Les Mills LAUNCH PARTY

Last night we had our Wilson's Les Mills Launch Party at the Courtyard Marriott here in town and let me tell you, it was crazy...in an awesome way. I'm too tired to write much now, but I will say that at first count last night, we had 135 people crammed in the ballroom, COMBATing their little booties off! Hopefully I'll have some "live action" shots to put on here soon. The whole Les Mills Team (including COMBAT, PUMP, STEP and JAM).
Me and a few of my STEP teammates (Billie, Tara, me, Sara).

I conned my lil' sister into coming with her best friend and even though they were still super soar from having pumped the day before, they still stuck it out through STEP. Good job girls! :)

More to come...suffice it to say that it was super fun, but at the same time, my body is breaking down. I think in the past week I've done 11 STEP classes and my knees are very mad at me for it. This next week I'm definitely going to tone it down a bit! :)

When It Rains It Pours

I think most of you know enough about me to know that I like things clean. My van is no exception. Now, keep that in mind:

Let me tell you about the worse evening ever! Some of you know from Facebook that my stove is broken. Well, it's not my stove, it's my oven. It's possessed--for real. Anyway, Sunday evening is coming to a close and I'm in my PJs thinking about how wonderful it will be to go in and lay in bed and read my book for a while. Suddenly I remember that I need to make 2 cheesecakes b/c I'm bringing a friend dinner on Monday night and my cheesecake takes 24 hours to set up in the fridge. Dang! Okay, I go into panic mode and start crankin' out these cheesecakes. I pour them into their graham cracker crusts, only to have it strike me that, DUH! my oven is broken! It's 10pm. "Um, hi, dad? Would you mind preheating your oven to 350, I'll be over in 5 minutes." Luckily, my parents only live around the corner. So around the corner I go w/ my two cheesecakes ready for their baking.

30 minutes later...I'm leaving my mom's house with two piping hot cheesecakes balancing in my hands on hot pads as I maneuver my way to my van. Things were going great, I had set the first cheesecake down, no problems and then, this:

To my everlasting horror I was stuck cleaning cheesecake out of a million nooks and cranny's until late into the night. Needless to say, I didn't get to read my book and while spitting profanities at our broken stove as I trudged back and forth between van and sink, the only thing that kept coming to me was the sad fact that now there wouldn't be an extra cheesecake for me to eat.

We're getting sued in 2028

Earlier this week, the thought occurred to me that I really haven't had anything blogworthy going on lately...and for me, that's a good thing. Usually the things I end up blogging about are naughty things that Jenna and Brooke have orchestrated to further their life long pursuit of sending Mommy to the Nut House. So to think that the last few weeks have been unblogworthy was really making me quite happy. I was even on the verge of thinking that my children were growing out of their "naughty" phase.

This was not to be the case...

First I must start by saying that I normally shower around 11am, once we've gotten home from the gym. So the routine normally goes that I sit them both down on the couch with a hoard of snacks and Dora on the TV, while I dash into the bathroom and successfully execute the fastest shower known to man. Generally, the snacks and the Dora are enough to keep them occupied for at least, oh, 5 minutes.

Yesterday was not such a day. I guess Brooke was trying to get a drink and managed somehow to jam her cup in our water dispenser on the fridge door. 5, 6, 7 minutes go by and I have no idea that while I'm getting dressed in the bedroom, Old Faithful is flowing through my kitchen. When I come out to check on the rebels, they are playing in the water like it's a freakin' Raging Waters. When I calmly question Jenna (ha!) as to what happened and WHY she didn't come get me, she lifted up a washcloth she was playing around with and said, "Don't worry Mom, I'm cleaning it up!" Um, I hated to break it to her, but one 5 inch washcloth was not going to cut it. 8 or 9 soaked bath towels and a mopping later and we were back to normal (except for what may have made its way under my appliances) and I have since come to the realization that until my children are both out of the house and on their own, I will never cease to have naughty stories to write about. Even once they're moved out, I can just see myself writing a post about how Brooke, now 21 years old, grabbed the bottom Chicken Noodle soup on display at Macey's and caused a soup spill on isle 9; knocking over a paraplegic gentleman, who has subsequently decided to sue her.

