Sunset Grille

I can't say it enough - the Outer Banks were SUCH a great idea.

I've been waking up between 6:45 and 7:30 each morning - no alarm, just naturally - and taking the dogs for their morning constitutional. We're probably half a mile or so away from the beach, which is just fine with my pups - it probably won't shock you to hear that the same dog who is afraid of the backyard is also afraid of the ocean.

After our walk, I pour myself a giant glass of iced coffee - I made a pot our first night here and then chilled it in the fridge, rather than my usual method of relying on starbucks Via and cold water - and then hang in bed catching up on the internets indefinitely.

Tuesday, PhillyGuy and I started the morning off with some P90X Chest & Back. As a refresher, here's what that entails:

Standard Push-ups (for me - 12-15, on knees)

Wide Front Pull-ups (8-10 on the assisted pullup machine with a 70lb counterweight, OR 15 "pullups" using a resistance band stuck on the top of a doorframe)

Military Push-ups (12, on knees)

Reverse Grip Chin-ups (narrow grip, palms facing in - 8-10 on assisted pullup machine, 70lb counterweight, OR 15 "pulls" using the band)

Wide Fly Push-Ups (12-15, on knees)

Closed Grip Overhand Pull-ups (narrow grip, palms out - same as the others, 8-10 pullups or 15 "pulls" with the band)

Decline Push-ups (I still cannot do more than one of these, so I do what I can, followed by 8 "real" pushups here)

Heavy Pants (two-armed back rows - I do 10 with 20-lb dumbbells)

Diamond Push-ups (hands spread and close together with thumbs/forefingers forming a diamond under your chest - 12, on knees)

Lawnmower (single-armed back row in a side lunge - I do 10-12 on each side with a 25-lb dumbbell)

Dive Bomber Push-ups (downward dog to upward dog and back again - the booklet describes it best, "like going back and forth underneath a fence." this is murder on my shoulders. I do about 6 before failing and finishing with 8-10 standard pushups)

Back Flies (8-10 with 10lb dumbbells)

...then repeat the entire set. Since we're traveling, we don't have access to a gym, and brought our resistance band instead. I strongly prefer doing the back exercises with the pullup bar and dumbbells, but the band is better than nothing. We followed that up with the super-toolbox-titled Ab Ripper X DVD, which involves 15 minutes or so of ab and hip flexor burning in the form of 25 reps each of the following:

In & Outs (standard crunching movement, starting in a V with legs bent and back straight, then extending legs while leaning back)

Seated Bicycle (forward and reverse for about 30 seconds each)

Crunchy Frog (hate this name - it's basically In & Outs, but with arms up, extending to the sides while you extend your legs and wrapping around to the front when you bring your knees in)

Wide Leg Sit-ups (laid out flat with legs wide, full sit-up followed by a twist over to one foot, repeat)

Fifer Scissors (lay back, one leg straight up at 90 degrees, the other hovering over the group - switch every couple seconds)

Hip Rock n’ Raise (too stupid to describe, but it burns - see video here)

Pulse Ups (laid back, legs up at 90 degrees, raise hips straight up)

V-up Roll-up (blah blah blah - full situp followed by V-up, repeat)

Oblique V-ups (side crunches)

Leg Climbs (here's the hip rock & raise dude doing leg climbs)

Mason Twist (these make me really, really dizzy, so I replace with static oblique holds - laying flat on my back, with my legs held over to one side a foot or so off the ground. I switch every 10 "mason twists")

It felt really, really good to get a decent sweat in...before I proceeded to spend the next several hours napping and watching TV. Yup, that's right.

Later that evening, we headed down Route 12 to the Sunset Grille for a couple beers and some snacks.

The view truly can't be beat...

...but I wasn't expecting too much of the food.

And I wasn't let down.

I started off with a Fat Tire while we waited for our conch fritters and jerk wings to come out.

After that, I got excited about the prospect of some nice, simple steamed seafood, so I got a raw/steamer combo of crab legs, peel & eat shrimp, oysters and clams. The shrimp were really tasty and the crab legs were decent, but please explain to me WHAT I was thinking when I ordered raw oysters from a place that serves fruity rum drinks in plastic parrots.

Ew.

Thankfully, I'm none the worse for the wear. And really...the view WAS awesome.

CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS

So PhillyGuy and I successfully hosted our first (albeit miniature) Thanksgiving. Thanks to some faithful bloggers and my personal favorite food nerd, Alton Brown, the menu was fantastic. I brined my eleven-pound turkey and cooked it perfectly. I made pumpkin scones for everyone for breakfast. I even got to use our wedding china for the first time.

(Incidentally, I always thought we got five sets from various people. Turns out I should have opened the boxes. Truth: we got four place settings and one set of four soup bowls.)

Anyway...the sad thing? I did not get to document ANY of my culinary prowess. Because I left my f&%^$ng memory card AND card reader at work. Fat lot of good a camera with no memory does.

BUT.

I remembered to bring it home today, because I was super-freakin-pumped to show you what PhillyGuy and I spent Saturday night doing: DECKING THE HALLS.

I love, love, LOVE decorating for Christmas. I forced him to watch Love Actually, I drank Trader Joe's Candy Cane green tea, and I Christmas-ified the house.

(Editor's note: I uploaded and posted this picture before I realized PhillyGuy's creepy foot snuck in there, and I'm far too lazy to take another one...so, sorry about that. Have some colored lights to make up for it.)

Best part? Tonight, after I came back from the gym - and MAN, did I ever work up a sweat - two miles in under 18 minutes for the first time in for-flipping-ever, followed by P90X chest & back - I got to hang out on the couch, lights off, reading on my new Nook Color by Christmas-tree-light.

It's okay - I don't mind being a nerd.

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.

Life After P90X?

For a change, I thought I'd have yogurt and berries for breakfast this morning.



Man, blurry BlackBerry pics just look mouthwatering, don't they? :)

I hit the gym last night for 20 minutes on the bike, followed by a super-sweaty chest/shoulders/tris workout. I was definitely feelin' it last night -- I don't know if it was the 20 minutes of cardio beforehand, or if it was my less-than-diligent weekend of eats, but I was hurting for sure. Especially as I tried to knock out my pushups. It felt like a freaking elephant was sitting on my back.

Last night's workout marked the start of week 11 of P90X. Um, yes, it HAS been more than 11 weeks since we started the program. See, both PhillyGuy and I have been less than diligent about following the schedule to the letter. P90X prescribes six workouts a week, in rotating order. Every week involved three strength workouts, hitting the major muscle groups in varying splits (this week, for example, is chest/shoulders/tris, back/bis, and back/legs); 90 freakin' minutes of yoga; plyometrics; and Kenpo.

In any given week, I'd get to the gym 4 or 5 times, reliably. Usually, I'd do all three strength workouts, plus yoga, plus a run or two. I abandoned Kenpo after the first time I tried it -- it bugged my knee and gave me a lot of trouble, since I'm the least coordinated person ever. After Broad Street, I also more or less abandoned Plyo. I've replaced those two days with alternative cardio -- preferably running, but two past two weeks have been hot dates with the recumbent bike. And since my hip injury, I haven't done yoga, either, since most of the poses irritated my poor hip and left me walking around the house like Igor.

And as for the diet? Well, I've stuck to it...sort of. I've added in more servings of carbs. And veggies. Which likely means I've increased my calories. Which is fine. And I've also thrown it out the window when it comes to eating out, which we do at least once a week. Sometimes twice. Which is also fine. But I'm definitely not losing fat at the rate I was when I first started. Overall, I'm down about 7 or 8 pounds from when we started, which is great -- but I know I'd be down a lot more (in terms of both weight and inches) if I was more diligent about the nutrition plan.

So, the end is approaching and I'm not sure what I want to do next. My hip is feeling much, much better -- and I'm pretty confident I want to train and run the Distance Run/Rock & Roll half in the fall. I'm also REALLY missing my weekly yoga practice, so at a minimum I want to keep doing that -- whether it's the P90X quad-killing DVD, or maybe a membership at the local Bikram place.

And I've REALLY been enjoying the P90X lifting routines. In fact, I kind of want to master (or mistress, I guess) some of the moves a bit more fully. It'd be badass to be able to do unassisted pullups. And one-arm pushups. (I can do like 6 or 7 with about 1/3 range of motion, which may not sound like a lot, but seriously, YOU try it!)

