Improvement

2.19 miles in 30 minutes.  I'm doing better!  This was on the elliptical.  I've been doing the same pre-programmed "weight loss" setting each time, on each machine, in order to be able to keep track better.  I'll be sticking to about half an hour for now, and increase as I feel I plateau for that time frame.  Now that I have a really nice fitness center to go to that is free and close by, I look forward to going.  Granted, it's only been three days, but it's nice and quite and cool in there.  And once they get the cable hooked up on the TV, it will be even better, because watching the fuzzy news every afternoon is kind of lame.

I tried reading a magazine that I brought, but it was hard to read while bobbing up and down, so I guess I won't be doing that again.  Bummer.

Odin's not getting any better in the middle of the night, but I am thinking that we need to start locking him up in the bad kitty cage at night when we go to bed.  I think this way, he'll learn a schedule, and that he can't just be up annoying the crap out of us whenever he damn well pleases.  I'll let you know how that goes.

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Today

Only 1.64 miles in 33:00 minutes.  The elliptical was in use when I arrived, so I had to use the treadmill, which doesn't allow you to set your own pace as easily as an elliptical, you have to push the stupid button over and over again to find the right speed.  Oh well.  Felt good anyway.

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Today

Only 1.64 miles in 33:00 minutes.  The elliptical was in use when I arrived, so I had to use the treadmill, which doesn't allow you to set your own pace as easily as an elliptical, you have to push the stupid button over and over again to find the right speed.  Oh well.  Felt good anyway.

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Nada

No workout today.  Today was Open House for the fitness center, with free pizza!  What a great way to get people working out!  Plus, I knew no one would actually be working out at the Open House, because the guys who installed the equipment were coming in to show everyone how it works.  Which wouldn't seem like something you need to do with gym equipment, but even the pulley weights are set up digitally, so instead of sticking a pin into the weights, you select an amount on a digital screen.  Interesting.

Got all the bugs washed off my car, plus I'd run over some sort of hook and discovered it the day we were packing the car up for Fargo, but it was at such an angle as it only pierced the rubber, no walls.  The tire did fine the whole trip to and from Fargo, and I had the guys at the Mazda service shop check it out, and it was fine.  They did the classic soapy water test, and there were no bubbles.  Whew.  I don't want my car to be a nail magnet.

Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog is available again for free on MySpace, so check it out if you like Joss Whedon, musicals, and villains.

Well, the week is half over as of tomorrow!  These last few days have drug by SO SLOWLY.  And Odin isn't getting much better at night.  I put him in the kitty carrier at 4:30 this morning because he kept jumping on the bed and flopping on me with a toy in his mouth, mewing.  Eww.  He's so bored.  I really think he needs a friend.  But that has to be a joint decision.  Blah.

Anyway.  Until next time!

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Stats

2.07 miles in 30:05 minutes. 

The new fitness center for our apartment complex has finally opened up.  It's a really nice room, wooden ceilings and walls, with one mirrored wall.  A big, 50" (at least) flatscreen TV mounted on the wall in front of the ellipticals and treadmills, along with some free weights and some pulley weight machines.  It's nice and cold in there, so that's really good.  It was pretty popular, too.  All the times I'd gone to the old room, it was just me in there, along with the 2 other machines.  Today when I showed up there was already someone on the treadmill, and then two more girls showed up a little later.

The only bad thing?  They have this nice big TV hooked up to an antenna, instead of a cable, so half the time you couldn't see or hear what was on the TV.  Oh well, I brought headphones, so it didn't really matter.

So yeah, I am going to try to go every day after work, and take a break on the weekends.  I'll start off with half an hour on the elliptical, most likely, maybe do some biking, and some weights once in a while.  I'm going to try to record my miles and minutes, and see what kinds of improvements I can make.  I really want to lose about 20-30 pounds before the wedding, and I know that I have a year to do so...but I'm a procrastinator, so I'd better start now, or it'll never happen.

I'll post about our Fargo trip next.  Toodles!

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How to Stop the Nighttime Crazies

That is the name of the article I read this morning because Aaron had been up since 1:30am due to the cat monster yowling his head off all night long.  Normally the cat doesn't start howling until about 4:30am, and even lately, he hadn't started until closer to 5:30am.  But for some reason last night...or early this morning, 1:30am is when it all started.

I think Aaron was about to kill the cat.  He was up, about, in and out of the bedroom, on the computer, on the couch, snuggling with the cat...nothing.  Odin was still yowling and romping around on the bed. 

