10
In which I hiked.
We hiked 3.5 miles up and then UP SOME MORE, then back down the UVAS canyon. It was a gorgeous day out and it was great to get out into the open wilderness and get lost in the beauty around us for a few hours.
We started out with a decent ascent up the first trail which became a narrow set of switchbacks through a beautiful shaded path. It was a little steep at times but doable and Ben walked out in front of me to set a pretty decent pace. I was able to keep up with him for the most part and only had to stop a few times for water breaks.
And to admire the view.
And to make sure that we were avoiding the poison oak that was EVERYWHERE!
We made it to the peak of that hike and I was feeling pretty great and checked my heart rate monitor for the first time to check my calorie burn and it was at almost 500 calories! So it was time to refuel with some Kashi bars before heading back down the mountain on the more scenic, but not as steep trail.
We were checking the map and I saw this offshoot trail that was only half a mile long and thought that we should totally try and tackle that and Ben was up for anything so we decided to hike up it and see what was at the top. The map had the name of the trail and the word STEEP in brackets but I thought that it couldn’t be much more steep than the one we had already hiked, right!? BOY WAS I WRONG! I jokingly asked Ben to pose in front of the sign so that I could title the picture “before I died”. I didn’t realize then that THAT HALF MILE WOULD ALMOST KILL ME! 
It took pretty much every single bit of will power I had in my system, then some of Ben’s, to get me up that hill. It was TOUGH. We stopped at one point to take pictures and after the first two Ben was like, “You should at least TRY and look happy! LOOK HAPPY!”
So I did.
You can kind of see how steep the climb was there. Trust me, it was twice as steep as it looks there. Even though Ben is in much better shape than I am and was able to motor up that climb MUCH faster than me, even he stopped to enjoy the break at the top.
After that short break we started back down that steep path and it was then that I realized that the rest of the hike back to the car would be down hill and this is how I felt about that.
All in all it was a GREAT way to spend 2.5 hours of our Saturday and burning 1480 calories in the process. We had such a great time that we are planning on hitting a more challenging 11 mile hike next weekend. I was pretty proud of myself for making it not only through the hike, but up that last half mile section. I know that a year ago, I’d NEVER have been able to do that. I’d have either not even attempted it or quit half way up because it was too hard. It’s just such an amazing feeling to know that I accomplished a big goal for me which was to go on a hike with Ben. It’s a goal that I’ve been working towards for a long time and I DID IT!
Not only did I make it through the hike but I felt AWESOME after the fact. We stretched really well when we got back to the car and my legs feel great now. We set a goal to keep doing these mini practice hikes and eventually, hit Half Dome in Yosemite. Ben has done it before and he’s said he’s in better shape now than he was then but it’s a TOUGH hike so it’s not something we are going to rush out and to tomorrow, but eventually!
Hope you all are having a great weekend! 
3
Peddle Faster!
So I kind of quietly started a new round of P90X on Monday. I didn’t really tell anybody but Julie and Ben because that meant having to admit out loud that I totally failed the last round. I’m not sure what happened but about half way through I just lost steam and motivation and gave up.
But I’m back, baby!
I’m not following the workout plan exactly because on cardio days I’ve been out on the bike peddling off the calories. I finally had to admit to myself that I’m just not going to be able to run. At least not right now. My shins have never stopped giving me problems and after trying stretching techniques, icing, aspirin, new running shoes, neoprene wraps, focusing on my landing, EVERYTHING, I’d still have KILLER shin splints every single time I tried. Having to admit it just WASN’T going to work was really hard on me because I hate being a quitter.
BUT! On a more positive note I’ve discovered that while I’m not a runner, I AM a biker! Ben, Cassidy and I started taking bike rides and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it. The first day we rode about 10 miles and for the following two days I walked funny and had a hard time sitting down but that hasn’t happened since and I’ve been able to do the 9-10 mile rides with great success. I still can’t keep up with Ben, but I’ll get there soon!