So, I guess what I want to do is sort of what I've been doing. Which is half-assedly following this workout plan, while flirting with injury from running.

Sounds like a completely airtight plan, doesn't it?

Two More Days

until my week of freedom. Good god, I can't wait.

I've been plowing through my to-do list at a decent pace this week, which is always a good thing. But I'm not going to lie -- it's taken a pretty good amount of self control to keep myself focused. My distraction levels are way up.

Also way up is my tendency to get songs stuck in my head. Right now, it's a great little number from the classic Bloodhound Gang CD "Hooray for Boobies." Great. Let me just draft a bunch of important documents while the lyrics "Nowhere to go, I can't wake up late, just sit around and wait for my Old Spice to activate" bounce through my head. (Look, I never claimed to be cultured, OK?)

Last night PhillyGuy and I managed to hit the gym together for the first time in a good week or two. We motored through our buddy Tony's Chest, Shoulders and Triceps, which is one of my favorite workouts from P90X. I'm actually improving -- I can do a couple of one-arm pushups. On my knees, of course. And I can only go down a few inches before my chest and arm threaten to collapse on me. But it's definitely deeper than when I first tried it, and I bet within a couple of weeks I'll be able to do at least one full-depth pushup. (On my knees, of course. Let's not get crazy.)

We didn't lug the laptop to the gym with us, since the booklet of written exercises is perfectly fine for this workout. A lot of times, I actually prefer going with just the book -- I get the workout done much faster. At first, you don't realize how much time Tony kills between exercises with his incessant chattiness and "instruction" -- but add an extra 20-30 seconds between every set, and that starts adding up. I also find the initial "warmup" exercises excessively long. Do I really benefit that much from marching in place for 45 seconds before doing pushups? I'm not convinced. So, I skip most of that. I do a few stretches and get to it, and I end up shaving a good 15 minutes or so off the workout time, while still blowing up my arms and chest.

After we headed home, we set up our yoga mats in the living room to do Ab Ripper X. Which the dogs were not all that happy about. Sophie was convinced we were trying to have fun without her and didn't really understand why we were on the floor, if not to play with her. Trying to do roll up/v-ups with a twelve-pound dog running underneath your back and barking at your head is challenging...just not at all in the way it's supposed to be.

I'm really looking forward to my run tonight -- a five-mile tempo run. I haven't done a tempo run in forever. I'm debating whether to run on the treadmill or outside...it's humid as crap out, and they're also calling for thunderstorms later. BUT...knowing how bored I got the last time I did five miles on a treadmill? I'm just not at all sure I want to deal with that.

PLUS, if I run outside I can wear my new running skirt. I somehow don't think it's OK to wear a running skirt at the gym. Don't ask me why -- a lot of my "rules" are not necessarily based in logic.

No Creative Titles

This week at work continues to be pretty brutal. I stayed up late Monday night working on a document, stayed in the office late on Tuesday to draft a billion different documents, and came back in less than 12 hours later on Wednesday morning to attend a "speed networking" breakfast session that we hosted.

I'm off tomorrow, but am less than completely enthused about that as the only reason I'm off is that we need to drive eight hours south to my sister-in-law's graduation.

I'm not going to lie, I'm feeling pretty beat up this week. I finally, FINALLY got the chance to get to the gym last night after having to skip Monday and Tuesday, and I cannot even describe how good it felt to sweat.

Last night was chest, triceps and shoulders. It burns and it beats me up and I love it. Did you know that it's far easier than it looks to do pushups with a clap in between? I mean, I do them on my knees and all that, but I was pretty certain I'd never be able to do them at all, and I can do a good 12 or so without much issue.

Tony Horton, on the other hand, is absurd. He does "plyo pushups." What does that mean? Well, when the rest of his crew is doing these "simple" and "easy" pushups with a clap in the middle, Mr. Horton is actually getting his ENTIRE BODY OFF OF THE FLOOR. That's right. He starts in your normal, standard pushup position, and then some kind of crazy magic happens and he explodes off of the ground. Hands, feet, everything. Like it's nothing. It makes my on-my-knees-clapping action look kind of pathetic.

And then there is the truly pathetic: my attempts at one-arm pushups. Right now, I can sort of bend my elbow a little bit and straighten again. I get about an inch or two down towards the floor and that's the extent of it. IT. IS. HARD. And I kind of like it.

