Monday, September 28, 2009

Day four, week 2 of bootcamp

Well Tuesday->Thursday were pretty tough days to walk last week. Lots of groaning and stiffness, but I made it through the week!

Friday we had our tests. We had to do as many crunches as we could in 60 seconds, my count was 60. Then we had to do as many pushups (regular or modified) in 60 seconds. I managed 10. No seriously.. 10 modified push ups. I just have zero upper body strength.

Once that was done, we ran 2 laps of the park. Each lap is about 1 mile, and we were timed on each lap, and given a total. My first lap was more of a jog/walk than a run, and my time was 9 minutes and 5 seconds. Second lap I started to have increasingly uncomfortable pain in my digestive area. Towards the end I was running faster just because I thought I might poop my pants! Lovely thoughts? Total time was 18 minutes and 10 seconds. That means I actually did both laps in exactly the same time! Weird?

In 4 weeks on our last Friday, we will be tested again, and will compare our notes and see if we improved!

Today our bootcamp work out was strenuous and I enjoyed it immensely. I was sweating in a most unladylike fashion, but it felt really good.

Let see how I feel about it tomorrow.

BFN

Monday, September 21, 2009

Day one, Week one Bootcamp

At a final frustration point with my extreme love of procrastination when it comes to my personal fitness, I signed up for bootcamp.

Obviously not even close to the "real" thing, but at least the instructor will yell at me if I'm late, or if I skip a session. I chickened out and took the 3 day/week package instead of the 5 day/week. I figure if I can make it through the next four weeks, I'll consider doing it 5 days/week. Problem I have now is that I need to find another $200 in my budget to cover this new expense.

The day started off well, we meet at 5.30am at a park near my house. As I drove out the driveway, I realise I've completely forgotten to bring water. Thinking about going home to fill up a bottle, I decided it would be much quicker to simply stop by the 7-11 and buy a bottle. I was wrong. The guy at the 7-11 had decided it was a great time of the day to do his accounting. Both the registers were down, and he was counting change. 10 minutes later he finally rings me up, as I'm frantically hopping on the spot. I run out the door, and drive much faster than is really safe, and make it to the address. I should have realised that while the park has an address, the group might be anywhere in the park. I do a fast lap, and spot a group of ladies in the stage type area. Park, and run over. 5 minutes late. I hate being late, it makes me very upset, and to think these ladies don't even know me yet, and already I've made a terrible impression.

We set out on a brisk walk which reminds me how MUCH out of shape I am. Everyone is chatting, and walking so fast I can barely keep up. Trying to put on a brave face, I grin and grunt, and make it back. Normally if I was working out alone, this is where I'd go home, and lay on my couch until I recovered. Not today! We launch into a warm up. Swinging my arms to warm them up is surprisingly tiring, and slightly painful. We go onto doing some lunges, squats, jumpy things, more jumpy things, then off on a JOG. I smile, and pant my way around the jog. Another lady thankfully is as slow as me, and as I fall into a stumble/walk towards the end, back run all the ladies who already finished to encourage us to jog the rest.
More exercises, these things where you squat, then jump. Flapjacks (which incidentally just served to remind me I hadn't had breakfast), wall squats, wall jumpy things, plank (I collapsed into modified plank on my knees pretty quickly), sit ups, child's pose (my belly prevented me from finding this even slightly relaxing). Another jog, which I actually jogged most of the way on, then stretching.

I spent half the class with fogged up glasses, and the other half just plain old blind (took them off). At the end of class I was informed I'd missed orientation. I don't remember seeing anything about orientation, but apparently it was at 7am yesterday (Sunday) since I drank very late into the night Saturday, I'm pretty sure even if I'd known about it I wouldn't have shown up. Wednesday morning I have to stay late, which she weighs me, measures me, finds my fat level. I REALLY don't want to do this. I had a personal trainer in the past, who would weigh me every time I came, and berate me for "eating badly" because I wasn't losing as much weight as he thought I should. Now I tear up every time a stranger expects me to bare the parts of me I'm most ashamed of. I tried to tell my well meaning instructor that I really didn't want to... I was going to see improvements in myself that aren't related to the shame of my size. Apparently I have no choice. I can only hope to plead with her on Wednesday, but I am pretty sure she won't let me get out of it. I hope she doesn't mind watching me cry.

Overall I feel good, another of the ladies there recommended I take advil as soon as I got home, and tomorrow, and every day until the pain subsides. I've taken mine for the day, and generally I feel good. I know tomorrow morning will be tough, and Wednesday morning even more so.

BFN

Friday, April 24, 2009

Confusing cross blogging

Instead of trying to do some confusing mixture of blogs, I'm just going to blog on this one about sewing, cooking, and misc. My old blog.. has been resurrected! Go ahead and talk Stargate to me over there now :)

Only two weeks left on my 1950's Dress Making class. Last week we sewed in the collar, doing a lot of basting stitches, pinning, pulling, basting, then machine sewing while hoping it was all straight. I turned it out the right way to discover it worked! I was very pleased. Doing it on my own, now on my own dress is going to be a whole new experience. I have the fabric and notions for the second dress, but I've resisted cutting it and getting it ready until I can be sure the bodice will fit on the current one. I really really want to try doing an FBA, as I believe that's where most of my fit problems will be in the current dress. My sewing teacher helped me make some pattern alterations, but not a proper FBA. Before I attach the skirt to the bodice, I will need to add the darts for the waist. It looks like I'll have to add 4 darts in the front, and 2 or 4 darts in teh back.

Fun stuff!

BFN

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Creepy Star Trek Photo thing

I tried for quite a while to get this to look right, and it turned out I looked best as a man. YIKES! It's still really creepy.

Create Your Own

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Calling all Stargate fans

I've been asked to think up some categories for the tags we'll be using in the Stargate site. I figured since some of my friends are fans, that this would be a great place to get your input!

Here is what I have so far:
* Species > e.g.: Goa'uld
* Places > e.g.: P3X-584
* Weapons > e.g.: X-699
* Other Characters > e.g.:Henry Hayes
* Transport > e.g.:Dial Home Device
* Home Entertainment > e.g. Blu-ray Fan's Choice
* Kino >e.g. Kino 101

I think the one I'm not loving the most is "species" because we'd like to include stuff like Satedan, but of course that's not a species. I was thinking.. Home System? but again not really working for Ancients or Goa'uld...

Please help!


BFN

Friday, April 3, 2009

How is it a pattern if it's unprinted?



I've been very careful up until this week, to make sure I only buy vintage patterns which are printed. My theory was.. if it's not printed.. why not just buy paper and make my own darn patterns? Just doesn't make sense to me. In my hurry to buy an adorable pattern I didn't notice that little "unprinted pattern" note.

Doh!



So I take the pattern out of the envelope.. and it's quite literally blank.

Google is my friend (mantra).

http://sewing.patternreview.com/cgi-bin/review/readreview.pl?ID=1113

Luckily I'm not the only one baffled by such things. Only problem is.. I can't see the perforations! Perhaps my pattern is so old the paper has sort of .. merged?




Oh well, it's neat to have something old, and it only cost a couple dollars.

BFN

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

When Patterns go wild.

I don't know why, but lately I've been obsessed about buying patterns.
Perhaps it's the fact that it is a blueprint towards something new and fabulous? It is the potential of something awesome?

Latest procurements:






Now I need to think up some lovely fabrics, and actually get these constructed! I should probably wait until I've completed my latest Sew-LA course (50's dress).

BFN
 

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