Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Random Stuff

I'm waiting on a couple packages. First off, the highly-anticipated heart rate monitor is scheduled to arrive tomorrow. This afternoon, my new blackberry should arrive to Adam's office. I had it shipped there because I'm horrified that I'd be out of the house when it came and someone in his building's mail room will be there to accept it.

Yep, I lost my blackberry on Sunday. We started our morning by playing beach volleyball for a couple of hours, it's been a heatwave here in Chicity. We even have the A/C on... in May! Adam says I have improved 200% since last year. I think it's my stronger body that makes it easier to play. I still have my Daria moments (think watching ball fall near me when I totally should have had it) but I'll take 200% improvement any day. After v-ball we rode our bikes back home, showered and headed off to watch the Blackhawks game. We had a few too many pitchers of beer because they were only $3.75 (A PITCHER!) and my phone somehow got lost at some point during our transfer from one bar to another. I think I probably left it on the train and seeing as how our group was totally decked out in Blackhawks gear, including a playoffs broom (we swept the Sharks) and singing the "after goal song", I think we sufficiently annoyed everyone on the train car and if anyone saw me leave my phone behind they probably thought I deserved it. Which I probably did.

Moral of the story... take it easy on the pitchers, Big Jen. It was a valuable experience because we'll be getting iPhones in the fall when I move onto Adam's plan and I realized that I seriously suck at keeping a phone (this is the same Blackberry that fell out of my bag on the floor of a hotel in Montana and had to get mailed back to me) and I'll be taking Adam's old iPhone and he can get the new model instead of the other way around. And if you don't already have phone insurance, you should consider getting it. They are overnighting me the phone for $100. Which is way less than the $400 or so a new Blackberry costs. There was no way that I could carry on with my old flip phone for the next 4.5 months until my contract was over. I need the internet for so many things (CTA bus tracker being the most important).

Tonight I'll have to figure out how to do Sprint's at home phone activation for the first time. Oy vey. But on the brightside, my lost Blackberry was having more and more frequent meltdowns and for some reason the back was stuck on so I couldn't remove the battery for the hard reset that they are so fond of for fixing said phones. Hopefully the new-to-me (I am expecting it to be a re-ferb) will be able to hold on until October.

We only have a week and a half until the Avon Walk! I'm so excited and ready for it to be here. Brooke and I are mapping out our weekend plans and we've decided on our pre-walk meal of pasta at Mia Francesca's and our post-walk meal at Tango Sur (aka the best BYOB Argentinian steak house ever). I try not to think about the overwhelming emotions that will be running through me. At the introduction meeting, I was tearing up at the video. There are so many survivors that walk and many who have lost mothers, sisters, friends, daughters, etc. I'm thankful that it is a walk so we'll be able to chat with so many different people and hear their stories (as opposed to me asthmatically running and not able to talk as easily). But because I am an emotional basket case I'm not looking forward to the sheer sadness of it all. Luckily, I'll have Brooker next to me to hold my hand and walk me through it (literally, haha).

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Negative Nelly

I'm going to totally be a jerk and use this opportunity to vent. We've had the amazon.com gift certificate for a week but it was mailed to Adam and he chose this week to decide that opening mail addressed to him was not important. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

On the bright side, I ordered my HRM. It will probably be shipped when we are in San Diego next weekend and I'll have to pick it up from UPS. See, I am so cranky right now! I can't even be happy that it's ordered.

I also wasted $50 on signing us up for a 5K that we didn't run this morning. To be fair, I could have gone alone but I chose to sleep in and Adam is not-so-recovering from bronchitis so there was no reason to push him into running. But I'm mad at myself for registering and wasting money on it.

So in short, I am having a not so good Saturday. But it's all stupid in the grand scheme of things and nothing that a good sesh at the gym can't fix.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Impatience

Do you believe that your (future or otherwise) children will haunt you in similar ways that you drove your parents mad? Adam and I talk about that sometimes. I am determined that my children are going to be so demanding and impatient because that is exactly how I am.

As I previously mentioned, we used CC rewards on two different cards to get gift cards. Adam's Sports Authority is already here and it's an actual gift card so he can have merchandise in hand as soon as he's willing to go there. My amazon card? NOT HERE YET. I'm going insane. I've needed a heart rate monitor for about a year or so now but I'm too cheap. I also will have to wait for shipping and as I mentioned, I'm too cheap to do anything but the free super saver shipping that takes twice as long.

Ok, rant off.

Lately, I've been finding that I'll glance down at my watch now and then during workouts (even, gasp, yoga, so much for the mental benefits). I imagine that I was just getting bored with my routine and classes and needed a new challenge or two. Hot yoga has been one of them but at the hot yoga studio I signed up for an introductory set of private lessons on the Pilates reformer machines so I can take group classes if I want. They are a little more expensive but we save a lot of money by using the YMCA as our private gym so I figure I can handle it.

