My Computer is Possesed ... Or Just Really Freaking OLD

I've been using our old laptop as MY shiny new laptop is in GA with honey (that's how he knows I love him). This laptop dates from honey's days in the barracks and has been dropped off an armored vehicle (or two) so it's not surprising that it has some issues. Mostly we've learned to work around them on the rare occasion we have to use it. However, last week it started crashing every few minutes. I've tried everything I can think of and a few things honey talked me through over the phone but I think it's time to accept that fixing it is beyond my skill set and wait for honey. To that end I haven't been on the Internet much (bumming computer time from friends). Here's what happened in the last couple weeks.

- MIL is recovering nicely. She's back home and self sufficient as long as I can come every few days to help with the things she can't manage yet. We managed to live together for two weeks without killing each other :)

-I'm still going to Jazzercise. I went three times last week. It still kicks my butt but I love it.

-I bought a treadmill on Craigslist for a great deal. I bought it from an older couple who live rather out in the sticks (that's saying something since this is Alaska). It's an older model but sturdy as hell and works great. From the sounds of it they never really used it as anything other than a treadmill shaped coat rack. I've been using it for low impact walking while I watch TV.

-Dad and I are still going strong on the MIL apartment. (I've got some pictures of all that we've accomplished I'll put up once I have a computer of my own again). Last Saturday I got insulation all over myself from crawling in the roof space and dirt all over me from working in the crawl space. I should have been miserable but I had a lot of fun working with my dad all day.

-I've got five aprons almost finished for Christmas gifts. I just need to put on the ties and they will be ready to send.

-I've been making snowflake kanzashi (another set of pictures I'll put up once I have access to my own computer)

-Last week was my last Belly Dance class until the new cycle starts in mid January :(

-Expect post to be fairly erradic for the immediate future. Sorry.

Thankful Thursday

This week I am thankful for ...

-Being Alive. I was in an accident and could have easily ended up not-so-living. While I was driving into town, the first big storm of the winter hit with limited visibility and wet snow that was freezing to the roads and making them really slick. Since I'm not an idiot, I slowed down to a decent speed for the road conditions. Unfortunately, I was sharing the road with one or more idiots. Someone decided I was going too slow and whipped around me and then tried to change lanes into my lane. Actually, they tried to change lanes into the very spot my car was occupying. I'm pretty sure they bumped me but I can't tell since I put that side of the car through a very large snow bank immediately after. I ended up spinning around, sliding into the median backward, and almost sliding out the other side and into the opposite lane of traffic. Thankfully I plowed into a large snow berm and it slowed me down enough to stop me before I slid onto the other side of the highway. I was very scared and am very, very thankful it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

- My MIL is getting better and is much happier this week.

-I found a reconditioned fridge at Home Depot for the apt for about half what it would cost me otherwise.

-Cell Phones. With honey on the other side of the country, I really appreciate that we can use our cell phones to keep in touch and make kissy noises at each other.

-Jazzercize. It's really fun (in a drop dead tired half way through sort of way). I've gone three times this week!

Holy Crap ! I've become my Great Aunt!

(this is not my Jazzercise class but it's close enough to be it's twin sister or a cousin who looks really similar)

Yesterday I joined Jazzercise. Before going into the center the only thing I knew about Jazzercise was that my great aunt used to do it when I was a little girl (scary leotard and all). However, living in a smaller town gives me limited options. We have the overgrown Fitness Club that is all over AK and has put most of the smaller gyms out of business, a Curves, and a Jazzercise center. I refuse to patronize the big fitness club. I've seen too many great, small, family-run gyms pushed out of business because of them. I went to the Curves and was pretty interested until they sprang a $200 joining fee on me and then explained that most of the benefits they'd told me about (working out at other locations, putting membership on hold while injured, transferring if you move, etc) only applied if I signed a 1 year contract. I was a little miffed that they waited until the very end of a 1 hour spiel to tell me about the membership fee and 1 year contract but I probably still would have considered joining if the Curves employee hadn't been so pushy in trying to get me to sign up right then and there. I understand that businesses have quotas for their employees and that the employees are put under a lot of pressure to fill them but I also understand that they make most of their money off people who are no longer coming to the gym but still trapped in a 1 year contract. I have a personal policy that once pressure to buy is applied (on a car, appliance, gym membership, etc) I leave and decide whether I want to buy that item at home away from the pressure. So I walked out of the Curves after thanking the employee for her time and letting her know I would contact her if I decided to join the gym. In the end I decided that I was not ready to make a year long financial commitment. So that left me contemplating how my size 18 body would look in a leotard :) I did some research online and discovered Jazzercise has updated their program from the one I was envisioning. Their music play list includes ones I hear on the radio on a regular basis and no one on the website was in a leotard (Thank the Divine). The website was very upfront about their fees and how the classes were structured. So I threw on some gym clothes and went to a class last night.


I had a blast. It kicked my ass and I was sweating like a pig but it was really fun. When I got there and explained I'd never been before, I was invited to participate in the class for free so I could decide if it was something I wanted to do. The moves were fairly easy to follow. It actually reminded me a little of Tribal Belly Dance with a leader and followers and a fairly set structure of moves. You could tell some people were experienced and would start the next move almost before the teacher and there were others, like me, who were a little behind but still following along. I'm also really excited that Jazzercise is going to build my Cardiovascular endurance which has always been my weakest area. And as an extra bonus, it's helping build the same muscles I need to Belly Dance well.

