Peace, WITHOUT the chicken grease!

Oh endorphins, oh endorphins

so mighty within my body and mind.

What would I do without you?

Would I wither and die from exhaustion?

Would I wander around like wet spagetti?

You lift me up!

You make my mood light!

You sing through my body like a clown on speed!

My steps are lighter when you are at your most populous.

You are free and you make me free!

I could crush a Mac truck with my bare hands

while cooking grilled cheese sandwiches for my children.

Oh, endorphins, you are my drug of choice.

Now if you just came in a little plastic container that I could swallow like I do my multivitamin the world would be perfect!

Thank you.

Ta da!

Yep, that’s right. My brain is COMPLETELY fried due to classes IN COLLEGE!!!!! starting tomorrow and I’ve been reading ahead so that I can be one of those seriously annoying people who read ahead all the time and act all smart and stuff-n-puff. Yeah, I’m a college student now. I’m a freshman! At 38! It’s seriously blowin’ my mind. I think my hair is starting to get sucked into dread locks and I’m having a curious hankering to wear tie-dye t-shirts and ripped jean shorts with long johns under them. I don’t know if that’s actually the "style" that the young ‘uns wear now-a-days (WHERE’S MAH CANE, GLASSES AND SUPPORT HOSE?!?!) but that’s what it was the last time I went to college which I won’t say how long ago that was but I’m pretty sure that gas was about $1.20 a gallon and no one had even heard of a DVD before.

So I’m aiming at a degree in criminal justice. Yes! I’m following the growing herd of people who want to go into law enforcement! But hey, talk about job security. There’s ALWAYS gonna be bad guys, and there’s ALWAYS gonna be a need for people to get those bad guys off the street…or get them into rehab…or make them do community service. Not that I want to become a cop necessarily, but I’m learning quickly that the justice system is something of a hydra. You cut one head off, and two more grow in it’s place. You drop one program, and two more replace it. Viola, instant jobs!

So, what does my going to college have to do with fitness? Well…let me think about that one for a minute…

Oh yeah! I got one! So, like, I’m like, working on improving my body, riiiiiiiight? So like, I’m working on improving my mind at the same time! HOh! I’m gooood…cause I’m a college student.

Yeah, that’s right. I’m going to be singing the praises of being a college student FOREVER!!! or at least until I’m no longer a college student, or until the novelty wears off WHICH WILL BE NEEEEEEEEVAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Not "never" that I’ll stop becoming a college student because there is an end to that, but "never" that the novelty will wear off I’M A COLLEGE STUDENT!!!

Oh, and my biceps hurt and I’m typing like a Tyrannosaurus Rex GIVE ME A DANCE, CRISTIN!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Ching ching ching!

That’s right, I LOVE MY GYM! I’ve complained about the people who go there just like the rest of you guys, you know who you are and you know who you complain about…the "grunter", "that guy", the "cell phone people"…but all in all, I love everyone at my gym! I want to give a "shout out" to all the people that make my experience there ROCK!!

1. My husband, of course. I love him not only because he works so much to provide for us, but he’s willing to work extra hard to make sure that we have enough money to keep our membership at Thorbecke’s month after month. He’s my number one!! Go husband!

2. Roy!! He’s the manager there at Thorbecke’s and probably THE greatest guy you’ll ever have the pleasure of knowing. He’s completely dedicated to making my gym THE greatest place that you’ll ever want to work out in. You can tell a lot about a manager by the way a business is run, and Thorbecke’s is run TO PERFECTION. He greets you with your name and a smile and is genuinely interested in how your doing. He takes time out of his day to answer ANY questions you have about fitness and answers them with amazing knowledge. Just ask my husband, who probably spends about an hour a day gabbing Roy’s ear off about body building (love ya, babe!).

3. The staff! Not only does the front dest staff  greet you with a smile, but they hand you a work out towel! Awesome! The child care staff know all our kids by name, and everyone always comes home with a picture or craft! THEY ROCK!