So for right now (and at least the next two weeks) my schedule looks like this:
Monday: P90X Chest & Back
Tuesday: Bike ride (this week we did a 10 mile ride and I burned 700+ calories)
Wednesday: P90X Arms and Shoulders
Thursday: Bike ride (did 9.6 miles, 670 calories)
Friday: Rest day
Saturday: P90X Legs and Back
Sunday: Bike ride plus either X Stretch or Yoga X
Friday was a rest/free day for me and I think that I might stick to that for awhile. I have a LONG week of working and by Friday I am BURNT OUT. Ben and I like to have date nights those nights and then I’m in bed REALLY early. If I can manage to make it to a Friday with enough energy to work out I’ll probably plug Kenpo X, Plyometrics or a ride in there but for now, I’m not going to get down or myself or feel bad if I don’t manage to get to it.
Also, I’ve stopped using Spark People. It’s a great site but SO BLOATED with extra crap that I don’t need. So I’ve switched over to MyFitnessPal and I love it so far. So, if you use it add me!
And I PROMISE I’ll get back to blogging more regularly again. I was in kind of a slump there for a bit but now that I’m back on track and eating more healthy and getting some great exercise I feel like I’m getting all my energy and spunk back.
28
Television is to news what bumper stickers are to philosophy.
I’m exhausted. This is actually pretty normal for a Friday night but this week it’s worse because I spent the last two days at work trying to catch up for the two days I laid on the couch with a fever and scared to turn my head because the wave of resulting nausea was crippling.
No, I am not pregnant. I think it was just a flu bug and it sucked. Balls.
I hate staying home during the week. I hate that I am so swamped at work that when I come back there is ALL THIS STUFF, TWO DAYS WORTH, that I have to take care of RIGHT THIS SECOND. And then the days of playing catch up afterwards. But more than that, I just, home is BORING! At least Ben was here so I didn’t have to talk to the wall, or the dogs, or the remote… but still! I wasn’t really in a talking mood and for some reason as bad as I felt I couldn’t get much sleep and I couldn’t move my eyes to read (WAVE OF CRIPPLING NAUSEA) which left me with *sinister music* DAY. TIME. TV.
Now, I’m just going to lay this out there: I love The Young and the Restless.
THERE I SAID IT, OKAY!
I’ve been watching it for YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS and it’s a guilty pleasure I don’t often talk about out loud. Ever. To anybody. I can’t even talk to Ben about it because any time I try to watch a DVR’d episode he rolls his eyes with such force that it knocks the pictures off the walls. IN CHINA. Actually, I’m pretty sure the BP oil leak in the gulf was caused by Ben rolling his eyes when I turned on an episode of The Young and the Restless.
Other than that show though day time TV is PAINFUL and at one point I woke up from a short nap and The Maury Show was on and the remote was like, THREE WHOLE FEET AWAY, and I just didn’t have the willpower or the mental capacity to REACH ALL THE WAY OVER THERE to turn the channel.
About 10 minutes in I started to shake and broke out in a cold sweat and I think my braincells were starting to march, single file, out of my ear to GET AWAY FROM THE MAURY SHOW. AT ALL COSTS. There’s only so many times a person can watch a girl having a FOURTH MAN DNA tested to attain the proud job of deadbeat baby daddy before they break. Somebody has to be this kid’s dad! Like, I’m totally behind the closing of Guantanamo Bay now because all we really need to do is lock a person in a cell with a 60 inch TV screen playing The Maury Show. I give them 10 minutes MAX before they break. PROBLEM SOLVED! MILLIONS OF DOLLARS SAVED!
I need to write this shit down more often. America would be so much better off.
Also: Working on and off on a new theme for the site so if you come and things look broken or ugly, it’s because of that. Or Ben went and rolled his eyes again, either way.
But it’s probably Ben’s fault.
I’m just saying!
3
In which I declare the rest of us Gods.
On the way into work this morning the DJs were talking about John Mayer’s recent switch from twitter to tumblr. John made a post on his tumblr talking about how much better it was than twitter because it’s conversational structure is better:
I love reading other Tumblr users replies, because they’re thoughtful by virtue of the fact that if they’re not, they’ll bring the intellectual property value of their own blog down, and that’s a commodity on Tumblr.