When my hour was over, I could have cried. I definitely checked to make sure that she wasn't gypping me out of some time because it felt that fast. I don't think I've ever had a 1:1 workout/instructor ratio before and HOLY MOLY I cannot wait for June and personal training sessions. It was the best ever! And the reformer machines? Awesome, awesome, awesome!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Credit Card Rewards

We did some redeeming of our credit card rewards last week and believe me, it was hard to convince the old man around here that we should but I prevailed.

He obviously needs to replace his entire golf club set, golf bag and the oodles of things he kept in said golf bag (a nice windbreaker pullover, etc.). So I used my card rewards to get him a gift card to Sports Authority. Combining that with the $25 off of $100 purchase coupons they come out with frequently, he'll be able to get a lot for a little.

We also got an amazon.com gift card from our joint card rewards because that is the best price that I've seen for the Polar F6 heart rate monitor, which is what I have decided I need for my latest fitness purchase. I am so impatiently waiting for that stupid certificate to get here so I can buy it. Which brings up a huge pet peeve... it's a gift certificate for amazon.com, which basically means it's going to come with a little code that I can enter on their website. Why do they feel the need to waste the postage (and my time) to mail that to me? An email wouldn't have worked? Grr.


At any rate, I'll be rocking this on my wrist soon enough and I am SO intrigued to see how many calories I'm burning.


P.S. There will be some money left on the amazon card so Adam is replacing his prized hokie bird golf club cover. And I am still royally pissed at the dude who stole the clubs.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

25 Days

We got an email yesterday from Avon Walk... only 25 days until it's here! I'm excited but I'm not going to lie, a little freaked out.

I'm a researcher, I looked up and had an idea of the marathon course about six months before the race. The Avon Walk is slightly more, well, loose in their planning. I don't think they have the actual course decided yet. I don't even know where it starts or ends. They keep saying that they will send a detailed email as the walk gets closer but I have this innate need to have a better understanding of what I'm up against. I must continue to suppress my Type A obsessions and get over it.

In other related news, I had my serious legs class with Mondale yesterday for the first time in three weeks and oh the pain!! I know I am making serious strides but I still have a long way to go. I would just like to be able to do the three minutes of jumping jacks with 8 lb dumbells!!!

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Hot Yoga

Holy wow.

That's pretty much it.




I tried a hot yoga class for the first time on Monday night. They don't offer it at our Y but I have been wanting to try it for quite awhile now. Oh yeah, and this did not fit into my no-spending plan, oops, but I decided to bite because it was health and fitness related and I figure that is important stuff. They changed a couple of yoga classes around at the YMCA and I found myself not going as much as I would like to.

Anyhoo, it was nothing short of amazing. I went to a small studio and I am pretty sure that it was the first time I've ever done yoga outside of a traditional gym setting. It was from 8:00-9:15 pm so they had the lights off in the room and the only illumination was the street lights (the studio is on a pretty busy corner right next to the L train so we weren't completely in the dark). I found the setting to be extremely relaxing. The heat was already turned up when we started but the yogi turned on several extra heaters all around the room. I was sweating within just a couple of minutes.

I realized that the yoga I am used to practicing at the YMCA is very, very beginner. It was good to be exposed to a new instructor and new positions. Some of the stuff was insanely hard but for other positions I was the only person in class that could do them! Yoga is strange that way, I feel like I learn so much about my body each time I go.

When I got home and saw myself in the mirror, I cracked up. I had sweat stains everywhere! I was afraid that I would be really sore on Tuesday but I surprisingly wasn't! I think the heat helped with that because I know I really pushed myself. I have nine more sessions to use at the studio and I'm looking forward to it.

It was just a regular Vinyassa class so I will still have to try Bikram one of these days!

Monday, May 3, 2010

Holy guacamole!

It's been kind of a big couple of days in my life. Some of our besties are getting married, one of my longest friends is having a baby and my sometime-employer, United, is merging with Continental Airlines. I won't comment on the friend news, not sure if all the news is out yet but I am SOOOOO happy for everyone involved and I love it when life works in great ways for my nearest and dearest. So I'll tell you more about the big merger.

Nothing really changes for any United employees at first, most especially me. I am still on my 30 month furlough. I'll still send my $10 check every month and keep all my health bennies. The company isn't expected to officially, legally "merge" until the end of 2010 and even that legal merge is only the very first step. After the legal merge, the company will start working on getting a combined certificate of airworthiness and begin the combining of operations. In an email I read today from CO's management to their employees, they think they can have this done by some time in 2012. If you look at new Delta (Delta and former Northwestern), they announced their merge two years ago and nothing major has happened except I think that the old Northwestern planes have been painted and I assume they make announcements as Delta.

As you can only imagine, merging two Fortune 500 companies with tons of employees and different unions on the premises will be mad complicated. I am not even scheduled to return to work until March 2012 so I can just sit at home and wait to see what happens. I have other plans for myself in the meantime that may ultimately affect my situation but we'll have to wait and see (that was kind of cryptic, sorry).

It's going to be a wild ride, that may be the only thing that's certain but I am really looking forward to hopefully having more options within my homestate (Continental's biggest hub is Houston). I'll be sitting here and counting the days until we can pass-ride on Continental!