WhooDogie!

Well, that was interesting.

I'm still nasaly, sinusy, coughing up some of the nastyness that invaded my respiratory system, but all in all I feel no worse for the wear.

Thanks everyone for the healing wishes and vibes.

I won't rant about the flu vaccine shortage or anything like that because even if my family COULD have gotten it, I wouldn't have (there are plenty of people in MUCH greater need than we ever will be and our immune systmes are better off for having fought it themselves, and who knows if this particular strain would have been covered...). In any case, I am feeling MUCH better today.

So... I am trying to calculate when my two weeks of "restriction" is up and I'm fairly certain it was on Friday, so it's back to the gym for me this week folks... aren't you excited? I know I am!!!

I got the most FABULOUS phone call this weekend tho... my younger sister Meghan is PREGNANT!!! YIPPEE!!! She was always the jock of our family and has consistantly been in the best physical shape of all of us sisters, and now she's going to have a baby and a fit-pregnancy and I think that's just awesome.

So... I'll report back post cardio today... don't worry, I'll still be taking it easy... but not TOO easy!

cheers!

I've got it...

seems milder for me than for the rest of the family thus far...

coughing and phlegm but not a huge fever yet.

wish me luck.

OJ and rest are on my menu.

My House is a Cespool of Infection

The Flu has come to my house.

It started with my First Grader who brought it home from school two weeks ago... he was out of school for a week (because I am NOT one of those parents who sends their kid to school coughing and sick to infect the rest of the damned class hoping no-one will notice) with fevers up to 104.5... he said, "I feel like I'm so sick I'm going to die." So I busted out the childrens Motrin and he slept it off (mostly)... I generally don't treat children's fevers unless they get over 104, and then we start by stripping, bathing, etc before we go for the meds (fevers are there for a reason, after all)... but if they can't rest because they're so uncomfortable, then meds it is.

Then Hubby got hit Thursday night... and since he's the biggest boy of them all, caring for him has been quite a challenge... he's been laid up for going on 5 days now and is starting to feel better (seems this is a shorter lived Flu than most)... weak, but no fever and the coughing has calmed down... so definitely better.

The darling cherub that is my 2.5 year old spiked his fever starting Saturday night... he woke up crying, flushed and at 104 degrees. Again with the children's motrin (and no, I will not use Tylenol, and I'm a stickler for dosages and time frames) to help him sleep. Didn't medicate much on Sunday until he spiked up to over 105 in the afternoon, motrin brought it down again, and this morning at 6am he was up again asking for his soda... and hovering in the 104.5 range... poor kid.

So far I have managed to avoid infection... I walk around the house with a Lysol-disinfecting-wipe in my hand and wipe off everything they touch... I don't know how long I'll last... but I kicked hubby outta the bedroom when he was coughing a lot, and I'm feeling good about our survival rate so far.

Oh... and then the dog found somthing dead to roll in yesterday so I had to get an emergency appointment with the groomer for him to get bathed because he's too big for me to wrestle into the tub, and DH was sick, and I still haven't gone out to see if whatever it was is still out there and if he ate it or just rolled in it... sounds like a de-worming trip to the vet will probably be on order here too... *sigh*

Nurse Brenna is at your service...

all about ME ME ME!!!

Ok... yes, I will admit I have been intentionally vague about my reasons for the doctors visits and my limited activity and while I apologize for not providing more info, I am not yet ready to go into it here, so I hope you all can be patient and allow me to talk about it in my own time.

The truth of the matter is that while I do share a LOT of what goes on in my daily life here, there are parts of my life that are intensely private for me and which I just don't discuss outside a VERY small group of IRL friends, and this is NOT meant as an offense to any of you... its just very personal stuff, KWIM? I hope at some point to be able to share these things, but for now... I'm just not ready.

I will tell you that there are no life threatening conditions going on... I am simply slightly incapacitated and have been told to limit my activities for a while in an effort to contain the issue now.

As for the walking... being in Portland right now has been pretty damned nice. The weather is gorgeous, warm, sunny, and unseasonably dry... yes I KNOW we're in like the 4th year of a drought, but honestly, I don't need a green lawn if I can have a few sunny days every winter. So walking it is.

Joy and happiness to y'all this weekend... stay active and livestrong!

ACK!!!

So my doctors idea of "take it easy" = nothing more strenuous than walking for two weeks.

WHAT THE F' IS UP WITH THAT???

I told him I was going to go insane at this rate and he said somthing to the effect of, "better safe than sorry" and I just about punched him in the face.

(seriously)

So I asked him if there was anything else, other than walking, that would keep me in his "safe zone" and he said, "stop trying to find the loopholes and go for a walk!"

