Happy Halloween

And now I just could not resist posting this photo of my little angel getting spooked!!!!

Tau Kappa Reunion

For those of you that don't recognize the name of this sorority..well, it is not a national sorority. It was a local sorority at Tyler Junior College. Back in the old days you could get an associate degree in dental hygiene in two years. I know you can still get an associates' in 2 years, but now I think most dental hygiene degrees are spread out over 3 years. It was tough going for me back then. I was in the top 10 percent of my high school class, but when I got to dental hygiene school, I was probably somewhere in the middle. It was very hard, and I still wanted to have fun so I joined this sorority. There were not many of us that graduated. We were definitely fun-loving girls. Well TJC had their homecoming along with their annual alumni meeting. One of my TK sisters organized getting us all together. What fun we had seeing each other after 35+ years. That's right, I have been a dental hygienist for 35 years now. We were able to reconnect with information from the alumni office and also through Facebook. I know alot of people think that FB is for the kids, but I have found so many friends via FB. It has been a great tool to keep in touch. I am going to post a photo from 1973 along with a photo from last weekend. Can you find me in the old photo? The photos are of the gals that I pledged with. I don't have the large group photo. There ended up being about 45 of us altogether. Some came as late as spring 1977. I got to meet alot of these fun women. Being in this sorority bonded us together. One of the ladies that was unable to attend had had double by-pass surgery. We gave a love offering either money or gift cards- the money alone ended up being over $800. Another TK had her husband come with her because the previous week she had had a double mascetomy. Yes, there were lots of stories to be told. We laughed, we cried, and we had a great time making more TK memories!

Day 50 and 51- P90X- Yoga and Core Synergistics

Yes, I am still doing it.. but oh the guilt... yes.. what in the world happened to me. I went out of town to a sorority reunion. I did not get much sleep. So I get home.. I am tired.. sleepy.. and still so overwhelmed with all the clutter in my house from my mother's move. I have been working hard on it lately.. going through photo albums, discarding, choosing different people to give the photos to- the high school alumni office, the college alumni office, friends that own an antique mall, Goodwill, trash. I want to finish this job so bad, but there are so many hours in the day- and then I do work part-time, clean house, wash clothes, cook, and wash dishes. And I don't move as fast as I used to. I even just wanted to skip this recovery week since I had definitely been recovering for a week. I talked to Coach Jen, and we both agreed to complete the workouts for week 8. Gosh, when I think I should really be finishing P90X, I feel bad, but then I try to lift myself up by saying, " Hey Dee, just jump back in. You are not going to have the same results, but you are still better off than you were before you began P90X." Just remember I am not a great example to follow as far as being diligent, but you can follow me when you fall "off the wagon". So, I did skip the Yoga. I did the Core Synergistics this morning. I had to modify a bunch of those exercises. I just could not do them. I did okay on the rolls and the superman/banana rolls. I mainly cannot do those pushups the way he wanted them. And I don't hop with both feet. I jump with both feet, but only lift one leg to do it. So I think tomorrow it is yoga again. I probably will do it. I am thinking that I need to do more cardio. The fat is just not coming off. And if I had only walked or walk/run those days that I skipped P90X then that would have been okay. I just know that I need to do something everyday. I think in the future, if I decide to skip because I am just bored or tired of my workout, then I will get on the treadmill or get outdoors, or put on a dance video... just do something!!!! I am going to post some photos of my reunion.

Day 48-P90X-Kenpo & Day 49-P90X- Rest

Okay, first let me say that I did not do my Kenpo yesterday like I had planned. I woke up too late and did not have time. But I did do my Ab Ripper X before work. Gosh.. it is so hard. And when we are supposed to be climbing up our leg.. well I make two grabs, and I am still not reaching my foot. And then I got home, and I so intended to immediately do the Kenpo X. But I got sidetracked. You see I am about to attend my sorority reunion. I have not seen some of these women in 35+ years. We are going to the alumni meeting, then a sorority reception, then meeting at one of the member's homes that evening. That is on Saturday, but I am going tomorrow because I had a dental meeting I need to attend to earn my continuing education credits. But I was on the computer emailing back and forth to these gals, and just ran out of time. I know that is NO excuse. Same ole problem... if I don't work out early in the a.m., then I usually miss my workout.

