Working on something...

can't really make it come out right, I'm having a strange sort of a writer's cramp or something.
In the meantime, have a little fun with this:



Haaaaaa!

Went for an amazing bike ride today in Kenosha; it was a little cold, but what a wonderful reprieve it was to be riding outside in the first week of February. The memory will have to hold me over the next several weeks as the weather fluctuates it's way towards spring...
Have to say tho how much my riding muscles have changed over the past few months. I rode as hard and as fast as I wanted to (since the trails were empty), in the highest gear, tearing it up, and barely got winded-- it was an incredible thrill. Where you can go in the summer and ride that hard I have no idea... it's addictive, exhilarating, and maybe it's time to get myself a helmet;-)
Went to Frank's Diner as well and had a lot of fun hanging with people who are fun and sassy in a way I only get to pretend daily that I'm NOT. Grace and I have been fighting lately, so it was nice to take the girl out to see the world as it isn't, but could be. It breaks my heart that her world is so small...

Let It Rock:

Another profound spin class song, frought with meaning:
Even tho the lyrics are sort of disturbing, the beat gets you in a sexy frame of mind... and before you know it, your floppy spots are flapping, sweat starts dripping in your eyes, and you and everyone else in the class is making sweet bumipty love to their spin bikes.
Gawd! I loves me some spin class!

Having recently recovered (sortof) from a GI illness this weekend, every time the instructor had us bend over and hover low in the seat tonight I could feel my stomach contents start to churn, and I had to keep telling myself: "If I hurl during spin class, I'll be too humiliated to return. Don't barf don't barf don't barf." So even though it was a pretty wimpy, no-barf workout (but 21 miles aren't so bad for a sickie chickie, no? I just didn't crank it like I usually do), I give myself snaps for making what was involuntary at home a bit less so, albeit temporarily.

Not pooping in spin class is ever so much appreciated, too...another one of those useful things you take for granted until your body decides to go a little wonky.

Sooooooooo, all I can say is after the past few weeks of suckitude: I can eat now (1 day post GI illness), I can chew (1 week post root canal, finally healing), and I can breathe (after 2 months of a sinus infection); I'm all healed up, so it's time to BRING ON THE TURKEY!!! Yayyyyyyyy!

Have a good one, y'all!

Spin Crack:

I discovered a new form of spin crack, a delightful combo that revved me up for class quite nicely this morning:
To prepare, you must first stop drinking coffee for a few days (I tell ya, I burned out my adrenals over the last couple weeks with the school stress, drinking too much espresso, and taking this stuff. I went into work on Monday this week all amped up, almost shaking, for no good reason except a lingering adrenalin high from writing those papers in a panic, the post-trauma from the surgery, and 1/2 cup of coffee. Sheeeeeeooooot. Me no likee.), and then:

1) sip a nice, strong espresso.

2) and eat one of these.
Mmmmm! Crack-a-licious! And guaranteed to keep your wheels spinning for *21* miles, a new record (and without the fans! I know a lot of people hate those, so I didn't run over and turn them on today..).
I'm trying to get the kids rustled together to do something fun today, since we're all off. But the teenager doesn't want to do the "stoopid" thing that the 11 year old wants to do, and vicey-versey. Getting these kids together to do something is worse than wrestling a sack full o monkeys, sheesh!
Had an epiphany momnent in the afterglow of my workout this morning, which made me realize how funny it is that it takes weeks and weeks after something happens to make sense of it sometimes. I realized that I like to keep a visible undercurrent of chaos in my public life (changing jobs, shifts, etc) to serve as a foil to conceal the genuine chaos I have in my head all the time. It's a (deeply flawed) ADHD coping technique, one that seems to have backfired (according to the therapist), since the kids can't handle it. Bummer. And what do you do when there's a mismatched fit between kids and parent? That's the question of this stage of our lives, one that's not likely to have an answer:-(

I'm off to wrestle some monkeys, hope we get out the door sometime soon:

Yay!

