Ever notice...

How the bloggers you really love never seem to post enough and the ones that really grate on your nerves (and yet, you can't stop reading) can't seem to STFU??

Or is that just me? heh

We started some home improvement projects this weekend, decided to put a big one (hardwood floors) off for a little while because of the $$ and added another quick one to the list (re-tiling the floor in the half bath), so that's pretty sweet. Tonight we'll finish painting the guest bathroom and it'll finally be usable again, after a long time of being out of commission while we tried to figure out what color to paint it (finally settled on a mocha-like color called "Wool Coat"). After that, we'll carry on with painting the living room, an on-going project. At some point, we will have painted everything we can reach and we'll be down to renting scaffolding. Fun.

After we re-tile the half bath, it will most likely need a new coat of paint as well, but it's a tiny room and the toilet and sink will be out of it at that point so that'll be super-duper easy.

I'm not sure what's next on the list. Probably finishing the small room in the basement so Husband can move all his stuff down there. That'll clean out one of the spare bedrooms upstairs, I guess we'll turn it into a real live guest room at that point, although I'm not really sure why. No one ever stays the night with us because they all live close enough to just drive home. I need to get all my stuff organized and get my room painted at some point too I'm not sure when that'll happen though because I am still studying so I don't exactly have unlimited amounts of free time just hanging around. Anyway, that particular task seems overwhelming, so for now, I'm just ignoring it.

Well, better get back to work, there is some time off in my future, so I need to try to get things caught up around here.

I have a story, let me tell you it.

Picture this: 3:54AM, I am sleeping soundly, snuggled in my bed, a chihuahua against my lower back, 75lb. Aussie between my feet and 39lb. French Brittany snuggled in a ball against my stomach. Life is good. Suddenly, the Brittany (Vikki) flies off the bed and runs to the door, then runs back and stares at me, then back to the door, to the window, to me, on the bed, off the bed...needless to say, life has taken a turn for the worst at this moment.

Said dog has a urinary tract infection (confirmed by the vet on Monday and being treated), so I think, "The poor baby, she probably feels like she really needs to pee, I'll get up." So I get up, let her out. Briefly I wonder to myself if the "yard intruders" that she tracts every morning might still be inside the yard, but my foggy 4AM brain can't really comprehend the thought until it's too late. I open the door, she bolts, there is clearly more than one animal running through the yard, I start yelling for her to stop (would never happen, not in a million years), then I hear something hit the chainlink fence and I think "Maybe it escaped, jesus I hope she doesn't go OVER the fence in pursuit!!" (cause she totally could is properly motivated), but I still hear her running in the yard. Then, I hear a quick scream and silence. I yell for her and get no response, so I bolt into the house and put on shoes and grab a flashlight and head back out into the unknown.

Some details you should be aware of to really enjoy this story...it's 38 degrees outside, it's pitch black (sure, the porch light was on, but it only lights the porch and about 1 foot out into the yard, Vikki was at least 50 feet away from the house), I'm wearing little slip on shoes and a t-shirt and that's all, I don't have my contacts in or my glasses on - which means I'm legally blind (I can't see the big "E" on the eye chart).

Ok, so here I go, out into the yard to find out WTF, the first thing I do is step in dog shit because, well, why wouldn't I?? I see Vikki, in the corner of the fence, hunkered over, she has clearly caught something.

Also, keep in mind that we have NO IDEA what kind of animal has been coming into the yard because we haven't been able to trap it. Possibilities include: skunk (have smelled him), opposum (have seen one in the front yard), rabbit (they're everywhere), fox (they live in the woods right behind the house), squirrel, raccoon, deer (no idea why they would come inside the fence, but they can), bobcat (apparently some live in our area), coyote (still not sure if they could get in the fence, but probably), stray cat, mice, snakes...and probably something I've forgotten.

At this point in my mind I've ruled out the larger animals and the dog or cat-like choices because I don't hear a fight going on and I know the thing that screamed wasn't Vikki. So I get closer to her, not sure really what I'll do once I get there and with NO CLUE what she has, then she BOLTS past me. We're talking about an extremely fit 4 year old bird dog here, a bird dog who's vet once felt her back legs up for 10 minutes because he was so amazed as the muscles contained therein. Yeah, so maybe "BOLT" is not a strong enough word for what she did. Right as she passes my finger tips, I remember I left the door to the house open. Fuck!

So I run after her screaming, "VIKKI, NO!!!!!!" And she disappears into the house, when I'm still only halfway across the yard. I instantly picture her in our bed, with my sleeping husband, with something that's not dead (which would be infinately worse than just a carcass). That's when I see it. She dropped her kill right at the edge of the porch, perhaps sensing her own demise if she went into the house with it. It was a rabbit. A cute one too and I felt awful for it, although I am comforted to know that it's suffering was minimal because it only made a single sound and a very quick one at that and then it was all over. My precious Vikki - Cold Blooded Killer.