So back to Kenpo X. I did awesome today. I guess that rest or the guilt or something made me work harder. This time I did not FF the break. I did the running, the jumping rope, the jumping jacks and........tada.... the X jumps!!!! Yes, every time they did them, I did them too! yea me!!! And my face was beet red when I finished. I don't have a working heart rate monitor. I don't know if it broke or the batteries went dead. I want one without the band across your chest. Don't they make those?? So I went ahead and included the rest day because tomorrow I am leaving town at 6:00 a.m. I will be getting up around 5:00 as it is, so no work out for me tomorrow. The dental meeting lasts until about 4:00 p.m. And I am meeting some of the sisters tomorrow night at 6:30. I will be going to my friend's house to spend the night tomorrow night.. she lives outside of town, so I will find her house between 4 and 6. I am going to take my laptop so maybe I can get a workout in the a.m. on Saturday. Maybe just do Ab ripper X. I will have to see... because I do want to visit with my friend (who is not part of the sorority festivities) too. I gotta say that after this workout, I felt so good. I was totally energized.

Day 47-P90X- Yoga

Okay..okay..okay. so I am all out of order. I worked out last Thursday and then on Friday I only did the Ab Ripper X. I really almost vomit when I do it. Then I was very busy on Friday getting ready for my daughter, son-in-law and little granddaughter to come. It was my daughter's 10 year high school reunion. So all weekend I have been on baby sitting duty which left me little time to workout. You know it is just hard to squeeze it in with extra people in the house and finding not only the time, but finding a good time. So I missed Saturday and Sunday and then I missed Monday. Again.. my big problem... if I don't do it early in the morning, I have too many distractions and end up missing my workout. So.. I missed 4 days. That is 4 rest days. So what should I be doing since I rested for 4 days.. should I do the recovery week? I mean... 4 days rest was a recovery week. Should I skip days these last days of week 7 and week 8 and move on to phase 3. Well, I am gonna just pick up with Day 47 which for me was yoga, and day 48 will be Kenpo, and Day 49 will be rest, but not for me. I will go ahead on Thursday and do Day 50. Are you confused? What I did was just rotate some of my routines this past week and rested too much so I am about to be back on track. Remember when I said that P90 X would probably be P120X.. well I think it is going to take me longer than that. If I followed P90X like I was supposed to, I would really be looking good. But since I am not, I am just looking better. How is that for being positive? It does happen to be the truth though. I can tell that my hips and waist are smaller and I can see more muscle in my shoulders, arms, and chest. The legs are not showing it too much. I am going to really work harder with the diet, and I am going to start by trying to incorporate more fiber in my diet. I think that is a big problem of mine. I just don't get enough.

So you know I don't like Tony's yoga video.. it is just tooooooooo long. I am trying out other yoga videos that I have. Today I did a Kathy Smith one. I really liked it. Actually I did one for about 15 minutes before hers with a guy that does morning yoga on the beach. It was not much to it. I am going to scrap it for sure. I liked the Kathy Smith.. not too hard.. she went slow.. she held the moves.. not too long a video. I only did 30 minutes of it because I had wasted my time on the other one. There is 15 minutes more on the floor that I did not do. But since next week is my recovery week, I will be doing yoga more than once I think. I will still keep working at it to find out which one I like the best. I may even go back to Tony's and just fast forward through some of the poses. Okay, gotta get in bed if I plan to get up early in the morning and work out. Oh... let me post a Halloween photo for you.

Day 46-P90X- Legs and Back

Okay, I skipped the yoga. I might do it tomorrow or this weekend. I am supposed to follow legs and back with kenpo, but I skipped the yoga. I am still tweaking this workout. Today I got up early, and as usual did not want to do my workout. Gosh.. will I ever absolutely love getting up and moving? I need to change my attitude. I am so blessed to have arms and legs that move and a back that is not all worn out yet. I have a TV and a DVD player and air-conditioning to work out in. I really am so thankful to God that I can get up and move. So like I said, I need to change my attitude. My workout went pretty smoothe. I did all the moves. I even did those tiptoe lunges that hurt so bad. I did those bend over bows that go into a squat for so long. I did all the wall lunges.. and yes, they did burn. I have a habit of looking continuously at the clock meter on the right side of the DVD screen dwindling down. I am even saying to myself, " well, it says 29 minutes, but that really means only about 24 minutes because of the cooldown." Anything to put in my mind that the time is shorter than what it seems. I can even memorize now what Tony is going to say sometimes. Like, "We tried to hire some professionals.... COULDN'T DO IT!!!!" Do any of you that do P90X anticipate some of Tony's little sayings? So my legs got a great workout. Somehow I need stronger bands or I am going to have to get the chinup bar. Right now I just increase the repetitions. I am doing 25 of althe back exercises. You know when Tony does the soup stirring and he asks everyone in the workout video what kind of soup they are having and he tells what he is having. Well, on the leg and back workout he says tomato basil. I was thinking to myself how good tomato basil soup would be. So that brings me to the rest of the day. I have a couple of friends who own a tearoom. Today they catered the breast cancer luncheon. There were almost 700 guests, and my friends get their friends as the extra help to serve tables. And when all the guests have been served and we are in the back waiting for them to finish so we can do the cleanup, we get to eat. And guess what we had.... tomato basil soup!! Delicious. I even got some to take home, and I had it for dinner tonight. We had some delicious chicken salad (not low fat) and a broccoli salad. And after that leg workout and standing on my feet for about 6 hours, I was pooped. Actually, my legs and feet hurt, and I had to take some Advil. And you know what I just realized. I think when I first started P90X, I was listing all my food intake. And yes, I was so much more accountable. So I am thinking I definitely need to go back to that. Okay, I have a busy weekend. It is dd's 10 year class reunion. And that means that I will be keeping my little almost 8 month old grandbaby. I have a funeral tomorrow. Life is busy and that makes it harder to squeeze that exercise in, but you gotta do. Or as Tony says, "Bring it!"