4. The members! Up-beat, intense, ready to rock the weights or cardio machines! There are a few I’d like to give homage to individually even though I don’t know their names:

1. The woman who’s WAY bigger than I am. She’s there DAILY on the tread mill pushing it as far as she can. YOU GO GIRL!
2. The old guy with the spandex shorts and short t-shirt that shows EVERYTHING every time he does pull-ups. Boy, does he LOVE to do pull-ups!
3. The other old guy who likes to do lying dumbbell press with his legs up and spread. Yeah, he’s a grunter too. He cracks me up!
4. The old lady who yells at me every time I try to go into the steam room with my sweats on because the sign on the door says, “You must be wearing a swim suit or towel in sauna/steam room.” IT DOESN’T SAY SWEAT PANTS!
5. The guy who works on his shoulders and biceps for 1 1/2 hours every day and his legs once a month (dude, seriously, think “symmetry”. You have the legs of a 9 year old girl.)
6. The 78 year old lady who’s in there pumping iron 4 days a week. Yeah! I wanna be her when I get that age!
7. The women and men who talk on their cell phone while working out. Thanks for giving me the drama to listen to while I’m doing my reps!!
8. The gaggle of cute little girlie girls who just wander around the gym with their Propel water bottles hoping some young stud will wanna hook up with them. I’m rootin’ for ya!
9. The guy who’s in physical rehabilitation and has a nurse who should be working out with him. Rock on, dude!
10. The little Indian lady who lifts more weight than me on every one of the machines even though she’s only about 1/3 my size. You go, girl!
11. And to all the other people who make up the Thorbecke’s community and entertain me while I’m doing my cardio. Yay team Thorbecke’s!!

Oh, and whoever thought of the concept of having a "Parent’s Night Out" once a month that’s free for member’s to bring their kids to the gym for the staff to watch for 3 1/2 hours, YOU SERIOUSLY ROCK!! I’d like to shake your hand, then lick your face and kiss your forehead. Seriously. Right after I had a red lolli pop, so the entire world could see the love I’ve got for ya.

Show some love for your gym! Let people know why you love your gym and what you love about it!

Oh yeah! I figured it out! I know EXACTLY where they go to. It’s not some sock void, or some Twilight Zone for socks, or even a sock-eating monster that hangs out in your dryer. Get this:

Okay, so I’m walking around the house picking up dirty dishes from the inconsiderate people who apparently don’t know where the kitchen sink is even though we’ve lived here for over a year. So I go in the living room and pick up a couple there, head to the office, pick up a couple in there, head to our bedroom, find one or two there, head BACK into the living room, and WHAT THA!? I find a couple more dirty dishes!

Okay, just coincidence, right? I just missed them the first time because I’m still a tiny bit loopy from the meds from last night. But I’m still suspicious, so I go BACK into the office and…WHAT!?!? Where the hell did THAT come from??? I pick up the dirty plate from the work table. Okay, now I’m getting a little freaked out.So I head into the kitchen and I happen to glance at an end table in our living room and…YOU GUESSED IT! Another friggin’ dirty dish! Now, I KNOW my kids aren’t playin’ with me because they’re outside and have been for about a 1/2 hour. So I’m thinkin’…

As I head into the kitchen, I glance over to our “clean clothes” bin and notice the 17 socks that are in there with no matches…I count the number of dirty dishes that I’ve found…17.

So I’ve noticed that a lot of people who are wanting to eat clean and are trying to stay healthy and work out have the same problem: people offering them fried crap food all the time.
Co-workers, friends, family, strangers on the bus, you name it, if you’re eating "clean" you’ve probably been offered SOMETHING by SOMEONE that is fried, dipped in chocolate, is made of fried chocolate, is covered in sugar, is made of fried chocolate sugar or potato chips.
So I’ve compiled a list of "common courtesies" for those of you who INSIST on asking if we who are attempting to eat “clean” would like some of your fried/chocolate/cheesy/sugared lard.
For the love of Pete, read them, memorize them, write them down and paste them to your forearm if you have to before you get pounded by a carb-cutting, fat-burner-taking, weight-lifting maniac who’s dehydrated and three days out from a body building contest because you thought you’d be “polite” by asking him/her if they would like some of your curly fries from Jack ‘n the Box:

1. Ask once. If the person refuses, BACK AWAY SLOWLY WITH YOUR OFFERING STILL IN HAND. After a good safe distance (I’d say about 10 feet) turn around and silently walk away.

