BELLYDANCING!!!

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Yes, I went to the bellydance class tonight! It was awesome!! And apparently I have a hidden bellydancing talent because the teacher thought I had taken bellydance classes before and said I did really good! :D hehehe. AWESOME. Will definitely be doing that again!

But.... um.... a class I will NOT do again - Bodyattack! It's supposed to mix cardio intervals w/ strength training blabhlahblah. Well -- it was almost all cardio w/ some random lunge stuff, one or two sets of squats... (IN the mainly cardio segments) then there were TWO mat segments - one w/ pushups and one w/ planks and crunches. But mostly you were jumping around like a demented fitness cheerleader at a competition w/ lame techno remix music.... Just... NOT my kind of class. If I'm gonna be jumping around to music, at least let me be dancing. And have real music. It was definitely challenging my heart rate and whatnot but .. ugh. just NOT fun. NOT for me. :P But I stuck it out and burned almost 700 calories.

This morning I ran 3ish miles before work, too. So I've already burned like 3800 cals this week, and I have an 8 miler Saturday morning and will probably go to the gym at some point this weekend. WOOT.

WORK IS GREAT! :D hahahaha. I like it more and more -- I am constantly impressed by how nice the company seems even if there are things like the fact that I don't get any paid time for 90 days (at which point I get some sick time) and then in Jan I get some floating holidays and then is also my 6month mark when I'll get some vacation. But for the next 3 months I'm SOL if I need any time off as far as I know. The HR guy said to talk to my supervisors (cause I have to take a Wed. off for SIL going through the temple before her wedding) - and they might be able to work something out. (Maybe I could work extra hours over some other days or something?) Anyway. If that's really the ONLY THING I have to complain about -- that's really NOT that big a deal for me because I don't really just take a lot of time off randomly.

I get Thanksgiving and the day after off, the two days (Thu-Fri) before Christmas off (all with pay, yes) - New Year's. etc.
There are GREAT employee purchase options for LG products
A very cool Employee of the Quarter and of the Year program
Regular company events that sound cool
I get to wear tennis shoes w/ my jeans on casual Friday (we were never allowed tennis shoes at my old work, even when we got to wear jeans - which was every Thursday and Friday pretty much and some other special times)
I got a cool LG Insulated Cup thing and Lapel Pin today
The dept monthly meeting at which I was introduced was really full of team support and spirit
And the people are nice!

I got invited to sit and eat lunch w/ some people today - that was so nice! :D I was all prepared to eat fast and play my PSP -- I guess I always had lunch at an odd time before, no one else practically had lunch at 5PM ya know? Now that I'm a noon to one girl that might happen more often I guess. haha. But anyway...

Oh and HR is taking me and the other new hire from last week (and any other NEW new hires I guesS) to lunch on Monday since we didn't get that before.

I should be set up on my computer tomorrow as well which is great cause I can finally start working on getting really good at the boring/worst part of the job so I can get trained on all of the interesting and challenging parts. :)

OK I need to shower and eat.

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Ok I'll blog... :)

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

I'm not getting a good routine going yet, but I will get there.

To sum up:

Sunday we DID go to the gym -- I did upper body mostly w/ a tiny bit of ab work.
Monday - 4 miles before work (SUPER SLOW but it felt good, so that's nice), Thought work was going to suck, ZUMBA (which was awesome!) after work!
Tuesday - OFF day for workouts - work was MUCH better, ate out w/ some people Mexican, got fajitas and it was awesome but too much food. Didn't go totally insane on the chips and salsa though, just had some, but not constant food shoveling. Ya know?

So now I'm at home and I think everyone else is GONE... so the dogs are in their cages and I didn't realize I was home alone until I came down to our room and DH isn't here and neither are his shoes or anything... and I don't feel like dealing with the dogs. Now is about the time they usually EAT...?! So I'm surprised no one is home... unless they left RIGHT before I got here and they fed them before they left? Gonna go call DH cause I was so looking forward to coming home and spending time with him because I was crazy tired yesterday. (Not used to my new schedule yet.)

Tomorrow morning I run - 5 miles w/ 3 at tempo pace according to my new HM Plan from RW. I'm just doing the plan they published but adjusting all suggested tempos to my estimated current fitness suggestions from McMillan's Calculator thingie. I know exactly where I will go for the run, just gotta DO IT. then tomorrow after work I hope to make it to the gym in time for Pilates.

