OMG! OMG! The only muscle that thing would exercise is my abs from laughing so damn hard while watching the video. OMG!

Seriously, how much money did they have to pay these women to do this?! I just want to know what the circumstances were that lead up to the inspirational idea to invent such a ridiculous thing. I think I already know

Thanks for the laugh Pat. WHERE DO YOU FIND THIS STUFF?!

Let's just all be clear here, uhm, my upper body development was the result of dumb bells that had YORK written on the ends. Anything less may as well be a water bottle. Cripes, and people pay money for this stuff. Man, I would NEVER walk around using one of those things in any gym or basement I've worked out in. Talk about embarrassing gym moments. That would be one of them. (sorry just can't stop about this, geez)

Oh, loved the pic of Angela Basset. I have also thought she was just stunningly beautiful. ~sigh~ Those are the kind of women who just set the bar way too high.

Okay. Pat, I've calmed myself down. That just overshadowed the rest of the posts here tonight. Thanks for the series suggestions. I'm writing them down for DS to look at. Oh, Skullduggery though, start passing those around and your kids will be groupies too. DS even made me put together a costume for him last year.

Alena: Glad your foot is doing well. Sometimes it just takes time to heal. Hopefully you are over this bump in the road. Onto the next injury! Just kidding. I'm not trying to glorify anything here. However I seem to belong to the one injury of the year club. Maybe it's the idiot club too. Membership Card looks the same.

So. I did make it to the gym this afternoon: Upper body, another 36 pushups. I also think my two sets of bench presses should count too, same movement but I'll refrain from including them.

Putting together my routine for tomorrow. It's kind of nice to have a tiny bit of freetime to put something together for MYSELF!

Wingo,
You have nailed it! That was exactly what I was thinking. I actually saw the video about 2 days ago, a colleague of mine (a guy) forwarded it to me. I don't have audio at work and I didn't even watch the whole thing because I suspected (not being able to hear the commentary) that umm, the REAL exercise will be revealed at the end, so I promptly closed it and deleted it.

Now where is Depalma?!? He should tell us what he thinks about it. LOL

Lydia,
Thanks for the laugh re the membership cards! :-)

Alena

Cheryl: Sounds like my day - holed up in the house! It was SO hot and humid here today.. not even the kids wanted to go outside. What is a strongman log? Sounds interesting!

nelie: congrats on starting C25K - have heard that is great!

Alena: I bet that felt awesome to have someone comment like that!

Lydia & Cheryl: How old are your sons? I have an eight year old (turning 8 end of this month), but he is eats up books like there is no tomorrow. He started reading at 4. Sometimes I have a hard time because he is young but his reading level is very high. Would the books you are mentioning be topics suited for an almost 8 year old? He mainly loves science books, adventure books, & fantasy books. Would love to buy him a new set of books to read as part of his birthday.

I took a day of rest today. Yesterday I did some sets of weighted squats and the back of my left leg (the weak leg) was NOT happy with it! Much, much soreness! I *hate* that I might have to cut out the weights on the squats.. we'll see how it goes this next time. Today was supposed to be cardio, so I moved that to tomorrow and moved the weight training to Sunday (was supposed to be the day of rest!).

Sure, Lydia. Whatever you say.

Wingo, whatever Cheryl and Lydia don't supply you in the way of boys' books, I can fill in. I'm a library director, and we have some great things for young boys. Has he read the Erin Hunter "Warrior" series? Or Brian Jacques "Redwall" stuff. Both have animals as their heroes, but are very much read in our library.

Lydia - I ordered all three of the SKullduggery books today. I know just the boys to start them out on. Glad you like the video! A friend of mine who is a newspaper reporter in Halifax sent it to me. She always finds great stuff on YouTube.

Okay, it's nearly 9pm. I came home, visited with DH about his jury duty/trial (they made him the foreman). Now that the trial is over he could tell me all about it. Then we had dinner, and moved to the garden. Peas for me, black currents for him. I'm pretty fried, having been up since 5:15, plus I'm really beginning to feel my legs from all those squats. Tomorrow is an upper body workout and maybe cardio. I should do it, as the square dancing tomorrow night will not be aerobic enough to count. But the gym doesn't open til 8 on Sat in the summer, so I can sleep in a bit.

I agree! Clearing conservatory prior to demolition work today. Gravel work will have to wait (well done, Cheryl, on your gravel!)

