My Next Adventure

In one of my sessions with my trainer, she had me kicking a heavy bag. After the my session was over I realized I LOVED it and really had a great time with it. So I asked her what kind of class or martial art I could take that would allow me to do more of this angry activity. She suggested something called Krav Maga.

I looked into it and found that this might in fact be right up my alley. It would give me the fitness benefit with the added benefit of being able to defend myself should that type of situation arise (remember I do live in the kidnapping capital of the US...such a great stat that is...).
I found a center in town that taught it. And I convinced one of my friends to go to the class with me. Because if you're going to be beating up on someone I find it more comfortable to beat up someone you know, at least for your first time. Maybe that's just me.

This class KICKED MY BUTT. I thought I was going to PUKE. And sore? Am I sore? OH.MY.GOD. I didn't even know that many muscles were in my back. WOW. I loved it, it was awesome.

Here is the jist of it, I copied this from Wikipedia and here is the link so you can read more.

Krav Maga is an eclectic hand-to-hand combat system developed in Israel. Unlike most martial arts, Krav Maga is essentially a survival skill. Its philosophy emphasizes threat neutralization, simultaneous defensive and offensive maneuvers, and aggressive endurance in a 'him-or-me' context.

If you go to the link and read the 'Basic Training' section, it's about how my class went. The "warm -up" about killed me. Then we went into simulations of situations. And the end pushed me over the edge - this is referred to "as a way to burn out the students" if you click on the link and read and burn me out it did.

I'll be going back. Yes I will starting in June...

My Favorite Commercial

For some reason I LOVE this commercial. And my absolute favorite part is when the little digital guy drinks the coffee and his legs starts shaking. I find this hilarious. I'm not really sure what this says about me.

Awards Make Me Happy

A fellow blogger friend, Larry over at Yesterday, Today and Forever gave me a friend award. I am honored I was selected and am honored to pass it on to others. Thanks Larry!






“These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."



If you've won it already, please just accept this as a gift! Thanks to the following for blessing us with your openness in sharing your journey:

Deb @ San Diego Momma

Michelle @ Raising Little Women

Crystal @ My So Called Life

Judy @ A Day in the life of the Bashas

Angela @ Viva Cookevegas

Kelly @ We Want Tessert

Cindy @ Hun...what's for dinner??

Chrissy @ A Lil' Dash of Diva

And I know this is #9, and officially she also got the award from Larry but I would feel bad not including her in my list as well. She was the first blog I read that was written by someone I didn't know.
Stephanie @ Bad Mom

I have really enjoyed getting to know all these bloggers better. They are all wonderful writers and provide great entertainment. I would love to meet them in person (well the ones I don't know, for the ones I do I would love to visit with you again!!).

Friday Sweet Friday

And yes it's that time, it's fill-in time! Enjoy by reading some more here.

1. Apparently there's some sort of failure to communicate.

2. In Arizona, almost every day is a sunny day.

3. 2009 kicks 2008's ass so far.

4. I didn't believe in love at first sight until I met Leo and that was it.

5. For too long I've been waiting to "really" live my life, but no more! No more waiting.

6. I am not obsessed with weighing myself multiple times a day; I am not! (OK, really that's a lie...)

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to putting all the stuff in the garage away in our newly installed cabinets and removing everything from the garage in preparation for the epoxy floor application, tomorrow my plans include finding a smoking dress for my sister-in-law's wedding next weekend and then going to a cookout at Rawhide (you're singing that song now aren't you! ha ha ha) and Sunday, I want to see my parents!!!

36

No that's not my age, but it's the number of push-ups I can do. And we're not talking girly push-ups here, we're talking full on "manly" push-ups.
I didn't think I was going to do be able to do them all (I did 3 sets of 12 with a really really short break in between) but I did it. I called strength from all over my body and pulled it off.
I am pretty proud of myself.

Working out with a trainer is definitely paying off, I would have never pushed myself that hard to complete that many. I would have given up at probably 15!

I think my new goal is 50 at one time.

Happy Thursday!

Retinking Going Green

Today is Earth Day. We should be good to the Earth and respect it as our home. I am, however, not all about going green. I feel we make wise COMMON SENSE choices. We recycle as much as possible. Leo even makes fun of me b/c of how I'll pull something out of the trash and put it in the recycle bin. Leo is obsessed with turning lights off as you leave the room. That's green right there. Leo bought us Camelback bottles so we can stop buying water bottles. That's green too (but I do recycle the bottles I buy...)

But, you won't be seeing me drive a Prius, or any other hybrid. Although kudos to all those people who bought a hybrid and helped out the economy because the cost of the hybrid will not be recovered in your savings on gas dollars. In fact one of our vehicles is a hydrocarbon powered Eco-vehicle (also known as a GMC Yukon), Thank you Glenn Beck.

And you won't see me supporting the crock of global warming.

