fitclubmom’s BodyBlog

Something must have been in the air last night, and it wasn’t a pleasant ’something’ either!  All three of my children got into trouble for misbehaving.  It was my oldest daughters birthday and I’m starting to wonder if there was something hinky in the ice cream cake they ate!  As you can tell, this post isn’t body building related, so for those of you who don’t want to hear about my naughty children you can move on to the next blog.

I’m going to go out of order in my telling of this and start with the last and work my way down to the first.  Because the first one is the humorous one.   My oldest daughter asked if she could stay outside at a friends house (a boy’s house [gasp]) until 10:30.  I told her not only no, but HELL no!  (I am having a bit of trouble letting her spread her wings… but I’m trying to work on it).  So we compromised and I told her that she could stay at his house OUTSIDE until 9:00 and then she had to come home.  She could have friends over in our yard from 9:00 - 10:15 and then she needed to come inside.  I got caught up in doing other things and didn’t go check to see if she was in the yard until about 9:40.  Can you guess what I found when I looked outside to check on her?  Yup… NOTHING!  My child wasn’t home.  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.  So I call her on her cell phone and have a totally pleasant conversation with her (blatant sarcasm here) and tell her to get her butt home now.  Her friend is across the street and two houses down.  It’s maybe a 40 second walk.  You can probably guess that she didn’t get home in 40 seconds. 

While this is happening, my middle daughter is practically bouncing up and down in glee over the anticipation of the fireworks that she is going to see when the oldest gets home.  So she has her nose pressed against the window at keeps chirping like a broken record… "I don’t see her yet… nope, she’s still not coming… geesh, how long does it take to walk two doors… hmmmmm, still no sign of her (and on and on until I make her leave the window).  She pouts off into the kitchen which still gives her the perfect location to watch the front door.  And this is where she gets into trouble.  I hear the very distinctive sound of a soda can being opened and then her slurping down said soda (Dr. Pepper).  In my ‘mom’ voice I say that I hope she isn’t opening a soda and drinking caffeine at almost 10:00 o’clock; at the same time I am saying that, she is letting out a full tummy, 30 second long burp (and yes, I laughed… but I did it quietly so she couldn’t hear).  And this is where she gets into trouble… she tells me that she was just finishing up the one from earlier and that it was almost empty.  Grrrrrrrrrr.  To which I reply how funny that was since I heard the can being opened.  I hear her mutter under her breath "busted" (and yes, I was laughing quietly at that too, and it is what ended up saving her).  So she got grounded for a day for lying.  Which she took okay because she still knew that her sister was going to be in big trouble which would take the pressure off of her.  So she wastes no time in letting me know that her sister STILL isn’t home and it’s almost 10 pm.  Grrrrrrr.

Let’s just say that my oldest knew she was in trouble and owned up to it (sort of), and she got grounded for a week.  Which I feel bad about having to do on her birthday, but she did break the rules and it did take her over 15 minutes to walk two houses down.  And my middle daughter was hugely uspet at not having more fireworks, yelling, screaming, and general teenage angst being thrown around with wild abandon.

Now, rewind about an hour before all of this and we get to my youngest daughter.  She was in trouble because she had two friends inside the house while I was at work.  The rule is that there is no one allowed in the house when I am gone. They can have friends outside, but not inside. Chris is usually home (he has a home office), but he happened to be gone running some errands, and when he came back that’s when he found the kids in the house.  We waited until that evening to talk with her about it so that we didn’t have a tantrum thrown on my oldest’s birthday.  So Chris is talking to her about breaking the rules and telling her that she had a choice in punishments… grounded for a day, or lose her computer and TV for a day.  And she’s arguing with him and throwing a big tantrum (like we knew she would), and this is what pops out of her mouth when we ask why she had someone in the house when she knows it’s against the rules…. "I couldn’t help it, there’s usually a good angel on my shoulder so I don’t do bad things, but this time the little devil on the other shoulder won, and so it’s not my fault".  OMG… I tried, I really did… I turned my head so that I couldn’t make eye contact with anyone… I tried holding my breath… I tried so hard, but couldn’t hold it in.  I just about died laughing.  Leave it to my children to come up with that, and say it completely earnestly and with heartfelt honesty.

I left a note for my kids NOT to eat any cake until we can have it tested for mind altering drugs!

