Have any of you seen this new workout infomerical? I've heard of Jillian's 30 Day Shred. And when I Googled it, I got all kinds of hits about people Blogging their way through it with Jillian. But over the weekend I watched a new infomerical about INSANITY. Where they were all about showing how much these people sweated. Zoomed in on the puddle of sweat on the floor under one person. And the voice over is pretty hilarious because it is all 'no bullshit! if you can't commit, don't bother trying!' Which of course made me want to try it out. And as opposed to 30 days, it is 60 days. With several CD's, a calendar poster telling you which workout to do on which day, (way cool, who couldn't use that kind of help?) and a chart to chart your progress from day 1 to day 60, and a FREE T-Shirt if you send in your before and after photos! This is definitely aimed at people who already are workoutaholics. Those people who spend hours in the gym anyway and just can't seem to lose or tone that last little bit. As I sat there and watched the hottie Shaun T "push, dig deep!" I wondered if I could commit to 60 days of working out. Many people who try the 30 day shred never finish it in 30 days. But I REALLY wanted to try. What held me back? The price. "Just 3 EASY payments of $39.95!!" The math? Rounded up, $120 bucks, and that didn't include Shipping & Handling. I already have a lovely, dusty collection of workout videos sitting in the basement under the TV I bought specifically for working out in the basement. Yeah. But as my b-day creeps closer, I can't help but not want to be, flab. We haven't been to the gym in AGES, and boy howdy, I can tell. Do they have a video out there that can cure lazy?????
I told you all that F and I were heading back East for a visit. And usually I have several stories to share with you about how crazy my outlaws are, but this time. Well THIS time, it was, well, NORMAL. There were no fights, no yelling matches, no cutting comments, and no cold shoulders. I felt like Eileen in the Bizzaro Seinfeld episode. FIL called me by my name and said PLEASE when he asked me to do something. SIL complained only once to F about us not visiting with them when we come out to the East Coast, and that only lasted until F put her in her place about not coming to visit him AT ALL except for the wedding (he’s lived in the Midwest for 4 years now and before that he lived in another state on the east coast for 6 years and they never visited him then either.).
There are 3 moments that stand out in my memory about this visit.
1) While attending a funeral at which F was a pallbearer, I ended up sitting with, FIL, MIL and BIL. During the funeral Mass BIL’s cell phone began to vibrate. I was HORRIFIED when he ANSWERED it. I had to restrain myself from jabbing him but GOOD in the ribs when MIL and FIL told him to put the phone away. I never shared this with F because the deceased was a close personal friend’s parent and F would have blown a gasket if he’d known of his Brother’s behavior. It would not have been pretty. 2) Remember SIL telling me 2 days before our wedding that she planned on divorcing BIL within the next 2 years?(she also shared this bit of info AT our wedding with the fiancée of our best man) and BIL telling me he was leaving her within the next year, again, AT our reception??? Well apparently things have changed, because now? Now they plan on RENEWING THEIR VOWS. This involves SIL getting baptized and all sorts of long involved things. And they are not just going to renew their vows, oh lawies no, she wants the whole WHITE WEDDING with cake and invites, the whole 9 yards. I guess to make up for the court house ceremony they had before where no one was invited. 3) MIL and I had a battle of wills, over food. The minute you step through the door at that house, you are offered food. Which is all fine and good, although I do wish they’d let at least let me pee first, but whatever. I had JUST rolled out of bed after an afternoon nap when immediately MIL wants to know if I’m hungry. I made the mistake of saying Yes. For the next 30mins she named off things she had, then started pulling stuff out of the freezer and proceeded to start to make it. I kept telling her, that, yes I was hungry, but at this point in time I didn’t know what, if anything, I wanted to eat; please stop asking me. Finally, I had to leave the room to escape the barrage of food and questions. After 10mins of silence, MIL summons me back into the kitchen. F and I rolled our eyes at each other. He felt my frustration. As I walked into the kitchen you could cut the tension with a knife. I thought for sure I was about to get my ass reamed. “DH, you are like my daughter now. You must feel comfortable in this home, what is here is yours. Now tell me, what do you want to eat???” “That is fine, I understand that. But then as your Daughter I’m telling you, PLEASE STOP trying to force me to EAT!!! Ok???” It was a tense few moments while this conversation took place. But then she laughed, said OK, and I went back to watching TV with F. If she said anything to him later, I do not know. I did not end up eating anything until much later that night while we were out with friends. I was forbidden from telling MIL this so that her feelings would not be hurt that she was not the one to feed me. When we got home and I started unpacking the cooler I found all kinds of food in there from MIL. Guess she won after all.