2. If you choose to ignore rule number one, don’t ask, “Are you sure?”  If they weren’t sure when they said no the first time, then they’d probably be in the same sad shape that you’re in.

3.  If you’re idiotic enough to ask a third time, then you deserve to be back handed. Once is polite, twice is pushing the limit, three times, well, that’s just asking for an ass-whopping and you should probably question your motives as to why you’re such a masochist.

4. If you actually see the person you’re thinking of offering your crappy food to eating the following: plain tuna fish, chicken breast, or turkey breast with any combination of: fresh spinach, plain oatmeal, yams, brown rice, and/or broccoli, DON’T EVEN ASK. Just tell them how good their food looks and how good they look. They’ll appreciate the compliment to both and you’ve just saved up a brownie point with a person who’ll probably be you go to for advice when you decide to get up off your couch-lovin’ arse and start living.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of things that will keep you from getting pummeled if you decide that you’re going to see how “the intense guy/girl who goes to the gym every day and eats nothing but tuna fish” will react to you asking them numerous times if they would like to have one of the cheesy-chili-death-dogs you got from the vendor outside your work place, but if you follow the gist of them, you’ll live a…well, not sure if I’d say longer or healthier life…let’s just stick to you’ll survive in peaceful co-existence.

I had a couple people wondering about why we wash bath towels after we shower and since I brought the subject up, I thought that it is now my responsibility to answer that continually nagging-in-my-head-every-time-I’m-doing-laun
dry question: Why the heck do we wash bath towels after we use them?

When you actually sit down and think about that question, it has the potential to consume WAY too much time during the day, so I’m going to do my best to solve that ancient mystery on my blog. I hope I get the glory and adoration that I will so richly deserve after I’m done…Anyway, on with the answer!

Okay, so I’m sitting here thinking about this question probably with more time than it deserves, but what the heck. I only have 5 people that I take care of on a daily basis so it’s not like I have anything better to do. I have come to a conclusion, however, and here it is: I HAVE NO FRIGGIN’ IDEA. I don’t know why in the heck we wash bath towels after a bath. It’s insane. It’s like, THE single biggest waste of time EVER since towels were invented. We come out of a bath/shower CLEAN, we DRY OFF with CLEAN towels, and then for some freaky, Twilight Zone reason, we THROW THEM IN THE DIRTY LAUNDRY! WTF? Are they DIRTY? NO. And if you just hang them up on the shower bar, they dry off and are just as clean as when you used them the first time!

I have noticed one thing, though. Ever since positing that question on my blog, I haven’t washed but two bath towels: one that I use for dishes (yeah, no electric dish washer, only one with two legs), and the other one was used to clean up a GALLON of freshly made RED DRINK. I love kids. Which I find also strange. I mean, is it because I brought the question to the forefront of my conscious and am now consciously hanging bath towels up so that they dry off instead of throwing them in the dirty clothes basket? Even my husband commented on the number of clean towels that we have in our towel cabinet now, and he never notices stuff like that.

Maybe I should try blogging about other stuff like that. Like…why I wash PLASTIC cutlery so that we can use it again? Why do children INSIST on using 34 glasses/cups in ONE day for their drinks? What about those extra socks that you ALWAYS have after a load of whites? Where the HELL do they go? Why can I never find my hairbrush/shampoo/razor/deoderant/tweezers when I go to use it/them? Yeah, I’ll keep running into any number of the above mentioned items when I’m about ready to head out the door, or I’m cleaning up the house, or when I just generally don’t have time/energy to use it. THEN it’s like they’re following me around, mocking me, saying, "Hey, you BETTER pick me up now and use me because you know when the time comes that you WANT to use me, you’ll search for hours and never find me!" It’s freaky. It’s almost goose-pimple freaky.

