indian summer

more peaches

Day 8: CALLANETICS. Old school. An ex-ballerina named Callan Pinckney developed these exercises like a millenium ago. My high school girlfriends and I still make fun of the way she describes the "perfect little peach" one will attain by doing ballet-like moves. Whatever, dude.

Callan and I have quite a history. I have fond memories of doing CALLANETICS with my cousin Marilyn Oveson my Freshman year at BYU. I was battling the "Freshman 10" {and severe loneliness} and she was newly married with a new baby. I'd go over to her little newlywed house right off campus and we'd move our limbs ever-so-slightly "one-half inch" here and there. They really do tone you up quickly if you do them right. My mom still does these DVDs (actually I think they are VHS videos) and she looks like a million bucks.

Day 9: Cardio Kick Boxing. This class was extremely enjoyable. Mostly because my instructor looked and moved like Fergie. I'd never done a kick-boxing class before. New adventures people! This was the perfect mix of dance and boxing moves. I'll be going back to this little Monday morning gig.

Day 10: With my newly perceived coordination, I opted to try a class called "The Mixx" today. Taught by my new favorite instructor, Fergie. I showed up a little late and peered through the window in Studio 1. The slick moves I'd semi-mastered in Sparteens [my high school drill team] were no match for Fergie's Funk-A-Thon. I just couldn't bring myself to go in there. What a copout! I'm not intimidated by too many things, but I slunk away and be-bopped right on over to the Stairmaster instead. I lasted about 2 minutes on that puppy before I gave up entirely and drove to my alma mater, Dunkin Donuts. I was tempted to, at least. But I stuck it out on the treadmill. Two pounds lost!

I will be checking out the full-blown BOOT CAMP tomorrow. Variety. Accountability. We'll see.

Molly Mormon

One may or may not be a stereotypical 40+ Mormon woman when:

*one begs one's sister Sus to haul her new Nutrimill wheat grinder over from Yuma so one can test it out on a new whole wheat bread recipe [ours came out more like biscotti. hard and flat].

*one begs long-suffering friend Molly (yes, Molly the Mormon) to come over and teach one how to can some of the 298756538 peaches one needs to use in the next 24 hours. A veritable Chinese army of peaches was canned (or bottled, technically).

*one begs friend Sarah C. to come over and make peach freezer jam with the remaining 38746 peaches. (it didn't set up--anybody need peach syrup? free shipping.) Next time one will use my cousin Molly's "use extra pectin powder" tip. [Cousin Molly not to be confused with Canning Molly.]

*one makes a killer peachy-keen cobbler recipe courtesy of Texas pal Patrice H. (made it four times)

*one signs up for pal Natalie's quilting courses.

*one is slightly obsessed with food storage.

*one is asked by a certain McSmartAleck when they turned 74 years old. No cobbler for you.

a room with a view

{this was the view from my bed when I woke up this morning}

Day 8: Quite strenuous hike at Tonto Natural Bridge. [more on that later]. We went camping with Marc's cousins Michael and Alice this weekend [more on that later].

We've been a little laid up around here with some sort of insidious stomach thing. Everybody but Marc and Caroline has had it. (thus far). Needless to say, there hasn't been a whole lot of exercising going on around here, unless my exercise in futility counts.

Now--what in the Sam Hill am I going to do with all these peaches?

Fitness Comittment Update

Friday, Day 5: Spinning Class. It's crucial to have good music with a strong beat in spinning class. I can do anything to a rhythm for awhile. I love a good spinning class. This one had excellent music, a lot of 80s.

Saturday, Day 6: Susan (my sis) came into town from Yuma and we needed a break from our kids (eight total) so we loaded them into the car(s) and took them to the gym so we could have an uninterrupted conversation on the treadmills. This wasn't a repeat for me, since I wasn't running. I would call it power-walking with a steep incline. Susan might call it tripping on the treadmill every 10 steps.

Tuesday, Day 7: Vinyasa Flow Yoga. Adore is too tame a word to describe my feelings for yoga. Especially the group nap at the end with my new best friends/yoga homies under the guise of "breathing exercises". Little Miss-Contortionist-Yogi-Chick-Teacher got a little persnickety when I didn't want to wake up after class was over. I wanted to remind her in a gentle, Zen-like fashion that child care is for two hours in this gym, and that I still had one hour left before I had to pick up Charlotte [who wore her Cinderella getup to the gym today]. But I left before she called security.

McThrewHisBackOutLastWeek would be proud that I'm maximizing my gym membership.

This is going great! I do enjoy mixing it up a bit. Off to prep my Isagenix protein shake...

Favorite Photos of August

{ Above: Cousin Lorin aka Lolo}

{Above: Cousin Bridgette}

Heaven help me

and

equals these.

Luckily these were from last week's bake-off.

Recipe available upon request. Because I kinda don't want to get up and get it right now.

skinny genes and skinny jeans

I only vent about my vexxing struggles with the scale maybe once, twice per year. [Eighteen times tops]. I don't like to dwell on the topic, and frankly it's boring. But sometimes it's like trying to avoid the elephant in the room {pun intended}.

It's been a fantastic summer. When you adopt laissez-faire eating habits, it's always a fantastic summer. As a direct result, my adipose cells proliferated faster than nukes under the Reagan Administration.

How could I have gone from "tri" to "pie" in three months flat? I'll tell ya how. My summer wardrobe of maxi-dresses and elastic waist flouncy skirts left me utterly unaccountable for my expanding waist-line (hey it still fits!) Baking in the kitchen almost daily didn't do me any favors, either. I just can't have that stuff around the house.

I always need some kind of ridiculous gimmick to jump start things. I tried the HcG diet for a few days but seemed to get stuck on the "load" days and never got around to the 500 calorie per day part. So I'm copying this idea from a friend. I'll do something NEW every day for 10 days. NO REPEATS.

Monday, day 1: I laboured on the elliptical.

Tuesday, day 2: Floor Pilates. Can't wait to try the Reformer.

Wednesday, day 3: sick kid at home. nada.

Thursday: day 4: ran on the treadmill. Literal tears of boredom running down my face.

open to ideas.