It's amazing how many people are on the roads at 6:30, at how dark it already is at this time when at the beginning of the week it was still light...
Getting up early to get the girl to the bus isn't my ideal early morning scenario, but so far it hasn't been bad. There's a dreamy quality to jumping out of bed the instant the alarm goes off vs laying in bed for 1/2 hour and waking verrrrryy sloooooowwllly:
For the first 5 minutes of so after you roust yourself, it's almost as if you're still dreaming, carrying the remnants of your last dream in your head as you rush to get ready, trying to make sense of who you are and where you are.
And it's GORGEOUS outside at this time of day; also dreamlike, misty, like the narrow and soft space between sleep and awake. Plus, it's wonderful then to have 20 minutes all to myself before the boy gets up and round 2 starts.
Speaing of wonderful, have I mentioned how fan-freaking-tastic it has been to have most of this week off? I am still a little sick (sinus infection?), but feel rested, better, more like myself. I couldn't have this amount of time to myself all the time, and it rots to get to the point where I need a break so badly, but it's another one of those push-pull situations in life where suffering thru the difficult things makes the wonderful things that come after so much more appreciated. So, YAY! And back I go next week to the grind: 44 hours, bummer:-( Hope I make it to the gym after work for a little sanity time...
Speaking of the gym (sorry, segueways don't come easily at 6:30 in the am..), I received the *best* compliment I've probably gotten in quite a while:
My spin instructor got off her bike 1/2 way thru class yesterday to check and see where our gears were, how hard we were working. With my cold, I've vacillated this week between working reallllly hard to knock the goo out of my head, and being pretty wiped out, yet still cranking it--but you still wonder where you stand in relation to the other people who have been taking the class a lot longer than I have.
When she came by my bike she said "wow, you're really working hard", and then pulled me aside after class to comment on what a strong rider I was, on my level of athleticism. And while I know my body has changed a great deal after a summer of heavy riding and daily spin classes, I have no idea if my change from an overweight, out of shape person to an avid cyclist (20# lighter, wheeeee!) is apparent to anyone else. Or if the new muscles, no longer covered by a layer of chub and lots of clothes to hide them, can be seen vs only felt (my glutes feel *really strange*, maybe it's from doing a few too many of these:

Time to get dressed and enjoy my last day of freedom, to one last morning at the gym for a while...
LATER: went shopping today, since my belt has become a fashion necessity again, and lo and behold, I'm down another pants size (the smallest I've been since the kids were born, yee-ha!)... LASK eye surgery scheduled for two weeks from today, too, but not sure how I feel about that; we're such pragmatists that something unnecessary like cosmetic eye surgery is hard to do without much guilt.

Endorphin Block...

Ok, first it was blogger's block, which all by itself was fairly sucky...

But now I've extended the suckage to include an inability to kick my ass at the gym:-(

I did a 30 minute sculpting class on Monday that hurt me bad for a couple days, but since then I haven't been able to reach the level of intensity in my spin class that I've really grown to crave (allright, it's more like an endorphin high that I've become addicted to, seriously).

I used to sweat so much during spin that it would drip on the floor under me and soak my clothes (gross, I know-- and at first it really creeped me out). Then after a couple weeks the perspiration dropped off a bit, but it was still enough to get in my eyes and fog up my glasses. But NOW, even tho I've been cranking up the resistance to crazy high levels (19 today) and spinning my pedals as fast as I can, I can barely break a sweat, barely get winded... in fact, instead of collapsing yesterday after my spin fix like I usually do, I still had so much pent up energy that I did a sculpting class AND Zumba afterwards, and could have probably done one more class if I wasn't overdue for a meal and a little dizzy. Gar! I felt so dissatisfied.

Is it all that common to max out so soon in fitness classes? Or have I just hit a strange plateau, where all my muscles have grown accustomed to their daily abuses and are like "yawn, bitch. Is that all ya got?"

Granted, I am on cold medicine cause I can hardly breathe as I have something nasty a brewin...

