Why I Love the X Games

There is a new event at the X Games, it's called the Skateboard Big Air Rail Jam. Basically, there is a giant drop, then after a 50 ft jump, there is a long rail and a quarter pipe at the end.

The video is from last night's big air competition. You can see the drop (which is crazy dangerous!) is the same as in the video, only off the middle run, there is a rail for this competition.

It's the first time this event has ever been at the X Games. Competing in this competition, is Danny Way. He's a huge badass in the sport of skateboarding. He originated the Big Air competition (and took the sport's first gold medal). He has jumped the Great Wall of China. The.

Great.

Wall.

of.

China!!

Skateboard Big Air Rail Jam was his idea, too. He's a pioneer and has done a lot to really progress the sport.

Tonight, he dropped into the ramp with a bum wheel on his skateboard. Oh yeah, and his knee won't bend. For those of you not into skateboarding, when you fall, they generally try to fall so they are sliding on their knees. It's safer. It's why they all wear knee pads. Danny Way can't fall into a knee slide, so he's just got to slide on his ass and hope for the best.

And, if that weren't enough, he rolled his ankle. He bit it pretty hard on one of his early runs. Tony Hawk, who commentates for this event for ESPN, thought with Danny's other injuries that he might be done for the night.

But, no. Danny, who could barely walk, dragged his ass to the top for the winning run.

That's right. On a bum wheel, injured knee and rolled ankle, he fucking won!

After he won, Kier was interviewing Danny and asked him why, at this point in his career when he really has nothing to prove, did he come out here to compete in this event.

His answer?

He loves skateboarding.

It's inspiring to watch athletes who give their whole heart and soul to their sport, not for a paycheck or fame, but for the love of the game. They play through pain and injury, because they can't bear not to.

That's a beautiful thing. It reminds me why I love sports.

Naked Laundry

You know what's annoying about doing laundry? It's never done. I'm always wearing clothes which at the end of the day, go right in the laundry basket. 

Anybody else ever feel like just doing the laundry naked? You know, so when you're done, you're done. Every item of clothing in the house is officially clean. 

Please! You know you've thought the same thing. 

P.S. You may want to avoid my house on laundry day. 

Or not. Naughty bird.

Cleaning Out My Closet

Finally! Finally, I got around to cleaning out my closet. It's been a long time coming. The herd needed to be culled. It didn't really take that long, but I was surprised at how hard it was. Not hard physically, hard emotionally. 

Some items were pretty easy: it doesn't fit, I never really cared for it all that much in the first place, into the Charity bag it goes. Bing. Bang. Boom. Done. 

Other items were harder. I bought that sweatshirt in Canada on a spring break trip with the husband. We had a really good time and were really happy. I wore that dress to Snoop and DaisyDuke's wedding. Sist-A gave me that shirt for Christmas. Those used to be my favorite pants, I wandered all over the U of M in them. I never thought I'd fit into them again. That was my favorite t-shirt. It made me feel good about myself at a time when I very rarely felt pretty. 

I've always been a bit of a sentimental type, more than most people realize. I wanted to put them back in my closet, so I could wrap myself up in those memories whenever I felt like it. That way they would never be able to slip away. 

But, that's ridiculous. They're just clothes, right? As I placed each sentimental item in the bags (there were far too many to keep), I kept telling myself, it's a good thing. This will go to someone who needs this. I won't wear it because it doesn't fit anyway. Let it go. This is a good thing. 

Even so, there were a few things I couldn't bring myself to part with. Not yet.

My high school track shirts, my prom dress, my Rainbow Falls jacket, a sweatshirt I got in Hawaii, a t-shirt I got when we went on vacation with mr. blume and manricor in Las Vegas, a red dress my dad bought me when I was a little girl. 

At the end of the day, it feels good to get rid of those things. I don't need them sitting around, gathering dust and taking up space. It feels cleaner and lighter. I can see all the clothes I actually wear now, and as an added bonus, the Great Hanger Crisis of 2009 is over. 

That Was Unexpected!

Today was my first real yoga class. Sist-A and I went to a Yoga 101 seminar on Saturday where you learn some of the positions, vocabulary and philosophy, but that was nothing like today.

I have to admit, going into it, I thought it would be easy. I thought it would be a lot of stretching and flexibility stuff, but I didn't think it was going to be a challenge. I'm utterly delighted to find it otherwise. It's exactly what I was looking for when I took that failure of a water aerobics class. 