Crap.

So Dr. day was Tuesday, and I had to spend most of Wednesday in bed (which was nice, but still annoying because after about 12 hours of TIVO there just isn't much left to watch)... and today... I am here... and I should go for a walk... but damnit I'm PISSED!

I am supposed to be LIFTING!!! I already missed two days of lifting this week what the hell is this man trying to do to me???

"better safe than sorry" my ever-expanding ASS!

so... I will walk... for probably an hour... because I'm just that stubborn.

*sigh*

(ok... so I'm exagerating my annoyance a little bit... I can live with daily walking for two weeks, it isn't going to kill me, and truly it is worth it to prevent future problems, etc... I'm just a stubborn bitch sometimes, and right now I feel like whining... )

The Ice Storm that Ate Portland

but did absolutely nothing to my neck of the woods, just north of that thar city.

What sucks ever lovin' ass tho is the freakin piles of gravel we get to drive thru now that everything has melted... SUCK ASS... and I do mean that, in the least polite way possible... like with jam or somthing.

In any case, due to the ice storm (ok, so there was a LITTLE ice around my place) we didn't get out over the long weekend... in fact by Monday I was so stir crazy that I insisted I be allowed to LEAVE THE HOUSE ALONE for several hours and it was very therapeutic. Bought some new yarn (cheep stuff) to make my first baby blanket with.... should be interesting... and generally farted around. The good yarn shop wasn't open (hooray for MLKJDAY) so I had to settle for Michaels.

What all this boils down to is four straight days of decent food but zero exercise. Bah... and with my dr. appt. today I"ll be adding 2 more (at least) on top of it.

I should be back to walking by Thursday and Friday and then on the wagon for weights by next Tuesday... but again, we'll have to see how it goes.

More as time and energy permit!

Late post

it is cold

very very very cold

I live in the pacific northwest for a reason... I can handle rain, I'll take rain any day over bitter biting cold.

But today it is cold.

today all I want to do is curl up under a big down comforter and watch tv.

and tomorrow...

tomorrow it may

just

SNOW!!!!

The ONLY thing (other than the permanent fund dividend checks every year) that I miss about Alaska is the snow.

Some years it would fall to depths that would have covered me over my head had I gotten off of the groomed skiing/snowboarding runs at the local ski-resort.

I love snow

Snow means sledding and snowball fights and snow-forts, and jumping off the deck, and then comming inside for real hot-cocoa... made from real milk.

nostalgia just may get the best of me this weekend.

and that's... ok by me.

I am sore today, less so than I would have expected, and my cardio suffered for it... Monday will be better. it has to.

ravenous

Morning workouts make me hungry.

seriously hungry.

ready to gnaw on my arm if I don't get some food right freakin now hungry.

So I horfed down my english muffin wiht PB and Orange Juice (freshly squoozed) and I am still starving.

I want canpakes (as JimVW always calls them) and eggs... and chicken fried steak... and regular steak... and regular chicken... hell, you can chicken fry the chicken while you're chicken frying the steak... and drop a couple of battered twinkies in that oil while you're at it.

ARGH!!!!

Ok... water, and a quick trip up to the cafe should help... I'll go for the yogurt.

Oh, and as an aside... is it a good thing when every rep of your second set of each exercise (yes, starting with rep #1) is painful? Not impossible... but definitely painful.

All weights workouts for the week are done!!! Tomorrow I'll cardio it up, and we'll see now next week develops.

I have some medical stuff going on and I'm affraid the Dr. will tell me to take it easy next week, but we shal see... His definition of easy may be VASTLY different from my definition of easy.

Cheers!

Jello legs

I have jello legs and I like it very much.

we did the full leg workout today except that we only did two sets of the leg extension/walking lunge superset... 3x30 on those was just too much for a first run thru... and can I just say that leg-extensions after squats and reverse lunges are just about impossible... I think I might have been lifting 15lbs and it was still very very very difficult.

I feel very awesome post workout, tho... as is usually the case. I seriously need to figure out how to eat in the morning before lifting tho... my bloodsugar was so low by the end of the workout that I was getting woozy... literally woozy. Some apple and my english muffin with pb straightened things out quickly, but I don't like that feeling... woozy is not a good feeling.

I fear tomorrow... we may have to move second upper body day to Friday to give us a better recovery period... but we'll see.

adapt, improvise, overcome.

shake it

ok... its not that bad... seriously... any one of you could do it easily. It took about 35 minutes to go thru 2 sets of the upper body blast and it is a GREAT workout. I haven't had this shakey unable to lift my arms to wash my hair feeling in a long time and I think its great. So you should try it... go on... you know you wanna... shake it up a bit!

