Ok, so I have never been a fan of mellow exercise. I always feel like in order to work out, one must be all sweaty when they are done. So, things like yoga and pilates weren't something I was into. Exercising via stretching and holding always seemed pointless to me and given the choice, I would take kick boxing or The Death Machine (that's an elliptical for those of you just joining us) over yoga.
A couple of months ago, I was at Ross (which is a clothing store like TJ Max) and bought a bundled pack of Crunch tapes. Work out videos are hella cheap at Ross and I usually buy three or four when I am there. During that particular trip I believe I got belly dancing & yoga for my mom and then a Crunch set for myself. The Crunch set had Crunch Salsa and Crunch Cardio Pilates.
And until yesterday I though "Cardio Pilates" was an oxymoron.
You see, yesterday was the day that the me from the past promised the me in the future that I would start working out again. Because the me in April wants to not look like a whale on the beach.
In ten weeks and two days, this chic and her girls will be pairing up with The Cake Lady and her family and Snakeman and the whole lot of us will vamanos down to the beach for an extended weekend of sun and fun :)
And since there are only ten plus weeks left until that event, this chic needed to get her ass in gear and start working out again.
Yesterday morning, my alarm went off at 4:45a and I looked at The Death Machine and I swear it stood up, stretched out and cracked it's knuckles menacingly. I believe I whimpered and rolled over to go back to sleep. But I couldn't because I promised myself I would get up and work out and by golly I keep my promises.
So I lay there for a few minutes contemplating my options.
There was The Death Machine.
Or, I could put on my gloves and beat the crap out of my heavy weight bag... but I'm not sportin' the anger necessary for that at 4:45 in the morning.
Then, I thought about the tapes... While I didn't feel like cardio salsa-ing around my bedroom, I knew that whatever the other tape I had gotten was, I remembered it being mild.
I drug myself out of the bed and went to investigate my exercise tape shelf.
Rachel Hunter's kick boxing made me laugh. That tape would kill me for sure... 12 minute abs? pah- useless tape. Tae-bo? nah... cardio salsa? I'd surely break something... same for belly dancing.... All The Firm tapes? Yeah, those would kick. my. ass... then, at the very end, still in shrink wrap, Cardio Pilates.
Why not?
So, I popped it into the player while stifling a yawn.
Most Crunch tapes start off slow and the first thirty minutes are the wussy half and then the second half is the kick-your-ass half.
I was expecting that.
And let's be honest, I was basically trying to wuss out. I was doing the first half of a pilates tape.
Or so I thought.
It was actually a good work out.
I did it for thirty minutes and skipped the mat stretching at the end and was sweaty and happy when it was done.
It wasn't too hard (like Rachel Hunter would have been) and it wasn't too easy (like Yoga would have been - Please don't send me yoga hate mail, I'm sure it is a very fulfilling work out when you do it).
I was looking forward to doing it again this morning. See my plan was to do pilates for the rest of the week and then move onto harder stuff. Because you can bet your ass, I am working out just about every week day between now and the beach.
Imagine my surprise when I awoke this morning and my legs screamed at me.
Screamed I tell you.
I was very surprised. Mostly because I have strong legs and typically can go months with out working out and then do medium resistance on the elliptical for half an hour without feeling a thing the next day.
Apparently pilates uses different muscles than the elliptical.
Muscles I don't use normally... maybe ever.
I ignored the screaming and got up and put my tape on and did the whole hard core part and the first fifteen minutes of the stretching, hold still, rotate your leg in a circle with only your lower back touching the floor, c'mon fatty - you can do this part before giving up.
And holy crap, pilates is cool.
I am soooo sore.
I have to sit down carefully because the muscles in my legs are killing me.
It rocks :)

Labels: Being a Chic, exercise

You don’t know but that’s okay
You might find me anyway
Don’t you know that i
Belong arm in arm with you, baby
In a town that’s cold and gray
We will have a sunny day
Don’t you know that i
Belong arm in arm with you, baby…

I do not know
Where does it go
When it goes
Suddenly though
Everything’s slow
And i miss you so

Round each corner there’s a chance
People searching glance to glance
Moving bout real fast
Like insects and fish when they’re scared
And they sing the same old song
Though it’s been so very long
They sing, raindrops falling on my head
But that doesn’t mean that i am dead

And i do not know
Where does it go
When it goes
Suddenly though
Everything’s slow
And i miss you so

You don’t know but that’s okay
You might find me anyway
Don’t you know that i
Belong arm in arm with you, baby
In a town that’s cold and gray
We will have a sunny day
Don’t you know that i
Belong arm in arm with you, baby…

In aghaidh na bliana agus Cronaím thú.
Gráim thú.