Is sudafed like some sort of exercise meth? And if I keep taking it before class, will I end up looking all haggard like those people in the "after" photos you see on the Oprah show??

Cyndi before spin class:

Cyndi *after* spin class:

Sheeeoooooot! Maybe it's time to cease with all the exercising for a bit and chill out on the couch with a tasty box o donut holes.... for my health, after all. I mean, I already feel like an endorphin withdrawing crack whore who can't score her next fix, no matter how many tricks she turns; don't want to find myself on an intervention episode of the Tyra Banks show, dressed in spandex... (at least not until I lose those last 10 #, tee hee).

Guess Who..

...I ended up sitting only a couple feet behind while I was on my scooter, waiting for the light to change?
Sporty Guy!!! (ooOOooOOOOooooooo!)
Seeing that he wasn't moving at a high rate of speed for a change, didn't have mirrors to catch me peeking, and wasn't looking back, I took the opportunity to investigate at length the muscles of his famed dreamy thighs, his sinewy arms, his complete lack of body fat... sigh! Even his bike is slender and sexy looking, a far cry from my Pee Wee Herman put-put bike with my big ole mom basket.
Why do I see this guy almost every day, every where, allover the place?
One of the great mysteries of the world, no doubt...

Something completely unrelated:
You know what I miss???
I miss living in a low budget girlie pad, where none of the decor costs more than $6.99, and the "window treatments" are nothing greater than cool pieces of fabric strategically pinned to the curtain rods. Being a fully fledged grownup is certainly weighty in a number of ways, keeping up with the Joneses a fine aspiration, but give me a place where there is little worry about how sterile the joint is vs how cool and interesting your stuff is, and I'd be a happy happy girl. Bah! Being a member of the middle class is HIGHLY overrated.


Or your house, neither, cause I'll prolly mess it up and make it look like Pee Wee's suburbanite ranch, bike and all.

Ow!

Discovered something new yesterday:
Sculpting class is wicked evil; I could hardly walk properly today...
And another fitness tidbit to mention: when you are already having difficulty walking, doing an hour long spin class is soooooo not a good idea. It felt GREAT while I had the endorphins flowing, but they all seem to be absent now and the ibuprofen has since become a weak balm.
Had a wee little stressful sort of day, had a million things going on, and didn't have time to eat dinner. Thusly, upon arriving home at 9:30 PM, starving like mad, I had a scarf of desperation that would have made even Dr. Atkins hurl:
4 slices of bacon (cold), a scoop of cottage cheese (directly from the container), a handful of nuts, a 1/2 package of sprouted wheat crackers (it was small..), 3 sugar free chocolate candies, and a sugar free fudge bar. Damn! I guess if you're going to cheat and eat like a cow, you should do it up properly... at least I didn't gorge myself on carbs.

Politics (as much as you'll ever see from me)...

Bwahahaaaahahahahaaaahahahaaa!

Did that "3 hours at the gym" thing today again, and feel a whole lot better than I did the first time 'round... in fact, this morning I was sweating it out in spin class (which is normally not my thing that early), and I'm doing just great, really getting into it, and the guy says: "Ok, this is our last song"... I was like: "say what?" and cranked my resistance up as high as I could stand it.
How'd that happen??

Love love loving getting back in shape; it's become quite the fun little addiction, and I'm totally not hating the results, either. I started a bellydance class this past weekend as well, but sadly am not sure if the class will continue, since there aren't enough participants. Maybe it's just karma trying to keep me from humiliating myself, from shaking my thing (thang?) on stage someday for all to see, but it's been fun practicing my lil bellydance moves all over the house. I've known since waaaaay back in my club hopping days that I was a closet hoochie dancer; get this girl some platform heels, a mirror, and something to twirl around (oh! and a martini..), and I'll be happy for hours on end....but best to keep such things private;-)

One more thing:
More oddball fun! Anybody want to go with me? Guaranteed to make you scratch your head in consternation for weeks to come; a wonderful diversion from politics, the collapse of the economy, chronic boredom, and other such unpleasantries. Plus, you get to hang with me, which is usually good for a chuckle, wheeeeeee! (I'll leave the platform heels at home, promise...)

