Something worth blogging about

...although if you're friends with me on FB, this is already old news.

WE GOT A KITTEN!  And he is a treasure.

His name is Sammy, short for Samwise (from LOTR) because Samwise is a heavy name for a 9-week-old kitten.

In other, completely unrelated news...in case you hadn't noticed, I'm a terrible, terrible blogger. My attention span is just too damn short, I guess, because I think of clever/funny/interesting things all the time during the day , and they're gone by the time I actually get to a computer. BUT I'm going to try and get better by following in the footsteps of my sister-in-law, Amber, who is only a few days shy of blogging every day for an entire year.  I haven't decided if I'm going to keep this yawnfest or start over from scratch...what do you all think?

Uh oh....

(Hey look! I'm not dead. Anyway, as I was saying...)

Do you see this???

I want this.

It's so...shiny.  And girly. And see what it says at the top, there?  INAUGURAL. It's the first one EVER.  

And, apparently, the Tink in the middle spins.  I swoon.

Plus? A bunch of my very favorite internet gals, who I've never had a chance to meet in real life yet, are probably going to do it, too. It'll be like a party!

The catch?  Oh, not much...just that I'd have to...run. Like...far. 13 miles or something. Hmmm.

Oh, and also there's the small matter of...it's at Disneyland, which is in California. And I'm not. So...plane fare and junk, on top of the registration. 'Spensive.

But...so shiny...

Suck Less, Fiona.

You may recall, back before I got totally distracted by packing up my house and unpacking it all again, that I had started a new exercise program, involving sit-ups, push-ups and squats, with the end goal of being able to do 200, 100 and 200 of each, respectively. Well, that lasted all of three weeks, but my friend *H* was inspired to start it herself, and she has had awesome results.  She added some extra core work and tagged it the Suck Less Program, and at the beginning of April, she initiated a little something she calls the Suck Less Challenge.  I'm a little late to the party (shocking), but I am on board and did a new initial exhaustion tests this morning:

• squats - 40
• sit-ups - 30
• push-ups - 10 (girl style. I attempted one "real" push-up, and failed. Spectacularly. I think I nearly dislocated my elbow on the down motion. I will stick with the girl push-ups for a while, thanks.)
• tricep dips - 5 (the hundredpushups.com guy just added these! Score!)

H's "extra core work" that I alluded to above is to get into this plank position...

...and hold for as long as you can. 25 seconds, a minute - whatever you can manage.

***Funny story:  You may be more familiar with the version of plank that looks more like the top of a push-up, with arms straight instead of forearms on the floor. Well, when H decided to add plank to the Suck Less Program, she read online that the above format was considered a "modified" version and assumed that (and I quote) "modified = sissy."

Not.so.much. That up there? That's HARD. Way harder than the straight-arm version. 

Push-up style plank, I can hold for a minute without (too much of) a problem. Forearms down? 15 seconds. My friend H is totally hardcore, and didn't even know it. Hee!

Anyway, I'll be doing the Suck Less Challenge 3 days a week, and on alternating days I'm going to be taking another stab at the Couch to 5K learn-to-run program (the last time I tried, my ankle was still having none of it). I'm determined to make it happen this time, though. I know that Day 1 of the program calls for intervals of 30 seconds running/90(?) seconds walking. If my ankle won't tolerate 30 seconds running right out of the gate, I'll do 15 second intervals. Or 10. Whatever it takes. But I WILL make it cooperate somehow!

6 weeks to sucking less...bring it on.

A different kind of hooping video

A couple times in the past year I've posted some hoopdance videos that really struck me as amazing (you can check them out again here and here) - but this...this is a hoop of a different color.

Watch this, and tell me you don't laugh out loud...or at least snicker under your breath.  LOL!

Barn Olympics

Part of working for the family business is that you take on duties that you'd NEVER consider doing in a "normal" job. In my case, this means helping out with the least glamorous but most necessary task associated with running a large public boarding stable...cleaning stalls three days a week. (I'll spare you all the gory details...for now...Mwahahahaha. Ha.) Busy hands but idle brain leads to stuff like...this.

Welcome to the Stablehand Olympics!

Event #1: Speed Cleaning. Speed event. Completely strip and re-bed dirty stall(s).  Competitors can elect Sprint (one stall), Middle Distance (5 stalls) and/or Marathon (15 stalls).