Happy St. Pattie's Day

What is the point of this holiday anyway? Really, I have no idea. Just another party for all you room mothers out there. And, okay, I realize my rainbow doesn't exactly follow the ol' ROYGBIV acronym, but who are you, Bill Nye? They're good enough for a 3 1/2 year old, right?

In case you're wondering why I can't walk today...

Darn Activity Days girls, they made it look so easy I just couldn't resist trying it. My back will never be the same.

Randomness

I thought I should post to say, if nothing else, that Mr. Darcy's Diary is WAY better than The Confessions of Fitzwilliam Darcy. Also, I'm sad to report that our library does not have Mr. Darcy Presents his Bride, but never fear, I'm on hold for a couple other ones right now.

For the time being, I'm reading yet another Shopaholic series book, Shopaholic and Baby. They truly aren't that great, so I don't know why I'm wasting my time. I think it's because I also started Gone with the Wind at the same time...and quite frankly, I'm scared of it. Every time I look at it I feel a sense of failure, like, "you'll never finish that ginormous book you big loser, so don't even try." There something about a 1,400 plus page book that just makes me think, "Why didn't she just write a 3 book series instead of 1 mondo book? It cramps my hand to hold it while I'm reading." Oh well.

On an unrelated note, and because I'm bored and would like to say this, I love Phillipe and Sionne from this seasons The Biggest Loser and I'm glad Phillipe exploded at Jillian last night: she deserved it.

Adventures in Reading

The past 6 months or so I decided that I needed to start broadening my horizons as far as my reading list was concerned. It was pretty much filled with romantic comedies (ie Sophie Kinsella) or romantic tragedies (ie Nicholas Sparks) or classics. So I thought I'd start reading books that I had always alleged to hate with a fiery passion.

My first genre: SciFi

Okay, I thought, I've watched Star Wars (and liked it), so I guess I'm ready to take the next "nerd" step and start reading Science Fiction. I tried reading the Star Wars book. It was a no go. Had to stop about 3 chapters in. This was going to be harder than I thought.

Attempt #2: Fantasy

Started out with The Wheel of Time prequel....big mistake. Okay, so by now I'm thinking, I'm destined to read romance novels forever. But I stuck with it and ploughed through the 1st Wheel of time Time novel, then lightened things up a bit with the YA book series Artemis Fowl. By this point, I had not enjoyed any of the reading I had been doing. It was like in 9th grade when your teacher tells you that you have to read Romeo and Juliet and even though it's no more than 100 pages or so, it seems like each Act has sucked away half of your will to live (I no longer feel this way about Shakespeare, but I did once). Anyway, point being, I was losing my will to live (at least in Fantasy world). I kept going, however, because I knew there had to be a niche out there in SciFi/Fantasy world that would appeal to a Harry Potter loving nerd like me. Finally, I found it. I've read a half dozen or so fantasy/scifi books that were really pretty tolerable. So now, I'm moving on. So, to Science Fiction and Fantasy I can now say, I no longer hate you...as bad.

Genre #3: Fan Fiction

I have always asserted that Fan Fiction writers should die a slow and painful death. This is why I've chosen that for my next genre of reading. I have only read one "published" fanfic novel (there's millions of unpublished garbage out there that, sadly, I have read). It was a sequel to Pride and Prejudice called Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife and truth be told, it was worse than a harlequin romance novel. I laughed throughout the entirety. But I'm back to the grindstone, determined to find at LEAST one fanfic novel that doesn't make me chuck my nuggets. Here's what's on tap:

There's actually a fantastic page at the Pemberely Website, where Jane Austen lovers from all over the world have written reviews about the hundreds of fanfic Austen novels. Here's a link. I figured Pride and Prejudice was a good place to start b/c it's an area I feel pretty strongly about. I might delve into a few Harry Potter fanfics if I can stomach it later on.

So, anyone feel like reading some painfully horrific attempts at literature with me? Come on, it should be good fun laughing and mocking, if nothing else.