25 Miles:

The weather in the Great North has been gor-ge-ous the past few days... and as such, have not been the least bit sad when getting sent home a little early from work, even tho I am on the verge of being broker than broke;-)
Yesterday, I lounged outside in the shade and felt the breeze on my face, the indirect warmth filtering thru the leaves of the maple tree; I leaned back in the lawn chair, closed my eyes, and tried my hardest to pretend it was still summer. Lovely!
Today, I got an itch to make a run to the library, my 7 mile easy loop, as a prelude to my evening spin class. I was sloow and tired, didn't want to push myself too hard knowing what was in store later at the gym (hell, that's what). Picked up so many good books and a pair of yummy shoes from my favorite thrift store (they were quite the slutty find, considering they came from the Christian Charity resale shop, tee hee), that I could barely get everything home-- thank God for bungee cords...
It's funny, in a weight loss/fitness situation, that plateau you reach when you've lost quite a bit of weight and are more fit than you've been in a long time... and thus are fit and slender enough to start comparing yourself to *everyone else*, bummer. Which then begins to illuminate how much more weight you need to lose, and then that rosy glow of accomplishment begins to fade.
Tired! More later...

Hey Ya!

Woo Hoo!!!

Normally, I would think a song like this was totally saptacular (being a fairly non sentimental person, except recently..), but this was the song that pulled me thru a *really* intense spin class tonight, and who would ever have thought???

This would be class #3 for me (4 total; the first one scared me off spin for *many* years..), and only wound up in spin after being tricked into it today, as I swore to my limpy self that I would take at least a day off.

I was feeling antsy after my day of shopping and cool restaurant-ing (details to follow), so felt a need to run to the gym to do a quick Zumba class to give those traumatized biking muscles a rest.

Turns out, Zumba class was cancelled, dangit! and who would mosey over but the spin instructor to invite me--personally-- to come to spin instead. WTF??? How could I say no???

My hopes were very low that I'd make it thru the entire class: I was still sore from yesterday's workout, and was tired and hungry-- energy levels low from a long day.

Sigh! So I jumped on the cycle and hoped I wouldn't kill myself. The songs the instructor played were tunes I normally would have sniffed at, not the high energy disco-ey songs I'm used to, but they were perfect, SHE was perfect, a nice change from the 2 other classes I've taken this week.

And you know what??? I DID it!!! I completed the WHOLE class, cranking up the resistance, standing, sitting, sprinting, keeping the RPM's where she wanted them (breaking new speed records for me), hallelujah! I could breathe better, knew mentally what to anticipate, which made it sooo much easier to push through my fear of not being able to keep up, it was amazing, and so much sooner than I thought it would take. Yay, encouragement, so needing this today, right now:-) Slipped a pedal during a sprint, too-- OW! Got a nice purple goose egg forming on my shin; looks great with all the other pedal scrapes and ankle gouges from the Door County trip...

Speaking of encouragement, was able to squeeze into the next size down in jeans today.. not the best, most comfortable look for me (part of the "I can't breathe" collection for fall), but still cool noetheless. Made me feel bad for buying like 7 pairs of jeans that fit (to go with the 7 boobie shirts I bought last week; since the girls are shrinking they would like a wee bit of recognition before they disappear altogether...), but I won't cry if I need to go down to the next size in a few weeks, oh no I won't;-)

Tracey and I also checked out a vegetarian restaurant I've been dying to try: Cafe Manna in Brookfield. What a gorgeous preplanned community! So clean! So new! In spite of Brookfield's almost scary perfection, the Cafe seemed a wee bit less pretentious.. my tofu on a bed of greens with grilled vegetables was tasty and Tracey's portabella sandwich looked good, but always very nice to have another opportunity to see that I can cook circles round those shi shi folks, tee hee (excellent at both vegetarian AND non- sorts of cooking, I guess I just rock that realm, in a "really bad hobby for a dieting girl" sort of way...) Nothing will ever compare to the vegetarian restaurants in Austin, but it was nice to try something a little more local.