Day 45- P90X- Back and Biceps

I did this workout on Tuesday. I got up early in the morning and did it before work. It was a hard workout, but one that I really enjoyed. My arms were still kinda sore on my triceps from a few days ago. But I really loved working the biceps. I do think that one some of the exercises I needed to go up on the weight. However, there were some that I pushed myself to exhaustion where I honestly could not lift another time- especially with my left arm. I think before too long I will get the chin-up bar. I am seeing that I really like P90X, but I kinda get disappointed in myself that I don't push harder. I will not get the results that the info-mercial guarantees because why??? because I don't do it properly- not the diet, not the program- too many rest days and not doing the ab workout in case you did not notice. But I know it does my body good regardless. And working out is about being consistent. Well, for me it seems like it is work out 3 or 4 days and then rest.. and then another 3 -4 days and rest. So I might be getting two rest days a week instead of one. I think that is still good. If I can keep that up the rest of my life, I will be happy. And here is the big announcement... I am half way done!!! Yes, Day 45 completed.

Day 44-P90X-Plyometrics

What is it where sometimes things just get harder? I wanted to cry on parts where I am doing the plyometrics. Actually I did pretty well on it though. I just don't do some of the jumping. Mainly it is that jumping right after the ski pole moves.. you know left, center, right, center, left.... and then when you twirl 180 degrees. That makes me dizzy and nauteous. But I did most everything else-the jump squats, the run-stance squats, the airbourne heisman, the swing kicks, the squat reach jumps, the run stance squat pickups, the double Heisman, the circle run. Oh.. the jump tuck- I might have done just a few of these and then I just did leg lifts or something. I did the Mary Katherine lunges, the leapfrog squats, the twist combo. Forget the rock star hop- I for some reason have a hard time bringing my heels to my butt. It hurts my feet when I land. I did the gap jump, the squat jump.. and can I say Yea for the Military March.. I can kinda catch my breath when we are doing these low impact exercises. I did the run squat 180 degree jump switch, the lateral leapfrog (like I said before)and the monster truck tires. The hot foot hurt my foot so I did some other movement. And... I did the bonus round- the pitch and catch, the jump shot, and the football hero. Yessiree... I did get my heartrate up!!

Day 43-P90X- Chest, Shoulders, and Triceps

So I just finished doing this workout. And I have to say that I was near tears while I was doing this. Seriously.. there were times when I said out loud, "ohhh....ooooo... oh gosh... ohhhhh." I also was thinking that I could not do this, but I never actually said it out loud. As I sit here typing this right now, my arms and chest are quivering and shaking and twitching. And so how did I do? Not good. I was just complaining to dh that I could not do a one-handed pushup and he said, " why would you want to do one of those anyway?" Now that is not a young woman on that video doing all of these, but dang... she did them well!! I want to do them at least as good as her. I had to do most of the pushups from my knees. I will say that I wanted to quit, but I pushed through and attempted every single one, except for the clapping. I knew I could not do that and would fall right on my face. I did try to do the one hand pushup. I would just put more weight on one arm and then switch and put more weight on the other arm. And then on all the exercises I could not do, I just did regular pushups from the knees. I used either 5 lb or 8 lb weights. I mainly did the shoulders with the 5 lb weights, sometimes 8 lbs, and all of the triceps with the 8 lbs. I pushed myself where I absolutely positively could not get another repetition done. So I have started week 3 of phase 2, and I am almost half way through P90X. And my weight... I don't get it... I have gained!! Yes, not stayed the same, but gained!!! argh!!! However, I can tell by my clothes that my waistline is actually smaller. I still have this big huge innertube around my middle. Someone tell me the best way to get rid of this belly fat!!!!!! Okay Coach Jen.. I need help!!!!!!!!