Last year Wired magazine posted an article of Rethinking What It Means to be Green. It's a great article and I suggest you take a gander here.
Here is a recap of the list that the article covers (hyperlinked to take you right to the spot to read), some of them you might find surprising:

Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What it Means to Be Green
1: Live in Cities
2: A/C Is OK
3: Organics Are Not The Answer
4: Farm the Forests
5: China Is the Solution
6: Accept Genetic Engineering
7: Carbon Trading Doesn't Work
8: Embrace Nuclear Power
9: Used Cars — Not Hybrids
10: Prepare for the Worst

Happy Earth Day! Be smart about it.

Who Knew?

I have blog stats from BlogPatrol. This allows me to see how many people read daily, where they are located and what if anything they searched on to find the blog. I admit I love reading these stats.

Do you know what causes more hits on the blog than anything else? Not anything cactus related, as you might think. Nope it's Michelangelo's Lasagna. I didn't realize how many people searched for this. I can't say I ever searched on it, but it causes quite a few hits. And all because of this post. Where I talked about Michelangelo's Lasagna as the one that killed our microwave. Hopefully my post hasn't deterred sales, although I'm thinking not due to the amount of times people search on this.


The key word searches are probably one of the best stats I have. It is very interesting. People are weird, that's all I have to say. And that includes me just so I'm not singling anyone out. Although I haven't searched on Michelangelo's Lasagna...

Not Long Now

Well in less then a week, my parents will be here!! We are all very excited. I can't wait for them to arrive. I love having them around and so do the kids. They are so excited.
They should be here on Sunday.

We are excited they will be here to celebrate Little Man's 3rd Birthday!

Woohooo!

Hey! It's Friday!

Woohoo it's Friday!

1. Join me in an hour for some Margaritas.

2. Put a little exercise in your day!

3. Happiness is hearing my children laugh.

4. Dazed and confused.

5. I'm waiting for fall to come back again.

6. A yummy warm doughnut is hard to resist.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to kicking back with the fam, tomorrow my plans include a painted pottery outing with Sweet Girl and her friend and Sunday, I want to maybe go for a hike!

Shoes Glorious Shoes

So I'm a slacker about posting lately. Many thanks to my lovely husband who did a post for me after much prodding (no not THAT kind). He is a good writer and needs his own blog.

I was sick last week. It sucked, I was not pleased. But I am better today and feeling good thanks to the wonderful ZPack of antibiotics.

And so I shall tell you about my cool shoe purchases. I did buy eight (8) pairs of shoes back in TN. Why you might ask yourself? Well I'm not really sure. I haven't bought shoes in a long time and it was time to replenish my flip flop count (it was down to 10 by God...10!! TOO LOW!!! MUST REPLENISH). I am a HUGE fan of the Yellow Box flip flops and the store I have always shopped at (even though it changed owners and is not the same anymore, I am still inspired in their shoe department) always has the new ones at this time of year. So I was excited to make a stop by there.
So in addition to the 5 new pairs of this seasons flip flops, I also added two pairs of Ed Hardy's. I love the Ed Hardy's and tried them on previously here but they didn't fit right. And I still think he has sizing issues because I got one pair in a 6 and one pair in a 7. And WHY did I get two pairs? Because one of them was on sale for $17. Yes you read that right, $17!!! AND I had a coupon! YAY ME!! Who the hell could pass up that deal? Not me obviously.
And then there was a new pair of Privo's. Have you ever worn Privo's? They are damn comfy. I love them. And I really didn't need a new pair. But I was enjoying the attention of the cute shoe boy that was fetching my various shoes and sizes. And after trying them on well, I liked them and so in the "buy" pile, well it was more like a mountain of boxes at this point.
At this point I had to stop, because my count was up to 9, originally I had 3 pairs of Ed Hardy's and thanks to the opinion of the cute shoe boy, I put one of them back. I had done enough damage. I had two shopping bags of shoes to tote around AND pack to take home.

But I was fulfilled and happy and well you know....God I love shoes.

And so here are the flip flops. I now have various prints and colors. Black, brown, pink, multi colored dots, stripes, black with white polka dots, white with black polka dots, big dots, small dots, multi size dots. You get the idea. And do I wear them all. Yes I do. I rotate them out. Laugh if you must. I really don't care. Maybe I have an addiction but an addiction to flip flops is better then say crack. Right? Oh and I also am addicted to weighing myself but that's an entirely different post all together.




Next the Ed Hardy's. I don't know why I love them so, I do. There is something about skulls and hearts. Don't ask.



And finally the probably least "exciting" of the bunch. The Privo's. They are so comfy. I love a comfy shoe.


And so until next year when I replenish my flip flops again, I will not be buying shoes. Unless of course I find a kick ass deal that cannot be passed up!

Guest blogger

Hi All,

This is Leo, since Danielle has been remiss in her posting she has asked me to do a post today. I really am not sure what to say or talk about. We had a nice Easter weekend, but unfortunately the egg hunt got rained out and the organizer did not have a back up plan.