Sleepy, sleepy... working a shift and a half tomorrow...

Regular:

A really interesting phenomena is happening with my daily bike rides on the local trail:
I'm becoming a regular.
Which basically means that some of the more routine riders are becoming familiar, and even though I have never spoken to any of them, have begun to construct identities for them:
There's a skinny older guy who rides pretty much the same route I do, the 10 mile loop. He plugs away at it at a fairly quick pace, but in blue jeans and a button up, plaid shirt.
What's the deal, plaid shirt guy?
Maybe he has yet to discover the wonders of lycra and the beneficial effect being jeans-free will have on his nether parts.
And then there's the driven, sporty guy I see all over the dang place, on he bike trail and most of the roads surrounding our property. He's well appointed in his schnazzy bike duds and helmet, super cool Lance Armstrong glasses (no doubt), and flies like the wind on the trails, kicking my ass (fo shizzle!).
That guy is out there, rain or shine, tearing up the roads and bulking up his already dreamy thighs... sigh! I avoid eye contact for fear that I will get lost in his athletic fabulousness... but I digress (je m'excuse, tee hee).
Why is he there everyday, how can he go so fast? (In defense of fastness, tho, I rode a hard 10 miles in under 45 minutes tonight-- getting faster all the time, wheeeeeeee!)
Then there's the middle aged gal who rollerblades with her teenage daughter; she's made great progress in her technique since I first saw her out there, looking most timid and afraid of how hard the ground is, and how far away.
Today, she was flying down the trail, looking triumphant and a wee bit more slender...
And every so often I'll see an older lady cruising on the trails on a bike with an empty baby seat... she gives a general air of unfriendliness, doesn't like to connect and give the perfunctory "hi" and nod as you whiz past her. She looks a little exotic, like a misplaced gypsy woman who is wary of strangers, even those she sees daily on the bike trail.

You have to wonder: why are we all here, day after day?

Each of us has a story to tell, a motivator that keeps us returning to the sore ass and sweaty, bugs in our teeth trail.
It would be nice if each of us had a sign, indicating our particular driving force (and/or pathology):
"Recent Divorce" (the reason a co worker quit smoking a couple years ago and became a triathelete, losing over 100# in the process), "Sexually Frustrated", "Tired of Being Overweight", "Running Away From My Husband and Kids", "Proving to Myself That I Can Do It"... all these reasons and more (altho I think the dude with the plaid shirts could slip his frustrations down a notch with some fashion tips and a trip to Kohl's).

But I'll continue to keep a lookout for my compatriots of cycling, united perhaps not by what drives us but by the wind in our hair and the benefits it affords us all.
p.s. went shopping today, and I'm down a SOLID pants size, and then some...and with only the slightest bit of sucking, can nearly visualize my belly being as flat as it was before I gained all that weight. I'd jump up and down, but am feeling a little faint (just kidding! Actually, I feel pretty awesome, wahoooo!).

Disgusting But *TRUE* Bike Riding Adventures:

Things that make you question your new love of bike riding:
1) Persistent "crack o the ass" pain-- and, no; you CAN'T put Tiger Balm on it... (you can try, but I highly discourage it).
2) When you get home from a ride, hang out for an hour, and then look in the mirror; to discover that your face is speckled with dead bugs. Isn't there some rule somewhere that if people notice you have dead bugs on your face, they're suppposed to let you know?!
3) Pain in your nether parts (the ones that AREN'T your ass), that can best be described as "chappy lips". This must be why bikers wear goofy looking lycra pantalones vs low rise jean shorts with the thick seam in the crotch.

Anyhoo: I was reminded today of how powerful it is to be seen and noticed-- it's a whole different experience than what I've grown accustomed to, it's quite nice.