(That's what she said.)

Ab Ripper X was...well, Ab Ripper X. I have a really weak core. It's getting stronger. I can now do at least 15-20 of each exercise consistently. Except for the Mason twists at the end -- the issue there is not the actual oblique piece of it, but the fact that I get incredibly dizzy and am certain I'm going to vomit. I need to come up with an alternative oblique exercise to do there.

On the plus side, while I'm sore this morning, I can do things like "sit up in bed" and "laugh" and "sneeze" without being very concerned that my stomach is actually about to split in half.

My plan for the weekend is to bring Tony on the trip with us. We'll do biceps and back tomorrow morning before we leave, which will leave Yoga for Saturday (will be a challenge, but not impossible, in the hotel room) and legs and back for Sunday (shorter workout, lends itself decently to whatever gym the hotel might have). Hopefully, this won't be a repeat of the last time we went away -- but we'll see.

Can't Win 'em All

Last night's workout was a bust.

Chest, back and abs were on deck. I usually take this one to the gym, so I can use the assisted pullup machine -- since I can't even do a single "real" pullup (yet). For whatever reason, I just wasn't feeling the gym yesterday -- something about the idea of having to interact with actual human beings during my workout made the privacy of my guest room seem much, much more attractive.

So, I planned to take my laptop up there and pop in the DVD. Except, in a repeat of the Week 1 would-be Plyo workout, PhillyGuy had forgotten to take the DVD out of his laptop before he left for class. That's OK, since chest & back is a bunch of normal moves (variations on the pushup and pullup) that even my uncoordinated ass can do without following the leader.

Here is the lesson I learned: if I expect check & back to be an effective workout, I simply CANNOT do it at home.

Here is why, in the form of a list of things I cannot do, at all:

- Pullups, on a real pullup bar, without assistance. This is a total non-starter right now.

- Pullups, on a real pullup bar, with the assistance of a chair. I CAN do these, but I'm obviously doing them wrong, because I don't feel it in my back at ALL. Instead, I feel it in my forearms and biceps. Which might have something to do with why I can't do an unassisted pullup.

- Variations on the pullups, using a resistance band secured to the doorway. Our resistance bands are not particularly "resistant" and I need to do like 40 billion pulls before I feel it at all.

- Back flies using a resistance band. Or, well, I can't do back flies using a resistance band with only written instructions, because I just can't translate the written instructions to whatever I'm actually supposed to be doing. No matter what I tried, it didn't work my back at all.

- Decline pushups. This has nothing to do with the location or the video -- I just flat out cannot do them. I try to do one and just can't get myself up. WTF? Since I do all of the other pushup variations on my knees, I substitute "real" pushups here. I get through like 4 or 5 before failure.

Sorry to be such a Debbie Downer about this, but my workout last night was the epitome of lame. I broke a sweat, but not like I would have if I'd done my workout at the gym, and I was so frustrated by my inability to do things properly that it got me really down. I'm not one to "dial it in" at the gym -- if I'm working out and not really feeling it, it's pretty much a waste of time. I could have not worked my back while taking the dogs to the dog park, you know?

GAAAAAAH. So, last night was a bust. It's fine. It happens. Time to move on and focus on the next day. Inexplicably, my SHOULDERS are sore today. Why? I don't know. I wasn't supposed to be working shoulders. What-eva. Hopefully, my sore shoulders will distract me from the fact that I'm being a whiny cry-baby about this.

Breakfast of Champions

Bucket of Dunkin Donuts iced coffee...tastes pretty bland, but I can get 32 ounces of it, so it'll do. Though I'll probably end up taking a walk to DiBruno's before long to get some REAL coffee.



Berries (raspberries, blueberries and blackberries), Fage 0, and a side of to-do list and disorganized desk. On the plus side, after I took this picture I crossed one of those items off the list...and my boss is out at a CLE all day, so I'll probably be able to cross a few more off without her calling me in to add to that list.

Last night was chest and back. I was also supposed to do Ab Ripper X, but kind of "forgot." And by "forgot," I mean that I told myself I would leave the gym and go home to do the DVD. And then told myself I'd walk the dogs first before I did the DVD. And then, when we got back from our walk, figured it would be pointless to try to do the DVD, since it was about 8:45 at that point and I still had some work to get done.

