I'm not a hard-ass.  I'm not going to say that you should be working out for an hour every day.

But I am going to say that you'd feel a hell of a lot better if you did.

I realized the other day that, ignoring the week that I was out after having a camera shoved down my bellybutton, my husband and I will have completed eleven weeks of Insanity come tomorrow.  That's a whole hell of a lot of sweat, of Level 1s, 2s and 3s, of planks, of squats, of jumps and of "digging deeper."  There's more than just the result on our bodies (he's lost 40+ pounds and I'm almost-freakishly toned).  It's the guarantee that I know:  when I get home from work, either after I ride the horse or before I go on a run, my husband and I are going to spend an hour together.  We're going to move the furniture, fill our water bottles, put on our heart-rate monitors, and turn the air conditioning up.  He's going to push on my already-straight right knee while I'm doing my hip flexor stretch.  And I'm going to tease him about his 1-2-3 Heisman being a dance previously performed by Carlton on Fresh Prince.  When it's done, we're going to eat dinner and play on our laptops while something mind-numbly is on television.  But for that hour - we're completely together.

It's always been second nature to do some physical activity of some sort.  That's why I have experience in soccer, karate and gymnastics.  My mom is one of the most physically fit women that I know.  For as long as I can remember, she's gone to the gym multiple times a week.  It's not uncommon to see her strutting around the yard, trimming bushes, in a string bikini.  My mom is 65.  :)

So, we've been in Savannah for almost two years.  Eighteen months.  Whatever.

I remember when I discovered this video and it introduced me to this witty fellow who seemed to share a lot of the same view.  Yeah, Philly D, I've got a little crush.  Don't tell my husband.

About the video:  epic.  It's.. the welbutrin colada, the psychology degree, the "fuck them."

Just watch it.

It's our love story.  Awww.

I met my husband when he was six and I was seven.  He was the cute little redheaded kid who lived around the corner.  I remember vague things about him: he was spoiled, I never saw his parents, I went from having a crush on him (and him being repulsed) to him having a crush on me (and me being repulsed).  We played truth-or-dare under the neighbor's house and it always resulted in little pecks and blurted affections.  I would have his cousin pass him notes in elementary school and fill me in on the things I didn't know.

I don't remember much of him from middle school.  I think that was the phase during which I was too good for him.

I remember him in high school.  At some point in those early years, he shot up.  Became the sexy redheaded kid.  He was always in the peripheral.  I remember expressing to my best friend my interest in him.  And some how my interest became her interest and I remember seeing her cornering him.

He was always one of the first to arrive.  Always at school, always a good student.  Diligent.  I was a year ahead of him and we only ever had one class together - Astronomy.  We both took French, though, and even though his French was probably better than mine, Mme Elliot knew of my crush and would encourage him to study with me.  He never did.  And in Astronomy, it was always jokes.  Laughter.  He would never talk to me.

One day, near the end of my Senior year, I followed him out to the parking lot and gave him a note with my number.  Told him to call.  I remember that my hand shook as I handed it to him and.. he never called.

Fast forward several years, April 2006.  I'm in college, he's in college.  I've seen his little blue Honda drive past my house (out of his way).  I know he's not studying in my city.  I'm about six months out of a broken engagement, living on my own and towards the end of the shitshow that had become my single life.  And introduce Facebook to the equation.

I found him on Facebook and added him as a friend, never thinking that he would accept.  It would have been just another rejection from the redhead.  I remember that I was working at my temp job at an aviation repair company, trying not to gouge out my eyeballs.  FB was relatively fresh back then, so they didn't have it blocked.  And I was killing time.  So, I added him.  And then I squealed, quietly, to myself two hours later when I saw that he had accepted and sent me a note.

I wish to fucking god that I still had that note.  Damn you FB upgrades.

The gist was that he was incredibly apologetic for being a scared douche in high school, for rejecting me so many times, that I was beautiful and that the next time he was in town, we ought to get lunch or something.

We've been together ever since.

A million years ago, I was a user of a site called "Open Diary."  All of my friends utilized the site and it became a place at which you could divest yourself of the things you couldn't say to a person's face.  I mean, we talked a lot of shit.  And I was particularly angsty with my shit.

It's not my intention to take my new little baby blog into the world of shit-talking.  Especially about my friends.  They will always find out.  Keep it in the hand-written word, bitches.