There was some good news that came out over the weekend that we can talk about. It appears that our nations special forces have not been packed in moth balls. The Navy SEALs showed they still know what takes to deal with the bad guys. Three shots, three kills in less than easy conditions. Sounds like a good start. Now we can take a lesson from history and do as Thomas Jefferson did and take the fight to the pirates as it was memorialized in the US Marines anthem .... to the shores of Tripoli. Unfortunately our foriegn policy is not what it once was.

Well, I guess that is it for me. Perhaps I will will guest host in the future or I may take Dani's advice and start my own blog as an outlet for my frustration.

Damnit

Every time we travel to Nashville in the spring/summer I get sick when we return to Phoenix. It's like some sort of punishment for leaving there or something. I don't know, but I do know that I feel like crap and want to go back to bed.

My post today was supposed to be about the EIGHT pairs of shoes I bought while I was back. Yes I said eight. But I just don't have it in me to talk about it right now.

I'll tell you later about my good shoe finds.

I Can't Believe No One Blew It

I can't believe in that in the pretty much 3 months we had planning my dad's surprise 60th birthday party that no one blew it. No one slipped, we were all perfect (well at least in that regard of keeping the secret). And the party kicked ass! It was a great time and my dad was totally shocked.

He thought he was going to lunch with my sister and her family because he wouldn't be around TN for his actual birthday. He had no idea all his friends and family including us would be there. There was some suspicion raised when my dad sent me an email at work and got my out of office reply. And yes it was odd because we normally tell my parents when we go anywhere and he didn't know I wouldn't be at work. I thought quick and told my mom to tell him we were in Flagstaff. Leo even sealed that deal when he called my dad on his was to the restaurant telling him we had just left the Grand Canyon.

Here are some pictures of his shock and awe when he arrived at the Buca di Beppo with all of us there.

The 'WTF is this' look

The 'Wait, I recognize some of these people, but why are they here' look

The 'OK I get it now. Holy Shit this is for me?' look

His face was priceless as you can see. Many THANKS and props to Leo's Uncle David who took all the pictures for us. He really captured the moment and the surprise we were ultimately going for.

I loved planning it and working with my mom and sister to get everything ready. It was a great time.

Here I Am

Maybe you've been wondering where I went? But then again maybe you haven't. I'm going to assume you have missed me and my sometimes interesting, sometimes boring and always honest and blunt posts.
Well I couldn't blog about where I was going without giving away a surprise. We headed back to Tennessee for a surprise birthday party for my dad who is turning 60.
So now we're back in Arizona and I will update you on the party and all the other adventures of our travels soon. I have much to do work wise and some unpacking to finish.

3 Cops and 1 Duck

Saturday night when we are coming home I see something in the road, as we approach we realize it's a duck.
Strange.
He's a white duck with black tail feathers, just standing in the road. Just hanging out.
I was expecting as we drove by him to check him out he would "talk" or offer up some kind of quack. But nothing.
So I fear he's going to get run over by the crazy drivers coming around the cul de sac. I look for the animal control number.
I found it, dialed it and felt like an idiot when they answer the phone "Chandler Police".
"Um...I was really calling for animal control, I didn't dial the police number" I get out sounding like the idiot I feel like.
"What is the problem?" she asks me nicely. She must be used to weirdo calls like this.
I explain about the duck. She takes all my info (probably logging into the potential pain in the ass caller list because she just called the police about a duck...) and says she'll send someone out.

I go check and he's still out there, but he's now sitting in the road. I am concerned he's either hurt or sick. And based on our luck, we don't need a potentially rabid duck around our house.

About 30 mins later I go check on him again, and the first cop is there. We go out and talk to him and he's called someone else (because apparently there are some crazy ducks in Chandler, mine was not the first "there is a duck on my road" call. ). The next time Leo goes to check and there are now THREE cop cars out there, THREE! For a DUCK! So either they were all really bored or maybe looking for a potential dinner for the next day. This was what Leo wanted to do, I however, did not wish to have that happen.

They were able to get him up to the grassy area in the middle of the cul de sac. And they then left him there. My thinking is, what are the chances he's going to wander off the grassy area? And then becoming road kill. I really didn't want to wake up to find squished duck in front of my house.

He was gone in the morning. I was happy about that.

We're Going To The Happiest Place On Earth

I've put down the deposit, and now it is official.

Disney World here we come!

We'll be there for 8 wonderful days.

Of course it's not until September but I am actually really excited. I don't talk about it much with the kids because Lord we would never hear the end of it. They would ask every hour when we were going.

Although with all the planning that goes into this, I'll probably need another vacation after this. We're going with some friends, and she is beyond OBSESSED with tips/ideas/ plans. She makes me laugh. But it will all prove beneficial when we rock the Magic Kingdom and hit all the rides and have no waits and happy happy kids. Wishful thinking? Maybe but maybe not. Have you ever seen all the stuff about going to Disney???