You know, for several years Josh and I joked (only it wasn’t funny) that we were cursed when it came to special occasions. Holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, anything. We’d get bad weather, the plans would fall apart at the last minute, we’d have car trouble, we’d get into a big argument, someone would get sick, SOMETHING always happened to mess up what should have been a good time. But lately we’ve been noticing that our luck seems to have changed, and thankfully it held out for Josh’s big birthday weekend. Friday we drove to Coralville where we met my parents who then took Jacob and Elise home with them to enjoy Eagles and Ivories in Muscatine. With reduced children we met the Wheelers for a yummy dinner at the Texas Roadhouse and then we played a few songs of Rock Band at their place before heading home. It was perfect because Josh got to play the drums (he was a percussionist in high school) the Wheelers both got to play guitar (which they LOVE) and I got to sing!–I still prefer the singstar for singing, but it’s nice to have a game where we can all do what we like. Josh was whirling and twirling his drumsticks like a pro! Saturday I took Elena with me to the Y because we hadn’t been able to go on Friday. Josh and Cameron did all kinds of cleaning between video games so by the time we girls got home the house looked great! I took Cameron and Elena to a friends’ for the evening and when Sarah and Scott arrived we whisked Josh away for his special birthday evening. We met several friends and family at Appare Japanese Steakhouse in Des Moines and enjoyed the sushi and teppanyaki!
(Melissa, I’d love copies of all the pictures you took! Can you email them to me?)
At dinner I tried sushi–a spider roll to be exact, and a scallop! (Did not care for either! But I ate both!) And I tried to get some strawberry mochi for dessert, but they were out and so they brought me green tea flavored mochi–omigosh…disgusting! But before I give off the wrong idea, we really did have a wonderful and FILLING meal! We all sang happy birthday to Josh and he got some fun presents. After dinner we came back to our house and played Singstar and ate cheesecake and rice crispie treats generously brought by some of our guests. And the house was still clean when everybody left so when we got the call Sunday morning that church was cancelled due to the weather we just had a long lazy day at home! My parents brought Jacob and Elise home in time for dinner and we had a nice short visit. In fact everything went so well, I was sad to go to bed last night knowing the weekend was over.
I have less time to slack off for myself these days though now that my mornings are all tied up with going to exercise at the Y. I’ve been going every weekday and exercising for at least one hour (with the exception of last Friday because my exercise buddy and I decided to go shopping instead and make up for it by going in for 2 hours on Saturday!) Unfortunately, at the very end of our two-hour marathon on the gym equipment I experienced one of the most embarrassing things that can happen to a person in the gym. I can only imagine it would have been any more embarrassing if my pants had fallen off in the process. I’m sure many of you have seen a youtube clip similar to what I am about to describe–I myself have laughed out loud at that clip. And trying to place my battered self into the mind of an uninvolved third party, I think I can tell you without a doubt that if someone had put my experience up on youtube you would laugh even harder. Girl falls off treadmill. Classic. Now imagine it is my big fat body and not only do I start to roll off of my treadmill, but as I fall I lose balance and fall not backwards, but sideways behind my exercise neighbor onto her treadmill and then roll backwards horizontally off of both treadmills until I hit the floor in a Stop. Drop. Roll. type of move, bouncing up like a gymnast at the end to calm the poor old woman who had been RUNNING on the treadmill next to me with her earphones in oblivious to what was happening until it was all over her, reassuring her that I was fine and it was in NO way her fault and that she should really just return to her run and ignore me limping out of the gym. Back at home, out of sight of those who might snicker to see me check my wounds, I found that I had skinned and bruised my knee (impressively without any damage to my pants!), bruised that same shin, bruised the opposite calf, and scraped my shoulder. While the calf bruise is actually the biggest and most painful, the knee scrape has been the most problematic because it just did not want to scab over and the raw flesh kept rubbing against my pants anytime I’d move so I had to keep it bandaged for almost three days. And of course the kids keep trying to climb up on me or snuggle next to me and just randomly kick around at my legs and knees. Feeling sorry for me yet? Well, although my pride was definately bruised as well, I did not let it stop me from returning to the gym Monday morning. Yesterday I had my physical fitness evaluation with the wellness instructor at the Y and although we all know I need to lose some body fat, the tests revealed that I am within the “Excellent” range or even off the charts with excellence in the categories of sit-ups (or crunches) and flexibility. I have to do a bench press on Friday and I don’t expect to be as excellent at that. But I am feeling good that my embarrassment has not kept me from the gym to work toward my goals. Nor has the hassle of taking the kids, nor the cold weather or the bad snow-covered roads–even the days that I have to get up earlier to make it fit into my schedule have not deterred me. So I am hopeful. 