Rip

Having a birthday on a Monday, especially when your husband works out of town, does not lead to a very exciting day (which is why we celebrated this weekend). All day people asked me what I was going to do that evening to celebrate... my response... go to the gym. Trust me, it was needed after this weekend. So, for my birthday, I got to do a total of 100 box jumps and 76 pull ups (not all at once) in addition to some other fun. Do you know what happens when you do 76 pullups in the course of one workout? Apparently when you get to somewhere around 72, the skin starts to rip of your hands. I have one spot on the palm of my left hand and two spots on my right hand (palm and callus area below the finger) where my skin ripped clean off. Yowzer! Let me tell you, the washing of the hands, body and hair does not feel so good on the raw skin.

Oh, and my mom did not forget my birthday, but since she waited until the end of the day to call me, I thought she did. And thinking she did was almost as bad as if she really did.

But, a lot of other people remembered my birthday (earlier in the day), like all those people on Facebook. ;) My friend Mary Stuart took me to lunch at Souper Jenny (love), and another friend Meredith joined. It was a lovely girls' lunch with lots of good conversation. You've heard me boast of Mary Stuart's awesome realtor abilities before, and I am so glad that we have stayed friends! We started attending the church that she and her husband are very active in, which is also how I met Meredith, who happens to be the wife of one of my coworkers.

And, this weekend was chock full of eating, because that's what I do to commemorate any situation or milestone. Matt took me to Canoe on Friday, which was delicious and in typical fashion for us, something was slightly off (in this case, we didn't get our wine until more than half way through our entree... we did order it a bit late in the meal, but they should have held our entrees and then the bottle we ordered was out), so we ended up with two free glasses of delicious pinot noir from Willamette Valley (Oregon) that rivals my love of a good Russian River Valley pinot, as well as two free desserts IN ADDITION TO the birthday dessert they brought me. That plus Chick-fil-a for lunch on Saturday and Fox Bros BBQ for lunch on Sunday with friends = must workout on birthday. One year older, maybe wiser, and thankful for my life.

hmph

Pretty sure my mom forgot that today is my birthday. Sweet. Thank God for facebook to boost the self esteem. ;)

FAT

I have excess fat. Officially. (Tell me something I didn't already know, why dontcha!?)

So, I mentioned in a previous post that I started working out at CrossFit North Atlanta a few weeks ago. As part of your initial training, you get a free Bod Pod test. I finally was able to schedule mine this morning. It looks like a little space ship. After getting on a scale, you get into the machine, and it pumps in some air (you don't feel anything) and measures your fat, fat free mass, body volume, body density and thoracic gas volume. It also gives you an estimate of your resting metabolic rate (RMR) and your total energy expenditure (TEE) for various activity levels.

It is what it is, and in order to hold myself somewhat more accountable, I am going to share the results with the world wide interwebs. I will NOT, however, share the pictures I took this morning in my super sexy sports bra and hot shorts. I'm sparing your eyes. I am 5'3", I weigh 133.548 lbs (I prefer to round down to 133), and my body fat percentage is........ 30.4%! I am, how shall I say, well endowed... so, I'd like to safely attribute a few percentage points of body fat to my bust. ;) If it makes me feel better, let me have it. This is actually right where I thought I'd be... I estimated that I weighed 133-135 before going in with 30% body fat. 30-40% body fat is considered excess fat, or an excess accumulation of fat over time. So, it really shouldn't take too much for me to drop into the moderately lean category, and I will anxiously await those test results (I'll probably get re-tested in 12 weeks to see how I've progressed).

I will say, however, I can definitely see an improvement since I started just three weeks ago. I can *almost* do a pull-up with the lowest resistance band and was able to complete 40 yesterday (not all at once... took breaks every 3-5 pullups) with the second lowest band. Being strong is fun.

I'm so excited!

I just booked our tickets for our vacation this summer to........

drumroll please.........

GREECE and TURKEY!!!!

Woot woot! I am sooooo excited not only to go there, but because thanks to SkyMiles, the tickets cost us a whopping $75!

I can't wait for the turquoise Mediterannean, lots of delicious food (seriously, I am going to eat my way through both of those places), amazing scenery, and ten whole days in a row with my hubby. We're going to have a blast. We're flying into Athens and out of Istanbul, but we have no itinerary for the in between yet. If you've been there before and have any recommendations, please let me know!

Dear Congress,

I could go on about how this bill doesn't address some of the key health INSURANCE issues that need reform (at least from what I hear... as a contributing member of society, I find it hard to find the time to read a 2400 page bill), but let's talk about the fact that until Americans start living healthier lives, our healthcare costs are going to be outrageous. I am FULLY on board with health insurance reform in a fiscally responsible manner, but let's not pretend that this is something that it isn't. It is not going to fix America's health crisis until the people of this country decide to get healthy. How sad is it that studies show that this generation's life expectancy is less than that of their parents?

I'm not going to pretend I have any clue what half of this bill is going to mean for me (do any of you even understand it), but I will tell you that I'm sick of our government and the way it runs it's "businesses." Hmmmm... Social Security, the Postal Service, VA Hospitals, Medicare, etc... need I say more?

"Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them."
-Ronald Reagan

Best regards,
A tax-paying citizen and contributing member of society

P.S. This is an interesting read.

Changes

Many hours of manual labor later...