Still not feeling 100% after run-in with carbs, post Oxford trip and chiro again. Just taking it slowly, doing what I can and trying to keep away from bad food. Planning meals helps enormously. That's my tip for the day!!

Oh, and Alena, too much coffee aggravates my tummy. (And, at the back of my mind and not available at present, is some idea that it may have some effect on sugar/fatness or something. This is rather so vague so will look it up when I've got a moment.)

Woohoo! Did the WOD with hubby at home. He did great! Only mod was our plyo box for jumps was a little lower and we ran on the treadmill.

Another sleepless night I may need to go see my doc for a change of meds which messes me up for weeks.

Lydia and Cheryl, I know they are very old fashioned, but my son loved all the Jack London books when he was that age. Pat, please don;t tellme they are all urealistic

I have almost stopped reading the Kessler book because his trigger food and mine is the same! M&M's. He uses them as an example all the time and I'm constantly drooling. Probably not the effect he had in mind.

Have a good weekend

Mel

The shake weight or adult movie chicks?

Speak of the devil and he shall call. Hey, Depalma.

Pat: DS1 is psyched that his Skullduggary obsession is being spread to his peers in Alaska. Seriously. He thinks this is really cool.

Mel: How fun to workout with DH. My favorite workouts were with mine too. The problem I get into though is that he is my equal everywhere but the gym and I forget that I may be overworking him. He's a big boy though and shouts out DONE when he needs to.

Oh and classic books are good for these boys too. DS has enjoyed the Hardy Boys, My Side of the Mountain, things like that. For me, it's really about the pacing of the writing and how well it translates into the spoken voice that makes it more enjoyable for me to read aloud. KWIM

Wingo: Pat is truly our expert in literature here. I just asked DS1 for suggestions for your son and he couldn't really come up with anything except the Skullduggery series. Go figure. Anyway, I do recall he read Captain Underpants too. Not exactly mind stretching. My DS is turning 11 at the end of the month.

Legs today at the gym. Had a great workout! At the end I did a mile run around the indoor track and a lateral shuffle run followed by a quick sprint. I love having a track available for a real quick boost in between or after a set. It was one of the workouts that felt so good all I want to do is eat and then sleep. :


Silverbirch: I'm thinking more about planning meals too. I want to lean out again and I've just been relying on my old stand bys. I have a little bit of time on my hands to focus on myself now and I'm thinking about a new eating plan. Which brings me to PAT! What do you think of the Precision Nutrition program? (Can I ask about that here?)

Lydia: I have asked him a couple times at the bookstore about reading the Captain Underpants books.. was good for a couple eye rolls from him. LOL! He is a hard nut to crack sometimes. I really need to check out those Skullduggery books!

Pat: I had no idea you were a library director! I guess I haven't been around long enough here yet. I am soooo jazzed to be able to ask you what he might like to read! Here is the problem in a nutshell (I hope). He was tested and has an independent reading level of 6th grade.. his word recognition (though he might not know what all the bigger words actually mean) tested at 12th grade. He is very much a little boy (lots of little boy interests), but if you carry on a conversation with him, many times you would think you are talking to an adult in a little boy's body. I have had a lot of people mention that to me. BUT, he does not like really "thick" books unless they are really, really rivoting, and he still likes a small illustration thrown in now and then. I mentioned previously that he likes fantasy, adventure & anything science related. Last year I gave him the whole series of Magic Tree House. Below his independent level, but he absolutely loved them. He blew through 2, sometimes 3 per night before going to bed. So I am kind of at a loss at this particular time to try and hit his little boy side while still giving him something more on his reading level. He has not read the Warrior or Redwall series of books. After the above, do you think he would still like them? It sounds like they might be winners, because he is SO an animal lover.

Alright people.. I need some motivation in the form of a kick in the pants. I haven't done my cardio today and am feeling lazy. Give me your best drill instructor and kick my butt, please!!!

Pat - just checked in and saw your video clip. And here I've been wasting all of my time on dumbbell snatches and pullups... Man...

HotWings - Get up and do your cardio! Right now! Do you hear me? Right now!

Lydia - how did the unpacking go?

Mel - I would have a hard time with a book using my trigger foods as examples...

Birch - hope you are feeling better!

Cheryl - I need a day like yours... I have some serious laundry backlog...

Alena - I find myself somewhat conflicted on my target appearance for my arms... I love Lydia's, and Angela's, but then I think Jennifer's look pretty in a different kind of way... Hmm...