That being said, I have some pretty amazing friends.  They're all fucking bonkers, in their own special ways, but phenomenal people nonetheless.  My husband and I moved to Savannah about eighteen months ago.  It'll be two years in August.  When we were living in the city from which we came, we lived separately.  He was still a student and I was a struggling professional.  I worked three jobs to maintain my apartment and my horse.  So I didn't have time for friends.  I didn't go out with anyone other than him.

Fast-forward to Savannah and I actually have friends again.  I have people that want to spend time with me.  It's amazing and wonderful and a bit overwhelming.  I have a large-ish group of acquaintances, with whom I'll go drinking and facebooking and whatnot.  And then I have a weird, small group of people who used to be my best friends.  And then I have my current "best friends."  It feels juvenile to talk about it in these terms, but I have no others.

My acquaintances are awesome.  Most of us have something in common - the girls I play soccer with, the girls I used to work with, the friends of friends.  My old best friends are good, in a weird way.  It's strange to think that we've all moved on, but history unites us.  That I know everything about them and their families and their former lives, but that I don't know them.  Not anymore.  And pretense drains me.

And the current best friends?  The people I actually text with, that I talk with online, that I know the current dramas of.  I do my best to stay connected, but damn.  It's hard being a grown up, having interests, being mostly introverted, and still wanting to have companionship.  I love being part of a group.  I love chatting with people and doing things.  But I also love my quiet time, my time riding, my reading time.  I love being alone.

And, finally, my bestest friend: my husband.  I get teased for still being in the newlywed phase, but I want to go home to him.  I want to spend time with him, even if it's just sitting on the couch or working out or doing nothing.  And in the same breath, I want to walk my dogs and ride my horse and go kayaking, but those aren't necessarily things that I can drag him to.  He doesn't like the dogs and the Kid isn't on his radar.  He's relented to going kayaking soon.  :)

I feel like, lately, all I do is work and work out.  And walk dogs, and do laundry, and feed animals and text.  And occasionally ride my horse.

Let's talk about my horse for a minute.  It's a topic of which I don't often tire.

Bold Archer, or Archie, Asshole, Boogerface, Bastard, and the Kid, was born in Kentucky on April 4, 1997.  He's all Thoroughbred - long legs, slightly inbred, a tad hotter than some other breeds, and smart.  Smart, smart, smart.  I've never known a kid this smart.  And he's a quarter Canadian.  He raced for a few years and did horribly.  Of his 17 races, he made a whopping $6k with his one win and two seconds.  That actually surprised me a little bit, because he's so.. determined.  But I figure that maybe he was being an asshole to everyone.  Maybe it just wasn't for him.

Hi.  Carrots?

After retiring, from my understanding, he spent a little bit of time as a 4-H horse.  Those poor kids.  That didn't last long.  Then he was sent down South, where we're supposedly deprived of off the track Thoroughbreds (OTTBs).  This is where I'm not exactly sure what happened.  One lady was selling him and couldn't.  Then, I think, he ended up at my barn, where he ate grass for a couple of years.  I don't remember him in the pasture.  I don't remember feeding him or blanketing him or checking him for injuries.


I remember Duke.

Duke, at our only show.

Duke, with his 17.3 hands of height, laid-back personality and willingness to take any fence, stole the attention from every other horse there.  I started feeding in order to get more time in Duke's saddle.  I'll never forget the days of running through the woods with the tree limbs scratching my sunburnt shoulders - the groundsman never thought to trim that high.  Duke was the first horse (only horse, actually) that I competed at three feet on.  He was the first to give me a shoulder-in and make me feel amazing.  And then he died.

It was colic.  It was surgery.  It was removal of intestines and phone calls and crying with his owner and wondering how such an amazing horse could be gone.  And it was a hard recovery that made me question my ability to recover.

3 feet, bitches.

And then, suddenly, there was a petite, by comparison, bay in his stall.  And, in my grief, I asked the barn manager for a project.  Archie became that counselor.  I became his person.  The goal was to get him in shape, get him going, and get him sold.  But after brushing him and lunging him and learning his personality (me, me, me), I was attached.  And then I got on him.  It was that moment, in the first post of the first trot, that I knew: no one else would ever own this horse.