Since we've moved, she's racked up 3 ducks and now a rabbit. What's really funny about it all, she is the most timid, loving dog in the world...unless, of course, you're small enough that she can break your neck.

keeping the mystery alive

Because I'm loving this idea of B.W.O. (blogging without obligation), I'm not going to tell you where I've been. HA. :-)

I've decided that there are some bloggers out there that I really dislike. Of course, I don't know these people in real life, they may be perfectly wonderful people, but something about the images and descriptions of their lives, the way they make it all see like butter in their asses and lollipops in their mouths* makes me puke. You know the ones. They post a picture of something "random" and every single thing in the picture is places *just so*, it's all spotless, wonderful, like a fairy tale, or a Stanley Kubrik movie. Bullshit. If I post a pic, you can bet your sweet ass there will be dog hair on the floor, or crap piled on the tables, or a giant weed-patch growing in the background that I will swear is a garden (look back to the post about the tractor). Holy crap - I'm pretty sure with the baby guineas I even posted a pic with actual shit in it.

Geez - I'm hateful today, huh? My bad, I just saw a picture on a blog a few minutes ago that ruffled my feathers. I'm over it now.

So October 15th is fast approaching - no more extensions for the individual returns - which translates to "I'm totally fucked because there is no way I'll get all this shit done in time". So I'm working late tonight, that's my point. Why am I on here posting and wasting time, you ask? Because my brain is fried and I needed a break, that's why.

Oh, also, took the 3rd part of the exam on October 2nd (or something like that), will not find out my grade until sometime in November, maybe the end of November even. I'm re-taking the first part I ever took on October 20th, so after the 15th passes, I'm taking off the 16th (Friday) and the 19th (Monday) to study. Been trying to study since I took the last one but I've been busy as fuck and working overtime and just haven't been able to properly motivate myself. I'm working on that.

Ok, gotta get back to work.

Baby, its cold outside.

Fall has officially fallen and I couldn't be more ready for it. This summer, while fun and productive, was exhausting. I'm ready to snuggle in, to read (for pleasure!!), to wrap myself and the chihuahua in a blanket and watch crappy TV and eat yummy comfort food until March. Maybe April. :-) I have 3 exams scheduled between now and Thanksgiving, the first of which being this Friday. I feel as positive as I can about it in light of having failed the first 2 I took. I'm studying, reviewing, really trying to be hopeful. Then the next one is October 20th - just 17 days to study 20 chapters. But I've studied for and taken this one before and scored 2 points below passing, so it seems possible. Then the next is the Monday before Thanksgiving. That one is new, I'm not sure how it'll go.

After that, I'm going to try to take off Tuesday and Wednesday to cook and clean because we're hosting Thanksgiving. Hosting used to be difficult for me, I stressed out about every little detail and would inevitably work myself like a dog until the wee hours of the morning the night before. Nothing seemed right - it wasn't clean enough, tasty enough, something enough. But somewhere along the way, I've given up on all that silliness. My house is what it is, if I think it's clean and, more importantly really, if Husband thinks its clean enough, then it is. everyone else can,effectively, suck it. I know I cook decently well and if people don't like my food they are more than welcome to stop at McDonald's on their way home. And I'm not trying to be a bitch here - I want people to enjoy our home and my cooking and to have a good time when they come to our house, but I don't worry about it like I used to, which probably makes it all run smoother, actually. I make our home they way Husband wants it and the way I want it and that is good enough. We're having my parents, my sister, her husband, our neice and hopefully my in-laws for dinner. A big crowd for me since we have such a tiny family.

Right now though, I have a nasty case of poison ivy. It started on my left wrist, I thought it was a bug bite and I scratched it. The next morning, it was all over the inside of my wrist. The next day, it has jumped to the other arm and now it is all on the side of my left boob and all over my stomach. It is slowly creeping around my sides too, I'm hoping it'll stop spreading before it gets all the way around! My arms are fine but my stomach itches like a mother!!

I gotta get back to work right now, but to end this on a happy note, I weighed in at -5 pounds this morning!! Yeeeah, biaotches!!

Happy - then crappy.

So this morning I hopped on the scale and found myself at -2 pounds. Boo-yah!!

Then I sat thru 2 1/2 hours of team meeting at work - my back hurts, my ass is numb and I'm almost asleep.

Then I logged on and saw that my exam score was finally posted. And I failed it. Miserably.

Fuck.

Tuesday.

Hey! I still exist! What do you know about that. Crazy, huh? So I've made it - thru tax season, thru 5 of my co-workers being fired and 2 managers quitting, thru the Sept. 15th deadline and now we're heading into the October 15th deadline then it will be smooth sailing (HA!) until tax season starts again in about 3 months. Joy.

Since I last posted, work has just been insane and there hasn't been time to turn around much less turn around, sit down, log into blogger and post something. I've been reading and keeping up (for the most part) with my blogroll, but that's been the extent of my accomplishments. I've even been relatively quiet on twitter - and how hard is it to spit out less than 140 characters a couple times a day??

Right now, I'm studying for my 3rd part of the ever-present CPA exam and anxiously awaiting my results on the 2nd part (and getting more than mildly annoyed at how long those results are taking to materialize). I feel certain I didn't pass it, but I want to know, dammit!!

