Catch Me if You Can

Around Christmas time of this past year I met with a personal trainer at my gym. For those of you that didn’t have the pleasure of hearing about the episode, I will let you know that the session ended abruptly when I vomited 25 minutes into the workout. I would like to blame it on the trainer, a tiny specimen of a man undoubtedly suffering from ADHD, but realistically, it was likely due to me being plain old out of shape. At any rate, once I rinsed my mouth and sheepishly emerged from the bathroom the trainer said, “Girl, you need to work on your cardio. You need to start running.”

I loathe running, mainly because I’ve never been any good at it. I can jump on an elliptical machine and go for 45 minutes, but make me run and I am out of breath in a matter of seconds. Let’s be frank, I don’t exactly have long, lean, runner legs. It’s hard to toddle around on these short, stout limbs. But at the trainers urging, I decided to give it a try.

I started running for 3 minute intervals followed by 2 minutes of walking. I was only able to do this for a 20 minute stretch in the beginning. Little by little, my endurance has improved and yesterday I ran for 40 minutes straight! I literally wanted to cry, and who knows, maybe I was, but couldn’t distinguish between the tears and beads of sweat. My legs burned, my feet were blistered, and there was going to be no salvaging my hair, but I did it! It was an awesome feeling. So this is where I am at. I am not going to be running a marathon anytime soon, or purchasing a pair of those microscopic runner shorts, but I think I am going to try to stick with this. There are few greater feelings in the world than doing something hard and unbearable and still pulling through.

Biscuit = A White, Doughy, Butter Lump

My lips are chapped, my cuticles are breaking, and no matter how much shea butter I rub on my knees and elbows, they are still dry and itchy. I hate this time of year. I miss dewy summer skin; I miss sandals (actually I just miss an excuse for a pedicure). I miss my #3, ‘Sand dollar’ foundation. In my paleness I am forced to wear #1, ‘Biscuit.’ I don’t want to be the color of a biscuit.

Growing up, “biscuit” in my household was another name for butt cheek. After bath time, Ann and I would do sprints up and down our hallway while mom or dad chanted, “I am going to tweak your biscuits.” I recognize that this all sounds a bit dirty now, but at the time, it was a feverishly fun game.

Winter Burnout Blues

It’s that time again. The holiday hullabaloo is over and the mind numbing, depression- inducing stretch of winter has begun. These are the days when we live like critters—scurrying out in the daylight hours to gather food (a.k.a “work”), only to scurry back to our holes (a.k.a. “homes”). The breezy, free-spirited days of summer have long been put to rest, and lay buried under 3 ft. drifts of snow and ice.

There are 81 days between now and April 1st. 81 frigid, freezing, dark, dank, slushy, sloppy, salty, SLOOOOW days until Spring. God’s speed to us all!

Christina and the Crab

Many of you know that I don’t eat seafood. My last experience with seafood took place at the ripe age of six, when I barfed after consuming my mother’s tuna noodle casserole.

I have not been tempted to deviate from my no-seafood-plan. Even while traveling through Norway and Sweden, I politely refused any fish entrée.

This past Friday was Momentum’s annual Christmas party at church. There was quite the spread of goodies, but without question, the most delectable item was Whitney’s cheese fondue. I took several heaping spoonfuls and quickly wolfed them down with the accompanying sourdough croutons. It wasn’t until I finished the meal that I overheard Whitney and Becca discussing the recipe. My stomach began to churn as I heard the dreaded words, “canned crabmeat.” My 21 year seafood hiatus had just ended, and surprisingly, I felt just fine.

And though I won’t be adding seafood to my diet anytime soon, it’s nice to know that when confronted with the crab, I prevailed as conqueror.