So I started to read some articles, as cats are nocturnal animals.  Many articles said that the cat needs a companion to keep each other company.  Other articles stressed keeping the cat busy in the early afternoon/late evening hours, and then feeding the cat a high-protein meal afterwards - which would simulate the cat hunting, and then eating his prey. 

I am pretty sure that Odin getting a girlfriend is out of the question, so after work today, I stopped by the store and picked up a laser pointer for him to play with.  It's a start - I got him panting and tired within minutes, but he's already lounging on the cool kitchen floor, and I can't get him motivated to do anything more.  Drats.  Maybe I need to wear him out later in the evening?

Any advice from fellow cat owners?

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Another weekend

Well, I guess I should clarify something from my post last weekend. Although I may vent about being frustrated with my sister and all her "ideas/suggestions" about our upcoming wedding planning, I by no means am going to really listen to her, or postpone the wedding, or anything like that. I was irritated after talking with her, and needed a place to vent about it, and my blog was the most convenient spot. That's all.

This week was pretty good. Work's been going well, I've been getting good feedback from my supervisor still, saying I'm handling my caseload well, I'm managing tough situations well, asking good questions, all that jazz. So that's exciting. Our company has a softball league starting in the middle of August, so I've signed up to play! That's going to be a lot of fun, although there's no team practices, so I need to head out to some batting cages a few times before the first game - Aaron and I have played catch a few times, just to get out of the apartment and go do something, but I haven't actually swung a bat at anything in about five years.

On Tuesday it was Aaron's birthday. We went to Granite City for dinner, which was excellent, and then just went home and chilled, very relaxing. On Wednesday, we had happy hour at work at a bar/grill called Majors with some of my co-workers. Lots of fun. Thursday was the St. Paul Saints game, Aaron's boss bought tickets for the company and some others, and we tailgated for a bit, then went to the game at the 4th inning. Lots of fun, we won, and almost got killed by a foul ball. Good times. On Friday, we just stayed home. I had tons of laundry to do, and was just pooped from the week. On Saturday we hung out with Karlie, Jamie was at a concert, so he did not get to enjoy the steaks, French silk pie, or sweet carrots from the grill. Shame. We had a good time.

Today has been lots of cleaning and getting the apartment back into shape. It always seems to get so messy during the course of the week. I don't know how. But we are getting ready to watch Hellboy so I can be prepared for Hellboy 2 in theaters! Until next time!

Frustrated

So I want to start doing some more wedding planning this weekend with Aaron, and I was relaying this information to my sister via MSN Messenger.  She pointed out that if we have the wedding in the fall (any later than the last week in August), she might not be able to make it because she will still be in school.  This will be her last semester, and she is worried about missing some classes and not passing. 

I think the chances of that happening at the beginning of the school year are slim, especially within the first few weeks of school, but she thinks differently.  I also figure people aren't going to be coming out here for an entire week, just a long weekend, but I don't really know how this is going to work. 

She says "Can't you wait 2 years, and then I will be out of school?"  Or "August is a really bad time for Dad, can't you have a spring wedding?  Or one during my Christmas break?"  I do want to have people be able to come, obviously.  That is the whole point of planning a ceremony like this.  But, this is also MY wedding, and I want it during the fall, which is my favorite time of the year.  And I want it outside, because I want to enjoy the fall foliage.

I'm frustrated.  Overwhelmed.  But this is our day, not everyone else's day.  But I want everyone else to enjoy it with us.  Maybe we can push it back to August, although I don't think there are any fall colors in August.  But that's okay - greens are pretty, too.  I'm flexible.  For the most part.  But I also don't want to be sweating to death on my wedding, either.

I don't really know where to start.  It's too early to start trying on dresses for one reason - I need to lose some weight before the wedding.  About 30 pounds is all, but it needs to come off because I am not going to be a fat bride.  Not sure about cakes, but I do have some in mind that I have found on the internet.

At least it's the weekend, and I can sit down with Aaron and start getting some things sorted out.  Hopefully.

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Weird...

Aaron and I went to Coldstone Creamery for some ice cream yesterday afternoon because we had a coupon that let us get an "add in" for free.  I was checking the bank account this morning, and there was a credit to our account for $7.15.  That's a very weird and small amount to be added to the account, and right before that transaction was a debit for $7.15.  It looks like the kid at the register accidentally credited the whole sale back, instead of just the cookie that was added into my ice cream cup. 

Sometimes those amounts aren't accurate, however.  Like, if one of us goes to the gas station, for about a day or two after, you'll see a debit of just $1.00, as a pre-authorization debit.  Then, after it clears, the actual amount you paid for your gas shows up.  Guess I'll just have to keep an eye out on that.