Now, John actually has a point here. I can imagine for somebody like him the sheer amount of @replies you get can be OVERWHELMING. And especially for douchebags like John Mayer it’s got to get a little old checking your @replies and having to hear about what a tool you are. But you know, I guess that twitter just likes to keep it real and John Mayer IS A TOOL.
Now, I read this post he made about twitter and how he was over it when he first posted it and just rolled my eyes because it was just more of John Mayer being the self-important ass that he is. Reading that post it was clear that he never used twitter for what it was meant to be used for. It never asked “How my I help you in further inflating your ego today, John?”
The thing that really bugged me this morning was how the DJs didn’t know what tumblr was and thus dubbed John “technologically advanced” for being “ahead of the social networking game” and I’m sorry but, WHAT THE FUCK?
John Mayor showed up on twitter THREE YEARS AFTER IT LAUNCHED. Long after the day of the FailWhale, and COLOR WARS (TEAM #FF1CAE FOR LIFE) and wouldn’t know what to do with twitter if it didn’t have search and trending topics. Do you remember that? Being able to search tweets was BIG NEWS for us geeks when it was introduced!
He joined twitter after it became popular and “the place to be” on the web and only after other “A Listers” started getting media attention because of it. And probably only because his publicist was tired of having to listen to his elitist bullshit every day and wanted to give him some other outlet to have his cock ego stroked while also injecting him into the cool new trend. Reading his tweets and blogs make my brain swell. I’m pretty sure he pays somebody to follow him around with a thesaurus. BIG WORDY PRETENTIOUS POSTS! HE HAS THEM!
And now he’s joined tumblr. Well great! WELCOME TO 2007! Dude is SO AHEAD OF THE GAME!
I joined twitter December 30th, 2006.
John joined twitter January 30th, 2009.
I joined tumblr in late 2007.
John first posted to tumblr November 12th, 2009.
If John Mayer is technologically advanced because in the last year he’s started to utilize software that’s FOUR YEARS OLD then most of my online friends are technological fucking savants. No, GODS!
No, just BETTER THAN JOHN MAYER!
Which isn’t saying a lot.
Because it’s John Mayer.
19
Introducing: Bean
So now that the first week is over and I feel like I have some distance between our rocky start, I’m ready to introduce the newest member of our family:
I call her bean because that’s what she reminds me of. And she is SO A FEMALE. Within a day of owning her I had to replace her battery. Then after I got that fixed she had some moisture leak into her cylinders (a known issue) and we had to take her back to the dealership for some TLC.
BUT! Now she’s great. I didn’t realize till after we had gotten her that she was a fully loaded model. Smart key (YAY for not having to pull the keys out of the bottemless vortex of my purse to unlock, start or lock the car), premium audio, six disk changer, navigation, side curtain airbags, Bluetooth, you name it, the car has it.
It’s not as fast as the M3, or as pretty as the M3, or as fun to drive as the M3… but the M3 got 23 miles per gallon (I drive 100 miles a day) and this little bean has been averaging 42 miles per gallon on my work commute. Instead of using 5 gallons of gas to get to work, I’m only using 2! And instead of buying premium gas, I’m buying regular. Every time I put gas in the car my heart sings a happy song.
But the ultimate selling point for me comes from these:
Those little yellow gems are carpool lane access stickers. AND. THEY. FUCKING. ROCK.
In NorCal, carpool lanes work a little differently than they do in SoCal. The carpool lane only requires 2 or more people between 5:00AM-9:00AM and 3:00PM-6:00PM. All other times they are open to everybody. BUT! With these stickers I can ride the lane all the way to work and back and so far, it’s cut 15 minutes off my normally 45-60 minute morning commute and another 15 off my 40-50 minute afternoon commute. That’s 20-30 less minutes in the car a day. 2.5 hours a WEEK! 10 hours a month!
OF MY LIFE!
IN THE CAR!
I have to admit there have been a few times I’ve seen a sports car out there and felt a twinge of regret but then I hit that Fuel Consumption button and again, HEART SONG! Six months ago if you told me that I’d be driving a Prius, and LOVING IT, I’d have laughed in your face. But now, I look back at myself from six month ago and want to yell STOP WASTING THAT MONEY, IDIOT!
Flickr