BEFORE

AFTER

We painted our shutters black and our front door red, and I LOVE IT. Mind you, this before picture was taken in September, so our landscaping was a bit more lush, but ignoring the brown plants and grass, SO MUCH BETTER. It adds some dimension and interest to the house that I think it was previously lacking. I also spray painted the little table and chair set that I found in the basement of the condo we rented. It was a yellow-ish wicker, and I took it with the intention of painting it and just never did. You can kind of see it on the right side of the front porch in both the before and after pictures. It's a temporary solution until we find something we like and are ready to spend the money on it. Read: it will probably be sitting out there in three years. There are a lot of other things I am more eager to spend my paycheck on. :)

Also, I found a mirror on major clearance at Kirkland's Outlet. It was regularly $80, but I picked it up for $15 and spray painted it black. I liked the shape. It's now in our foyer, and I think I'll love it even more once I get a table I like to go under it. There's always something to spend money on... :)

BEFORE

AFTER

Proof...

... that Spring is actually here. (please pardon the shoddy cell phone pictures)

This little beauty in one of our flower/plant beds.

Someone else trying to take up residence at our casa.

YAY!

Good Times

Oh, how I love my friends. They are one of my greatest blessings in life, and it was so good to see so many of them in one place this weekend. We were all gathered for Dai and Andrew's fabulous wedding weekend, and it was just that... fabulous!

The weekend started on Friday afternoon with a Bridesmaid Luncheon at Betty Jane France's magnificent home. Mrs. France is the widow of the NASCAR founder, Bill France. I have seriously never been (and probably never will be again) in such an amazing home, and I had to keep reminding myself that this was someone's house.

Check out this place! GORGEOUS!

That evening, we had an amazing rehearsal dinner. It was honestly the best rehearsal dinner food I've ever had, and everyone else agreed. Seafood buffet... crab claws, oysters, shrimp, mahi mahi... YUM. We CHOWED.

After not a lot of sleep at all (long story, not blogworthy), we had the wedding day! Meg, Jenn and I were up early and went to get breakfast and spent some time on the balcony looking at the beach and talking. We laughed at how we never would have thought when we all met 10 years ago that we'd be sitting here at the fourth wedding for one of our crew, talking and laughing about our husbands. I am so thankful that these girls came into my life, because they are truly lifelong friends.

The wedding was great! It was part inside and part outside, and it was the perfect day and evening to be outside. The band and dancing were outside, and once we got on the dance floor, we were all plenty warm. :) My feet were absolutely killing me the next morning, even though the heels came off as soon as we were announced at the reception. You know when you get up in the morning and your feet hit the floor and pain shoots up your legs? Yeah, that's what it felt like. So worth it though.

The next morning we had brunch with the ol' ball coach. No big deal.

The End (for now).

Musings for the day...

Any other CrossFitters out there? I just joined last week, and so far, I am liking it. I much prefer to be in a structured environment when working out, rather than doing it on my own. I've had enough experience in the gym and with a trainer to know what to do, I just get bored (and unmotivated) easily, so it's much better for me to do classes or to have someone to push me and hold me accountable. Enter CrossFit North Atlanta. The basis of CrossFit is doing workouts that are designed around the movements you do in every day life. Generally speaking, they are short, extremely high intensity workouts that encompass exercises that activate your metabolism and fat burners for longer than say a 30-minute run would. Last night, we did a workout where you had to do as many as you can in 12 minutes - 5 pullups, 10 pushups, 15 overhead squats, and a widowmaker. (Not that you care, but I did four rounds plus 5 pullups, 10 pushups, and 2 overhead squats). I am still doing instructional classes, so we did a lot of stuff before that, but that was the workout of the day. It seems sort of counter intuitive that you'd only workout for around 30-45 minutes, with only about 15 minutes of that being really high intensity, but looking at the folks in the gym, I'd say it works. I'll keep you posted.

Matt and I hit up the mall for a bit on Saturday, which is something we had not done together in a LONG time. He needed to exchange the sport coat I bought him for Christmas, and I needed to make a return and continue my search for skinny jeans. Well, we certainly picked the right day! We returned his sport coat, which I paid around $120 for and got him a Calvin Klein suit (regularly $550) for $225!!!! and a Ralph Lauren camel colored courderoy sport coat (that looks sooooooo good on him, I mean, complete stud ladies - regularly $275) for $60! SCORE! Then, I picked up skinny jeans (thanks Jessi!), a blazer, two cute tops and a cardigan at Banana on the cheap, thanks to a 25% coupon they handed me when I walked in the store! DOUBLE SCORE!

We are heading down to Florida this weekend for one of my bestestestest friend's wedding! Dai and Andrew are an awesome couple, and I am so happy to finally see them tie the knot. I also cannot wait to hang out with some of my favorite people, several who I haven't seen in entirely too long. It's going to be an amazing time!

I bought a mirror from Kirkland's Outlet for $15 in December. It was a very cool shape but pretty ugly. It finally got nice enough a few weekends ago for me to get outside and spray paint it, and it's now hanging in our foyer. For a total of $20 (mirror plus spray paint), it was quite a steal. I will post before and after pictures soon.

The weather is finally starting to feel like spring, and I am beyond excited. And, that's all of my musings for the day. xoxo!

I am alive.

Just been busy! But, I really did have to pop in to get this off my chest. What the heck is up with the sidebar and pop-up ads when you log on to weather.com. They seriously have some of the creepiest pictures of people that do not at all seem to go with the ad. Has anyone else noticed this!?

Also, one of my friends is in town for a work meeting, and we were supposed to get together for dinner tonight. Well, she had to cancel because they have to give some big group presentation tomorrow, so she has to prep tonight. Not a big deal, but I turned down an invitation to the Atlanta Business Chronicle's Best in Atlanta Real Estate - Deals of the Decade awards dinner tonight and a movie date with my awesome friend, Mary Stuart. Total bummer. So, now a trip to Target and Grey's/Private Practice by my lonesome are in my future.

One last thing, found out one of my other awesome friends, Jenny, and her awesome husband, Matt, are having a BABY GIRL today (hmmm, just re-read that... today I found out they are having a girl... not they are having a girl today...lol)! So excited for them.