Nothing else is new really. I don't have time for anything but studying at this point, and won't until the Monday before Thanksgiving. Then I'll get a few merciful days off and it will be awesome. But until then, I'm just trying to make time for studying, still trying to cook for my Man *most* nights, trying to keep the house at least liveable, taking care of the guineas, the dogs, the Man, AND being available to help with home improvement projects, etc. Unfortunately, the whole working out thing has fallen by the wayside. And I hate that, but I'm just overwhelmed right now, to say the least.

We have, however, been on a diet for a few weeks now. Well, "diet" isn't really the right word. We're just making better decisions, not eating out, limiting desserts and sweets and fixing healthy stuff for lunches and dinners. So far, I've lost about 9 pounds. And trust me, we've still been out and there has been ice cream consumed (very little, but still). I have a weight that I call the "magic number". Once I got above that number (no, I won't say how much it is), I've never gotten below it. (At the worst point, I was 20 pounds ABOVE that number, about 6 years ago.) I mean, I have been below it, but only by a pound or two and only very briefly. Our diets have always been derailed right about the time I get back down to that number. Perhaps you have that number too. It's so ingrained at this point that I think of my weight in terms of that number.

Let's say the number is 100 pounds (HA-HA-HA), if I get on the scale and weigh 112, I don't think, "I weight 112 pounds", I think "I'm 12 pounds over." And by the same token, if I weigh 98 pounds, I think, "Ooo, I'm down 2 pounds!!" So this morning, I weigh 0. And I'm stoked!! Our diet is going along swimmingly, I don't see any reason it will derail on me and right now I'm at 0, so the only place to go from here is into negative numbers!!

Hopefully one day I'll have a new "magic number". I can imagine in my head what I'd like the next one to be, and the one after that, but I'm not sure what I'd like my Long-Term Magic Number to be. I guess I'll know when (IF) I get there. I feel motivated to exercise now, to speed up my progression toward my new number. Hopefully I'll be able to start working that into the schedule again.

Ok, right now, lunch is over and it's time for me to get back to work.

We put the "labor" in Labor Day

I have to be honest - I'm not really sure what Labor Day is, I'm not sure what we're celebrating. But it's a day when you can take off work and no one minds, so I'm down with it. This year, as usual, we spent our long weekend working way too hard.

My sister and her husband had a get-together on Saturday afternoon. I had big plans to paint something or clean something or something-something before that, but I had a headache Friday night and woke up with it Saturday and accomplished dick on Saturday morning. We went to their house but I had to come home after the food smells permeated the house. Ugh. So the day was a wash.

Still, over the rest of the weekend, we managed to buy ourselves a new kitchen sink (yes, we are slowly rebuilding our entire house) and installed that (I'm a plumber!! And my crack doesn't even hang out!!), then we finished painting the back doors and the hallway. I clipped the chihuahua's nails and we did a ton of laundry (there is still a ton more to do). I also managed to keep up with my studying schedule. The studying seems to be going a lot better for this section of the exam than it did for the other two. I'm not sure if it's the use of the audio cd's - I can listen to them in my car on the way to and from work, which gives me an extra 1 1/2 hrs a day with the material - or if it's just that this stuff is easier than the other stuff. My progress so far is that I failed the first section I took (Business Environment & Concepts, or BEC) and I'm awaiting my scores on the second section (Financial Accounting & Reporting or FAR).

Here's my schedule now:
AUD (Auditing): Friday, October 2nd
BEC (Business Environment & Concepts): Tuesday, October 20th
REG (Regulation): Monday, November 23rd

If I didn't pass FAR (likely) I probably won't be able to retake it until January because December is a dark month (no testing). I can't even begin to express how glad I'll be when this is over.

About the sink replacement - our old sink was stainless steel, nothing wrong with that, but it was only about 6 inches deep. Something majorly wrong with that. You can hardly wash dishes in a sink that shallow and when you rinse them off, the water flies everywhere. But the deal-breaker was when the plumbing under the sink fell apart and I had to use a thing of a dog shampoo and a bottle of Goo-B-Gone to hold the p-trap in place. At that point, we were going to have to re-plumb the thing anyway, right? So we bought this shiny black cast iron (yes, it weighs a billion pounds) Kohler sink - it is a thing of beauty. Every time I walk through the kitchen I stroke it and say, "Hello, Lover"...pretty sure Husband is getting jealous. :-) We debated over faucets and decided to stick with the kind with the separate sprayer, not the attached sprayer. Our faucet is beautiful too - brushed nickle to match the cabinet handles. And it's deep, like 8 or 9 inches (I can't remember) and that part is the most wonderful of all!! I'm so tickled with this sink, I'll have to post pics of it soon.

Same as it ever was

As it turns out, I have not perished or disappeared from the face of the earth although, admittedly, there has been very little evidence to the contrary lately.

When we got back from vacation, everyone at work was in a mass panic because of the 09/15 deadline that is swiftly approaching and the new giant client. You know, the one the entire tax staff has been working on, pretty much exclusively, since last Wednesday. So we've been working OT and then I go home (sometimes after Husband gets there) and I have to figure out how to cook dinner, attempt to keep the house livable, keep the dogs in food and water, take care of the guineas and still find time to study. This is not easy, let me tell you. As you can probably imagine, the working out has fallen by the wayside recently. I did really good until we left for vacation and I've been a loser since then. But I really want to get back to it and I really plan to - I'm just thinking this isn't the week.