Hey, here’s a thought: a few things you NEVER want to hear in the locker room/shower area in your gym:

1. On the one day you decide that it’ll be okay to take a shower without your flip flops: "Hey, I think that fungus that I’ve been trying to get rid of for YEARS has worked it’s way down to the bottom of my feet. That’s why I can’t wear any kind of flip flops in the shower. Can you pass me the soap?"

2. "Yeah, I’m scheduled to get my sex-change operation in about two weeks. It’s so nice to be able to be around you girls before then! Let’s shave each other’s legs!"

3. "My boyfriend is getting out of prison in the next week. I’m so excited! He’s going to join the gym and work out with me! Oh, don’t worry, he’s going to the anger management classes the court ordered him to after he killed that guy with a 45 pound plate for not re-racking his weights."

4. "I don’t understand why everyone is so insistant on washing their hands after they go to the bathroom. It’s just a little body waste. I mean, I heard that there’s benefits to drinking your own urine."

Okay, so I was going to blog yesterday about the R O C K I N ‘ workout that I had…hold on. I have a diaper emergency…

Okay, safely disposed of in the haz-mat container and buried in the lead basement…on with the blog!

Okay, so, again, I was going to blog yesterday about the R O C K I N ‘ workout that I had but alas, I didn’t get a chance. I know you all were holding your breath in anticipation of the…crap…I lost my train of thought…I keep coming back to this idea that I had that I think KICK’S ASS! and I want to share it with all of you guys!!! So I’m going to do that instead of talking about my R O C K I N ‘ workout. So here goes…

Okay, so I’ve noticed that like, everyone on here mainly takes pictures of their abs or their asses. It’s like an "Abs or Asses convention"! Everyone on here is starting to look the same. Now, I have no doubt that if I had abs or asses like about 95% of you all do, I’d probably be plastering both of them all OVAH this website about once every 4.8 seconds, but alas, I don’t. Not that I"m not GOING to, mind you, but that’s probably not in the very near future…anyway, so I’m looking at all the abs and asses and thinking that you know, how could you kind of…I don’t know…invigorate and innovate the profile pictures of all the abs and asses on here. You know, like in the words of Robin Williams, "Dress it up! Have some fun with it!" Of course, he wasn’t speaking of abs and asses and we won’t go to where he was taking you cause this is a blog about abs and asses, but let me continue with my train of thought…

Okay, so I was thinking, "What if, instead of just pictures of abs and asses, people started dressing up their abs and asses? What if, instead of just a picture of your abs, you like, covered your abs in a tan body paint, filled your bellybutton with water, rubber cemented a palm tree next to it and took a picture then? It’d be like your abs turned into a desert oasis! Or paint them blue, and had a miniture Loch Ness monster head coming out of your belly button. It’d be like a miniture Loch Ness! Or place minitures of the 7 (or is it 8 now?) wonders of the world around your abs, showcasing the 8th (or would it be 9th?) wonder of the world!

Asses: you could cover the part you’re supposed to cover in like, fuzzy pink fake fur, put eyes on it and viola! It’s a Dr. Suess character! Or paint your ass grey and rubber cement a miniture of Mount Rushmore across it! Or put a little chipmunk head at the top, cover it with tan fur and you’ve got a chipmunk hording nuts! Well…that one might be a little risque…but you get the idea.

So I’m extending this challenge to all you people who have nothing but pictures of your abs or your ass on your bodyspace. Dress them up! Let’s see what all you can come up with by the 1st of June. Then I DARE you…no, I DOUBLE DARE you to post a picture of your "transformed" abs or ass on your bodyspace.

I wonder what I’ll turn FitCent’s abs into…MMMMMUUUUAHAHAHAHAHAH! This is gonna be so much FUN!!

