Body Pump or Body Pummel? Why It Hurts to Drink Water After Strenuous Workouts

My whole body feels like I've been pummelled. Every inch of me hurts. But it's the best kind of pain...the pain of a new workout routine. Oh. My. Gosh. "Pump It Up!" does this to me every time I get back into it. It's been so long since I've been to class, I probably should have raised my hand when Stella asked if there were any newbies in the room.

I have lots of excuses for not going, most of them relating to the two preschoolers I spend their every waking minute with. It's hard to stay committed to a workout class when your kids get sick, first one, then the other, then your spouse, and just when you think you've escaped this latest nasty virus, your glands start to swell, your turtleneck gets too tight, and all you want to do is stay in bed! Ugh!

Well, apparently there is a solution to my dilemma on You Tube. Body Pump is a worldwide thing apparently. You can view workouts in lots of different languages, right in the comfort of your own home (or home office, if you have a desktop computer). Frankly, I'll probably never do this at home. I need the peer pressure of a room full of women my age and older (mostly older than me) doing every single rep of every single move. If they are doing it, then I can (have to) do it too! I just have to get there when I can, and when I can't, I need to pump up the cold prevention stuff. The Mayo clinic has some guidelines for cold prevention here.

In the meantime, I am hobbling around like a little old woman, carefully lowering myself onto the toilet and painfully getting back up. They say you should drink lots of water after strenuous workouts, but I dread the end result! They also say you should keep working out when you are sore, to warm and stretch your muscles...I purposely went to the Thursday class so I would have the weekend to recover! Maybe I'll go for a walk, or maybe I'll do some of my favorite stretches and curls: stretch out on the couch, in the recliner, or on the bed and curl up with a good book!

Our Newest Addition

Going for almost a whole month without a cat is too long for our family, so this weekend we went to the Humane Society and got Cameron, a female calico. She is so sweet; we are really enjoying her and she has adapted well to our family. Here she is, hangin' with Elmo:

Todd picked her because she's pretty, and he did a good job. It's blind faith, since they don't let you take the cats out of the cages until you're adopting them, which is a little scary. Then she didn't peep the whole way home and I thought she'd died or something. She had a family, but for some reason they took her to the Humane Society; she'd been there since early November - another reason Todd picked her. She still has a lot of kitten in her. The first two nights she woke us up meowing at 4:30 a.m. so we shut her out of our bedroom at night now. She sniffs the boys and rubs her face on their hands. She's not crazy about being chased by Ethan, but she adores Todd and likes to chew on my hair. We named her after Dr. Cameron on "House," one of our favorite shows. It's nice to not be quite so outnumbered by boys now. :)

Facebook Fun

Can I just say how cool Facebook is? Since I've signed on, I've spoken to a bunch of old friends that I haven't spoken to in years. It really has been cool.

Today, I spoke to my aunt whom I haven't heard from in years. I've tried tracking her down in various ways and until Facebook, she was lost to me. I figured out that if I looked up my techie cousin Gabriel, I could track her that way. It worked!

Finding my Aunt Numa was huge for me. She is my mom's sister. To me, she represents my mom. My mom passed away when I was 19 and Numa was the closet person to her at that time. She is literally the only person in the world that knows both me and my mom from way back.

Anyway, the other people have been the ones that I've wondered "what ever happened to....". The crummy thing is that it also brings back memories of the less than mature things that I've done to/with friends in the past. So far, all has been forgiven or forgotten. Whew! I have some plans for asking forgiveness for a few things. Very cathartic. If I had a therapist, I think she would be proud of my progress thus far.

Now, how in the world do I keep up with the posts? I'll let you know...

She Won't Grow Up

THE Princess has decided that she never wants to grow up. In fact, when someone asks her age, she says that she is three and that she is not going to be four. This all started last year at her annual doctor appointment. We talked about getting shots and that she might need some to keep her healthy. She was so happy when the pediatrician told her that you don't need shots when you are three, in fact you don't need any until you are four.

For months, she told everyone, "You don't need shots when you are three! Three is the best." I agreed. We have had some great days during three. Her birthday is approaching in March. It will be the first year for her to have a birthday party with friends. I've been asking her what kind of party she wants.

Princess? No.
Ben 10? No.
Art? No.
Faries? No.
Pink? No.
Tea party? No.
Sleep over? No.
Picnic? No.

This has more than shocked me, since her favorite thing to play is birthday party. In fact, she spends a lot of time making pretend cakes, singing the birthday song, and blowing out imaginary candles. I have had so many birthday parties that I am now officially 3,427 years old. Awesome.

So, when she started announcing that she was never going to grow up and didn't want a birthday party, I was stunned.

