Chocolate Pretzels for Christmas Eve

In the spirit of getting things done, I was up and at the gym by 9:15 this morning. Not going to lie, I was feeling rather pleased with myself on my walk over - good for me, getting in some sweat-time on Christmas Eve! I was confident I'd have the place more or less to myself, like I did on Thanksgiving morning.

Not so much. Seems like everyone in my neighborhood had the same idea. Every single piece of cardio equipment was taken when I strolled in the door. Oh well - whatever. I lifted first, knocking out P90X shoulders, biceps and triceps in about 25-30 minutes before spending 20 minutes on the elliptical. It's amazing - that video takes about 55+ minutes to do, but when you cut out Tony Horton's blabbering, and the 8-10 minutes of "warm up" and "cool down" stretches (most of which I find useless, and I'm sorry, but I just don't need to march in place for 60 seconds before I can do shoulder presses, you know?), you can really shave off some time.

Anyway - more fun things. Last Sunday, I spent a lazy couple of hours making some gifts to hand out to my coworkers, hair stylist, dog walker, etc:

RhodeyGirl's Chocolate Covered Pretzel Rods!

I started with an economy-sized tub of pretzel rods from Costco.

Toppings:

I gave PhillyGuy the job of crushing the peppermints. Word to the wise: while a rolling pin does just fine for crushing oreos, it's not strong enough to kill the peppermints. When I started melting my chocolate, I heard a fierce banging in the other room. I ran in from the kitchen to find PhillyGuy bashing away at the peppermints WITH A HAMMER.

Oh well. Whatever works!

For something so simple to make, these look truly impressive.

They have definitely been added to my holiday repertoire!

On today's agenda: knock out a couple of last minute errands, pick up a new pair of running shoes, and make chocolate cupcakes. You see, I have a tub of homemade peppermint buttercream hanging out in my fridge at the moment. It's due to a little baking FAIL that I'll be discussing with you all later...but I figure there's no better way to salvage peppermint frosting than with chocolate cupcakes on Christmas Eve.

What are your plans today?

Buh Bye

I am so OVER summer.

I love summer, don't get me wrong. And I love me some hot, HOT temperatures. And while I don't actually LOVE the humidity, I don't mind it, and I'll even admit that sometimes, on a nice summer night, it can feel really comforting to walk outside into a warm, cozy blanket of air.

But it's about this time every year where I start to grow more than a little tired of it. I start to crave things like sweaters and low humidity and Uggs and - god help me - jacket weather. Fall is absolutely, positively, without a DOUBT my favorite season.

And one of these days it'll get here.

One thing I'm not OVER? At all?



Watermelon. This isn't even particularly GOOD watermelon, if I'm being honest with you, but damn is it tasty anyway.

And...okay. I made quite the statement on Twitter the other day vehemently objecting to the fact that Starbucks was launching its pumpkin spice latte this week. I mean, it's not even LABOR DAY YET, for the love of god. If it's 94 degrees and 87% relative humidity, I am NOT in the mood for pumpkin.

Um. But it's been a hard day today. And honestly, it's been a bit of a hard week and a bit of a hard month. And I was sitting here struggling through some stuff I need to get filed, and something occurred to me.

It's not exactly 94 degrees in my office. Actually, considering the fact that I'm wearing a blazer AND an airplane blanket on my lap and I'm still a bit cool...it's probably not even 70 in here.

And I do love, love, LOVE me some fall. And maybe having a little bit of pumpkin spice latte -- even if it's seasonally inappropriate -- would be inspiring. In a "oh boy it's almost fall, the universal season of new beginnings and opportunities!"

(and by "universal," I mean "for people in America who are going back to school," and by "new beginnings and opportunities," I mean "getting a new schedule of classes and a whole lot of fresh notebooks and back-to-school shopping." But whatever. I could use a bunch of that and I'm pretty sure most people would agree with me.)

So.



Here we have it. I replaced my usual afternoon squares of some-form-of-salted-dark-chocolate with a jumping-the-season latte. And it's goddamn delicious. But the thought of drinking this outside in the 94 degree weather? Anyone who does that is farking nuts.

Looking forward to the gym tonight. Last night I warmed up with a five-minute run on the treadmill and then blew through P90X chest/shoulders/tris. The gym was blessedly empty, which is unusual for a weeknight. Tonight I'm thinking a five miler of some kind...maybe speedwork/intervals, maybe a tempo? I don't know, but my body is SCREAMING at me to run.

Gotta love that.

"You keep using...

that word...I do not think it means what you think it means."

What word is that? Oh, just all the variations of "ZOMG REALLY BUSY" I've been throwing around about work for the past eight months or so. I'm beginning to realize that it's not that I've been "really busy" this year. It's that, for the first two years, I was sort of slow. And that this is not really "busy" so much as it is "what it's like working at a big firm."

