Hot Dogs & A Wish List

Today’s workout will consist of a little elliptical and lots of bloggerizing!

1. The Warm Up – A story about things that should not be thrown.

2. Gettin’ That Heart Rate Up – Weight loss update

3. Cool Down – To Do List

 

1. The Warm Up

Here’s a little story about the worst trip I ever took:

When I was a senior in college, I had the most boring boyfriend in the whole world. He had two stories that he told over and over again, one was about DVD’s (which were just getting into the mainstream back then), the other was about computers or something. Who knows – I wasn’t really listening. Mr. Boring also wanted to get married. And he wanted to marry me. I on the other hand, knew I was dating Mr. BORING!

Mr. Boring & I had these two friends who were married. Jackie and Justin. And as yawn inducing and stable as Mr. Boring was, Jackie and Justin were the exact opposite. They were loud, funny, and explosive. Which is why we hung out together a lot – they were my antidote to falling asleep during our entire relationship.

Jackie and I graduated at the same time – so to celebrate we decided to all go on a 2 week camping trip to all the national parks in the southwest. Oh how young and naive I was to think that this was a good idea.

On the eve of our departure. Jackie pulled me aside and told me that Mr. Boring was going to propose to me on the edge of the Grand Canyon, the ring was purchased. Okay, so Mr. Boring had a little romantic side – but he was stil MR. BORING. My heart stopped. I got sweaty. I basically freaked out. No, no, no, no! No way! So, young and naive – i pulled Mr. Boring aside and told him in that I was not ready to get married – but heck, he could still take me on the trip! (Red Flag #1)

From the moment we started packing up the car, Jackie & Justin were at each other’s throats (Red Flag #2). The close quarters of Mr. Boring’s Mitsubishi Montero, was no salve to the festering wound that was their relationship. Mr. Boring had turned into Mr. Sulky. And all I wanted to do was to have a freaking cocktail – I had graduated! Come on people!

After about a week in the great outdoors, the constant bitching and bickering between the two of them boiled over. Andy and I were politely ignoring each other while he started the campfire and I unwrapped a package of hot dogs and buns. Jackie and Justin were getting condiments out of the cooler when the lid accidently shut on Jackie’s hand………. and Justin laughed…. uh oh.  Jackie’s face went from slightly sunburnt to enraged purple in about 1.5 seconds. Obsenities were flying, demands for divorce were yelled, sleeping bags were thrown out of tents……  

And then it happened. The hot dogs. The platter of uncooked hot dogs on the picnic table was taken. One by one, those slippery cases of pig guts were grabbed and thrown at Justin’s head. She flung all 12 of those bad boys at him, and missed 11 times. The 12th hit him in the leg. Then she stomped off, turned on the car, and left.

We were stranded with no dinner! Just some mustard and some empty hot dog buns.  We ate the toasted buns and drank some Bartlesand James wine coolers amongst the dirty slimy hot dog casualties in silence with the sad, sobering knowledge that we were only halfway through the trip and nowhere near an airport.

 

2. Gettin’ That Heart Rate Up – Weight loss update

This’ll be quick – 40 pounds down! Up to 30 minutes continuous running!

 

3. Cool Down – To Do List

To Do This Year

1. Continue to lose weight and get healthy
2. Run and finish a 5k race

To Do in the Next 10 years

1. Learn how to play the guitar
2. Learn how to tell my left from my right without making an “L” with my fingers.
3. Run and finish a half marathon
4. Take a cross country trip in a motor home
5. Take a year off work to be with Jack full time before he grows up.
6. Take my mother on a trip, just the two of us, and LISTEN to her stories.

To Do in the Next 50 years

1. Renew my vows with my husband in Australia or some other warm and sandy place.
2. Live in another country for a year.
3. Learn how to dance.
4. Put Jack through college.
5. Retire before I’m 60.
6. Go back to the U.K. with my husband and trace my roots – visit my fathers hometown. Visit Normandy and thank my grandfather for his service.
7. Get a really short no fuss hair cut.
8. Learn how to make potato salad.

 

Bottles & Apologies

So, it was Mother’s Day today. Technically this is the second “day” I’ve experienced honoring me and my wonderfulness. My son was born only a few days before Mother’s Day last year and I was still reeling from the whole baby/life/birth/recovery shenanigans to even remotely remember my first mother’s day.

So I will consider this my first official Mother’s Day. Well, yay for me for keeping my son alive and my sanity relatively intact for a whole year. I must say the first six moths were the hardest of my life (colic, C section recovery and complications, colic, night & day confusion, colic…). Months 6-12 however were quite the relief. For the first time, I experienced joy with and for my child. We explored things together, we got some sleep, we laughed, we went out into the world, I put on shoes that weren’t flip flops, we walked, talked, ran, and played.

I started to morph into a “mom”. One of those foreign creatures to whom I wafted my superior single and childless scent to as if to say “Look at me! Don’t look at that small thing attached to your hand, hip, arm, leg, grocery cart! Look at me and my freedom, I flaunt this in your general direction!”.  I now feel a little bit of remorse for the dirty looks I gave mothers with children on airplanes (how dare they interrupt my laptop/cell phone/report/magazine time to get from place to place in an efficient manner! Use a train like the other cretins! I command you!).

Now I exude the superior scent of a woman who bore a gorgeous and brilliant child. Look at me! I am wonder mom. Look at my child develop at a rate 12x that of yours! ha HA! Look at him – he is terribly advanced! Pine for my mothering skills! Pine, I say!

I do try to tame the beast though as I know I have really had nothing to do with his darlingness and his terrible advancedness.  Sigh.

Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers. Be good to yourselves tonight.