For a very long time now (over two years) this little page has been my outlet. It's been the place where I came and poured my heart out to whomever may feel inclined to read my words.
I've always written.
I've always had a journal or a notebook or a binder full of poetry and story ideas. Writing is a part of me, of who I am and who I will forever be. It's the one thing I can do mindlessly. I can sit here with my eyes closed and type blindly and everything inside comes out. Every bit of feeling and honesty drips onto the page before you.
I can muster up exactly how I felt that day that my first daughter was born, the way the air smelled the day I left her father, the way my pillow felt when I cried in my room while my parents fought, the dark sky the night I talked on the phone on my porch until 4am. I can remember all of those things by just closing my eyes and writing them.
But I can also take all of those seemingly minute details and spin them into something new. A world not my own with goings on that are purely imagination. I can take that characteristic that one friend has and mesh it with three other characteristics from three other friends and make it a person. A person who is very real to me. A person who doesn't exist and yet who I manage to care about nonetheless.
So when I do that, that thing where I write about something not real, it feels very real to me.
Where is all of this going? Why am I telling you all of this?
Well by means of explanation of my absence.
Every time I have sat down to write here, every time I have even thought about sitting down to write here, it has been my inclination to take a very real person, a person who I care about so much, and put them into fantasy.
I don't necessarily mean to. But just as all of us can't help who we love, I can't help what I write. I write when inspired and that is where my inspiration has been coming from.
So I have a few posts and many drafts, all the same genre. All of what I wish were happening.
And that isn't' so bad.
I've done that before.
But now, I can't seem to stop.
I want to spend more time there, in that place that isn't real with that person who is, than I want to spend here.
I was to cast aside my reality for my fantasy and my indulgence has become to great.
So, while I haven't been blocked, like I usually am when you see days pass here without my thoughts, I haven't been able to write.
I have had to stop writing because I only want to write about one thing.
One dangerous indulgence that is causing me to spend more time in my mind than I do in reality.
So much so that I had hit the point of practically forsaking reality for my imagination. I was literally allowing my imagination to run away with me and when I realized it, I had to stop.
I believe that is considered obsessing.
Which I believe is one of the signs that you are letting The Crazy win.
Can't have that :)
So, I took a break, albeit a long one and I now think I feel better, saner.
So, I am trying again.
Trying to inundate you with absolutely useless dribble for your reading enjoyment.
You know, should there be any of you left to inundate :)
So, please forgive me for bailing on you. I will try now to resume your regularly scheduled idiocy.

I know her by her angry air,
Her bright black eyes, her bright black hair,
Her rapid laughters wild and shrill,
As laughters of the woodpecker
From the bosom of a hill.
’Tis Kate–she sayeth what she will;
For Kate hath an unbridled tongue,
Clear as the twanging of a harp.
Her heart is like a throbbing star.
Kate hath a spirit ever strung
Like a new bow, and bright and sharp
As edges of the scimitar.
Whence shall she take a fitting mate?
For Kate no common love will feel;
My woman-soldier, gallant Kate,
As pure and true as blades of steel.
Kate saith ‘the world is void of might.’
Kate saith ‘the men are gilded flies.’
Kate snaps her fingers at my vows;
Kate will not hear of lovers’ sighs.
I would I were an armed knight,
Far-famed for well-won enterprise,
And wearing on my swarthy brows
The garland of new-wreathed emprise;
For in a moment I would pierce
The blackest files of clanging fight,
And strongly strike to left and right,
In dreaming of my lady’s eyes.
O, Kate loves well the bold and fierce;
But none are bold enough for Kate,
She cannot find a fitting mate.

(Shake it up)

I never loved nobody fully
Always one foot on the ground
And by protecting my heart truly
I got lost in the sounds
I hear in my mind
All these voices
I hear in my mind all these words
I hear in my mind all this music

And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart
It breaks my heart

And suppose I never met you
Suppose we never fell in love
Suppose I never ever let you kiss me so sweet and so soft
Suppose I never ever saw you
Suppose we never ever called
Suppose I kept on singing love songs just to break my own fall

Just to break my fall
Just to break my fall
Break my fall
Break my fall

All my friends say that of course its gonna get better
Gonna get better
Better better better better
Better better better

I never love nobody fully
Always one foot on the ground
And by protecting by heart truly
I got lost
In the sounds
I hear in my mind
All these voices
I hear in my mind all these words
I hear in my mind
All this music
And it breaks my heart
It breaks my heart
Breaks my
Heart
Breaks my heart

You can see the video for this song on Regina Spektor's myspace page.

I've discovered the down side of having a very active imagination.
Instead of releasing the things you can't have, you consume yourself with day dreams and thoughts of how it would be if you could.
It's very dangerous.
Someone once told me that if you put a rubber band on your wrist and snapped it every time you thought or did something you shouldn't that you would eventually break the habit.
"That's just it. I don't want to I've waited my whole life to feel this miserable"

"Good morning Trin."

"No. It's not good morning Mamma."

"It's not a good morning?"

"No!"

"Well, why not baby?"

"Because Mamma, it can't be good morning when it's dark."

Or...
Happy New Year !!