However, we have gone on a diet. Not a starve-yourself-and-be-miserable diet, just an eat-right-and-make-better-choices diet. So far, I've lost 5 pounds. I'm pretty stoked about that. I mean, right now 5 pounds is like pissing in the ocean, but I'm still pleased. So I figure the weight loss will increase, at least for a little while, once I get back to working out and that's an exciting prospect. But I can't let the studying slide, I just can't.

This super nice girl that i work with recently passed the exam and she gave me her audio cd's of the part I'm currently studying for and access to the online feature too (it has quizzes and simulations, etc) and that is really helping. I can listen to the lectures on the way to and from work, which gives me an extra hour and a half of time with the material each day. And also, once I've heard the lecture, I'm more familiar with the material once I start reading and so that part goes faster now too, so that's pretty sweet. If I didn't pass this last part I took (won't get the scores until at least Sept. 15), then I think I'm going to buy the cd's for it to study with next time.

One nice thing that has happened is that I've met a group of women in my local area - well, I've only talked to one online so far, but I'm going to meet them all on Sept. 12. We met via a website for "farmgirls" that has local groups setup all around the country. The woman who setup up this group lives about 20 minutes from me. So they're having a meeting on the 12th and I'm gonna go meet everyone. Regardless of what they're like, it will be nice to at least know some people in the area, so I'm looking forward to that.

Oh, and, very exciting, the guineas are putting themselves to bed!! About 8:30pm they all pile back in their house and them scream for me to come down and lock the door - it is too cute. Last night they ventured out into the front yard (outside the dog fence). We have no idea how long they were up there, but they stayed close to the house and when I went down to put food in their coop for their bedtime snack, they all came running down the hill, so they still knew where their house was. So our little fowl are growing up!! It's so precious.

Ok, I really have to get back to work.

Boo Hiss

Work has been very "Boo Hiss" since I got back from vacation (aka yesterday and today). I came back right in the midst of a deadline crunch and not just any deadline crunch, but one that involves a brand new, HUGE client (and by huge I mean it has 26 trial balances, 26 different entities all rolled into one, not to mention 5 or 6 other related companies that are actually separate...and this is not all we do, this is just ONE client). So, yeah, it has sucked. But tomorrow is Friday and that rocks.

Vacation was fun, it was a decent mix of 'together with the family' and 'alone with the Husband' time, so that's good.

We came home on Monday night and my in-laws brought one of our dogs back home (they keep the 12 year old chihuahua, the big, young girls go to the kennel) and while they were there, we decided to let the guineas out of their coop for the first time! It took about 30 minutes for all of them to figure out how to get out (after I physically crawled inside the coop and brought one out to show the others that escape was possible). They had a lot of fun walking in grass for the first time ever and eating real bugs (instead of man-made food) and flying. Apparently the flying is made of awesome. They all celebrate everytime any one of them flies - it is very, very exciting. So Monday night we had to pick them all up and put them back in their coop. Then Tuesday evening we let them out for a couple more hours and had to pick them up and put them back in there again. Last night, however, they actually walked up the stairs into the coop on their own!! We did have to encourage them, but didn't have to touch them. So we're hoping that they'll catch on and just start putting themselves to bed at night and I'll just have to go down there and lock the door to their coop. That would be sweet.

Oh, that part of the exam that I took last week was fucking horrible. And that's putting it lightly. If I passed that, it will seriously be the biggest shock of my life. Ever. Dude, it was awful. And believe me, it is getting tougher and tougher to stay motivated to study for this damn thing. Ugh.

Pseudo-Friday

Today is my last work day for this week and that is made of awesome. Tomorrow I'm taking my 2nd part of the CPA exam and my level of freaking out in increasing by the hour, which is not cool. Ever since my last attempt at college (you know, the time when I actually graduated) I've been a horrible test-taker. I panic. I forget things that I really should know. I get nervous and start zoning out. Before I know it, minutes have passed by and I'm just staring at the test thinking about a zillion other things. It's a problem. I once got a 38% (did you even know that was possible??) on an accounting final because I completely lost my shit and was just putting down wrong answers and stupid things and I knew I was putting wrong answers but I just had to put something on the paper and get the fuck out of there. Fortunately for me, I had good enough grades in the class up to that point that I still managed to get a B, even with a 38% on a weighted final. But still.

So here's the problem - on the 1st part of the exam, I kept it together really well, I viewed it as a learning experience and I wasn't nervous about it at all (really, I wasn't). I was thinking clearly, I read the questions, took my time, it was all good. And what happened? I fucking failed it, that's what!! So now what? Now this time, it doesn't feel like a practice run - it feels very important and I don't think anyone is going to be understanding if I don't pass this one (least of all - me!) and I'm very, very, very nervous about it. And that scares me because I don't know how to control it (you'd think after 75 years in school I would have learned...but no) and if I go in there and wig-out and forget every single thing I've studied (things I don't feel like I really know in the first place) then I'm fucked. And not in a good way, my friends.

Yeah, so, that's where I am right now. Fun, huh?