Trip, Slip or Rip

Embarrass yourself once in front of a person and your ego will survive, embarrass yourself twice, even three times in front of that same person and your ego experiences a compound fracture. Here’s my tale:

Several months ago my company began renting out office space to a small company called Soy Basics. The company is made up of predominantly young males. Their office space resides in the back of the building right next to my area. When leaving our suites for lunch or bathroom breaks, we use the same narrow corridor to get to the common area. A couple of weeks ago while returning from lunch, I found myself in the narrow hallway with one of their young employees. I coolly acknowledged his presence with a “hello” and right as I did, I slipped on the freshly waxed linoleum tiles and clung to the wall to avoid a face-plant. I can’t recall exactly what I exclaimed, but I am certain it was something stupid like “whoa Nelly, pardon me.”

It wasn’t but the following day when I found myself in the same situation; same young man, same narrow hallway. This time I didn’t acknowledge him but rather looked straight down at the ground and urged my feet to behave. Right before we passed, my left heel swung out from under me, and I went straight down and landed on my right knee. Thankfully the young man didn’t acknowledge my blunder, he just kept on walking. I on the other hand squealed, partially from pain, partially from humiliation.

Now for the worst part . . . as I was coming in the main building this morning, I saw that the same young man was holding the elevator for me. My building has the world’s slowest elevator. By not making the elevator in the morning, it often results in being five minutes tardy to work. I was clearly overjoyed at his gesture and walked speedily towards the open doors. Before I made it, my jacket pocket got hooked on the handicap button and I was jerked back. Not realizing that I was stuck, I lunged forward and my pocket tore away. I was horrified, MORTIFIED, and though I don’t blush, I could feel my cheeks burning.

When I finally made it onto the elevator I announced to the young man that I promised not to “trip, slip, or rip” in front of him anymore. At that he turned to me looking puzzled. I could clearly see that he had no idea what I was talking about. I tried to prod his memory by mentioning the previous week’s hazardous hallway experience, to which he still came up blank. After talking for a few moments it was clear that he had absolutely no recollection of the string of embarrassments that I had endured right in front of him. He hadn’t even seen me get stuck on the handicap button because he was texting at the time. As we got off the elevator at our floor, he apologized for being so oblivious and then laughed and said, “But I am sure glad you’re not going to rip in front of me anymore.”

New Blog

I have spent many hours watching HGTV’s “Spice My Kitchen.” I have spent even more money at Barnes and Noble buying home kitchen renovation magazines. I have dreamt kitchen, cried kitchen, and hounded my dear husband with thousands of pretty pleases’.

Turns out folks, we’re commencing with our project, and I have started a new blog to document the project. Here’s the link:

www.scottandchristinahomereno.blogspot.com

Mind you, there’s nothing posted right now, just a small introduction, but believe me, once those footings are dug, pictures will be up.

Birthday/Anniversary/Labor Day Weekend = Whaa-Whaa

I was SO excited this year because my wedding anniversary and birthday butted right up to the long Labor Day weekend. I asked for Thursday, the 3rd (anniversary), and Friday, the 4th (birthday) off, which meant I would have five luxurious days of freedom to myself.

Upon leaving work on Wednesday, my eyes were already itchy, my head hurt, my cough had started, and I was sneezing continually. Thursday was manageable. It also happened to be my mother’s 65th birthday party that evening (yeah, we like to really bunch together special events in our household). She had hired a classical guitarist to come to her home and perform a concert. Through muffled coughing fits, I was able to enjoy the evening. For those of you that know my mother, she was true to herself all evening and had a ball. She even managed to take some great verbal “jabs” at the musician that made everyone roll with laughter (Arby’s anyone?) Prior to showing up at the party, Scott and I went to Redstone to celebrate our four years of wedded bliss (truly, it has been blissful!)

However, Friday, my birthday, the illness hit with newfound vengeance. In fact, I felt so poor in the morning that I made a last minute appt. with my doctor. She proscribed some tough cough medicine and antibiotics. We spent my birthday evening hunkered down in the basement watching stupid TV movies, and eating Thahn Do takeout, the only redeeming part of the evening.

Hmm, maybe I could write a new lyric for Alanis Morissette’s song, “Isn’t It Ironic.”