I mean, not for everyone. Some people bill a whole heck of a lot more hours than I do. And others have the seriously unfortunate fate of being stuck on massive non-billable projects, like "here spend 40 hours this morning writing this article for me, oh and also make sure you bill at least 160 regular hours too."

Anyway. I've been surviving -- and mostly without issue! But this week has worn me down. Mostly because it's been filled with dealing with shenanigans. Shenanigans from clients, shenanigans from opposing counsel, you name it. It's gotten to the point where, whenever my phone rings, I look at it and yell "OH MY GOD NOW WHAT??" (before I pick it up, of course).

I've also developed a Pavlovian response to the sound of a certain partner coming down the hall towards my office. When I hear that familiar throat-clearing, I immediately fill with a sense of annoyance and dread.

The point of writing this out is twofold. One, to explain why I can sometimes be a pretty flaky blogger. (Not like I haven't explained that before.) And two, to marvel at the fact that, despite all of this "insanity" (or "normal life" -- I'll make the official call in about 6 months), I've managed to stay on track with P90X, both with the workouts and the nutrition.

Pretty sure my diet has done a complete 180. I eat lots of fruit, plain yogurt, veggies and chicken. And it's making a difference. I sustained my initial 5-lb loss and we'll see, on Monday, whether I'm down any more. I certainly feel a difference, and I definitely saw it in my arms and shoulders when I was at the gym last night, doing shoulders/biceps/triceps. I can't believe we're almost through our third week, and I'm sort of looking forward to the first set of progress pictures we'll take in another 10 days.

In the meantime, though -- I'm really, REALLY looking forward to yoga tonight. But mostly, right now, I just want to take a nap. I think I'll settle for some coffee instead, and cross my fingers that I'm done with shenanigans for this week.

PhillyGirl Fails at Abs

...again.

On deck for yesterday was a shoulders/biceps/triceps DVD, followed by another round of "Ab Ripper X."

I really enjoyed the shoulders and arms workout. It was organized in about six rounds of "supersets" with 30-second stretch breaks in between. Each "superset" included six moves, with no rest or break in between -- one set of a shoulder move followed immediately by one set of a bicep move followed by one set of a tricep move, with the whole sequence immediately repeated.

As with most of the resistance DVDs, you have the option of using resistance bands or dumbbells. Since we've been working out in our guest room and don't own dumbbells, resistance bands it was. I was definitely feeling the shoulder and tricep moves, but the bands didn't provide enough resistance in the lower portion of the bicep moves. PhillyGuy and I decided that we'll be taking the (oh so helpful) workout booklet to the gym next time, and doing this workout there, where we have access to dumbbells.

But then. Oh, then. It was time for Round 2 with "Ab Ripper X." And god, that name is so, so dead on. Not because I'm going to "get ripped" in the sense that they want you to think -- in the rippling, rock-hard 6-pack sense -- but in the sense that, every time I tried to complete one of the abs moves, I was completely certain that my abs were, in fact, going to rip open. That's also the same feeling I get when I have to sneeze or cough or try to sit up in bed.

I'm really looking forward to improving. I didn't think I had a particularly weak core, but apparently I do. Blech.

Caitlin at Healthy Tipping Point had a really interesting post today on your "secret rebellious side." I loved reading the comments, and this is a topic that sort of hit home for me. I may have mentioned before that I'm a biglaw attorney -- which means that I keep a certain appearance. I like to think that I have a "classic" style -- I like nicely cut suits and handbags, I wear makeup and pearls. I'm pretty infamous around my office for my penchant for high-heeled shoes (I have 5 or 6 pair under my desk, with heels ranging from 4 to 5 inches), but that's about as "funky" as I get, at least outwardly.

You'd never know by looking at me that I am a punk rock fanatic. When I was in high school and college and law school, I had plenty of piercings. In addition to the 90s/early 2000s standard of two holes in each earlobe, I also had my left tragus, navel, and tongue pierced. (I may or may not have had piercings in less visible places, as well...) I retired the tragus ring when I started interning for a federal judge after my 1L year, but did not say goodbye to the tongue ring until the bar exam.

I'm now down to a more "normal" set of mods -- one earring in each each and my navel ring, which I don't plan to take out anytime soon. It's funny to think that, just a few years ago, I was much more heavily decorated -- and I certainly wasn't a different person! I still go ballistic when Green Day comes to town, and I still rock out to NOFX and Rancid in the car (when PhillyGuy lets me -- since he's not so much a fan). When I was 18, if you'd told me that one day I'd be voluntarily taking out my piercings to fit a more corporate image because I wanted to (NOT because "someone made me!") -- I would NEVER have believed you.

Crazy how things change, isn't it?