It's not that I don't like children in general, but I don't like trespassing, hooligan children!!
Our backyard has a 6 foot privacy fence and it is surrounded on two sides by community trails that meander through our neighborhood. After school there are lots of kids that walk home on these trails, sometimes they are loud and screeching (why?), other times you hear them beating on the fence with sticks as they walk by, mostly I just know they're passing through because the dogs bark.
On more than one occasion our back gate has been left wide open which can be quite a danger when you have a feisty terrier that loves to look for an opportunity to escape. Obviously someone was opening it - not us of course, but someone from the outside. I can only speculate that it is juvenile hooligans because it always seems to happen in the after school hours. After having this happen at least 3 or 4 times, we put a carabiner on the inside of the gate - thereby making it impossible to open the gate from the outside, but easy for us if we wanted to get out.
Well today, the gate was open once again and the carabiner had been pulled off. So basically someone came through our side gate, walked though our back yard, pulled the carabiner off the back gate and left it open. When BJ came home, he let the dogs out and didn't look for an open gate (we thought we had solved the problem) and our Tosca of course took off for parts unknown. She led quite the chase, I went to the left and had a neighbor point our her direction, BJ went right and found another lead from another neighbor .... in the end when we came back she was sitting on the back porch as if to say, "I'm sure hungry. Could you let me in??"
So now we have a carabiner on the inside of the side gate, strong rope tying the inside of the back gate closed and plans to install an electric fence as soon as possible. Maybe we shouldn't tell the home owner's association about that one?!?!?
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Happy Earth Day!!
In honor of Earth Day, I decided not to water our newly planted grass seed this morning given that we had showers forecast for this afternoon. See I can conserve, and reduce/reuse/recycle with the best of them!! I may be a nurse now, but back in the days of my environmental health studies I visited many a landfill, spent some time at incinerators, water treatment and sewage treatment plants and learned about local air pollution. I was thinking about going green long before the celebrities started driving their Priuses ... or is the plural Prii?? I'm trying to dredge up that high school Latin, but it's hard because I am remembering the evil clanking of Sr. Mary Annette's rosary beads - she was one tough, old nun!!
In other news, I learned that this week is Turn Off Your TV week. It is a noble effort to encourage other pursuits like reading, exercising and playing with your kids outdoors, and actually I watch so little TV these days that it wouldn't be hard at all to do this for a week. BUT - must they really choose this week??? I mean the week that Grey's Anatomy returns after a five month hiatus?!?!?!?!? Can I just TIVO it and watch it next week?? Would that be cheating?? I mean as much as I can't stand Meredith's character, I was so excited to finally see her break through and want to be monogamous with McDreamy who let's face it, should we have a lot of sympathy for a man that began dating her for months while conveniently forgetting to tell her about HIS WIFE that he eventually left her for?? Seriously, despite the cute, tousled hair we shouldn't forget that he has been quite an ass and given her good reason to be a little scared off. Oh and can we stop killing all of the viewers eyes with the George/Izzy pairing??? I mean not that I'm really into it or anything .... I'm just saying.
In other news, I learned that this week is Turn Off Your TV week. It is a noble effort to encourage other pursuits like reading, exercising and playing with your kids outdoors, and actually I watch so little TV these days that it wouldn't be hard at all to do this for a week. BUT - must they really choose this week??? I mean the week that Grey's Anatomy returns after a five month hiatus?!?!?!?!? Can I just TIVO it and watch it next week?? Would that be cheating?? I mean as much as I can't stand Meredith's character, I was so excited to finally see her break through and want to be monogamous with McDreamy who let's face it, should we have a lot of sympathy for a man that began dating her for months while conveniently forgetting to tell her about HIS WIFE that he eventually left her for?? Seriously, despite the cute, tousled hair we shouldn't forget that he has been quite an ass and given her good reason to be a little scared off. Oh and can we stop killing all of the viewers eyes with the George/Izzy pairing??? I mean not that I'm really into it or anything .... I'm just saying.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Why do my abs hate me?
Remember how yesterday I had a pleasant soreness, you know the sweet message from the muscles saying, "Thanks Jenn for thinking of us!!"
OK, I take it back. Today my abs are so sore that I can't stand up straight! I only did like 120 crunches and back in the day I did three times that many. Apparently, they decided to say "screw you." And I can't even take my miracle ibuprofen that cures everything ... stupid baby!
Bowling tonight should be an interesting challenge.
OK, I take it back. Today my abs are so sore that I can't stand up straight! I only did like 120 crunches and back in the day I did three times that many. Apparently, they decided to say "screw you." And I can't even take my miracle ibuprofen that cures everything ... stupid baby!
Bowling tonight should be an interesting challenge.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Welcome Back Sore Muscles!
I woke up this morning with that lovely soreness you get after a workout. Not so bad that I can't lift my arms above my head, but enough to know that I gave my muscles some challenge.
I finally got off my butt yesterday and headed to the gym. I know that I'm definitely needing to work on my cardio, but I'm also concerned about getting my body strong for the physical stresses that an extra 25 pounds are going to cause (though I'm only up 2 pounds so far). When I was working out with my trainer Cindy in Columbia, I had a great strength training regimen going on, but since starting to travel it's been nearly impossible to keep that up. Now that I'm settled in one place and have a gym membership, there's no excuse for that. I did some free weights and focused on the arms and legs then hit the mat for some abdominal work (oh my poor stomach muscles, you have no idea how ruined you're going to get!). I took it easy and just did two sets of my old routines because I knew that if I wasn't able to move my arms or walk today, it wouldn't be productive.
