since we moved here, we have had very, very few planned social outings (other than with house-guests).  we know several of the other owners in our building and we’ll stop and chat in passing around the building.  we have had countless conversations with strangers in the hot tub.  and yet, last night was the first time that we actually went out with people we’ve met here.  we met this couple in the hot tub sunday night and spent probably an hour talking with them.  last night we went out to dinner with them.  it was a little strange but we had a fun time with good eats and good conversation.  who knows, maybe we’re finally turning a corner.  i got us to join up with a running group which will hopefully also produce social opportunities that don’t involve torturing my legs and lungs.  and we’re starting to make more of an effort around our building.  at the risk of sounding desperate, perhaps… just perhaps… we’ll have some friends around here before long.  i’d love to have a weekly game night like my cousin has in orlando.

lunchtime:

50 minutes fiit – aerobics and balance.  somehow, i can do a lot more time of those.  i guess they either last longer or there’s less time between them.  certainly less yapping about the same old stuff than the yoga and strength.  my line went down ever so slightly.  *UPDATE*  it is also worth noting that i am, apparently, completely incapable of hula hooping to the left.  i keep trying but the stupid hoop drops to the virtual floor in under fifteen seconds.  why don’t my hips circle left?!

lunchtime:

40 minutes of fiit’ing – yoga and strength (if i had looked here first i would have seen that i did those last time i fiit’ed).  i managed to get a few extra exercise minutes out of my lunch hour by skipping the body test.  in a case of “no news is good news,” it says that my weight has not changed since friday.  i’m much happier with a flat line than an upward line. 

Yesterday afternoon, we went to see Cirque Dreams: Jungle Fantasy. I really enjoyed the show, although I had actually assumed when I purchased the tickets that the show was affiliated with Cirque du Soleil. While Jungle Fantasy did have many common elements to a Cirque du Soleil show, namely the amazing acrobatics, the story and presentation were very different. It was the music that made me realize that there could not be an affiliation between this show and its more masterful name sound-alike. I thought that the instrumentals were fabulous – I may have even fallen in love with the violinist. The vocals were decently-sung but the songs themselves were not what I was expecting. The vocalist was the character of mother nature and the songs were almost Sesame Street-ish tunes teaching the main character to respect nature. I certainly don’t mean to disrespect Sesame Street by the comparison because while these songs were about personal growth, personality, and courage, the lyrics were all equally abysmal.

The set was simple. There were many “animals” that served no real purpose to the show, another thing that set it apart from a …du Soleil show. However, the costumes were stunning – even the emus and frogs. The performers were very able and impressive. From the fun and fantastic jump-roping tricks at the beginning to the beautifully fluid contortionist reptiles, from the incredibly balancing giraffe-men to the ginormous strongmen gymnasts, each act was a true visual treat. Overall it was a great show, although I wish I could have blocked out the horrid songs.

i found a little local running group on the web this week.  last night i told hubby about it and this morning we got up at our normal weekday time and went to our favorite shopping plaza to stalk meet them. 

we got there around 07:15 and the website said that they met at 07:30 but didn’t specify where.  we stretched and stood around for a while and then i resigned myself to the fact that we had somehow missed them and we started running.  we ran an easy one mile loop around the park (no walking) and got back to where we started.  we saw some folks over by the parking lot so we started walking over to see if it was them but they got in a car and drove off so we were pretty sure it wasn’t.  we started back to the loop to run another mile when we saw a guy that looked like a runner.  we stopped him and asked him if he knew of a running group that met there saturday mornings and we were pleased to find that he was one of the leaders.  we walked with him back to the parking lot where his partner was talking with a woman who was a beginning runner.  introductions went around and it was decided that the partner was going to take the woman around the loop we had just done and the guy we met was going to take us on a three+ mile loop around the whole plaza. 

it was a nice course that they had plotted out and it was nice to have someone to talk with.  unfortunately, i didn’t time it but i’m pleased to say that i only walked less than five minutes of it so i feel like it was a pretty decent time.  it was by far my longest continuous running in i-couldn’t-tell-you-when.  i really liked the guy we ran with.  he was very nice, about my age – probably just a few years older – and he didn’t make me feel bad about being a slowpoke.  he even tried to give me some pointers.  toward the beginning of the run he asked me, “how do you breath when you’re running?” my response was, “i gasp,” which he seemed to find humerous.  he then tried to teach me better breathing techniques which i will try to work on but the gasping just comes naturally.  really, when i’m doing any kind of physical activity, i sound like i’m dying.  i can make it just fine, but you will think that i’m getting ready to keel over. 