The not-so-secret reason that I "forgot" is that I know as soon as I do that stupid DVD, with its stupid "crunchy frog" and four thousand other variations of torture, I will once again find myself worrying about whether my lower abs will tear open when I sneeze. Of course, the REASON they get so sore after the ab DVD is because I have a really weak core. It would be foolish to, you know, do some exercises to build it up, right?

That would just be silly.

Chest and back was good, though. I warmed up for 15 minutes on the elliptical first and then dove in to my non-stop hour of various push-ups, (assisted) pullups, and dumbbell exercises. Our new gym has an assisted pullup machine, which I'm taking full advantage of to try to build myself up to doing unassisted pullups. Right now, I'm using a 70-lb counterweight and completing about 8-10 reps, depending on the hand positions and where I am in my routine. I always go to exhaustion, and it always makes me feel sort of bad-ass. As usual with P90X stuff, I left a sweaty mess.

I'm really loving the gorgeous weather we've been having here -- it rained a bit this morning, so my walk to work was a little more humid than it has been. But it's supposed to clear up and hit the mid-80s today. MID-80's!!!!!

OW OW OW OW

OW OW OW.

THAT is how I felt this morning when I woke up. An hour of pushups and "modified" (i.e. done 100% with a resistance band) pullups followed by the lamest attempt at 15 minutes of abs ever is no freakin' joke!

My chest is sore -- a little more so than I typically am following a chest workout, but nothing ridiculous. My ABS, though -- ooooh boy. Not only did my 15 minute "ab ripper X" shenanigans burn like crazy, I could really feel everything clenching during the pushups. Because, you know, I have the weakest abs EVER.

We'll get there! I'll improve. That's the idea.

Today is plyometrics. PhillyGuy did his this morning, and gave it stellar reviews -- he had trouble completing it. I think -- HOPE -- I'll do better with it, but we'll see. I'm working out at night, which is what I prefer.

I can tell eating is going to be a struggle with this. P90X gives you a diet plan to follow. As I've mentioned before, I do significantly better when I have a specific plan laid out for me, and so I'm planning to follow this to the letter. Unfortunately, like most commercial "diets," this comes in three phases, the first of which is quite restrictive. Unlike -- I'm sure -- a lot of people, I don't mind and sort of appreciate an initial, brief restrictive phase. I've "officially" done the South Beach diet a few times -- it's how I lost weight the first time and how I lost my law school 20 during my 1L year. In theory, I intend to live my life on Phase 3 of that diet -- eating whole, normal, good-for-you foods. That is theory. In practice, I eat a little of this and that here and there, until suddenly I realize I've just been eating whatever I want for long enough to have completely fallen away from eating reasonably.

Anyway -- I don't mind the idea of that initial "Phase 1" restrictiveness. You can't deny the motivational kick from seeing the number on the scale drop quickly as you lose your water weight, of course, but more importantly, I find that quitting crappy food "cold turkey" is significantly more effective in making sure I don't overdo it. Moderation and I are not the best of friends, and while I never miss chocolate once I break my habit, I find that "just one ounce a day" turns into "one ounce at work after lunch" plus "a couple small handfuls of mini chocolate chips at night after dinner" plus "just a spoonful of almond butter to go with them" and BAM, I've just dedicated an extra 600 calories to stuff I don't AT ALL need.

Regardless, though, this phase is super restrictive. Like every Phase I that I've seen, it's very low-carb, high-protein. Calorie-wise, it's pretty standard -- about 1800 per day. But the types of foods I have to eat are, at least initially, unsatisfying. Here's yesterday's eats:

- Breakfast: "protein shake." They call it that, I'll call it my Green Monster (woo, now I feel like a real blogger!). 1/2 banana, 1/2c berries, handful of spinach, scoop of protein powder, 1/2c milk, ice.
- Midmorning snack: Clif Builder's Bar
- Lunch: tuna salad made with 6oz tuna, plain Chobani, stone-ground mustard, dill and various spices over salad made with 2c spinach and 1/2c total of chopped red pepper, tomato and portabella mushrooms
- 5pm "snack:" 6oz plain Chobani
- Dinner: 6.5oz grilled chicken, 1/2 sweet potato with Texas Pete and plain Chobani, 2/3oz reduced-fat cheddar "snack cheese"

