The first day of the New Year was quiet for me.  I have a bad head cold - I attempted to do P90X but only made it through 15 minutes.  I didn't even mind stopping, I just want to breathe and rest. Rest is relative - I did manage to clean out the refrigerator, get some laundry done and cook a simple holiday meal. 

A survey was done on the website for one of our local news stations.  67% of the local populations chooses to stay in on New Year's Eve. It made me think about some of the ways I have spent New Year's Eves in the past:

- staying up late at home with family (as a little child and as an adult)
- going out to a big party
- playing Monopoly or cards with friends
-making love at the stroke of midnight
-rocking a sick child
-sleeping
-praying
-singing
-being sick with a stomach bug
-hanging out with friends, watching the Ball drop

Last night we stayed in - except for driving Rhianna to & from the youth leader's house where the youth group party was held.  We watched "Planet of the Apes" and "Beneath the Planet of the Apes."  (Gotta love Charlton Heston in that little skin loincloth).  We toasted in the New Year with non-alcoholic sparkling pink Catawba and ate hot wings, which opened my sinuses for at least a little while.  After Rhianna was home, I plugged in Sudacare vapor thingies and fell sound asleep...with the idea that I'd feel better today than yesterday.  That's not the way colds work though.

~o~

Mid point of the day yesterday I felt pretty good and did a workout with my new Reebok Speedpac weights:

For some strange reason each weight feels heavier than 25 lbs, definitely heavier than the 25 lb dumbbells at the gym.  I don't know why and I don't have a scale to check it out. I'm just glad they feel heavier and weren't way too light feeling.  Two of the ones that went up to 50 lbs each would have been ideal, but I couldn't find them anywhere (and they were much more expensive).  I got these at GNC - the salesclerk just happened to receive an email listing them as being on sale from $55.99 down to $39.99 each AND if you bought two, the second one was 10% more off.  I am glad I found those jeans in the depths of the closet and could use the money on the weights. :)

~o~

COUNTDOWN:  I am now only 9 days away from appointment with the allergist to find out what tales my sixteen vials of blood will tell. 

~o~

I've entered the new year with perfectly straight hair.  My daughter decided to flatten it out with her super-duper professional straightener that she got for Christmas.  Today, with all the girls together and me, my father said it's hard to tell us apart from the back.  I know that standing side by side there was no doubt that Rhianna is my kid - of course, she did the front of my hair the same way as hers and that made the mother/daughter thing more evident.  It is BIZARRE to feel my hair all silky and smooth instead of wild, tangly and curly.  I might get used to this - but then again, I don't know if I want to sit still like that on a regular basis to have it done.

~o~

I got an upgrade on Turbulence Training and it came with five free ebook downloads.  One of them has the most idiotic title I've heard yet:  The Fit Yummy Mummy Fit-Fast 4-Week Workout.   The workout itself looks pretty legit - but what was Holly Rigsby thinking with that STUPID name?  It sounds like the kind of workout for bleached blonde bimbos in pink unitards hoisting little 1-lb weights.  I had to go to the website to check it out, thinking it was going to be PINK PINK PINK with hearts and flowers.  The home page is one LONG advertisement for her program, but it was devoid of goofy over-feminized drivel.  She didn't even look like the total bimbo that I expected someone who named an ebook Fit Yummy Mummy to look like. Oh well, I still will never recommend something that sounds so ridiculous when you can buy programs that don't make you blush at the ridiculousness of it when you say their name.

(Warning - some blatant disgust and negativity!  If you want to see the type of website I expected, go to Buffmother's site. If she didn't have implants, she would have the body of a adolescent boy --from behind you would definitely think young male.  She's positively anorexic in some of the shots that aren't as touched up.  She's supposedly a Christian wife and mother, but the page is pretty smutty and filled with her expositionism and egotism.  Her workouts seem pretty good - but the whole Baby Spice persona is grating on the nerves.  She must spend a fortune on getting regular professional photographs done of herself). 

~o~

I forgot to mention a GREAT but very odd book I read in 2007.  The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas.  Although it borrowed ideas from a few places that I easily recognized, it was a well-written, kooky, metaphysical journey.  I happen to LOVE Being John Malkovich and I feel that is where the main concept for this book came from - accessing portals into people's minds (instead of just John Malkovich's) through a potion (instead of a hiding place that spits you out on the New Jersey Turnpike). 

~o~
So today, 15 minutes of yoga and flipping pages in my book were the workout of the day. Maybe tomorrow I'll be a bit healthier because of it.

Yesterday's workout - 10 mintues stationary bike warmup.  40 minutes circuit training. 20 minutes HIIT on my elliptical.

The Circuit
stability ball chest press 15/50
dumbbell squat 15/50
Repeat for total of 3 sets
--1:30 sprint on stationary bike
dumbbell fly on stability ball 15/50
sumo squat 15/50
Repeat for total of 3 sets
--1:30 sprint on stationary bike
stability ball weighted crunch 20/25
triceps extension 20/25
Repeat for total of 3 sets
--1:30 sprint on stationary bike
dumbbell row 15/25 each arm
bicycle crunch 30
pushups 15
Repeat for total of 3 sets