Things that made me pretty happy about this yoga class:

• To my surprise, I actually broke a sweat
• At one point, my thighs were only holding me up through sheer force of will
• Despite how hard it was, I was still able to go running afterwards
• Turns out that zen hoo-hah stuff actually works. I thought it was kind of crap as she started out with it, but as she talked us through visualizing our stress being released, I felt little pockets of stress in my back give way. Honestly, I didn't even realize they were they until I relaxed.

All in all, I'm calling it a win...

... hopefully, I'm still going to be able to walk tomorrow. 

Times are a changing

Changing is hard. 

This week, I'm going to try to change my schedule so that I can fit yoga into my daily routine. There is a yoga studio near where I work (Bliss Flow Yoga), so I can go during the day or early afternoon. The good thing about where I work is that it's very flexible, so if I want to step out for an hour to practice yoga, no big deal. 

The key is that I have to get up earlier to do it. 

To say that I'm not a morning person is the understatement of the century. 

Imagine a cranky, salty, curmudgeon who likes to rampantly curse about really small offenses. Yeah, that's basically me in the morning. 

So, it's going to be interesting to see how easily I adjust to getting up an hour earlier so that I can afford the time to go do this. 

It takes 21 days to create a habit, so this should only be a pain in the ass until it becomes a habit. I'm just not looking forward to trying to get to bed by 10, so that I can get a decent amount of sleep.

It's day one, and I've already missed 10 o'clock. 

Inner peace here I come? 

Culinary Ninja

I made bars today for our Brewer's tailgate tomorrow. 

(Bars, for the non-Wisconsinites are, as far as I can tell, any dessert that can be served from a 13 x 9 pan)

To make the bars, I had to melt some chocolate, so I rigged up a makeshift double boiler to do it. I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty much feeling like a culinary bad ass at this point. 

No microwave for me, thank you very much! 

I'll do it the hard way. I'll take the not-a-double-boiler-but-I'll-make-it-into-one-anyway, please. 

If the bars turn out to be awesome (and why wouldn't they?), it will definitely be due to my ninja-like double boiling skills. 

P.S. I have noticed, but I no idea why so many of my blogs are food related lately. 

Churning Around

Growing up, we had a pool in our backyard.

It's not that uncommon in Texas, but since you asked, Yes, it totally kicked ass. 

My sister and I spent most of our summers soaked in chlorine. We were such water babies. We loved to swim and play around. We had tons of games we would play, underwater tea parties, gymnastics competitions (she cheated, just FYI) and ice cream parlor to name a few. 

Then, we moved up north and BLAMMO, no more water. Oh, I know. There's water here, but I don't really have access to it like we did in Texas. 

So, I was looking forward to trying this water aerobics class I signed up for at the Y. At worst, I figured it would be fun, nostalgic even, for me to spend an hour splashing around. At best, it would totally kick my ass and I'd be sore and barely able to finish, plus all that nostalgic, fun junk. 

As it turns out, water aerobics at the Y equals social hour for middle aged women. Sure, they splash around. Perhaps they aerobicize, I can't really tell what anyone else is doing in the water. But mostly, it's social hour. They all know each other. Apparently, there is also a water aerobics class on Mondays and Wednesdays that they take together. 

Maybe if I was a social butterfly, I would enjoy this and make a whole gaggle of friends. But, it's better to have a more than passing acquaintance with reality, so I think we can all admit, this just isn't going to happen. 

Plus, if they spend the whole time talking, do you think this class has been kicking my ass? Let me answer that for you. No. It isn't. At all. It's ridiculously easy. I've been still doing my regular Tuesday night workout after it because it just too damn easy. 

I may finish out the rest of this class, I did pay $10 whole dollars for it, so I may as well get my money's worth out of it. But, I don't think I'll be back. In addition to the downsides already mentioned, I've seen way too many completely nude middle-aged women today.

It's not pleasant.

It's disappointing because I was really hoping this might be something I could add to shake up the routine a little bit. As it turns out, if you go to the gym and do the same thing over and over (and over and over) again, eventually you get bored. Who knew?

I've been thinking about checking out a yoga studio near where I work for a little lunchtime yoga. And I'd like to drag the husband to visit the climbing gym on the east side. But, I'm not sure what else to do to keep it interesting. 

The Power of Cheese

There's no way around it. I'm having a bad week.

I wore my "Power of Cheese" shirt from Cheese Days today. I was hoping it would help power me through.

"The Power of Cheese compels you!"

So far, all it's gotten me is a speeding ticket.

I keep trying to tell myself that I see the light at the end of the tunnel, but then the little voice of evil in the back of my mind keeps cackling and says, "Yeah, that light at the end of the tunnel? Probably a train. Toot, toot! Peanut butter!"