Then, today I got a big tax return dumped on me and it has to be finished by the end of the day and the guy who owns the company has about eleventy billion kids and grandkids and all of their returns are supposed to be done (by yours truly) by the end of August. Oh, and did I mention that I'm going to be out tomorrow and then we're going on vacation and I won't be back until Wednesday?? No stress there, none at all. Way to make me panic right before the exam AND ruin my vacation. Thanks a lot. Frankly, I have a lot more things to say about work right now, but I've learned from the experience of other bloggers that isn't a good plan, so we'll just leave it at: Grrrrr....

Here's the plan: (I'm hoping a plan will help me chillax - HAHAHA I LOVE that word, it's so delightfully dumb!!)
Tonight:

• 4:00pm - leave work, promptly, assuming the aforementioned tax return is complete.
• 4:45pm - get home (barring natural disaster and assholes who can't drive)
• 4:45pm - 5:45pm - continue studying, hopefully finish up the last few chapters worth of multiple choice questions.
• 5:45-6:30pm - make and eat dinner, feed the guineas
• 6:30-8:00pm - go over some more multiple choice questions, look-up a couple formulas that I don't know, brush up on a few things that I didn't do well on the multiple choices for.
• 8:00pm - STOP STUDYING, give my poor brain a chance to chill before it is taxes beyond measure tomorrow. I might work on putting a top coat on the hallway that Husband primered last night, maybe just the woodwork or something, anything brainless that I don't have to think about. I also need to sew a button on a pair of his shorts and finish hemming some work pants for him, maybe I'll do that.
• 10:00pm - go to bed, so I have plenty of sleepy time before tomorrow.

The plan for tomorrow:

• 6:00am- get up, let the dogs out, shower, etc...the usual
• 7:00am - leave the house, head to the testing place. It only takes a little over an hour to get there usually, but there is construction around UofL's campus, so I want to leave PLENTY of time.
• No later than 9:00am - get signed in at the testing site - chill the fuck out - DON'T FAIL

Time flies...

...when you're not paying attention!! Sorry I've let so much time go by between posts...when things are crazy at work (as they are now and will be until 10/15) I don't have much time to post.

I'll catch you up on what's new, then I gotta get back to work:

• I've done decent keeping at the working out, although I don't feel like I'm making any real progress yet. I've done pilates a few times and I incorporated a biceps/triceps workout that really made my arms sore the next day. The next thing we'll be purchasing is dumbells so I can keep up with the arm work.
• I got my grade on the 1st part of the CPA exam I took back on July 1st. I got a 73. You need a 75 to pass. So for 2 fucking points, I'll be paying another $200 and taking the damn thing again. Fun. While I'm glad I got a halfway respectable score, I'm still quite unhappy about it - just disappointed in myself I guess, and pissed at all that studying time that now feels wasted.
• I have my 2nd part of the exam this Thursday at 9am. It is taking everything I have at this point to stay committed to my study schedule and to keep putting all the effort I can into it, even though I really fear that, once again, my best won't be good enough. If I fail two sections in a row, I'll be devastated, which is making me a lot more nervous for this one than I was the first one.
• The new test taking schedule looks like this: Financial August 20, Auditing October 2, Business Environment & Concepts (the section I failed) October 19, and Regulations November 23. So I will have taken all 4 parts (and one part twice) by the end of the year.
• We're going on vacation this weekend with my family for my Dad's 70th birthday. We'll be gone Friday-Monday to Gatlinburg, TN, then we're taking Tuesday off work to spend with the dogs and whatnot. Then I'll starting studying again on Wednesday.

Ok, gotta get back to work.

Monday pilates

I did the Pilates thing again last night (on a thick, folded blanket and it felt much better - still I will be investing in a mat asap...I promise). I don't think I was 'holding my powerhouse' as effectively this time. My legs are a sore but my abs are not, so I think I was letting my legs do a lot of the work instead of controlling things wiht my powerhouse (can you tell house much I enjoy that term??) I mean, I can tell I did something, but they're not sore like they were. I went 2 more exercises into the routine this time, but probably was only able to do that because I wasn't doing it as well. I still got the pounding headache, but I took little rests and it wasn't nearly as bad this time. Hopefully I'll be able to get that under control. It mostly happens when I sit up from the moves done on my stomach. Of course, I've always (like, my entire life) gotten a pounding headache (even if only briefly) when I get up off the floor from laying on my stomach. The moves did seem harder this time, it was harder to stay flexed and keep my naval pulled in, probably because my abs are still tired from last time - but they have to suck it up!!

This morning, I browsed through today's programming on the fitness channel (not sure what it's really called) and recorded several shows that look interesting. A cardio show, one for biceps and triceps, and a belly dancing routine that sounds like fun. I'm going to try to work those in during the week as well. I'll just have to find one that is suited to my level and that I enjoy. I may not have found it yet, if not, I'll keep looking. So tonight I'll probably try to do one of those shows instead of the heavy bag, but we'll see - it will definately be one or other.

Oh, last night, I officially heard the guineas break out their adult voices for the first time!! We heard them the other night too, but didn't know what we were hearing, this time, there was no doubt. It was lightening and thundering outside, so of course we went out to watch and heard this racket. Turns out, they don't like storms particularly! The were down there screaming their heads off, in their full adult voices...no longer limited to just chirping and clucking like baby birds. It was crazy. I talked to them from the porch (it was pouring rain at that point) and it seemed to calm them down a little. Guess they're used to listening to my mouth by now.

