Weekend artist

I had every intention of working out and then doing this all weekend:

Yeah, that didn't even last through Friday night.

Whaaaaat?

Around lunchtime on Friday, my brother dropped off Rocco for me to watch while they were out of town for the weekend. He and Pippi are quite the team. I had two furry, dog-shaped shadows all weekend. It was nice to eat breakfast at my desk at work this morning without them both in my face.

Also, anyone watching me trying to take them both for a walk together in the mornings had quite the laugh.

The remainder of my weekend was spent painting and installing knobs in the kitchen and building a new way to organize my earrings so they aren't sitting in a cigar box on my dresser anymore.

Friday night: knobs

"painted" with Sharpies.

Ready for baking.

Shiny!

Aaaaand...installation.

Wee.

And then Sunday I parked myself on the couch with intentions of not doing much else, and then I found this in my Real Simple magazine:

..and it occurred to me that I could make something like this to get my earrings out of that cigar box and hanging up so I can see them. I headed to Michael's for buttons and a display of some sort. I planned on nailing the buttons down...somehow. 

Well, that didn't exactly work out. I bought a really cheap wooden display case and painted it and then a new thought dawned on me (thanks to Pinterest): a cookie cooling rack!

As luck would have it, I got a sweet new cooling rack for Christmas, so I had my old, handed-down one to spare.

Bam!

 

I also worked out, but that goes without saying. This week I'm supposed to begin the "max" workouts of Insanity and I'm pretty nervous. Send me luck!

I feel like I'm on a first-name basis with these people these days.

Insanity update

Well, I'm halfway through my second week two of Insanity and, I must say, It actually is getting less "I'm going to die!"

You know how you can watch a movie several times and pick out something new each time you watch it? That's what these DVDs are like. It's part kick-ass workout and part comedy club. There are two girls in particular who probably shouldn't be on camera that make me laugh every time.

Meet Adriana. This is right around the time in the plyometric cardio interval DVD where Shaun T. asks her how she feels and she responds with a heartfelt, "I feel like shit." Earlier in this DVD when taking a water break, she hawks a loogie on the floor. The video editors must not have felt the need to edit that out. Classy. And disgusting.

Next up we have Shanita. In my opinion, Shanita is even less qualified to be on camera on a "motivating" workout DVD than Adriana, if you can believe that. When asked how she feels, she tells Shaun T., "I wanna leave," to which he responds with a "go take a break." Burn, Shanita. BURN.

To her credit, this DVD (Pure Cardio) is tough. It's also the video I'm doing again today. Yippee..

Also, I really enjoy the fact that, after the intense "warm-up", in each DVD there's a session of stretching before the craziness...ahem...Insanity begins. I don't know about you but a ton of stretching at the end of a workout is pretty much the last thing I want to do, so I really appreciate this approach.

Also, is this week going insanely slow for anyone else...and not in a good way?

On going insane

In my many years on this earth, I've tackled lots of types of workouts: running, swimming, yoga, kickboxing, workout DVDs, spinning...and now I'm venturing into the world of Insanity. I've only tackled two days so far, so I've got 58 more heart-pounding days to go.

At least my birthday lands in the "recovery week".

Don't let the "fit test" fool you. I was all "Oh, day 1 is just the fit test. I'm sure it won't be that hard." And then I learned a lesson that I will be cursing Shaun T. for for the next 58 days. Adding "power" to the beginning of a well-meaning exercise makes it 500 times more evil. Adding "suicide"? Well, you can imagine.

I've mentioned this before, but I really hate the "quick feet" exercise because, well, any part of me that can jiggle, does jiggle. And that just ain't fun. And now, I have new exercises to hate even more. The Heisman and 123-123.

Basically  jumping side-to-side doing this. Over and over.

Yesterday's workout was Plyometric Cardio Circuit, meaning I got to do these things over and over, each time faster than the time before (in theory). Truth be told, I only got through 20 minutes of the 40-minute workout because I'm now dealing with balance issues due to the junk in my head not going away. I haven't been able to hear out of my right ear since Sunday. Mucinex to the rescue!

I like to call this "doing it right."

By the way, it really bums me out that the Mucinex boxes don't feature the phlegm monster from the commercials.

But I digress.

I remember the first time after I did my favorite workout DVD, I struggled to walk up stairs for three days but then doing it a year later it now seems easy. With any luck, by day 60 these workouts will seem easy. Right, guys? Right?