Category: NaBloPoMo

All entries from the National Blog Posting Month challenge.

November 5, 2013

~ Julia

Every week on Tuesday mornings, I get up at 5:15, like I always do, feed the cat, like I always do, pack my car, like I always do. But, on Tuesdays, different from any other weekday, I get into a pair of compression capris and a loose tee so I can be at the gym 39 miles away by 7:00 in the morning.

I’ve been doing some iteration of personal training one day a week for about two years now. I’m glad for the consistency of it: there were times where the only fitness I would get in a week was my once-a-week training with my trainer. There’s just something about paying someone to make you show up that makes you show up.

Charlie’s gotten very into running in the past year, and he loves it as his sport. I, however, no matter how I tried, could not get into running. Even after my Capital City Commit to be Fit 5K declaration, I just can’t do it. I prefer to lift. I’d much rather get cut up from squats, dead lifts, and planks-with-rows than from pounding 26 miles of pavement in a weekend.

Did I mention that my parents got a rowing machine because of the one they saw on House of Cards ? Did I also mention that I am totally jealous and trying to sell my recumbent bike, janky elliptical machine, plasma and eggs to get a rowing machine of my own?  I’d sit and row for hours  over running.

Back to weight training. Over two years, it has made a big difference: there is definition in my arms, legs, calves and back that weren’t there before. Even when I was horseback riding, even when I was at my willowiest from working retail. Charlie had his arm around me the other day and commented, “Wow, you can tell your arms are really strong,” and I was pretty tickled.  The funny thing is that I weigh more now  than I did when I was at my “heaviest” when I graduated college, but I look trimmer (short of the diet soda goo around my midsection, but I’m still holding on to some addictions). Clearly, and I knew this was true, muscle weighs more than fat.

In recent months, I’m on a new medication that has really helped me jump start my motivation for fitness, and I’ve been working out on my lunch hour almost every weekday for about two months. Instead of having to wake up any earlier, or get home any later, how convenient is it to just wander down one floor, bang out a workout, and walk back up a flight of stairs? I plan on taking my workouts up a notch in the next few weeks and making the sure commitment to get to the gym on weekend mornings while Charlie is out running with his club.​

I’m enjoying turning into a gym rat. I never thought I’d say that.

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November 4, 2013

~ Julia

As much as I am enjoying finally  living with Charlie after 10 years in separate parts of the state, there is still something nice about a quiet house when he is away, catching up on Supernatural  episodes with a tubby tabby snoring in my lap.

November 3, 2013

~ Julia

Sundays are housework day around The Apiary, as I am usually too lazy to do laundry, iron or vacuum during the week.  So, if I’m going at a pretty good clip, I can actually get five loads (workout clothes, whites, colors, towels, and delicates) from laundry 30-gallon-garbage-can to back in dressers and closets in 16 hours; as well as vacuuming the house and getting the ironing done as well.

It used to take me a lot longer to iron, doing Charlie’s work shirts and pants, as well as whatever ironable I had. But there is definitely truth into practice making perfect, and I can usually bang out the ironing much faster than I used to. I’m one of the few people on the planet who doesn’t mind ironing: I enjoy the careful repetitive motion of it, and I’m of the mindset that no amount of shower-humidity or Downy wrinkle-release will make up for what an iron can do. Martha Stewart is very proud of me, I’m guessing — I’ve never actually asked.

Today was no different. Laundry and ironing went faster than I thought it would, so I changed the sheets on the large guest bedroom bed, too. Now, they have nice, soft flannel, as well as the addition of a tootsie heater for guests. I find little else as jarring as sliding your feet into ice cold sheets when it’s cold out.

Of course, this bed-sheet-updating dovetails with the arrival of Pottery Barn’s winter catalog and my new obsession with getting the linens in our house as fluffy and almost-pornographically-sumptuous as in the pages of those catalogs.

As it turns out, and what I suspected was true, it takes some finagling and a little cambric chicanery to get a home bed to look like a hotel or catalog bed. I’m just going to have to split the difference and overstuff the duvet covers and get bolsters, because there is no way in hell  I am going to get hospital corners on a double-quilt-top Queen sized mattress without slipping a disk and ending up in traction.

This is clearly a sign that I am growing up, because I’m learning to pick my housekeeping battles.

November 2, 2013

~ Julia

The Bride to Be grew up in Mansfield, which is city-adjacent to where I attended college, and also where Charlie started his career, so I’d spent quite a bit of time there. But that was about 7 years ago, and it’s been a long time since I’d traveled down State Route 30 and gotten off at Trimble to head into Mansfield.

Mansfield had largely been build around manufacturing, and in the Age of Outsourcing, the city declined. Most of my experience with Mansfield has been in the less-than-affluent sections of town, so it was a nice change to travel to the part of town that wasn’t acutely impacted by the exit of the steel mills. The last leg of the trip to my destination felt as though I had turned down a street in Mansfield and ended up in Cleveland Heights, city-adjacent to the town where I grew up. I don’t know how true it is for other people, but I will spend the rest of my life comparing where I am to familiar places I’ve been.

At any rate, it was nice visiting with the Bride to Be and her Maid of Honor, who I’ve known for 10+ years, but really only get to see once or twice a year. At any rate, they are both so like family, I might as well say that they are. There is a picture of the three of us, taken after the shower, floating around someone’s camera, so I’m going to have to be a pill until it’s sent to me. I’m looking forward to putting it on the mantle with my other family pictures.

November 1, 2013

~ Julia

We might as well give this a go; it’s been fun in the past, and I see no reason not to continue it.  Though this year, again, I’ll not be registering my name in the annals, so I’m not “competing” for any prize.

I missed Trick-or-Treaters last night. I thought Charlie wouldn’t be home, working on Assistant Band Director Stuff, so I made plans to have dinner at my parents house. I was mistaken, but I still kept my plans, and Charlie painted the front door and passed out candy. We got 26 Trick-or-Treaters, which is far greater than the 0 my parents got, and the 2 Charlie got last year in his apartment complex. But it was way, way less than the anecdotal 200 a colleague told me she got.

The text I got from Charlie to go with this photo: "Trick-or-Tabby is minding the front door."
The text I got from Charlie to go with this photo: “Trick-or-Tabby is minding the front door.”

On slate for this month is the usual for November: general onset of inclement weather, progression towards the holidays, Thanksgiving, my quitting-smoking anniversary. On the schedule short-term that is different this year is that tomorrow, I’ll be attending a good friend’s wedding shower. I’m looking forward to it.

So there you go. A decent kick off to this month’s NaBloPoMo.