Getting Off My Lazy Butt

I've been a little lax the last couple weeks about my excercise. It's been cold and rainy so I didn't really want to go out walking but today I decided that I'm going to end up sitting on my a$$ all winter if I use cold as an excuse. I walked down to the store to pick up some veggies and stopped by the library to get some reading material. Fate decided to reward me for walking and both of the books I wanted (but didn't dare hope to find) were sitting on the new arrivals shelf waiting for me. I love these authors and reread their books almost every year but I'm too cheap to buy them in hardback so I get them at the library and read them. Then I have the leisure to find them at a used bookstore for adding them to my home library.

I'm Pretty Sure My Dog Thinks I'm Crazy

This afternoon I needed to get some work done around the house, and in the spirit of my new git fit goal, I decided to put on some music that I can't help but dance too. So, here I am, cleaning my living room and putting away clutter in between spins, shakes, and hip bumps and I look over and see my dog watching me with his head cocked to the side and I realized two things at once. 1) I'm pretty sure my dog thinks I'm crazy. 2) Since I was doing this cleaning dance in front of a huge picture window and it was just dark enough to make me clearly visible to the whole neighborhood, I'm pretty sure my neighbors think I'm crazy too. (All things considered, they mights as well realize I'm a little off now and not when I'm leaving the house in belly dance or SCA garb)

I didn't spend my entire day dancing around my living room though. This morning I went for a long walk to the local library. On the way back from the library all the muscles that have been accustomed to the easy life and aren't very appreciative of the new and interesting ways I'm finding to make them work in my new dance class decided to start complaining at once. I was dying. A walk of less than half the distance I walked on Tuesday seemed twice as hard. I was pretty sure I looked quite pitiful but having someone stop and offer me a ride was a confirmation I didn't need.

Back to Happy Thoughts

While I was at the library, I found this wonderful book on canning. A few weeks ago my MIL taught me how to make and preserve my own jam with the raspberries I had picked. I'm in love. Homemade jam is so much better. You have more control over the ingredients that are going into your food and it allows you to preserve what you've grown or picked yourself. Since then, I've been on a canning kick. I've made Raspberry Jam, Strawberry/Raspberry Jam (although I didn't know to agitate the jars so all my strawberries ended up on top), Blueberry Syrup, and Raspberry/Chipolte Sauce (a great sweet/spicy BBQ sauce substitute). I'm excited about the recipes in this book and can't wait to find a great deal on some produce so I can try them out.

My pretties -
Raspberry/Chipolte Sauce, Blueberry Syrup, Raspberry/Strawberry Jam, Raspberry Jam

Letting it All Hang Out

So, in the interest of total honesty, I'm periodically going to post pictures of myself as I travel along my fitness journey. That way I can't cheat (which of course I would never do).

Current Reality (me - happy but with room for improvement)

Goal (yes, that's me 5 years ago at 160 lbs)

Returning to one of My Great Passions - Belly Dance

About five years ago, I started taking belly dance classes with a teacher I absolutely loved. During that time, I was probably in the best shape of my adult life (the aforementioned 160 happened during this time). I really enjoyed the classes and they helped me get into shape, build cardio endurance, and self esteem. Unfortunately, life got in the way and I had to move to a different state. I've taken classes in almost every location I've lived since that time but I've never found a teacher whose style was so in sync with all the elements of the dance I love (I even found one crazy stalker belly dance teacher but that's a story for another time).

But, hopefully, that's all changed. I've been taking classes for three weeks with a local teacher and I love it. Here's the first line from her website -

A passionate enthusiast of world barefoot dance forms focusing on the movements and rhythms rooted in the Middle East

"world barefoot dance forms" That makes me so excited. Once I read that line I knew I had to try her class. But wait it gets better ...

That's my teacher. Doesn't what she's doing look fun? That's what I want my belly dancing to be like. Not contorting into an uncomfortable position just to look good, not dancing to please a crowd or look sexy. Instead I want to dance joyfully and exuberantly. I want to make my body so happy my heart and mind can't help but follow.

If anyone's interested, here's a link to her website. Come take classes with me.

http://www.dancebarefootmuse.com/

So, What's with the blog?

Why am I doing this? Simple ... accountability. Lately I've found several areas in my life that I'm not entirely happy with and instead of living with it or whining about it, I'm Doing Something About It. My hope is that this blog will be a place for me to vent my frustrations and celebrate my victories throughout this process. Whether anyone reads this blog or not, it still supplies me with a written account of what I have accomplished (or not accomplished) throughout this process.

So, now that we have the boring mission statement out of the way, what exactly am I trying to improve?

1 - General Fitness - yes, my weight is a problem but so is my lack of cardiovascular endurance. I used to work in an appliance warehouse and now I feel like a wimp. I would like to get my weight back to 160 (it's 236 now) and be able to jog a mile.

2 - Make My House a Home - We have a house that needs a lot of work and I want to participate in the refurbishment of my house and apply my thrifty skills to helping us accomplish our goals with minimal output of cash ('cuz we don't have a lot).

3 - Feelings of Aimlessness - I've been dealing with feelings of aimlessness for a while now. We've had to move three times in the last three years and I wasn't able to get a job due to locations and the short amounts of time we would be at the various locations. I'm going to work toward getting my teaching certificate to establish a career that can travel with me to the various places our family gets stationed.

4 - Living in Harmony With My Surroundings - I would like to reach the point where we are consuming less and contributing more. I would like to establish a garden next spring and plant fruit trees that can help feel my family down the road.

And I'm pretty sure some of the other random stuff that happens in my life will find its way into the blog as well.