My New Year's Resolution for 2019

After school and the post-school doldrums, I decided it was time to lose the extra weight I gained during school and to shake off the cobwebs of physical inactivity and get back into shape. I started doing Insanity again and eating better. I didn't weigh myself before I started all this. My thought was, "I'm not doing this to lose weight, but to feel better and be able to do the things I used to do like play Ultimate Frisbee for hours."

Over the next 6 weeks, I was able to lose 15-20 lbs. But my foot started hurting and I couldn't continue with the higher intensity portion of Insanity. I started looking for other methods of exercise that wouldn't hurt my foot. As it got cold, I knew I wouldn't be riding my bike outside so I brought it in and started using it in my trainer. I also started looking into calisthenics and using some of those exercises. I checked out a couple of gyms in the area to see if they could offer a pretty inexpensive option. In the end, after reading some of the 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss, I decided to make my own modified plan as follows:

Diet Plan:

Breakfast:

2 egg whites + whole egg scrambled
A handful of spinach (1 ½ C)
½ cup black beans
2 tbs salsa

Lunch 1:

½ C Chicken breast
2 C steamed broccoli and cauliflower or asparagus

Lunch 2:

3 oz roast beef
2 C steamed broccoli and cauliflower or asparagus
Some other options to give some variety:
1 C Lentils
2 C Butternut Squash
Or
½ C Chicken Breast
1 C black beans
1 C green peas

Dinner: 

Whatever we’re eating at home for the night, going for eating more vegetables than anything else on the plate.

Exercise Plan:

Every Day Warm Up:

Jump rope 30 secs on/off, 45 secs on/off, 60 secs on/of
Stretch for 5 minutes

Monday:

75 reps of kettlebell swings with 53 lb. bell
10-15 slow myotatic crunches

Tuesday: 

45-minute bike or insanity pure cardio

Wednesday:

3 sets of:
Push-ups – slow pushups (with resistance bands) x5 then wait two minutes
Bent rows with resistance bands, 45 lb. resistance x5 then wait two minutes
2 sets of:
drag curls 45 lb. resistance x6 with 3 minutes rest.

Thursday:

30-minute bike or Insanity Cardio Recovery

Friday:

75 kettlebell swings with 53 lb. bell
Cat vomit exercise x10

Saturday:

Insanity Plyo Circuit or Insanity Cardio Power

Every Day Cooldown:

Stretch for 5 minutes

More: Minnesota Zoo with the Fam

Here are some pictures from our outing to the Minnesota Zoo. It was the warmest day of the year so far and felt like spring had finally come.

Poor turtle :(

Five more minutes!

People ride these?

Prettiest flower in the patch!

Peekaboo!

Ah, wee little lamb

Book: Crime and Punishment

I’m not quite sure how I managed to procure a copy of this book, especially since I never bought it. I think it may have come from my parent’s library and was quietly pilfered when I moved out. Whatever the case may be, I have had this book on my bookshelf it’s been calling to me to be read for quite some time.

I finally took the initiative to digest the pages of this book and am glad that I did. This book fascinated me. Maybe I’ve watched too many crime shows but getting inside criminal’s heads is something that piques my interest.

This book is the story of a young man, Rodian Rashkolnikov, a former university student, who decides to commit a crime under the rationalization that there are some people for whom the law does not apply. The way that Fyodor Dostoevsky writes the thoughts and behavior of a criminal kept me completely absorbed.

Though the vocabulary can be difficult at times and the story jumps around a little bit, with other side stories coming in at odd times the reader is never bored. At least I wasn’t. I always had to know what was going to happen, if Rashkolnikov was going to break under pressure, was he going to be found out? Maybe I have a macabre sense of humor but interspersed in the tale were some moments that made me laugh out loud. Let me just quote on spot that exemplifies the vocabulary but also the humor:

“Pyotr Petrovich belonged to that class of persons, on the surface very polite in society, who make a great point of punctiliousness, but who, when they are directly crossed in anything, are completely disconcerted, and become more like sacks of flour than elegant and lively men of society.”

The image of a sack of flour sitting in a chair all dressed up and trying to look proper just seems humorous to me.

I highly recommend reading this book. It is worth working through the occasionally long paragraphs of psychological dissection of the criminal psyche and seemingly random interjecting side stories to see a story not of redemption or punishment but of hope and enduring love.

Book: The Princess Bride

I believe that most of the people, if not all (if Zach watched it), that will be reading this post have seen the movie created from this book. Therefore I do not feel a quick recap is necessary. I guess this post will be shorter and sweeter than most.
I have always loved the movie. It is perhaps my most watched movie unless you count the innumerable snippets of Beauty and the Beast I saw the year my sister watched the cartoon daily. In high school the highlight of my chemistry class was when the student teacher said, “Let me explain,” then under her breath she added, “No, there is too much. Let me sum up.” Awesome. Unfortunately that line doesn’t appear in the book. Neither is the scene where Inigo is in the forest outside the town and calls upon his father’s spirit to lead him the the Man in Black. Those are two of my favorite parts of the movie, so for me the movie will always be treasured.
However, there is so much more in the book that can’t be put on the screen. As many don’t know, or at least I didn’t when I first picked up the book, part of the book’s title states it is an abridgement of the original by S. Morgenstern. This is not the case but gives Goldman a method to which he can insert the parts of the story which in the movie correlate to the grandpa reading the story to the sick boy. I feel some of the best of humor in the book comes from the parts where the author interjects notes of his “abridgement.”  For example, seventy pages that list the hats that the princess of Guilder packs to hide that she is, in fact, bald. Something that Prince Humperdink simply cannot live with and thus begins his journey to discover a suitable woman to be his future bride and leads him to discover Buttercup. The book also goes into much more detail about the relationship between Wesley and Buttercup, which greatly adds the their story.
The last big difference to touch on between the book and the movie is the ending. The film closes with the legend of the four best kisses of all time. That kiss happens at a very different time in the book and the ending is much more interesting. I guess you’ll just have to read the book and tell me if you think it’s as interesting as I did.

More: Birthday!

As many people who might read this post know my little family is transplanting to another state for work reasons. Luckily for us we were given the choice of when to move. We deliberated long and hard but the final decision was made, at least in my mind, for one big reason. My little girl was going to turn 1 year old after one of the given dates. For this reason we decided to wait till closer to the end of the summer to move. Well, the birthday came and what a party it was! Below are some pictures of the very ducky occasion.

The birthday girl had never really had cake before so she didn’t quite know what to do with frosting or chocolate cake. She did, however, make a terrific mess.