This morning, on the way out of the driveway, I saw a mama and 2 baby deer and Sunday night we saw the mama and her triplets. So we've determined that we have one mother with 3 babies, one with 2 babies and one other one that has 1 baby and we also have 3 young bucks living near by that we spotted in the front yard one evening. Quite the deer population!

Here's what I've learned...

You can't start running with a weak powerhouse. Oh, and the woman on the Pilates video is a she-devil, in the most evil sense of the word.

Any attempts at running and/or fast walking, have been thwarted by back pain, brought on by weak abs, etc. So I thought to myself, "Self, let's do some pilates with our heavy bag routines and build up those core muscles (the "powerhouse"), THEN we'll worry about running." Besides, more muscle = more fat burning. Friday night we did some pilates. The bitch...er...lady on the DVD said that I should start with 5 or 6 (out of 18) of the exercises and then work up to doing the entire routine. So that's what I (attempted to do) did. Keep in mind - I have no mat and I'm working on a HARDwood floor. I had to skip one move because "roll like a ball" doesn't happen on a HARDwood floor with no mat. Not when my tailbone is involved. No way, no how.

Anyway, I did 5 or 6 of her moves...after a while, when the blood was gone from my brain and my tailbone was screaming in pain and the dog was licking my face while I attempted unnatural acts on the living room floor (with my pelvis in "neutral position" and my spine in alignment)...I lost count. I actually didn't stop because of my muscles, I stopped because after one move that was done on my stomach, when I sat up to do the next move, my head started pounding in a way that I was certain...certain...would be the end of me and I had to stop. All the while, that smiling, blonde harbinger of death was on my television screen bending and flexing and stretching and smiling. God, I hate that woman.

In the end, I thought, Well, maybe pilates isn't for me. I guess I can't do enough of that to help because of the inexplicable pounding in my head. But...turns out I was wrong. Turns out it really is the quality of your movements and not the quantity. And I guess I really was holding everything in and flexing and whatever I was supposed to be doing because my powerhouse killed all day Saturday. It hurt yesterday too but not nearly as bad and today I can only tell anything happened when I suck it all in and flex those muscles. So I guess I was doing something right. The only thing I'm wondering now is if I should have done it again yesterday, since the pain was fading or if I should have waited until today when the pain is almost all gone. I'm definately doing more tonight - it was awesome! And to finally do something so quick and simple that left me with such soreness that it MUST have done something - that's awesome too. Now I just need a mat, before my tailbone stages a revolt.

In other news, I'm still studying, my next part of the exam is next Thursday (August 20th) and Husband worked until midnight Friday night, then went in at 8:30am Saturday and got home about 6pm, so I got caught up on my studying and I put a coat of primer on the hallway. We finished the woodwork yesterday and put a topcoat on the walls, so just one more coat on the walls and that'll be another area of the house painted...sweet.

Update

Sorry for the lapse in posts, I'm not losing my enthusiasm, just my free time (at work). Things are beginning to pick up and that'll probably continue all the way through the 10/15 deadline (I hope). Still, even with work to do, sometimes it hard to find the motivation to actually do it - I'm working on that. Honest, I am.

So here's what happened to my weekend (aka Why I didn't work out like I was supposed to). Friday night, Husband got home and asked if I'd like to go visit his parents and play some pinochle. So that's what we did. Until like 11pm, then we came home and passed out in bed. Saturday morning, He went to get his hair cut and pick up his dad's truck so we could buy some lumber (why we didn't take said truck home with us the night before, I'll never know). I studied the entire time he was gone (except for when I went down and fed the guineas). I thought I got caught up, but when I looked at my study schedule on the calendar last night, I discovered that I'm still one chapter behind. Crap.

Anyway, when he got back, we went and bought some lumber so he could build himself a workbench in the garage. He started on that and I started cleaning the house. (We returned the truck at some point, but I can't remember when) I started in the "east wing" and vacuumed the hallway and both spare bedrooms (even got up next to the base boards with the attachment!) and cleaned that bathroom (that no one had used in months). Then I vacuumed the steps to the basement and the rug by the front door. After that, I moved on to the "west wing" and cleaned the half bath and the master bath, our bedroom (dust was 10 inches deep), changed the bed, all that good stuff. All the while I was creating a waste-deep pile in the laundry room!! I dusted the living room and we went to the grocery about 10pm Saturday.

Sunday, we started again, this time Husband worked on cleaning up the garage (after I helped him cut the plywood for the top of the workbench) and I finished up with running the dishwasher (3 times!!) and doing laundry (the pile is now about knee deep) and swept and mopped the living room/kitchen/hallway. We went and got something for lunch, then we rested a while, I did more laundry, emptied the dishwasher, refilled it, hand washed some leftover cookie sheets and whatnot, and eventually it was time to fix dinner. Oh, I colored in my new coloring book for a while too. Anyway, after dinner, we started on the lawn. I mowed for about an hour and Husband mowed for about 2 hours, I fed the guineas (a constant chore...they are little feathered piglets!!) and it was pretty much time to go to bed.