My plan is to strength train twice a week and start adding some abdominal work in more frequently since I really need to get that area as strong as possible. I do have a Pregnancy Fitness book kindly lent to me by Merk that I'm consulting just to see if there is anything I should avoid (exercises where I'm flat on my back) and how to modify as I get farther along.
I'm going to add cardio as I can, but probably focus more on walking, using the elliptical and stair climber. If I haven't really been running the past few months, it doesn't seem like it's the brightest thing to start pushing when I'm 15 weeks pregnant. I will be using my heart rate monitor and keeping things in a nice upper range of zone 2. We'll see if my personal motivation keeps up!
I finally got off my butt yesterday and headed to the gym. I know that I'm definitely needing to work on my cardio, but I'm also concerned about getting my body strong for the physical stresses that an extra 25 pounds are going to cause (though I'm only up 2 pounds so far). When I was working out with my trainer Cindy in Columbia, I had a great strength training regimen going on, but since starting to travel it's been nearly impossible to keep that up. Now that I'm settled in one place and have a gym membership, there's no excuse for that. I did some free weights and focused on the arms and legs then hit the mat for some abdominal work (oh my poor stomach muscles, you have no idea how ruined you're going to get!). I took it easy and just did two sets of my old routines because I knew that if I wasn't able to move my arms or walk today, it wouldn't be productive.
My plan is to strength train twice a week and start adding some abdominal work in more frequently since I really need to get that area as strong as possible. I do have a Pregnancy Fitness book kindly lent to me by Merk that I'm consulting just to see if there is anything I should avoid (exercises where I'm flat on my back) and how to modify as I get farther along.
I'm going to add cardio as I can, but probably focus more on walking, using the elliptical and stair climber. If I haven't really been running the past few months, it doesn't seem like it's the brightest thing to start pushing when I'm 15 weeks pregnant. I will be using my heart rate monitor and keeping things in a nice upper range of zone 2. We'll see if my personal motivation keeps up!
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Weekend Update
Did you know that it has been raining off and on here in Arkansas for what seems like weeks?? Seriously, I've been wondering if BJ and I should build an ark because it's getting kindof crazy. Of course in general it seems to be rainy and dreary on my days off and then sunny for the brief three days that I work - suck! My favorite place to run has been underwater off and on for almost a month and of course in between all the rain we've had tornados and sirens and winds, oh my!
A few tidbits ....
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We had a major storm come through last week that spawned a total of 10 tornadoes. When the civil defense siren down the street went off and we turned on the weather channel, it was heading right into our part of town. I grabbed my flashlight, hand crank weather radio, cell phone and some quilts and pulled the dogs into the center bathroom with me. BJ insisted that I was "overreacting," even when they announced that it had been sighted on the ground 5 miles away and moving our direction. I said, "you sit in the living room and blow away if you want, me the dogs, and our baby will stay right here."
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Since I've been feeling much better as of late, we actually went out last night and visited with friends! Woo Hoo!! I'm not an anti-social, slug!! We went over to Merk and Jeff's house - Merk being BJ's half marathon training partner and co-worker. Her husband just got back from Iraq and this was our second trial "couple date" ... you know where you try to find out if you're all compatible as couples and don't completely hate one person or another. It was a very enjoyable evening full of pizza dough hijinks and shared recollections of collegiate life in the early 90s. Ahh, it's so nice to have fun, intelligent conversation! Not to mention Jeff is also a transplanted Yankee, actually being from New England he's got even more street cred as a Yank than me.
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Today we finally had the chance to do some yard work. We've been wanting to seed parts of our yard for weeks but due to aforementioned torrential rains, we've been waiting till we were relatively assured of a few dry days. BJ did most of the hard work (turning over the nasty old sod) while I did some of the prep work (breaking up the clods) and we're hoping that in a few weeks we will have some happy bermuda mix on the south side of the house. We have SO much to do overall, but we're just taking it one step at a time.
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A few tidbits ....
*********************************************************************************
We had a major storm come through last week that spawned a total of 10 tornadoes. When the civil defense siren down the street went off and we turned on the weather channel, it was heading right into our part of town. I grabbed my flashlight, hand crank weather radio, cell phone and some quilts and pulled the dogs into the center bathroom with me. BJ insisted that I was "overreacting," even when they announced that it had been sighted on the ground 5 miles away and moving our direction. I said, "you sit in the living room and blow away if you want, me the dogs, and our baby will stay right here."
*********************************************************************************
Since I've been feeling much better as of late, we actually went out last night and visited with friends! Woo Hoo!! I'm not an anti-social, slug!! We went over to Merk and Jeff's house - Merk being BJ's half marathon training partner and co-worker. Her husband just got back from Iraq and this was our second trial "couple date" ... you know where you try to find out if you're all compatible as couples and don't completely hate one person or another. It was a very enjoyable evening full of pizza dough hijinks and shared recollections of collegiate life in the early 90s. Ahh, it's so nice to have fun, intelligent conversation! Not to mention Jeff is also a transplanted Yankee, actually being from New England he's got even more street cred as a Yank than me.
********************************************************************************
Today we finally had the chance to do some yard work. We've been wanting to seed parts of our yard for weeks but due to aforementioned torrential rains, we've been waiting till we were relatively assured of a few dry days. BJ did most of the hard work (turning over the nasty old sod) while I did some of the prep work (breaking up the clods) and we're hoping that in a few weeks we will have some happy bermuda mix on the south side of the house. We have SO much to do overall, but we're just taking it one step at a time.
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