Shut up! Stupid evil voice.

Something New

We got our summer mailer from the YMCA on Thursday. I've been wanting to try something new for awhile, so I decided to sign up for one of the classes they offered. This is the one I signed up for:

Hydro-Cuff-Core and More

Give yourself an entire body workout! Buoyancy cuffs, strapped to your ankles, engage your core muscles as you burn calories, build full body strength, fine tune your balance, and increase your endurance. This is an excellent cross training workout for beginner athletes or advanced athletes that want a fun and challenging high energy class.

Sounds fun... maybe? Hopefully. Or at least different, which is what I want. According to the mailer, the class started June 22. But, when signed up for it I ended up signed up for the class that begins April 20. 

Yikes! 

That's really soon.

That means I have to go shopping for a bathing suit. Today. 

Because Trivia is next weekend, so this is the only day I've got to go.

Double yikes!

Wish me luck.

That wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be

That's what she said.

Ha. 

No, really. Today, in addition to going to the grocery store, hardware store, gym and baking cupcakes (strawberry with vanilla icing AND sprinkles, delicious!), I stripped the wall paper out of our half bath. It's been a busy day. I'm tired. 

It was the most hideous looking wall paper known to man. I have hated it ever since we moved in. I put off taking it down because I thought it would be this big ordeal because in order to really get it all down I needed to move the toilet in that bathroom.

As it turns out, both moving a toilet and stripping wallpaper are not as hard as I thought they were. Really, start to finish, the whole project only took a couple of hours. I'm not completely done yet as I still have to fix the walls and repaint the bathroom, but still, I should have done this years ago.

It looks so much better. Of course, it wouldn't have been such a big relief if I had done it years ago. I wouldn't have come to loathe that fucking wallpaper, so I guess it all works out in the end. Right?

I feel so handy.

I Should Have Done This Years Ago

I swear the woman who owned our house before we did LOVED to put pictures on the walls. Every two feet. On every wall in the house.

There were about half a billion (at least) holes in the walls when we moved in. Including wall anchors. Mostly I've just been ignoring them for the last 3 1/2 years. 

Then, when we were in San Antonio last weekend we bought a painting and had it shipped home. I hung it on the wall and there were two ugly holes above it and one right below it. It was driving me crazy. I didn't want to look at those stupid fucking holes every time I looked at my beautiful picture. 

So, yesterday I went to the hardware store and bought some Spackle and a putty knife and went to work. I pulled out all the damn anchors, spackled, sanded and painted all of the holes I could find. I even touched up the paint in some places that had been dinged or scraped over the last couple of years. 

The walls look SO much better. I can't believe I waited this long to do this. No more holes around my painting, no more holes anywhere. Yay!

It feels so good to have this checked off my list of things to do I've already started planning home improvement project number 2: The upstairs half-bathroom. 

The ugliest wall paper on the planet is falling off the walls and the door hinges are rusty. 

If I can get this done before August of 2012 I'll still be ahead of the game!

Iron Man

When I was running at the gym today, Iron Man came up on my play list. It reminded me of a conversation I had over New Years with T-Rex (son of mr. blume and manricor).

He told me a kid at his school sits at his desk, does a mini-head bang and sings to himself, "I am Iron Man, dun-na-nuh-nuh-na-na-na-nah"

I'll tell you what I told him. 

That kid is rock-star awesome!

If you're going to be the weird kid who sings to himself, fucking sing Iron Man. Own it. Make it your anthem. 

I want to be more like this kid. Let's face it, I might already be the weird kid. I might as well start singing Iron Man. 

Sigh. Thanks Dad?

What did we do for mr. blume that was once in a lifetime? For Christmas, my dad bought shirts for all the kids. They all had funny sayings on them.

These were ours. 

Yes. My shirt is pink and says "Cougar" on it. It also has a silhouette of a sexy woman holding a martini. 

I don't wear pink. I am NOT a cougar, thus, once in a lifetime. 

Oh, well. At least they are a matched set. 

Thanks D. 

Trooper

The gym has been kicking my ass lately. 

I was finally able to do my entire run at 7 m.p.h. again today. 

For the last week or so, I've had to take it down to 6 m.p.h. at about the 21 minute mark whenever I run. 

I don't know what was wrong with me. 

It sure as hell wasn't easy to tough it out today. 

I had to convince myself to keep running in 5 second increments. 

Only 6:55 left... 6:45... 6:40... 

You can make it. You can make it.

I am not weak!