Event #2: Team Hay Stacking. Teams of five members unload 200 bales of hay and stack in the barn. Points awarded for speed and presentation, deducted for excessive chaff dropped on the ground. 

Event #3: 100 Yard Water Bucket Dash. Speed event. Carry two five-gallon buckets 100 yards, each filled with four gallons of water. Time added for spillage.

Event #4: ?????? 

house house house house house!!!

We. Have. A. House.  I'm about to faint with relief. It's everything we could have hoped for and then some...it's the only place we'd found that actually has a TWO car garage!  Here are a few pix I "borrowed" from the Craigslist ad, until I get a chance to take some of my own...

 

The front...we will be on the right half. Note all the awesome trees (love trees)...and the giant road? That's cause we're on a cul-de-sac.  Score!

The view when you walk in the front door. Working wood fireplace, not that we'll ever use it. Brianna's room will be directly to the right (before the stairs - with her own 3/4 bath!), nice size family room past the stairs...can't remember if there's a door to the backyard or not? Hope so. Laundry room beyond that, and garage access (did I mention it's a TWO car garage?  So happy).

Probly gonna have to do something about the no-railing on the open side of the stairs. It bugs me.

All new kitchen!  With a breakfast bar! Pretty!  Even though I'm generally not a huge fan of light wood, I really dig the grain of the cabinets - hickory, I think the guy said. The only random thing is that when they redid it, (I'm guessing) they opted for more cabinet space and so the fridge is in the dining room (basically right where the photographer is/was standing).  It's not a huge inconvenience, it's just...random.

This picture I took when we toured the house last week:

Main floor living room. New hardwood or Pergo/laminate, not sure which (don't care, either...it's mostly going to get covered by area rugs as soon as we can afford to buy some). Really nice sized room - enough for the TV console, couch, etc. AND probably the treadmill. Or something.

The "main" (upper) floor also has the master bedroom, dining room (tile floors - gonna need a rug there, too), a pretty nice full bath and the smaller second (Josh's) bedroom. And a deck!  And apparently there's a fire pit in the backyard, somewhere under all the snow.  Walking/biking trail right across the back boundary of the property, and we're only about 3 miles from my grandparent's house on Lake Minnetonka. Guess where we're going to be hanging out all summer??  :oD

I'm SO excited. In case you couldn't tell. 

Three Things Thursday

1. I think I mentioned, briefly, that I plan to return to school in September, which I'm super stoked about. Due to the fact that I'm in the middle of rehabbing an old student loan, I was under the impression that I couldn't apply for new financial aid until the rehab was complete in April, which is why I settled on Fall. However, I found out that I'm actually eligible after 6 months of payments which is...now. Which means I could theoretically start back as soon as the Spring trimester in April. Exciting!!  But...The application deadline is in three weeks, and I still have to convince UOP to release my transcript, AND I'd be applying for 2010-11 aid instead of 2011-12 aid, which at this late date may or may not net me enough to cover all of my tuition, AND there's the whole issue of changing permanent addresses smack in the middle of all this. Which makes me think maybe I should stick with Plan A.  Or I could put my nose to the grindstone (who comes up with these expressions?) and MAKE IT HAPPEN....?

2. I've started a new exercise program! You may or may not have ever heard of the Hundred Pushups challenge, which is exactly what it sounds like - it's a FREE, online 6-week program that takes you from being able to do zero pushups to 100 in a row. The pushups program was so popular that the guy also created programs for doing 200 sit-ups and 200 squats. Put these three together, and you've got yourself a pretty comprehensive, full-body workout that takes, eh, about 30 minutes three times a week.  I really really like it because it's super basic - no gym membership, not even any equipment, just time and a little bit of floor - and also because there's a concrete, tangible goal that you're working toward. I also really want to add Couch to 5K to my plan, but my ankle doesn't like running yet...I really need to get on the phone with my PT and find out why.

3. I know I had a third thing, but it's lost now. So instead, I'm going to link you to my friend Heather's fundraiser. Heather's daughter, Gabby, was diagnosed with leukemia on January 1st, and addition to being a wife, employee, and mom to two other girls, she's also running in the Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation's Cinco de Mayo Half Marathon. Her personal fundraising goal is $2000 (at the moment - she's already halfway there!). Please, take a minute to read Gabby's story, and if the spirit moves you, you can donate here. Thanks!