I started working out the details: Could I afford him?  How much went into owning a horse?  How would I make this work?  And then I was in a car accident and made probably the most impractical, yet perfect, decision of my life.  For eighteen months, I drove around a 1986 Toyota Corrolla because it was free.  I used the money from the accident to put the down on Arch and to buy him tack.  It took me three more years, but I paid him off completely.  I worked off most of his board.  We've never been to any fancy shows and he's not exactly what I dreamed my first horse would be, but he's amazing.  He's made me grow, as a person and as a rider.  I'm confident on any horse I get on, because I know Archie is the biggest ass out there and I can stay on him.  Bucks don't frighten me.  Rears are just pretend fences.  The horse I'm riding will pick up whatever gait I tell him to - because I can get Arch to canter both leads and that is no small feat.

He's arthritic almost all over.  He has a tender back.  His hocks and ankles have been injected.  He wears fancy aluminum front shoes.  He's anhidrotic (I don't care what you say - that's something that ought to be preventatively treated for ever).  He is herd bound and shits himself when his buddies leave.  He kicked the farrier in the junk on his first visit (but didn't mean it!  I swear!).  When he's happy, feels good, feels proud, he has no equal. And I make it my mission to keep him happy, feeling good, and proud.  That's probably why I'm poor. (And happy.)

(770): Well, my nose won't stop bleeding from really bad cocaine and my purse is full of plastic gold coins. Also, someone saved in my phone as "tyrannosaurus sex" won't quit texting me. Savannah won. Let's put it that way.

St. Patty's Day, in Savannah, is a big fucking deal. They were estimating that there would be a million people in the city for the parade. I'm not sure if we hit that many, but the city was pretty well overwhelmed.

The mister and I went to his boss' apartment overlooking one of the squares. We, along with my friends and their friends, proceeded to drink him out of house and home. And then it was time to leave, which involved a mad dash through the city and a two hour wait to take the ferry across the river to our car. That blew.

The rest of the day was spent recovering. And eating. And napping.

Sunday, we slept in too late and I decided we needed to eat at a little tourist trap on one of the islands. Big mistake. Even though it wasn't incredibly crowded or anything, the cook couldn't keep up. We waited about an hour just for pancakes and shrimp. It didn't leave me much time to do anything else. So I prioritized. :)

I rode the horse before the soccer game and then went over to a friend's house to have some last-minute work done on my car. Then picked up the hubby and had Mexican for dinner. Thank god for 32oz beers. :)

Here are some photos!

If you haven't heard the original, you suck.  But take a listen to this cover because it is absolutely phenomenal.  And then go listen to the original.

Which is also the type of Subaru Outback that I own. And love.

I want people to say that I was intelligent. Respectful. Being "nice" isn't as important as being remembered as "polite." I want people to know that I took shit off no one. That I cherished memories.. almost more (okay, sometimes, definitely more) than the people who help create them.  That I did all that I was capable of, and then pushed my mind and body for more.  That I met my soul mate at age seven and have never questioned the route or determination that brought us together.  That I was enlightened at age eighteen and this decade of atheism has been my happiest.  That I acknowledged something in myself, questioned it, sought help and, when none was available, fought it.  That I changed what didn't please me, accepted what was not malleable, and never asked for a deity's assistance.  That I constantly strove for more.  It's not a matter of discontent, being unsatisfiable, or being greedy - it's having higher expectations.

Friday: 5k.
Saturday: long ride.
Sunday: Soccer and Insanity.
Monday: another longish ride and Insanity.
Tonight: Insanity and a run. Unless I die first. Then maybe just Insanity.

The 5k was great: crowded, raining and the hubs and I got into a spat. I finished in 34:14, which was pretty excellent for my third post-op run. Actually, faster than my first 5k. The last little sprint was probably one of my best closing pushes.

The ride on Saturday was great, too. My car is in the shop and D had a surgery (random!), so I put on my boots and half chaps, grabbed my helmet bag and some drinks, and walked the .87 mile to the barn. I had to feed, so I gave Archie a handful of grain, fed the other two, and started to tack up. He wasn't the happiest kid, but damn if he weren't a good boy. He really likes his new saddle and moved forward quite nicely. He staired at the random mattress outside the fence line, walked out to the road, and even willingly body-slammed another horse trying to escape.  Then I fed him, cleaned up around the barn, and tossed hay to everyone. And I meandered on back home, stopping at the local dock. I'm a photography whore, so there will be photos. It was a pleasant way to spend a Saturday morning.

Sunday involved lounging about with my hubby, watching old episodes of Supernatural.  I had to feed again that morning, so I got up at the butt crack of dawn, given the time change, fed, and crawled back into bed.  The girls even let me.  Then came the soccer game.