Okay, so, I’m sending out a public apology to my husband and work out partner, FitCent:

SORRY! SORRY FOR DISSING YOUR TRAINING OF MY WORKOUT PROCESS AND SORRY THAT I SAID THAT I WASN’T SORE FROM THE TRAINING THAT YOU GAVE ME AND YOU ARE THE BEST TRAINER IN THE WORLD AND THE ONLY TRAINER FER ME AND I WILL NEVER SAY THAT YOU DIDN’T PUSH ME BECAUSE YOU ALWAYS KNOW….STUFF ABOUT WORKING OUT AND I LOVE YOU A LOT FOR ALL THAT AND MORE!

Okay, so yeah, I’m sore. Apparently I have either a high tolerance for pain (hence the 48h hour delay in muscle soreness) OR I don’t know what else but just for the record I AM FRIGGIN’ SORE! It starts right above my knees and it’s working it’s way up to mid-thigh.

I’m starting a petition writing campaign to God to stop all production of lactic acid in my muscles so that I don’t have to go through this EVER AGAIN!

It’s hurty, and it sucks, and my husband is making fun of me because I’m whiney and he’s gonna tell everyone that I’m a whiner and a wussy! I’d stomp my foot but it hurts my leg to lift it up.

Was it me who was writing just the other day about how good it feels to have muscle soreness? or was that some insane masochistic egomaniac who didn’t know what the HECK she was talking about? If some comment like that is on my blog at some point, I’d have to say that it was the latter who wrote that and definately NOT me. 

Anyway, I’m going back to hobbling around the house, doing everything possible NOT to bend over, and popping Tylenol and Advil regularly every four hours until I’m numb.

Okay, so I’m not the serious, hard core person that is usually out there posting about every number of sets and the number of reps that they do in each set and the weight that each rep consists of  and the position of my body when I do that rep within that set with that amount of weight for that rep for that number of set…whoa…reading that can make you dizzy.

No, I’m just in it to win it! Win what, you might ask? Why, losing weight, of course. I’ve toyed with the thought of maybe becoming a female power lifter, mainly because I’ve carried around this weight for so long I figured that I’m used to it so I might as well take advantage of that special skill AND perhaps get paid for it…which would be AWESOME.

However, I’m pretty sure that I’m not up to that level of intesity yet. In fact, I’m barely up to the intesity level of just bringing some paper and a pen into the gym to write down what I do. I think the biggest part of the reason why I’m still going to the gym (besides my husband’s foot permenatly implanted in my posterior end) is that I’m having fun with it…in a weird, kinda kooky way.

Now, please don’t misunderstand me or try “rephrasing” my words into meaning that those who DO write down every set, every rep, every pound of weight and every minute that it takes to do those things AREN’T having fun. Obviously they ARE otherwise they wouldn’t be STILL doing it.

All I’m sayin’ is that me, personally, I can’t enjoy that. I’m not NEARLY that organized, and if I tried to be, I’d drive myself I N S A N E and right outta the gym. Yeah, I’m almost “that guy” (see FitCent’s blog). I’m loud, I’m obnoxious, I laugh A LOT (much to my husband’s embarrassment) and I try and make my experience at the gym as painless as possible (mentally).

Can I stop grovelling now? Have I appeased the masses enough with the simpering, apologetic over-tone of the above post? YAY! On with the fun!

Anyway, I’m seriously surprised that I’m NOT sore AT ALL today. Weird, cause I could have SWORN last night that I felt the coursing of lactic acid flowing…no, flowing’s not the right word…GUSHING, yeah, that’s it…GUSHING through my hamstrings and my quads.

I was thinking about taping the bottle of Tylenol to my upper arm so that I’d know where it was (our family has a tendency of misplacing anything that they think I’m going to need so that I have to spend on average 32 to 47 minutes looking for it), but, alas, I guess that would have been a waste of tape. So much for having a training buddy that pushes me to my limits of endurance! Okay, so he TRIED to make me do five sets of straight-legged dead lifts instead of four; he TRIED to make me do 70 pounds on the leg extension machine instead of 50 pounds, but I’m not here to make HIM look good…I’m here to make ME look good.