I need simple carbs now.

I'm going to count yesterday as a loss because the small ammt of cardio I did really isn't worth anything and I ended up going to the dr. at 10:30 am which just totally threw off my whole routine and I didn't suck it up and get it back on track afterward... life happens... move on.

Tomorrow is LEG DAY!!! YIPPEE!!!

Have I mentioned that Alissa belongs to another gym so that she doesn't have to workout at the gym she manages? Did I also mention that she's comming in 3 mornings a week to the gym she manages so she can workout with me even tho she would rather workout away from here? She's da bombdiggity... (and yes, you can laugh at me saying that because I am just that much of a goof).

In other un-fitness-related news, I have the best husband ever. I have a long-term goal of going back to school to become a midwife... and as the years pass the term is getting shorter and shorter and I am getting more and more motivated to move forward toward that goal. Its will be difficult for our family to get by financially without my income for the 3 years it will take me to finish the schooling I need and I've felt, for a long time, that my husband didn't support me in my goal for that one reason alone. I was wrong... and I publicly apologize for assuming that. He wants me to do what will make me happy in the long run... and for our anniversary he got me a wonderful tool that will help me along that path... an ibook. He's a very good man. I've never (despite living the IT life) owned a new computer before. Sure I have frankensteined together parts and pieces into workable PCs but I've never owned one new from the factory. This is my first and its pretty freakin sweet if I do say so myself.

So there you have it... my husband is not a selfish lout... he still wishes I trusted his driving... but that's going to take some effort... so we'll just have to see.

morphology

very busy... morphing morphing morphing...

so much to do

less ability to verbalize it all than I would like.

more to come.

6 weeks

So the plan below is currently on deck for a 6 week challenge. If its going well we'll repeat it or re-evaluate and keep pressing on... potentially for another 6 weeks after that.

I think (know) its really important to change things up every now and then. Yes I've been hinting that I've got some big plans in the works, and I do, but I really can't talk about them right now because nothing is set in stone yet. When I get things finalized I will definitely share them here and you will all be let into another dark little corner of my life.

I'm excited about the workout plan below, this is higher volume training than I have EVER done before (EVER!) and it is a bit intimidating on paper. I am, however, confident that it will shock my body a little bit (or a lot bit) and really push me forward in my fitness.

Life right now is steady, stable and good. I still hate my job, I still don't have an anniversary gift from my hubby and I'm just about ready to tell him to forget about it because at this point its just about meaningless, and my kids are doing well. Crises will come and go... the ups and downs are to be expected... right now I'm pretty up... lets see how long I can maintain it.

Details

OK... so WYSIWYG... This is a weekly plan with a LOT of strength training (many many many reps) midweek and cardio/yoga the rest of the time. I'll be doing my strength training workouts mostly with Alissa in the mornings... cardio days are on our own.

I am excited about a new plan... its always fun to start somthing new! What do you think?

Monday
Cardio--on our own unless we plan something
Yoga

Tuesday
6 am- Upper Body Blast & Core*
Starting Jan. 11th--2 sets of 15 each
Elevate to 3 sets in 2-3 weeks

*Upper Body Blast & Core
Push Ups/ Asst.Pull Ups 10-8-6 reps
Incline DB Press/ DB Row 15 reps
Overhead Press/ Lateral Raise 15 reps
EZ Bar Curl/ Lying French Press 15 reps
Standing DB Curl/Dips 15 reps
Knee Ups/ Hip Thrust 20 reps

Wednesday
6 am- Lower Body Hell**
Starting Jan. 12th--3 sets of each exercise
All supersets
Core work

**Lower Body Hell
Reverse Lunge/ DB Squat (Alt.Wall Sit) 15-20-25 reps
Plie' Squat/ Deadlift 20-30-40/ 15-15-15 reps
Leg Extension/ Walking Lunge 30-30-30 reps
Calf Raise 20-20-20-20 reps
Bicycles 20-20-20 reps
Asst. Leg Raise 20-20-20 reps
Plank
Side Plank

Thursday
6 am- Upper Body Blast & Core*
Starting Jan. 11th--2 sets of 15 each
Elevate to 3 sets in 2-3 weeks

Friday
Yoga/Cardio Day- individual

Weekend
Optional Cardio, stretch, yoga also

I love Alissa.

Its so AWESOME to have a woman who is at a very similar fitness level to me (tho much much younger) who has resources and knowledge and motivation to help me take leaps and bounds forward.

I love Alissa.

Ok... enough mushy stuff. Only 5 of the Livestrong bracelets were snatched up yesterday (all are enveloped up to be sent out today) so if you wanted one but thought you were too late... you are NOT! Email me and yours will be in the mail too!