Did my dumbbell circuit last night - squat/tuck, 3 rounds of the dumbbell snatch/squat+press/pullup, squat/tuck, another three rounds of dumbbell set, ended with one more set of squat/tuck. 10 reps each set, 15 lb dumbbells for all. I also did 1 full pullup on my bar, all by myself! Woo hoo! Followed that with 2 more where I got up to my nose on the bar and 7 jumping ones, 20 minutes on the elliptical. Went to the park today, 6 miles there, 40 pushups so far today. Tomorrow is my off day...

Good day everyone!

It sucked. I'm torn between feeling ticked and grateful at the same time. Its more than just the unpacking. It's a feeling similiar to throwing on the parking brake while barrelling down the freeway at 90mph.

I was concerned about how this would affect my workouts as well. Fortunately, going back to the Y has an easy transition for me and DS is working out right beside me which I love. (Well, at least for the first 30 minutes then I shoo him away to go read, swim whatever. Don't want to over work the boy yet.) But he is doing great! Working hard and growing so tall and handsome every day. The youngest one did a group exercise class designed for the little ones. Then a quick three laps around the track. I sat on a Swiss ball outside the room and watched. He looked so happy to be moving and doing. During his first lap around the track he waved to me and said, "Look Mom I'm in front." Course just as he said that his little friend took around him.

In a nutshell, were doing okay.


Wingo: I feel for you with regard to the reading material. Similar kind of boy here. It is a difficult transition when the intellectual capacity is greater than the typical chronological age. Basically, I just went with whatever this child wanted to read. We also exhausted the Magic Tree House series. Basically I just set him loose in Barnes and Noble and said show me what you find before you start to read it. Good luck. I really only recall this period lasting for about a year or two before this period of awkwardness was over. Another author I recall was Roald Dahl as popular for him during that time.

Of course he also likes lighter books like Diary of a Whimpy Kid. Just the past two years I recall the Caulder Game, The Wright Three, Hoot. Just to name a few.

The Prydain Chronicles might be a good choice for middle age boys (and girsl!).

Hotwings, the library is your friend. My advice: go on your own or send him off to look at books, and check out a stack of books you think he might like: try some of the suggestions listed above, plus joke books, reference books, how to draw/write/make books, all about (whatever) books, day in the life of a (vet, zookeeper, whatever), animal husbandry books, etc. Take them home and leave the stack out, and just let him know it's there, no pressure, no assignments, it's just there. He'll likely dig through it and find something to read when he runs out of other stuff, and you'll get some hits that way. Also, family read alouds are a great way to introduce a new author, or to bridge the gap to material that's not a good fit for independent reading. Books on tape/playaway/CD are another great resource for that, also available from the library. Comics books have always been a big hit with my son, too, at any age. He liked the Mouseguard comic books for a good fantasy/animal lover/adventure combo, and your son might like that one, too. Good luck!

Everybody else gets a ! I'm still traumatized by that whole shake weight video, lol!

Last night my sister and I went to see "The Ugly Truth" (movie). A bit too heavy on the vulgar language and crude humor, but also pretty hilarious in places, and Gerard Whatshisname was a stud, as always.

I've got a dog going home late, and we're approaching the "any minute now" stage, so I'd better wrap this up. The CF Report:

We did Fight Gone Bad today. It wasn't that bad, actually. (bad, get it? )
5 minutes of rotating between 5 exercise stations, 1 minute at each station:
wall ball
sumo deadlift high pull (55# women)
tire jump
push press (55# women)
rowing for calories
then 1 minute of rest, 3 rounds total, add up your reps/cals for a points total "score".

My first time doing FGB, and I misunderstood. I started on the tire jump, then thought I was supposed to rest after the row. Turns out I was supposed to rotate on around the list and we all rest at the same time after 5 minutes, so I missed one round of SDHP, which knocked about 16 points off my total score. I got 185 in the end. Probably a pretty sad score, but I did the best I could. The transition was hard, since I couldn't remember what was next, and it seemed like by the time I got in position, the trainer was already giving the 30 second warning. I'll do better next time, but still, it was a fun workout, really, and I did pretty good on the sumos and everything but push press. On push press I kept getting confused and doing sumos, and wasted a lot of time that way.

Okay, gotta run!

DANG! Forgot what I came here for:

Mel and anybody else, are we doing the Filthy Fifty tomorrow for Alena's Bday workout? It's my normal rest day, but I'm up for it if that's what we're doing.