So yesterday work seemed horribly annoying and boring. I find out today that I was being trained on the worst most boring part of the job only at first. HAHAHAHA. *phwew* So far I really like the people I've met and interacted with and the company does seem really great except for dropping the ball on my first day.

I was supposed to have new hire orientation, but the HR people were NOT THERE so some other guy tried and he didn't know where any of the files were for what he was supposed to show us, so he essentially just took our paperwork and sent us back to wait (again) in the lobby until someone from our dept came to rescue us. :P

Well apparently the orientation is usually fabulous and you go out for lunch (so they did that for me today w/ the sup and mgr from my area), and I dunno, everything just seems much better all of a sudden. HAHA. Tomorrow there is the area's monthly meeting and they will apparently introduce me - unless I'm in Orientation - but they'll still introduce me because a girl came and took my picture and gave me a cute little survey to fill out about myself so they will have some things to say about me. (hobbies, what I'd take on a desert island and why, favorite sports team, etc.)

OK. Time to go do other things. Call DH at least...

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Gym Membership Acquired - oohhhh yeahhhh

Saturday, July 10, 2010

And gym BUDDY acquired simultaneously!!!

My BIL felt inspired to find himself a gym membership to give himself some more varied and excited tools to use to get muscles. :) That is his #1 goal. hehe. Anyway, so I went with him to check out the local University Gym and well... the guy who showed us around showed us what an awesome deal we could get and bingbamboom - we signed up. I'm on his membership as a family member so it is an extremely reasonable price for all inclusive classes, great ST floor which includes a Kettlebell Selection, a ton of BOSU and Stability Balls (my old gym had one. of each. and NO KETTLEBELLS), cardio floor, basketball gym, and nearby old gym facility w/ racquetball and volleyball courts if we so desire. OH and an indoor pool... and a hot tub.... the pool has every pool equipment I could think of looking around there - water jogging belts and foot thingies, all those underwater dumbbell thinges, flippers, etc.etc.etc... even freaking RUBBER DUCKIES. I AM NOT JOKING. Other pool toys like balls and whatnot, some nets... I mean it's insane. I'm not sure when you can use all of that, but there are some interesting sounding pool classes that probably make use of some of those things. Like an aqua BOOT CAMP class.

So yesterday we got our membership, came home, changed, and went right back to work out. 30 min on the cardio floor (roughly), then 20min or so back checking out the ST floor again, did some ab stuff. (Thursday I did some kb work w/ swings and whatnot, as well as a bunch of squats and deadlifts (deadlifts w/ my BIL's 35lb KB YIKES - I did some swings with that sucker but I didn't last too long, only about 30 seconds), so I avoided lower body and my upper body was still sore as well since I also tried to do some negative chin ups, which didn't work, and then some assisted ones, which felt too easy cause I knew I was relying on my legs too much, but hey obviously I did something....) THEN back to cardio for another 30 min or so... I did Arc Trainer, rowing machine, this cool upper body cardio machine which has you doing like a WIDE kayaking kind of motion..., and some spin bike between all of that. Then after stretching a bit, it was only 20min till POWER YOGA so we stayed for that as well and almost died. HAHAHAHA.

Fast forward to this morning I got up and lugged my sore butt around for almost 9 miles. Oh it was SLOOWWWW but I did it. I'm proud of myself.

I'm gonna change HM Training plans and switch to the 10 week RW plan on Monday sooooooooo yay. I was using this free plan from TrainingPeaks and it was kind of insane. Like 2 days of running M-F - one easy, one hill repeats - and then saturday long run, Sunday TEMPO run. yeah. I was like uhhhh what? So while I did that to form last week, skipped hill repeats and likely tempo run tomorrow this week (because I want to run on Monday and need a recovery day).... I think the new plan will be better for me.

I'm thinking run in the morning, gym in the early evening right after work -- there are a bunch of great classes at 5:30 and 6:30 (or on Tuesday night's there's CLUB SALSA at 6:40). This gym has bellydancing classes, pilates, TAE KWON DO (in which you can actually do belt tests, the testing costs $20 when you test and move up a belt but the class is free), Body Pump and Body attack, turbo kick, Zumba, yoga, Power yoga, Gentle Yoga, cycling classes...ABSolution, Butts&Guts or whatever, um.. yeah. I think there are a couple more I'm forgetting... oh a beginner lindy hop class on Mondays... :D haha and more I think.... So I'm super excited. Hip hop is in there somewhere... yeah.

