run down the stairs being the exception), and I feel flabby and gross. I haven't gained a significant amount of weight since surgery, but I certainly haven't lost anything, and my eating habits of late leave many things to be desired.
Speaking of my short run down the stairs - after a minimal amount of swelling and some pretty interesting bruising, the ankle is on the mend. I still have a limp, but I'm not walking clubfoot anymore (which Jason is very thankful for) and can place my weight on my right foot without everything buckling. I'm shooting to get back to workouts on Monday, and since we'll probably be off to a slow start, I don't anticipate any problems.
It figures that less than 24 hours after we unceromoniously tossed the four bags of frozen peas that comforted me after surgery into the trash I would so desperately wish they were in our freezer. Note to self - girls with bad ankles shouldn't play "Race the Elevator" with their co-workers. There hasn't been a significant amount of swelling and I've had the ankle on ice and elevated since The Incident, so with any luck I'll be out of the woods in 24 to 48 hours.