I'm finding that Husband was right, it is very difficult to fit working out into my schedule right now. I'm still motivated though, and still trying to figure out how to work it in so it can happen regularly. So, in case anyone can make any suggestions how to do this, here is tonight's timeline:

4:45pm - get home from work, let the dogs out, change my clothes
5:00pm - study
5:45pm - Husband gets home, fix dinner
6:30pm - hopefully be finished eating by then (we're just heating up leftovers), hang up the stuff in the dryer, put another load in the washer, start mowing grass
9:00pm - should be finished mowing by then (hopefully!), take a shower cause I'll be gross
9:30pm - out of the shower, study for another hour
10:30pm - go to bed

Keep in mind that the 2 hours of study time I have alotted will barely keep me caught up and will not allow for getting ahead and I'm already a chapter behind. (Yes, that is depressing, thank you for noticing). Of course, there are not the 2 1/2 hours of yard work every night, but it amazes me how the almost 6 hours between getting home and going to bed just disappear. Any suggestions for better time management??

Pooie Day

Yeah, that's right, I said it's a "Pooie Day"...wanna make something of it? Oh, sorry ~ perhaps I'm feeling a bit confrontational right now.

Last night I was struck down with a headache and the realization that I only have 1 handwrap, the other must have disappeared during our move. Shit. So I studied and fixed dinner and watched old episodes of ANTM and just generally felt sorry for myself. Finally I went downstairs to feed the guineas and before coming back up and pounded on the old heavy bag for a little while - barefoot and bare fisted until my knuckles were bright red and screaming. I just broke a sweat, nothing major, but still more than I thought I'd do with the massive headache. Of course, hitting the bag did nothing for the head, but I was just frustrated at that point and didn't care.

I still have said headache, but it feels like an excuse and I refuse to fail this time, dammit. I found a Pilates For Beginners DVD on our rack (No idea where that came from, btw) so I'm either going to give that a shot when I get home (I've never done any Pilates...at all...ever...none) or I'll do an honest heavy bag routine. Either way, I gotta get moving. Oh, I did do some dips this morning before work. I'm somewhat obsessed with the disgusting state of my upper arms, so I'm trying to work in tricep exercises any free moment I have. If you know of any that really work, please share!!

Ok, I'm off to pick up Husband for lunch in a few minutes. I get to go out in the rain - yay!!

Quickie

Don't have much time here cause I only have an hour left in this day and it is essential that I accomplish...something. But, I wanted to give you and update.

Got home last night (35 minutes LATE because of a stupid traffic jam!!) and threw a couple chicken breasts in the oven. Then I studied for about 20 minutes. Then I did the strength training routine! I actually did it. I know that's not impressive really, but before I can accomplish (fail at) anything, I have to start it. So step one: starting - check! I was only able to do the minimum recommended reps of each movement, which was 8 (except the tourture-crunches...the kind where you lay on your back, put your knees in the air and straighten and lower one leg as your crunch...yeah, I did 4 on each side and prayed for death). Oh, and the calf thingies - raising up on one foot, hold, lower slowly, I did 10 of those and then 10 more on both feet. Guess my calves are pretty strong after packing all this ass around for so long. When I got finished, I was hot and tired and semi-sweaty and achy feeling. This morning, my legs were a bit sore, but not much and it's gone now. So I'm thinking I didn't really push myself hard enough. I'm not accustomed to pushing myself physically (except when doing yard work, in which case I always over-do it and hurt myself) so I have to figure out how to dig deep and make myself do more than I think I'm capable of.

Afterward, I continued to study until Husband got home, then we fixed homemade chicken burritos (YUM) and took a walk around the yard after dinner. Got 4 more tomatoes, a handful of green beans and a cucumber from the garden. 4 canteloupes are very close to ripe too - exciting!

So tonight is the heavy bag routine. I plan to try to figure out what a good time limit is, so I can say I start with ____ minutes and work up from there. I try to stay light (HA) on my feet and move around a lot to get some extra cardio out of it. First - I have to figure out how to wrap my hands!!

Plans are made to be broken...

The problem with being flexible (and I mean in an 'available for someone one their schedule' way, not a 'flexie-bendie' way) is that you have to be so...flexible.

This weekend, we finally got a space cleared out in the basement...wait...I say that like our basement is full of crap and that could not be farther from the truth. Here's the deal, when we had ducks (before the tragedy), they spent their nights in the room in the basement (it's a typical big-open-space-unfinished basement, except for this little room off to one side) and we had put cedar chips on the floor for them to keep down the smell and give them something nicer than concrete to sleep on. My heavy bag was also in that room (separated from the ducks) and not hung up and all the internet stuff (router, whatever) was right under my heavy bag stand, which didn't lend itself to bouncing around in there. So this weekend, I got all the cedar chips out of there and we cleaned up the aquarium where the guineas stayed when they were in the basement and we moved the heavy bag stand out into the main room and hung up the bag. The plan was to start with a heavy bag routine last night. Didn't happen.