Let's be clear: I am NOT hungry on this diet. I get more than enough food in terms of calories and fuel, and it's GOOD stuff...but my dinner left me feeling full, but unsatisfied. I wanted something else to eat -- a side of veggies would have done the trick. Alas, I get X number of "servings" (e.g., 3oz of chicken breast is one protein, 1 cup of cooked veggies is one veggie), and I had used up my veggies by frontloading them in my lunch. I've learned my lesson and made sure to save a veggie for tonight. It's going to take some getting used to, but I can do it for two weeks -- I get to add in more fruit and veggies in a couple weeks, so I can live. Also, it ain't going to kill me to learn to just STOP EATING when I'm full, instead of mindlessly continuing to much just because I feel like there should be something else there.

(It does, however, make me want to punch PhillyGuy, who gets about twice as much food as me and complains that he doesn't know just how he's going to manage to eat all of this protein!)

Also, I should really buy stock in Chobani. How did I live without Greek yogurt? Yet another thing I owe to the blogworld. Thanks, guys :)

There are so many things that are a regular part of my life now that didn't occur to me before I started reading blogs. What has the blogworld introduced to you?

Isn't it brutal...

...how taking even a short vacation never fails to leave you needing another vacation?

I. Am. Tired.

PhillyGuy and I went to NYC for a nice three-day weekend. We had a bunch of hotel points to use up, so we stayed gratis at a great Marriott right across the street from the Waldorf-Astoria. Fabulous location, perfect weather...so what did we do?

Friday night, we had reservations at Del Posto, one of Mario Battali's restaurants. We spent the equivalent of our "free" hotel on dinner, and I am NOT SORRY. Not even a little bit. We did a five-course menu, including an antipasto (I had clams with fried artichokes; he had roasted winter veggies), two pasta tastings (homemade pumpkin ravioli-esque filled pastas with a cream sauce; fresh penne-type pasta with a bison bolognese), entree (pork for PhillyGuy, ribeye for me) and following up with dessert and cappuccino. I'm flaking on the details now, and honestly, that might have a LITTLE BIT to do with the bottle of wine we shared...or the martini I had before that...or the gin and tonic(s) I had afterwards next door at Collicchio and Sons. Oops. (STILL not sorry!)

We spent the vast majority of Saturday lazing around in bed. Honestly, I can't picture a better, more necessary way for me to spend some time off than that. I slept for hours, and hours, and hours, waking up only to lazily stroll down the street to a deli for a quick sandwich and return to blissfully nap until I woke up panicking -- it was 7:15 and we had 8pm tickets to Rock of Ages!

By some miracle, we threw ourselves together and made it with perfect timing -- about five minutes before the curtain. And let me tell you -- that show was hysterical. I love, love, LOVE the whole Big Hair Band/"power ballad" era, and this did it up perfectly.

After a lazy weekend away, I'm finding myself struggling to get back into the swing of things today. I had a filing kicked back and I'm trying to get it fixed, I have documents to review, and I had a bunch of voicemails that I still need to return -- I really, really need to get some caffeine in me, since my peppermint tea just ain't cutting it.

Probably not helping matters much is the fact that PhillyGuy and I dragged our sorry butts out of bed this morning at 5am for the first day of P90X. (I'm still sort of ashamed to be associating myself with this, since it is unforgiveably tool-box-y.) But, d-bag advertising or not, this is no joke. This morning was back, check and abs -- I'm sorry, "AB RIPPER X." We basically spent an hour doing various types of pushups, modified pullups (since neither PhillyGuy nor I can actually complete a single unassisted pullup) and a few other pull-type exercises using resistance bands, and followed it with a nonstop 15-minutes of various ab exercises. The chest and back was tough, but doable -- I felt nice and sore and happy and sweaty afterwards. The abs? F that mess. It calls for 25 reps each of probably 7 or 8 exercises. I could only complete all 25 reps of MAYBE one or two. The others, I pulled out maybe 15 or so...and there was at least one where I could not even manage more than 3 or 4 reps. THIS is going to be brutal.

Oh well. I'm looking forward to improving to the point where I can at least complete what I'm supposed to, you know? Such is life. Right this second, though, I am heading STRAIGHT downstairs for an iced coffee.