Then I thought it was because she has recently had a kind of addiction to Peter Pan. We have been reading the book and watching the movie quite a bit lately. She wants to be Tinkerbell. (I totally found her a brand new Tinkerbell costume at a garage sale last weekend - only $1! Whoot!)

Then it was revealed, she doesn't want shots. From a girl whose best game is birthday party. She is willing to give up her greatest joy. I am planning the party anyway. And, I am putting off her doctor's appointment until the next month so that I can take KOTJ and her together. Maybe that will help to deal with it. In fact, last month when I took KOTJ for his well-check, I told the doctor about our problem with the shots. He gave me his cell phone number and told me to have THE Princess call him.

And, I try not to bring up the "s" word. But, secretly, I don't want her to grow up either.

Say What...

I was lucky enough to spend some time last weekend with my college friend Jody. We had a great time clipping coupons, reliving memories and watching our kids play. More than once during the weekend, Jody said "snap" in the same way I use "shoot" or "darn," so I started saying "snap" in my head just to see if I could work it into everyday life. I finally had to realize that I cannot pull off "snap." Even worse, I realized that it had been a few years since I could pull off the latest street jargon. When I was in college, I used "my bad" correctly, and I think I did OK with "you go girl". My youngest brother is 12 years younger than me, so he taught me how to say "that's tight" or "off the hook", and the taught me when and how to keep things on the "down low". Apparently though not too many people say down low anymore. I think it has been replaced by "QT", which makes no sense to me. In my mind, QT should stand for quiet time, of which I am definitely a fan!

So it makes me wonder what happened to me and my youth. It seems like somewhere along the way, I have lost my ability to have fun and be cool. Did I just wake up this old one day? I have three plausible theories:

1. It seems like I have already forgotten a lot of what Alex and I have done in the last three years, so maybe I didn't really live it. Maybe during my sleep, I was transported through time.

2. For three years, I was an accountant at our local hospital. Maybe the other accountants were jealous of my youth, sense of humor, and zest for life. Maybe they kidnapped me and forced me to have a lobotomy that took away the fun part of my brain.

3. Our cell phone plan does not have texting. Maybe everyone in the US but me is getting texted with the latest catch phrases.

Don't cry for me, my peeps. There is still hope. I also heard Jody say, "holy chicken cacciatore" and I think I can roll with that one.

Hello, old friend...

If you are a regular reader of our Motley Moms blog, you have certainly heard about our adventures in Once a Month Cooking. Since last summer several of us have gathered one day a month to, well, cook (hence the title Once a Month Cooking). On that day we prepared enough meals to feed our families for the month, and doing this saved us time and money.

For several reasons we have decided to skip cooking this month, and I was more than a little nervous when I realized that my normally full-of-dinner freezer would no longer be able to help me feed my family. Even more unnerving was the realization that I would need to begin actually planning our meals again. I have never been good at this. I always end up at the grocery store hastily grabbing things that look like dinner only to return home and discover that I bought sauce but no pasta or marinade but no meat.

Well, yesterday after a morning at the question-writing office, I grocery store-ed and produce stand-ed my way home to a kitchen just waiting for dinner prep. I took out our standard Saturday night spaghetti sauce and started browning some ground beef. I remembered the squash and zucchini I had purchased, and I reached into the drawer for my knife. My knife. I watched as she sliced effortlessly through green and yellow and left a confetti of little cubes to add to our sauce. I remembered how excited I was the first time I chopped garlic with her after bringing her home from the store on my birthday. The poor thing hasn't seen much action lately since my cooking has been so sporadic. We worked together to create a beautiful meal, and I felt like a Teppanyaki chef at his hibachi (though I probably looked more like the Swedish Chef on the Muppet Show). I was a creator of food, not just a cook, and it felt good to do that again.

So, I'm still not that comfortable with planning our meals, and I will probably still need to improvise when I forget a few ingredients on my shopping trips, but I am excited about using some creativity again in the kitchen. I think my knife is happy to be back in the game, too.

I must confess that we did chop so much that we were able to divide last night's sauce into two meals, one of which is happily waiting in the freezer for another night. Hey, you don't expect me to cook every day, do you?

Questionable Quote for the Day

Thought I'd share a quote from my week, which has been unusually cold and filled with lots of whining, sneezing, coughing, fevers, and mucous...gotta love cold season. It's the only time I have hypochondriac tendencies.

This was me, after a loooooong day of wiping noses...and I was serious as I probed under my chin:

"I can't tell if my glands are swollen, or my turtleneck is too tight! "

Paul and I just cracked up when I realized how blonde mom that sounded (no offense to my blonde mommy friends)! In my defense, I almost never wear turtleneck tops. Stacy and Clinton would agree, they really make me look like the turtleneck is the only thing holding my head up!

Have a terrific weekend! I have to run to the drugstore to restock our Cold Season Arsenal!