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Holiday Weekend

Well, after a nice short week at work, Aaron and I enjoyed a nice long weekend at home. Friday started off with not much, but we ended up going to see the fireworks in St. Louis Park. I had done quite a bit of research on how to photograph fireworks because I just wasn't sure what settings I needed to use. After some good tips, some practice, and a tripod, I was all ready to go. Here are some of the better ones out of the 140 pictures I snapped.













On Saturday, Aaron and I went out to visit Jay and Anne and their new baby, Parker. He's about five weeks old, and we hadn't met him yet because he was in the hospital for the first week or so due to various ailments. He's doing great now, and is a very sweet baby. I even got to hold him for a while, and he fell asleep on me. But no worries for me, there were no "I wish I had a baby of my own" feelings to be had.

Sunday has been busy. We have been slowly working on cleaning the apartment all weekend, due to the fact that we just unloaded all our crap last Sunday from the road trip, and left a lot of it in the living room. Odin has reverted back to his terrible ways, which took him all of a day to do so upon returning to the apartment. He's been running amok all afternoon, grrrmowing and grrrschproinging off the furniture, and basically being a monster. Hopefully he will fall asleep soon.

The last weekend of this month, Aaron and I are going to go to Fargo to visit my college roommate, Jill, which is really exciting for me because I haven't seen her since March or somewhere around there, and that was just for lunch, and I haven't ever been to Fargo to visit her since she's been living there for the last four years.

So that's it! My update for the week. After we finish watching the baseball game, we're going to Coldstone Creamery to get some ice cream. Mmm, mmm, good.

The end

I forgot to finish blogging about the end of our trip!  Well, I didn't forget, I got pretty busy.  So I ended on Friday, which was starting out to be pretty relaxing.  We did end up going to the bar again, as usual, and met up with Bryce and Liz finally.  On Saturday my mom and dad came up from Gillette for one last "goodbye", and we had a great dinner of steak, potatoes, fruit salad, and a whole bunch of other great stuff.  We made a trip to the Crow Peak Brewery, where Dad and Aaron sampled their different types of beer, and Mom and I sat and played cribbage while they did so.  After Mom and Dad left, we started getting stuff packed up, and went and had dinner with Henry at Applebee's for another last goodbye.  Finished packing the car, and then we were outta Spearfish by 8am. 

Odin did much better on the outside world when we stopped at rest areas, he wasn't nearly as terrified as he was the first time I let him out of the car at the rest area.  Unless you count the time that Odin saw the Basset Hound bounding towards him at a rest area.  "Don't worry, he lives with a cat!" the owner shouted over the wind.  Yeah, but Odin has never been around another animal that is 10x his size.  The cat puffed up to about three time his regular size, and we retreated to the car.  We listened to the Twins game on the radio, and made it into Minneapolis around 7:30pm.  Unpacked the car, Aaron made macaroni and cheese for dinner, as we had no food in the house except that, and I was in bed by 9:30.  Exhausted.

Odin had done pretty well at Aaron's parents' house - got used to it after a few days, and was tearing around like his normal self eventually.  He slept all through the night, at our feet on the bed, which he never does at home, and that was really nice.  However, that behavior did not translate to apartment living once we got home.  He was back to his antics of bringing toys up into the bed and flopping around on us, eating our hair, and making horrible noises at 4:30am after being locked out of the bedroom for the flopping episodes.  Some things will never change.

Well, here it is, Thursday, and the apartment is still a disaster.  Aaron brought home a bunch of camping stuff and some personal stuff from his parents' house, and I brought home one box of stuff from my parents' house.  Most of that has yet to be unpacked or put away in the garage.  Aaron brought some stuff home that he wants to try and sell, but he hasn't gotten around to that yet.  We've both been pretty busy with work, coming home, cooking, cleaning, and going to bed.  Thank goodness we have a three day weekend.

I was pretty swamped when I got to work on Monday, a lot of stuff I was hoping to have accomplished when I got back by my co-workers was not, so not only was it a Monday, it was month-end, and I was just coming back from being gone for a week.  I did miss the 4-day deadline that we try to meet on a couple of items because of that, but my boss knows that it was an isolated incident, and wasn't too worried about it.  Thank goodness, because they were mostly just tasks I could have cancelled and forgot to, due to the "running around like a chicken with its head cut off" all Monday.

We don't have any big plans for the holiday weekend.  A friend of ours is in the hospital, he just had surgery today, so we might be able to go visit him, and another friend of ours had a baby about a month ago that we haven't met yet.  This baby is the one I made the green baby blanket for a few months ago. 

But for now, it is just nice to be at home for the evening, playing cheap-ass games, listening to music, and not doing a damn thing.  

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