when we were finished with the three mile loop, we were back at the parking lot with the other two.  we talked for a few minutes before parting ways.  sunday mornings they do a 10k trail run at the local park but i’m not so sure i’ll make that.  giving up both sleep-in-mornings seems a little excessive to me.  i’ll probably try to rotate one or the other each weekend.  hubby will probably do both because he’s much more devoted than me.  there is also a thursday run over the bridge.  i’m looking forward to those because they do dinner and socializing afterward (and to be perfectly honest the whole reason i brought the group up to hubby is because i desperately want to make friends around here) but the thought of doing laps over the bridge intimidates me quite a bit.  us orlandoans don’t take well to inclines.  but we’re being social and getting exercise so this is a good thing.  who knows, maybe i’ll build up to doing all three runs each week.  and there was a reward this morning.  after our four miles of running, hubby took me to chick-fil-a for a yummy breakfast biscuit.  hmmm, what would the reward be on sundays?

lunchtime:

35 minutes of fiit – yoga and strength.  that’s really about all you can do in an hour since you have to back in and out of all of the exercises.  and i start with the body test every time so that takes up a few minutes too.  i did fairly awful today.  my whole body is just worn out from all of the activity this week and my muscles are all tired and shaky.  i couldn’t hold my center of balance in any of the exercises.  however, this was the first time that it pronounced my weight as decreasing.  not by much but i think maybe it’s warming up to me!

evening:

libationous bicep curls – hey, it’s my birthday!

lunchtime:

35 minutes on the fiit – aerobics and balance.  it punished my for not playing with it yesterday by saying that i had gained two and a half pounds since my last time.  i call shenanigans.  i continue to patiently wait for it to get used to me and start acting friendly-like.

evening:

30 or so minutes of swimming twenty-four laps.  i was shocked that hubby, who is a much stronger swimmer and infinitely more fit than me, was struggling to keep up with me the second half. 

forty minutes of weightlifting in the gym.  it was HOT in there.  i was reminded of why i prefer my activities to be outdoors in the breeze or in the comfort of my own home.  hubby has been trying to talk the board into approving ceiling fans.  to me, it’s not about temperature in a gym, it’s about circulating air.  maybe that’s just me, though.

so the bad thing about condo living is that there is no shortage of people walking around with a key to my home (maintenance persons and such).  i can deal with this.  what i cannot deal with is these people just walking into my home whenever they feel like it.  there is a built-in deadbolt thingy on our door lock.  we generally keep it locked when we are here.  but the master keys that they have open it up.  i don’t see the point to this at all.  if the deadbolt thingy is locked, that clearly means that i am home and you have no business walking in on me.  simple right?  so hubby is at a dr appt this morning and the doorbell rings, which freaks me out anyhow because we’re certainly not expecting anyone and i’m alone.  while i am much less of a skeerdycat than i used to be, i still don’t like dealing with strangers when i’m alone.  so i jump up and am scrambling around for clothing that covers me so that i can answer the door.  but then i hear the front door opening and men’s voices.  half-dressed, i yell out, “is somebody in my home?”  and they answer that they are doing a fire inspection.  i hurriedly finish dressing and meet them on the other side of my bedroom door.  i asked them if it is standard policy to just walk into someone’s home instead of waiting for the door to be answered.  i followed the one man around while he did what he had to do and then made a point of walking them both out and immediately locking the door behind them.  i then called hubby and told him that we need to buy a true deadlock and put it on our door.  and i will.  this isn’t the first time this has happened but it was the first time that i was by myself and i also didn’t know either of the men that were here (we pretty much know all of our maintenance staff by name).  i’m so not okay with that.  and i think it is very poor policy on our CMA’s part to allow them to a) have the ability to override the deadbolt thingy and b) allow their people to walk in on people, especially owners.

i did another 40 minutes on the wii fit this afternoon.  i was pleased to have it tell me that i was even fatter than i was yesterday.  what can i say, i’m on the upward track.  *sigh*  so, aside from it being such a wonderful boost to my self esteem, i do find it to be a lot of fun and it really is cool to be more aware of my balance as i’m doing exercises.  i can’t say that i’ve ever paid any attention to my balance and stability while exercising.  it really makes a difference.  it’s going to take me a while to create an organized workout plan for the fit.  i wish that it had some sort of automated routine mode.  i’d say that’s my biggest complaint, having to choose the exercises one at a time and back out of one to select the next.  i’d like it to have the option of selecting some routines that they randomly put together and it just goes from one exercise to the next with minimal wiimote interaction – kind of like it does with the body tests.  anyhow, at least i’m getting some activity back into my days.