Yesterdays cardio was 40 minutes of hills on the TM. I really had a good time because Alissa spent the whole time talking to me and we are working out a plan to get us both moving on the weights and endurance. A is going to train for the Portland Marathon this year, but before she starts running again she needs to get her knee healthy and really strengthen her large muscle groups. She's going to join P-fit (so Hollumns... please look after her for me, m'kay?) this year and really wants to have a better marathon experience than she did in Honolulu (which, I might add, she finished in just about 5:30! AHEAD of her father).

I met up with her again this morning and we did 20 minutes of intervals (I ran, she did eliptical) and chatted more about the plan. I'll post details tomorrow after we go over them together, but I'm excited about the change... endurance training is new to me (not that I am planning to run a marathon, because I'm not... but strength training for muscle endurance could be just what I need over the next year... (2006 is the year that the body builder in me is born... but that's another story for another time).

Oh... and just an aside... if you work where I do (and aren't disabled), you have no excuses left... the gym this month started handing out FREE exercise/food journals... they're just xeroxed books spiral bound, but they're easy, organized and they work... and they're FREE... and you don't need a computer. No excuses. None.

Livestrong

If you haven't checked out the Livestrong foundation perhaps you should.

As a fundraising tool the Livestrong foundation sells yellow plastic bracelets for 1$. I currently have 15 in my posession that I would be happy to mail out to the first 15 people who email me with their mailing address at no cost to you. I bought 20 and have a use for 5. These bracelets can be hard to find and are in fairly high demand, but you can order quantites for yourself or your place of business or organization from the livestrong website as well.

The email-me link is in the left column.

I am doing well... this is a busy month for me at work and at home. I am trying to get my son back into TKD since we paid for an entire year which isn't up until March... but I'm affraid he just isn't interested much anymore and I refuse to force a child to participate in an activity he has no love for.

I am also trying to complete my first knitting project that I am making for myself, a cashmere and angora ribbed scarf which I would love to have done right now since its been FREAKING COLD around here lately (mid-low 20s at night and barely breaking 40 at mid-day).

Of course there are other things going on too... new exercise plans... projects... work... back to school... potty training the 2.5 year old (maybe? hopefully? finally?). And I still need to send the family portrait to my folks in Alaska... *sigh*

Today is long cardio day and I just don't wanna do it. It will be an afternoon workout, so I'll post when its done... don't wanna != not gonna!

Happy New Year

RESOLUTIONS for 2004:
1. Spend less time worrying about what will be and more time just being.
I believe I accomplished this one.

2. Spend more time reading to my children.
Done - 30-60 minutes just about every night!

3. Work hard every week toward my new fitness goals.
Except when sick - done!

4. Love on my hubby on a daily basis (by love on I mean praise and appreciate... its good for the boy-ego).
I'll have to check with him to see if there was an effect, but I will count this one as done.

5. Remeber the lessons of Martin Buber (he's a philosopher, if you want to know: google) and work to eliminate the I-It relationships in my daily life and replace them with I-Thou relationships.
Again... done.

FITNESS GOALS for 2004:
1. Get my bodyfat under 20%. This didn't happen... but my lowest reading of 21% was pretty damned close if you ask me.

2. Do one pull up (If that is accomplished before June, then do 5 in succession by December). Done - but only 1 in the August/September timeframe.

3. Deadlift REPS at 1.5x bodyweight (ie. 10 reps)
This did not happen... goals changed... but that's ok, I've still got somthing to shoot for this year.

4. Run a 1/2 Marathon... (still debating this one)
Nope... signed up, trained, got sick... suck.

5. Compete in 2 triathlons.
Also a No-Go. Having the one that I really wanted to do get canceled threw me off, but it is entirely my responsibility for not getting back on the horse.

6. Do 30 pushups on toes in succession. (boy pushups)
Done.

Theres my recap of the goals for this year... I have maintained a 45lb weight loss for about a year now. I still have more fat I want to loose and more muscle I want to gain... but I need to take some time thinking about my fitness goals for this year as reality has shifted a bit for me this year and I'll have other things to take into account as I move forward in my fitness.

I hope everyone had a safe and happy new year holiday. I had a fabulous anniversary (tho no gift yet... hmmm....) and a wonderful stay at home new-year... kissed my hubby full on the lips as the clock changed over in our little portion of the country and remembered just how lucky I am to be who I am and where I am in this life.

There is no time like the present to take that first step forward... today, do somthing TODAY for your health... for your wellbeing... for your fitness... for your future... and if you don't think you deserve it, you're fooling yourself.