Day 42-P90X- Rest

Well, I skipped the rest day since I have too many rest days as it is.

Day 41-P90X- Yoga

Okay, I did yoga yesterday, but it was not P90X yoga. It was a Denise Austin video. It was 40 minutes of yoga and Pilates. This was my first time to do this. I feel she went kinda fast and did not hold the poses for very long. No sooner did I get this big body into a pose and she was switching to something else. That is one thing I like about the P90X yoga... you get longer to assume the pose before you move into something else. She just went way too fast for me. Somehow I am going to modify the P90X- maybe have the remote in my hand and not do as many of the same poses as they do. So that was my Yoga for the week.

Totally Mixed Up- Day 40-P90X-Kenpo

Okay, I have gotten totally mixed up with my P90X. Somehow, I missed the yoga and just got off. I remember posting that I started the second month wrong.. I did not know I had done two weeks of it wrong. So here is the deal.. I figure if I do Day 41 with Yoga and just call Day 42-Rest, only not do really rest, and then start Day 43 with Chest, Biceps, and Triceps, then I will be back on track. But I did get up early this morning and do the Kenpo. Only I am still kinda cheating when it comes to the break. I am not doing the jumping rope, and jumping jacks, etc. I am just hitting FF and going back to the blocking or kicking. Like I have said, the DVD is just too long. I am still doing the rest of it. I even do the cool down. I do enjoy doing the Kenpo; I just wish I could get through it faster. So today I was done by 8:10 a.m. I love it when I get finished early in the morning. I really wanted to surprise everyone, as well as myself, and do the yoga tonight, and try to catch up.

Day 39-P90X- Back and Legs

I am still trying to finish up that week that I messed up on when I started the second month with the wrong exercise. So today I finally did a workout after 4 days rest. What am I thinking? I am surely not seeing the results that P90X will give because I am not following the program. But like I keep saying... I am logging my days, but after I finally completed the 90th day, it will not be the end for me. I plan to jump right back in and continue. I wish I had the time, the motivation, the energy, etc. to do P90X in 90 days. I started this about 66 days ago. This morning when I woke up, I kept hitting the snooze button. So when I got home from work after getting dinner ready for dh, I went and pushed play and began. I was really bringing it. Yes, I would have to hit pause every now and then, but I did all the exercises. Oh, but I did cheat on the warmup. I fast-forwarded the warm-up.. still doing it, but just not as many things as what they did. So, I did all the lunges, the squats, the calf raises, Groucho walks, skating lunges, tiptoe lunges, side, 45 degree angle, and front lunges and kicks... you name it, I did it. And I did it well!!! I hope I am not so sore I can't walk tomorrow like I was a week ago when I did it. So, I am not even sure what I am supposed to be doing tomorrow. But I hope to get in there early in the morning. What a feeling of accomplishment a person has when they complete a hard workout. I guess it is those endorphins you hear so much about.

On Friday, October 2-P90X

On Friday, I got busy with so many things. I ended up only doing the Ab Ripper X. I was going out of town, and had lots of things to do. I should have done my back and leg routine. That Ab ripper X is so tough!!! I have to keep hitting pause...pause...pause.

Day 38-P90X-Shoulders and Arms

Yea!!! Yesterday I got with it pretty early in the morning and did my shoulders and arms routine. And.. I discovered being in the second month that I really started things off wrong with the chest and back. I was supposed to do a different DVD. Oh well, since I started this week this way, I will continue it. I have still not been writing it down. But I am almost positive that I used more weight on my routine. Before I think the heaviest I did was 10 lbs., and yesterday I used 12 lbs. on some of the exercises. I did have to drop it down on the second round. I even had to use 5 lbs. on one of the exercises. I don't have a 6 or a 7. I go from 5lbs to 8lbs to 10lbs to 12lbs to 15lbs. And that is the highest I have. So, if I get so strong I need higher, then I will have to buy an 18. I was able to complete every exercise. Now, I could only do about 15 of the chair dips, and I had to rest after about 10. I think it was this routine where he gave us permission to quit or go on... or am I thinking of the wrong day. Well, I did not quit. I made it all the way through. But, I am still not doing the Ab Ripper X. And I need this sooooo bad. I need to make myself do this. Today my shoulders and triceps are a little sore, but not my biceps. I need to get in there right now and do my workout, but I am just not wanting to do it right now. I do continue to like P90X. I like Tony, I like the others in the class, I like the routine, I like doing a workout at home, I like that I can pause it to get a drink, or just take a break- you can't do that in a class- no one is going to wait on you. But what I don't like is it is too long. I wish the total workout was about 40-45 minutes instead of an hour. Well, almost an hour. But I am going to keep at it because I am almost half way there!!!