OK I need to go SHOWER.

WORK STARTS MONDAY!!!!!! :D

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I GOT THE JOB!!! :D

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

WOOOHOOOO!!!

I gotta go pee in a cup today. And they're running my background check.

But then assuming all comes back in order (and on time this week), I start Monday. Of course I know there's nothing wrong in my background check stuff or in my urine, but the timing on the background check might push my starting date a week (orientation only happens on Mondays apparently) so here's hoping that I do actually get to start Monday. :)

SO WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!! AGAIN! I'm so relieved.

I did NOT workout yesterday - other than to show my Freestyle Trainer to my BIL, but I didn't do any sets of anything really just a couple demo exercises.

Today I got my butt up early and ran 4ish miles then did some upper body Freestyle Training. Tomorrow should be hill repeats.

I figure - my new job schedule will be 8-5, M-F, yes- a NORMAL SCHEDULE HALLELUJAH! So I might as well get used to getting up early to get ready.

Well - I need to eat. And hydrate. Just wanted to share the good news! :)

OH and the job is as a Field Service Representative for LG Electronics - basically I will be the liason making repairs happen for people w/ LG stuff. Dealing with and explaining warranty coverage, getting the service people connected to the customers, finding service people if there is a repair that won't fall under a pre-existing service contract, etc. I'm excited, I think it'll be a good one. All I've heard around here is that LG is a really great company to work for, and the benefits are reallllly good.

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FUN weekend!

Monday, July 05, 2010

Food has been kind of sporadic and not really healthy, but I've been very active as well so I'm hoping it will all kind of balance and this week and be more routine.

I ran 8 miles on Saturday w/ CLOVERR1 - it was intended to be 7 but turns out it mapped longer than that (which I was VERY glad of because the effort and time taken was soooooooooo not in line with the shorter distance for me I was like whaaa?) - plus the way back of the out and back was a total disaster, I did not bring my own fluids and it was just bad business and I ended up walking at least a mile I think on the way back. BUT! I still got it done!

Then later that day we headed to a party at my BIL's friends family's house.... a HUGE 4th bash they do annually - giant inflatable water slide, pool, food, volleyball net, tetherball, everything. I mean really really everything. FIREWORKS of course - they even had their land sprayed for mosquitos right before the party. :) It was VERY fun. I didn't water slide, but I DID go in the pool and I even sundried in my suit without going insanely self conscious which was amazing. And looking back, I think I was the only adult female to go in the pool... other than the friend that invited us. My DH and my BIL were probably the only adult males. hahaha. It was very fun.

They rented the slide again today and DH and BIL are going back over there but I DID NOT GO ON THE SLIDE and do not have ANY DESIRE to... and had my fill of watching. So I'm going to stay with the dogs so they don't have to be crated again.

ANYWAY. Sunday was hanging around and then a 4.83 ish mile run - it was great!!!! Sooooo fabulous after the previous day's dissapointing results. warmup, 20min tempo, cooldown - it was so cool to run with so much purpose.

Then last night I stayed up wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too late talking first w/ BIL, DH, and BIL friend who came over and then friend left, DH went to bed, and we kept talking till like 5am. WHAT? haha. So I'm a little beat today - but at least it's an off day from running so I can recover and recuperate.

Tonight we go to shoot off our own fireworks. Today I will be hanging out with the doggies for the most part. Which can be soooo nice.

I unpacked all my clothes FINALLY this morning. The closet is SET! YAY!.

OH!!!!!

I dunno if I mentioned that I'm going to be a "ghost runner" for the Sparkin' Hood to Coast team. (Hood to Coast is a 197 mile relay from Mt. Hood down the coastline - there is a great team of sparkers running the race!). I wanted to run the race but knew that this time of year would be questionable even a year ago and now it's very good that I just pushed that idea out of my mind because traveling to Portland was NOT going to happen this August. HAHAHA. But the group has put together a team of runners across the US... and Ireland? (OK according to JOPAPGH Scotland) ... to have a teammate to run with and run their legs with them - same time, same distance, as similar elevation profile as we can work up in our varied locations. So I have the three legs that will be run with KASHMIR - YAY! :D Love her! hehe.

Anyway - I bought a team shirt so I can look the part and tried it out last night. Turns out the cut and brand is like... identical to my SparkPeople Tech shirt - fyi for any Hood to Coaster ladies who got the shortsleeve shirt and don't have an SP Tech shirt! :D hehe.

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