another thirty+ minutes in the pool.  didn’t lose count today, definitely twenty-four laps.  tomorrow i’ll have to break down and go to the gym.  i know i can’t do that a third day in a row.  as it was, i immediately felt yesterday’s swim when i was about halfway through my first lap today.  i’m pretty certain swimming wasn’t nearly so tiring twenty years ago. 

at least three different old peoples commented, with a chuckle, about how they were all in my way and it must be hard swimming laps with so many old folks (her words) in my way.  not one of these commenters bothered to move out of my way.    jerks.

i have also discovered a semi-surprising side effect to swimming laps on my lunch break.  i’ve gone from ghost-pale to perfectly and evenly tanned.  It’s not that being in the sun and getting a tan surprises me, just how darkly i’ve tanned in just two days.  and how evenly – i can’t do this on purpose laying out.  clearly, if i keep this up, i’m going to have to start wearing sunblock.  and since i hate wearing sunblock, i’m thinking i’ll be moving my swimming back to nighttime laps.  which will be necessary soon enough anyhow since spring break crowds will start coming in just a few weeks.

i’ve been looking for a wii fit for a few months because my cousin said it was so much fun.  i had just about become convinced that it was a mythical creature since i couldn’t find it anywhere.  and, frankly, i was getting more and more ticked and was almost to the point that i was going to boycott it on principal.  almost; not quite. 

this weekend, i was finishing some grocery shopping at walmart and i decided to stop by the electronics equipment, just for kicks.  as i rounded the end-cap, i was shocked to encounter TWO of the creatures.  i kept my wits about me and snuck up on them.  i didn’t want them to get skeered off, never to be seen again.  at just the right moment, i pounced and was able to wrangle one of them into submission and bring it home with me.  i’ve left it locked up for the last two days so that it could get acclimated to its new surroundings but tonight, i let it loose. 

i spent forty-five minutes playing with it but it is going to need a lot more human contact before it gets friendly.  actually, i think it got a little crankier tonight since it decided that i was fatter at the end of my forty-five minutes than i was at the beginning.  it’ll take some time but i intend to get it tamed in no time!

funny how my first day back off the phones coincides with my first day of renewed lunch activity.  can i get a WOOHOOO!?  unfortunately, it has been so long that i was intimidated at the thought of going to the gym so i headed to the pool instead.  i swam for thirty minutes straight.  i did either twenty or twenty-four laps.  i was rotating one lap each way of freestyle-ish and one lap each way of backstroke-ish (i don’t actually know how to swim properly so it’s my own version of swimming – i won’t be racing phelps anytime soon but i shouldn’t drown either).  i know that i did at least five rotations of each but i sort of lost count and i think i actually did six.  either way, thirty minutes of cardio activity made for a hot and tired me. 

now for the rant… 

it’s winter so there are lots of snowbirds here.  i’m generally fine with that (other than the fear of an open spark on the elevator when there are a dozen oxygen tanks in a confined area).  the old folks like to gather in the pool with their noodles and stand around in circles talking.  hey, no problem.  however, to me, common courtesy would dictate that when you see someone start swimming laps, you move to one side of the pool in order to get out of their way.  no, not these old people.  instead of moving to avoid being in my way, they actually spread out to be MORE in my way!  unfreakingbelievable.  i started off hugging one side of the pool trying to avoid them and ended up having to zig zag down the middle of the pool carefully navigating between them all.  and let me tell you how difficult that is when i’m swimming on my back.  frikking rude snowbirds.  i should have plowed over a few of them!  apparently they didn’t raise kids to have manners a century ago. 

*i would apologize for offending any elderly readers that i may have but i really don’t feel like having lived longer excuses people from being courteous.  you know as well as i do that they’d be griping up a storm if some whipperschnapper were getting in their way.  come to think of it, i’ll bet they were complaining about me because i was rippling the water.  bunch of jerks.

although valentines day and our anniversary are right around the corner…  i want this new car more than anything in the world!  and i’ve been such a good girl!!!  i have gotten indescribably sick of the drive to wedowee, atlanta, and orlando.  really, i fidget in my seat the entire drive.  i’ve been asking hubby to buy me a small helicopter or a little cessna for years but this would be so much more practical.  and it gets 500 miles on a tank of regular unleaded so it’s economical too, right?  now if we could just negotiate down the $194k price tag…