I played soccer in middle school on a coed team.  The biggest directive that I received was to be more aggressive.  Generally, that's not something that I think I have a problem with.  If anything, I've been told to be less of a bully - both physically and emotionally.  Whoops.  Anyways, so I'm playing soccer for the first time in a million years and, as good as I thought I was kicking a ball with my husband, I suck.  Not a lot - I'm still going to chase the ball, when I'm not staring dazedly at everything going on around me.  But our game on Sunday was cancelled because the other team was a no-show.  So a few players went and jumped in on another game and the rest of the team devoted the next hour to teaching me how to properly kick a soccer ball.  I have no aim.  I have no power.  I'd never done a "kick with my laces."  I got okay, but it was decided that inside foot was my power kick and that I'd probably never be in the position to kick a goal.

We'll see.  :)

And then the Man and I decided that we really ought to do the Insanity workout that we'd skipped from the day before.  So we dragged through that (Month 2, end of Week 3, in case you were wondering).

Yesterday, I slogged through work.  Fucking time change.  And went home, rode my horse (WONDERFUL!), picked up the hubs and, at eight o'clock, did an hour of Insanity.  I was too barfy to eat dinner, so that was definitely skipped.

And now we're on to today.  Cardio insanity.  Whee.

More like: A Jogger.

I can't remember exactly when it started. Octoberish? Well, really it started a few years ago, when I was in college. As a requirement for graduation, I had to take a wellness course. I put it off until one summer, when I decided to take Wellness - Jogging. The class met every night, Monday through Friday, for five weeks.

After moving my body in that sweltering heat - Georgia in the summer, mind you - I was able to take my mile from 11 minutes to just over 9.

So, back in October whenever, I had the urge to start running again. I've had little bursts of running urges periodically since college, but this is the first time I've actually determined to keep up with it. Care about the pace and distance and form. The shoes on my feet, my body's reaction, the heart beats per mile.

I did my first 5k in December. It was Savannah's epic Bridge Run. It was a pretty nice run: a decent incline, a decent descent, and a cold beer afterwards. My time was about 34:40. Something like that.

I did my second race in February. This one was a bigger pain in the ass, less organized, and I had to spend more time training. It had no inclines, as the bridge is really the only sizeable hill we've got, but twice the length. For training, I slowly brought myself from three or four miles to eight. I could comfortably do eight miles in about an hour and a half. Not breaking any records, but damn. Eight miles is pretty fucking long when you're taking it step by step by step. I finished the Critz Tybee Run in 1:09.

Tonight, I'm doing my third race. It's just another 5k. And completely flat. It'll take me through historic downtown Savannah and I'll get to see, at my 11 minute mile pace, more of the city than I ever have. I get another notch in my running shoes and the March of Dimes gets some donations.

This photo is from the Tybee run. I'm not the prettiest when it comes to exercise. :)

Oh! And the hubs and I standing where we got married - race was that close to it.

Also known as: the time I was intentionally stabbed and quickly recovered due to my obsession with exercising.

So, a couple months ago big D made the decision that he wanted to be a little less big and quickly started losing weight. And then he decided that skinny wasn't really what he wanted to be, and decided that he wanted muscles, too.

Being the ever loving and supportive wife, I stood by my hubby's decision to subject our minds and bodies to a tireless campaign to beef up. And, being the absolutely neurotic man that he is, he researched the fuck out of things we could do without leaving the comfort of our own home. God forbid we use that gym membership, amirite?

And he discovered Shaun T and Insanity And I discovered that we could sweat together.

Fast forward six weeks. I have muscles. My runner's legs are more toned than miles have ever made them. I have biceps and the hinting of triceps. And, beneath my layer of blubber, I can feel ab muscles.

And then I need surgery.

It wasn't a giant surprise. Just a brief laparoscopic procedure to determine why I hurt. But here's the kicker: multiple friends have had the same procedure and were no where near my superhuman recovery. Less than a week after getting stabbed in three places and having a camera shoved in my belly button, I was back to insanity. Nine days, I'm riding my horse. Less than two weeks, running again. And at the two week, two day point, I'll be doing another 5k.

I credit this quick recovery to the phenomenal shape that Insanity gave me. Or, rather, the shape that Shaun T's screaming encouraged me to attain.

Here are some photos. I'll probably repeat some when I write more about the actual surgery.

Oh, might be graphic!