Soooo…it’s been a couple weeks since I’ve posted anything on the personal front, but today I need to blog to unload. Not a vent, exactly, but here’s what’s been going on in the world of the Type-A Workaholic:

Fitness – the bane of my existence, but hey! The old jeans fit! 😉

DIET & FITNESS:

I’m down several pounds according to the scale, and down a few inches here and there, according to the measuring tape. Until today I have had copious amounts of energy and have worked out every single day for the past seventeen days.

The schedule looks something like this:
Sunday – 30 Day Shred (this is, if you are unfamiliar, a general circuit training video featuring three circuits; each including 3 minutes of strength training, 2 minutes of cardio, and 1 minute of ab work with a warm up and stretching cool down).
Monday – 30 Day Shred
Tuesday – 30 Day Shred in the morning, Couch to 5K session in the afternoon (and for those of you unfamiliar with this, it is a program that builds up the ability to run a 5K by alternating jogging/walking in alternating increments).
Wednesday – 30 Day Shred
Thursday – a.m. 30 Day Shred, p.m. Couch to 5K.
Friday – 30 Day Shred
Saturday – a.m. 30 Day Shred, p.m. Couch to 5K.
Lather, rinse, repeat.

Most evenings I will take one of the dogs out for a walk after supper, in addition to the day’s festivities. I also try to walk or do stairs at the day job. I’ve developed healthy eating habits and this whole commitment to the 5K mud run is wreaking havoc on my unhealthy lifestyle. HOWEVER, I wore jeans last weekend that I have not been able to wear for a very long time. 🙂 Yay, me.

Tonight, however, I am exhausted. Jillian Michaels is, in fact, kicking my ass. Level 2 of the 30 Day Shred is NO joke, and given I have little or no upper body strength, all the plank-related exercises are something I would gladly trade for repeated tetanus shots and/or root canals. Hey…at least you get really good drugs for a root canal, am I right? Jennifer and I went walking a few times at work today, and simply walking kicked my butt. I know that the 30 Day Shred should be done every day, but DAMN! So I am taking an entire day off from working out. Yes, I feel like a lazy sloth, but it is what it is. I am finding it hard to flip Jillian a one fingered salute when I’m trying to do a walk-down push-up, but I can sure cuss like a sailor, and I’m quite sure she’s heard it all coming from me this past week.

On the plus side? It’s REALLY cool when people tell you that your complexion is looking fantastic (all that water I’m drinking) and that it looks like I’ve lost weight. Yay!

MUD RUN: 

The “Dirty Divas” is out of team name contention, since we found out last week that another participating team out of Jacksonville has already registered with that team name. So it was back to the drawing board and we have yet to come up with a new name for the team. This is where I need YOUR help. We’ve been online searching team names, but can’t seem to find one that we like. If y’all would be kind enough to post suggestions in the comments section below, I will submit them to the team for their consideration. Remember, we’re girls, ages ranging from early 20’s to mid 40’s (yes, that’s me…the mid-40), it’s a MUD run, so we are going to get dirty, nasty, and filthy. Oh! And “Dirty Girls” has already been vetoed. Your suggestions WILL be appreciated. 🙂

WRITING: 

I knocked out another thousand words last week, but I have not been in the correct frame of mind to really knock it out of the ballpark the last couple of weeks (gee, I wonder why). I’m in the process of developing the hot cop’s character, and am trying to get into the mindset of writing from a male point of view, which has been interesting, to say the least. But hey…I have his name and description down. Sort of.

I have also had the privilege, as you’ve all read, to interview three really fantastic authors, so I haven’t been a total writing sloth.

THE CRAZY NEIGHBORS: 

Yes, it’s probably been all of a month since they’ve made an appearance here in the world of the workaholic, but this was kinda notable. 🙂 Two nights ago they had some folks over to the house. Now, I haven’t had to bitch about the noise level coming from that house in a good long while, which is good, and I didn’t give two thoughts about the cars/trucks out in the street and their driveway Monday night. The one guy had kind of parked his truck in the ditch so that it was off the road, which was nice, given it was out of my way when I took Belle for a walk that night. Yesterday, however, he tried to get it into the driveway and got stuck in the mud. The hubs has a Kubota tractor and has pulled some neighbors out of the mud on occasion. I told him that it would behoove us to go offer to pull the guy’s truck out of the mud because if we didn’t at least offer he would think we were hateful, given we pulled another neighbor out of a mess a couple of weeks ago, and it wouldn’t be neighborly of us (read: him) to at least offer. So while I was running to the high school to pick Baby Boy up from ROTC practice, the hubs went next door and pulled the truck out of the mud. I got back to the house, truck was in the driveway, tractor parked in its spot, and I went in, changed clothes, and went to do my C25K run/stagger/lumber. About halfway through, the neighbor went to work, and actually WAVED at me as he drove past and didn’t even swerve to try and run me over. Who knew?  So maybe, while we’ll never be friends, we can at least reside on adjoining lots until such time they get orders somewhere.

So there you have it. I’m going to go back to my nice glass of wine, now, think about eating some dinner, and then maybe write on my story for a while. I am so anxious to hit 40,000 words so I can introduce you to the next character or two.

Until next time…