I am one of those people who loves change.  I am very fluid and I don’t mind things changing at the last minute.  I just go with the flow and don’t let changes upset me.  I am constantly trying on new make-up colors, new styles of clothes, and even new perfumes.  I love changing my hair every few months (as those who know me on this site can attest).  So, it stands to reason that I would also love to change my workout routine frequently.  Which of course I do. 

I know that not everyone is like me.  There are people who have to have a set schedule, who have had the same hairstyle/color for years, and don’t like it when something changes at the last minute (my mom is a perfect example of this).  But the bad thing about my mom’s personality is that she NEVER changes up her workout routines.  She has been using the same DVD’s (she works out at home) for years.  So when she came to visit me I gave her a bunch of DVD’s that I had and no longer used.  I told her that she would have better results if she switched things up occasionally. 

Today as I was working out I realized that the manager of my company’s gym has been doing the same exact routine for the two years I have been working out there.  And it’s not just him… he has a group of people that he trains with every Mon, Tues, Thurs, and Friday.  And I can tell you what body parts they will work out on each of those days.  I can also tell you exactly what exercises they will do and in what order they will do them.  I don’t know why I realized this today, but when I did I just shook my head in wonder.  This is a man who has lifted for years and years (at least 20).  He knows an incredible amount about how muscles work. And he really knows his stuff when it comes to injuries and how to rehabilitate them.  I don’t agree with the way he lifts on some of his exercises, but it doesn’t mean he’s wrong per se, it’s just not my preferred way of lifting. (He is very ‘old school’ in his lifting methods… lots of weight moved with as much force as possible and as quickly as possible).  But I’m really surprised by the fact that he doesn’t switch up his routine every month or so.  In fact, he doesn’t add in any sort of variation at all.  The only time I saw him do that is right after he watched me do dead-hang pull-ups… he did some shortly after I finished and remarked that he needed to bring them back into his routine (haven’t seen him do them since then). 

I know it can’t just be a personality thing (like me liking change and my mom not liking change), because I know people who are extremely organized and resistant to change who change up their workout routines and I also know people like me who like changing things around a lot yet use the same routine day in and day out (they are usually the ones who only do cardio or use the circuit weight room and do the circuit in the same order every day).  Is it just me?  am I wrong? I thought it was really important to mix things up.  Thoughts and opinions welcome because I’m really curious about this.

Okay, here are our new tattoos.  They aren’t fully healed yet, so they will look better in another week or so.  When we got them we wanted to do something to show our connectedness to each other.  So we decided that the symbol we would use would be the celtic triquetra.  The triquetra stands for Trinity of soul: Physical, mental, and spiritual.  It really can be used to signify anything that comes in threes… past, present, future; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; etc.

I also chose a dolphin…  The ancient Celts viewed the dolphin as a symbol of both prosperity and guidance. The overall image of the dolphin is of dignity, playfulness, freedom, grace, strength, and joy.

I have five butterflies…  the three that are close together are for each of my daughters, and the two close together are for my step-sons. The symbolism of the butterfly centers upon its unique transformation. From one existence as the slow and crawling caterpillar (baby), then to the dormant and captive chrysalis or cocoon (teenager), and finally the rebirth into a light and airy winged creature (adult), the metamorphosis of the butterfly is one of its most powerful and uplifting meanings.

The tattoo took 4 1/2 hours and I had definitely reached the end of my pain tolerance towards the end!  I will probably have more detail added to the butterflies later (after the tattoo heals and I once again forget the pain involved ).

And here is Chris’

Have you ever noticed how you really need to take a vacation after getting back from vacation?  It has been a crazy two weeks.  We had a ton of fun in Florida, and my kids loved Busch Gardens.  We had a major thunderstorm roll through when we were at Disneyworld, so that wasn’t as much fun, but we did manage to go on some rides and walk around.  It’s amazing how expensive everything is!!  I just about died when I saw the prices to get into the parks, and even once you’re in the park, the food is soooo expensive.  But the hubby is as awesome as always and spoiled us dreadfully while we were there! 

We also got tattoos by an incredibly talented tattoo artist… I will post the pictures soon.  We were lucky that he happened to have an open time slot while we were there.  His time stays booked for months in advance.  So when we were able to get in, we jumped at the chance.  

I managed to gain 4 pounds over the last two weeks .  Not great, but not too bad considering I didn’t work out very much over the last two weeks.  So now it is time to step it up and get my butt back into the workout saddle!