Because there is rain in the forecast today (and the rest of the week, and all weekend AND all of next week), Husband needed my help getting the lawn mowed last night, so it wouldn't end up half mowed for a week while it rained. When I got home, I studied for the hour until he got home, then we fixed dinner and ate and got started mowing. We mowed for 2 1/2 hours, so until 9:30pm, then I had to go down and feed the guineas (they were a little less than pleased with the slow service) and by then it was nearly 10pm. I'm not what you'd call a "good sleeper" and I've read that working out late at night can be bad for sleeping, so it seemed like a bad plan to do it after my usual bedtime. But I did ride the mower around for 2 1/2 hours and my arms are quite sore as a result, so my muscles must have done some moving. They already feel better now than they did this morning, so I plan to do the strength training stuff tonight, before Husband gets home, then I'll study later. That's my plan, we'll see how I do.

I can't stand...

*bloggers who think they are the shit and who won't hesitate to spend an entire post telling you how wonderful they are. Gag.

*when people say "See ya" or "Later" instead of goodbye on the phone. This applies especially when it is someone they don't know and who they will most likely never see and/or talk to again. Just dumb.

*not being able to shake that groggy feeling. My eyes are rolling up in my head and I can barely stay awake. I was this way ALL day yesterday. Suck.

*traffic jams. It took me an hour and 15 minutes to get to work this morning, when it usually takes 40 minutes. Aaarrrggghhh. I was very angry. I don't know how many times I've forbidden people to have accidents, close roads, etc, etc, etc where I'm trying to drive.

*when my office mate decides he wants to have a conversation with me. Granted, this hardly ever happens. But today, when I'm super groggy and trying to study (at work ~ with permission ~ because I have no actual work to do ~ SWEET) he decides he wants to discuss refinancing and mortgage rates and all that shit. Please, for the love of god, just shut the fuck up.

Ok ~ now that I have all that off my chest (and I feel a lot better thankyouverymuch), I can tell you what's up with the running/working out stuff. I talked to Husband about it and he's on board (yay!), so we're going to clean out the basement (hopefully very soon) and put his stuff down there from his room and we're going to bring the heavy bag upstairs and put it in the spare bedroom. Then we found a workout bench thingy - kind of like a bowflex but WAY less expensive. We're going to buy that and put that in there too. That will be the workout room, which is a step in the right direction for me to have a space dedicated to that. The only time in my life I've worked out regularly was when I had a space, just for that, in our old house.

This week there is a fair in Husband's hometown and next week is the fair in the town where we live, so we'll be going to those a few nights and I still have to keep up with my studying (having this time to study at work is invaluable this week!!) AND I need to clean the house, take care of the guineas, clean their house, and get the laundry and stuff caught up. But, somewhere in there, I hope to find time to get everything situated and start the new routine on Monday. That's the current goal, we'll see how we do.

I love it when...

*People post pictures on their blogs, especially of something inside their house. I often find myself looking, not at the subject of the picture, but at the stuff in the background. Magazines on tables, flowers on a windowsill, the blanket on the couch. Is there dust on/under their furniture like there is on mine?? What's playing on that TV in the background?? As you can see, I often miss what the picture was even supposed to be of.

*Monday passes quickly and suddenly I look at the clock and there is less than an hour and a half before I go home. And I know what I'm fixing for dinner and I know I need to study and finish hemming Husband's pants and the whole evening is laid out before me.

*A project I've been dreading at work turns out to be MUCH easier than I expected it to be and I finish it and don't have to dread it any longer.

*The momma deer who lives near us brings her triplets out where we can see them. She brings them out every Saturday morning between 9:30am and 10:30am and they are PRECIOUS!! Yesterday before leaving the house, we saw one of the babies, sprinting across the front yard and no one else in the family. Then we saw a grown deer down the road who had an unfortunate encounter with a vehicle, so we were very afraid for the little family. But she kindly brought them out again after we got home, just so we'd know they are all safe and together, I'm sure.

*My guineas act like they're maybe not completely terrified of me. We're still not best friends, and they're still quite wild, but from time to time, they'll come quite near me and act like I don't have the plague, and that's nice.

*We have a weekend together where we basically accomplish nothing. Sure, I feel a little guilty about letting 2 whole days pass and doing: a TINY bit of laundry, sort of cleaning the kitchen up (a pathetic attempt, really), grocery shopping, taking care of the guineas, going to see a play, and watching movies and NOTHING else. It's awesome. And it's even better when we veg because we want to and not because anyone is sick or anything.

*We go and do something and neither of us is sure how it's going to be and then we both have a great time. We went to our little community theatre Saturday night to see their production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. We've both seen Shakespear before, done the way you expect to see it done, and Husband read in the paper the other day, that this one was set in the 1980's. That scared us both a little because there was that movie version of Romeo and Juliet set in the 90's or something and we both loathed it. But we went with *partially* open minds. IT WAS GREAT. They were all dressed in 80's clothes and there was lots of 80's rock infused in the play. There were a couple actors of questionable talent, but for a tiny community theatre, it had a GREAT cast. The guys that played Puck, Flute and Bottom were beyond awesome and one of them was only a junior in high school. The play was hilarious, the cast worked very hard and we had a wonderful time.

Duh

I found myself driving to into the sun this morning, squinting, with my sunglasses on my head.