4 charged after bodies dug up at Ill. cemetery Hundreds of graves disturbed at final resting site for many famous blacks As many as 300 graves were tampered with, Dart said. Some of the graves were dug up and the bodies dumped elsewhere, including in an open area at the back of the 150-acre property, and the plots were resold. In other cases the graves were "pounded down" and another person was buried on top, Dart said. Cemetery records were destroyed and plot deeds were altered, officials said. Dart said Towns, the cemetery office manager, was the alleged ringleader of the scam. "She was the one taking the payments, she was the one directing individuals to dig," he said. "Having prosecuted many, many violent cases throughout my career in the state’s attorney's office, I must say that this crime, it’s a whole new dimension that shows us what lengths that people would go through for financial gain," State's Attorney Anita Alvarez added. Famous namesThe sheriff's investigation began six weeks ago when the cemetery's owner reported that an employee who began feeling guilty revealed what allegedly had been going on, possibly for as long as four years, Dart said. "All of us who were working on this for the last week were pretty distraught," Dart said. "You start with the premise of your own loved ones and how they are cared for after they are buried, but there is also a true significance to this particular cemetery." The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who joined officials at a news conference announcing the arrests, said that he's been besieged by phone calls from worried relatives of those buried at the cemetery. "There should be a special place in hell" for the perpetrators, he said. AP Emmett Louis Till, a 14-year-old from Chicago whose weighted body was found in the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi in 1955, is among the people who were buried at the cemetery. Chicago native Emmett Till, whose 1955 lynching at age 14 added impetus to the civil-rights movement, is buried at Burr Oak. It's also the final resting place of singers Dinah Washington, Willie Dixon, and Otis Spann, as well as former world heavyweight boxing champion Ezzard Charles, Harlem Globetrotter Inman Jackson, and several Negro League baseball players. "For many years, this was the only cemetery where African Americans could be buried," said Spencer Leak Sr., president of Leak and Sons Funeral Home, noting that Burr Oak once was owned by Ebony Magazine publisher John Johnson. Dart said the scheme appears to have targeted older, unmarked graves that had not been visited in a long time. There was no indication the more famous sites were disturbed. Frantic searchUpon hearing the news, hundreds of people went to the cemetery Thursday looking for their loved ones' graves; many couldn't find them. A couple told WMAQ-TV that they found headstones that apparently had been recently tampered with, and they were not sure who was underneath the headstones. The sheriff said it will take a while to sort out the mess and urged people with relatives or friends buried in the cemetery to be patient. "We're not necessarily talking weeks, we're talking months," Dart said. Perpetua Holdings of Illinois Inc., a subsidiary of a Tucson, Ariz.-based funeral home and cemetery development company, has owned the cemetery since 2001. A message seeking comment was not immediately returned. The Cemetery Care and Burial Trust Department, a division of the Illinois Comptroller's office, has said it has received complaints in recent years about poor upkeep at Burr Oak, including sunken or tilting gravestones, unmanageable roads, drainage problems and weeds.
People are just freaking sick, why would you do this??? They need to be beat.
F grew up on the East Coast, while I am a life long Midwesterner, and therefore we say some things differently. The most common is Soda vs Pop, although I have turned him to the pop side for the most part. This regional speech pattern tripped me up the other night when F called me on my way home.
F: “You almost home?” Me: “Nope, I just left work. Why?” F: “Can you pick up a PIE???”
I paused as my mind started to race trying to figure out why in the world F would want me to pick up a PIE? Then it dawned on me, that by PIE he meant a PIZZA pie. I choked back my question of, “What? Like a cherry pie???” and answered instead:
“Sure! Deep dish or regular??”
I giggled to myself the rest of the way home, knowing full well that if I had asked him if he wanted a cherry pie I would NEVER have lived it down and he most certainly would have posted it on FaceBook for the whole world to see. So instead, I’m telling you, my digital friends, because I can’t hear you laugh at me after you read this. Seriously though, it would have been a legitimate question!!!!
*LOST* One King Sized, White, Fitted, Egyptian Cotton Sheet.
Damned if I don't know how in hell I lost a King Sized sheet between the bed and the dryer. I have lost my mind and this is driving me bat shit crazy. Not a pillow case which can easily be hidden under something else, just the extremely LARGE fitted sheet.
I have lost my mind. Which apparently is wrapped in King Sized, White, Fitted, Egyptian Cotton Sheet.
I was standing in an open office area talking to my friend, GA, when I felt a sharp quick pain on my neck. I swiped my hand against the area thinking my shirt or my earring was pointing me. Then GA gasped.
GA: "*GASP* OMG, DH! What IS THAT!!!!" Me: "OW! What?" GA: "LOOK!!! That THING was on you!!!" Me: "OMG!!! OW! It BITE me!!!" GA: "Is it a wasp?....... I don't think it's a wasp. ..........I'm going to kill it!"
a box is grabbed and a rather weak swat is taken at the crazy looking bug.
GA: "I don't think this is going to work! OMG! (she skips back as the bug falls to the floor.) We need to kill it!" Me: "I'll get the spray!!"
Our office is notorious for having wasps and what-not flying about during the summer, so we have a stash of wasp killing spray in the kitchen.
I grab the spray only to find the stupid thing won't work.
Me: "It won't work!!! How are we going to kill it!?!?!?!?!"
At this point a 3rd co-worker shows up, announces she'll kill it with a wad of paper towel and proceeds to do so. GA and I thank her as she exits the area.
GA: "DH, your neck, it's red, does it hurt?" Me:" YES! dang, it itches, I can feel the bump." GA: "We should put ice on it, that will help." Me: "Ok."
She makes an ice pack for me, which I apply to my neck. I head out to the bathroom to check out the damage in the mirror and come face to face with my boss and a few other co-workers who all give me puzzled looks because I have a wade of paper towel pressed to my neck.
Me: "I was bite! See????" I say as I remove the paper towel icepack.
Collective horrified *GASP*
Me: "That is NOT encouraging !!!!"
Collective shrug
The bump wasn't that big, but it hurt and itched pretty badly. One of the co-workers fished this out of the First Aid kit which I held to the bite until I could hold it no more. The bump is GONE. The PAIN is gone. Safetec Sting Relief is AMAZING!!!!! Bless you Safetec Sting Relief, BLESS you!!! I also took 2 Benadryl to keep a potential face swelling from occurring and now I'm so wiped out from it my legs are twitching and I'm doing all I can to stay awake. I think it has affected me even more because I keep feeling like something is on me and is biting me. WTF???