Mistress Quartergoddess

I'm wearing my vampy knee-high, high heeled, black leather boots today with a skirt.
I feel like I should have a whip and handcuffs and tell you our safe word is "bananas foster."
Shut up, you little puke.
That's Mistress Quartergoddess to you...

Admiration

When it comes to people I admire, the list isn't really that long.
And don't feel bad if you're not on it, I haven't ever actually met anyone on the list.
And I wouldn't put anyone I know on the list. I won't look up to you, because we have to be equals.
The people I admire and respect tend to make me put my own life in perspective.
They make me realize that whatever I have accomplished, there are greater accomplishments out there.
They make me realize that even though I am good at doing a lot of things, there are people who do them better.
These people make me work harder, even though sometimes they depress me.
They also possess talents I don't usually have myself.

Here are some (not all) of the folks on this admiration list for me: (Although they are numbered they are in no particular order)


1. Josh Beckett - He's my age. He and I graduated from college the same year. He also managed to win a world series ring that year. **I am an underachiever!
2. Julia Childs - I have grudgingly admitted her to the list recently. She's a cooking biddy, which is all well and good (although in all honesty, not enough to make the list), but she was also a spy. A mother-fucking spy! Sigh... my life is SO boring in comparison.
3. Tats - He is better than me at running and pretty much everything else at the gym. He gives me something to aim for.
4. Kanye West - Whatever else you want to say about him, he believes in himself and he believes in quality. I don't think there is anything he couldn't accomplish if that's what he decided he wanted to do.
5. My boss - The CEO of my company is a really and truly ethical person. "We believe that what we tolerate is what we stand for..." (I'd say her name, but then I know people at work have Google alerts set up for her name and I would rather be able to speak my mind on my blog)
6. Drew Barrymore - Look at young Hollywood today. Drew got herself into trouble when she was a teenager and somehow managed to pull herself together to become one a big star in Hollywood. She is a beacon of success in a sea of failures. She's had to figure out how to steer her own course. She's made herself into what she's become.


There are more, I just can't think of them at the moment.

I think my mom could anchor this relay...

My favorite quote from the Olympics so far.
Rowdy Gaines said, "I think my mom could anchor this relay..." talking about the men's 4x200 freestyle relay.
Did you see that shit?
It wasn't as exciting as the men's 4x100 freestyle relay... true, but it was fucking amazing.
They didn't just break the world record. They crushed it.
They smashed it and ground it into little tiny bits of pieces.
It must have been awesome to get drafted for that team.

I imagine it went something like this....
Listen, kid, Michael Phelps is going to give you a phenomenal lead.
All you have to do is not suck.
Got that?
All you have to do is not suck and you can win a gold medal and perhaps break a world record.
Are you in?

That was awe inspiring. By the third swimmer, the Americans would have to gotten a cramp and died in order to lose. They would have had to quit swimming and started doing the doggie paddle.

So, I'll give you that Rowdy Gaines, your mother, my mother, any body's mother could have anchored for a win for the Americans.

Wedding of the Century

Tomorrow is the wedding of some good friends of mine.
The whole shebang starts tonight with the Rehearsal dinner.
(And for those of you wondering, according to Blogger's spell check, I spelled shebang correctly. Ha!)
The husband and mr. blume are at the actual rehearsal as I type this.
It's like standing on the edge of an infinite abyss.
I know it's there, but I can't really comprehend at the moment how big it is.
Snoop and DaisyDukes are two of the most organized, most... specific? (not sure what the right word is to say, they know what they want and how they want it) people I know.
This is not a bad thing.
It will be interesting to see what they have put together for their special day. I'm sure it will be (1) gorgeous, (2) organized, and (3) perfect. Knowing the two of them, they wouldn't have it any other way.
So, to the happy couple, congratulations.
To everyone else, the time for the wedding of the century is upon us.
Hopefully, I'll survive to see you on the other side.

Science has proved it!

Science has finally "proved" what we (those of us that are the oldest) already knew... it IS harder being the oldest sibling.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24397323/

11 Days and Counting...

Today is the 11th day in a row that I've made it to the gym. I'm not sure how long this can go on, but I'm just going to keep going until something else comes up. I figure with Hawaii coming up at the end of the month, getting in a few extra nights at the gym can only help.

Plus, I actually enjoy going to the gym. It is time that I have totally to myself, doing something solely for myself. Not because of work, friends, dogs or family... just me. Only I can determine what I do at the gym and how hard I work at it. I can slack off, if I choose, or more often I can push myself just to see what I'm capable of accomplishing.

I've been upping the number of times I go per week over the last month and I can tell the difference at the gym. My legs are less tired, my lungs are stronger and my heart is less stressed. Yay!