An Agile Girl

Yesterday was the last class of Milou's second agility course. Unlike her obedience classes, she doesn't graduate and begin a new class learning a new set of skills. Instead, she remains with the same group of dogs until she becomes sufficiently skilled enough in the basic tasks to move up to the next level. This means basic mastery of the weave poles, dog walk, A frame, tire, chute, and tunnel. As of yet, we haven't started the teeter or the pause table.

Below is a beginning agility course for a little dog. It has a very low dog walk and A frame, 8 inch jumps, and what looks like beginning weave poles. Milou is jumping 8 inch jumps right now too but she'll have to jump higher ones soon. She also has to run the dog walk and A frame at full height which probably scares me more than it scares her. It's all very complex and people take it waaaay more seriously than we do.

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Now Milou's favorite obstacle, hands down, is the tunnel. She would run back and forth through that thing all day long if you let her, and a few weeks ago she completely blew me off mid class to run in and out of it over and over while everyone had a good laugh. Apparently as dogs get better at agility, all the work you put into making them work an obstacle when they didn't want to is put into preventing them from running those obstacles when they're not supposed to.

In a lot of ways, the class is actually incredibly inconvenient. It's smack in the middle of my Saturday so I can't plan anything else and the park has possibly the world's worst parking. All summer long it's been filled with people having massive family reunions with what has to be every family member and unsupervised child in existence. They triple park in the fire lane, leave trash all over and let their kids run into our agility courses and right up to our working dogs.

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Last class a little girl, probably not even 4, literally ran up to two tethered barking dogs and started yelling at them and waving her arms in their faces. I'm not sure how her parents didn't freak the fuck out with their baby's arms that close to gnashing teeth but they were watching and didn't appear to be too concerned. I probably had a small heart attack trying to get her away from two otherwise friendly aussies without turning around and killing her parents. Our course is roped off with cones and clearly off limits so I'm baffled as to what would make them think it's okay to come in. Needless to say, I'm really looking forward to the family reunions summer ending. Plus, while the class is reasonably priced, it's starting to add up in a major way after three obedience classes and now three agility classes.  

Even after all this work and money, I don't think Milou and I would ever compete in professional agility. People take this sport very seriously and devote their lives and money to it. But she seems to have such a good time that I keep signing her up for more sessions. She tackles each run with a massive grin on her face and literally bounces in between obstacles in what has got to be the most excited run ever. Even her classmates comment on how much fun she is to watch. Plus, a tired dog is a good dog and she definitely comes home tired :)

Insanity: Day 23

Today was day 23 and E and I are still getting our rears kicked by Insanity. I feel like our endurance has increased, E's more so than mine, but it's still tough to complete each work out without wanting to die. Thankfully we get a recovery week next week where we'll be doing a gentler work out that I'm very much looking forward to.

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My biggest hurdles are probably the push ups and the jumping, which comprises at least 50% of Insanity. Even at my most physically fit, push ups have never been my strong suit and Insanity calls for standard push ups, moving push ups, push up jacks, v push ups, and weird knees bent, crunched up push ups. I've been trying to substitute them with girly push ups, push ups using a piece of furniture, or holding a high plank position while E bobs up and down all glisteny and manly. 

The jumping isn't actually hard to do, but I've got pretty bad plantar fasciitis and usually wear orthotics in all my shoes. I've been experimenting with different shoe/orthotic combinations for working out and somewhere along the way picked the wrong pair of shoes for a couple days. Now my muscles and tendons are all inflamed and ticked off and every landing feels like I'm jamming steel stakes into my arches. It hasn't been fun and I can't stop the program to give my feet a rest.  I'm hoping they get adjusted on their own over the recovery week or E is going to keep giving me grief over my crappy performance.

Play with me!

Tintin tries to entice Milou to play with him. Clearly it's not going all that well lol. Normally she's down for some rough housing but when it's hot out and she's already spent a couple hours playing, this girl needs a break.

Insanity: Day 11

Woo, 11 days down only a billion more to go! The work outs are still intense although I'd like to think that I'm pushing through them a little better. I still want to die about two minutes into the warm up, but my butt kicks are more butt kicky and my high knees are starting to get higher than my ankles, although they're not quite above my hips where they should be. I'm kind of thinking that as soon as I adjust to these work outs in the next couple weeks (ie getting through without taking too many unscheduled collapses breaks) that the work out will shift into high gear and we'll be dying all over again.

Thus far, E and I have been working out religiously in our living room, often barefoot on the wood floor, and it's starting to become pretty uncomfortable. We're tentatively committing to Insanity for at least another 60 days after this round, maybe even 120 days, so I went out today and bought us some proper shoes and work out mats. We are supposed to be wearing "good" cross trainers but since I'm not sure how many cycles we'll do and didn't want spend $200, I settled on some comfortable but inexpensive New Balances that should do the trick. 

Hopefully these will make my feet hurt less, though they're not really Cross Trainers

E's Cross Trainers, hopefully they fit!

I also got one giant single person exercise mat to practice with so we can see if we like it before buying another. We do a lot of jumping on the ground to do push ups and exercises on our hands and knees and I think it'll be more comfortable than the wood floor. It might even be big enough for us to both use, but I doubt it since we can't be too close together while working out.

Swimsuits For The Busty

With Hawaii coming up in just six weeks, I need a bathing suit that I'll be able to wear without being completely embarrassed of myself. Fortunately (or unfortunately? No bathing suit means no wearing it!) I just picked up a new bathing suit a month ago when I saw it on super sale on Zulily.

From Modcloth: Super cute suit, flattering on almost everyone but I'm afraid the bust is too small

It's nearly impossible to find a good swimsuit when you have a generous bust, and with 36J's there are only a couple brands that I can pick from. The last real swimsuit I owned was a Panache tankini that was supportive but got too small. It was also crazy expensive from a specialty boutique so when it didn't fit anymore I was disinclined to replace it. Thus, the last time I went swimming I wore a bra with a rash guard and swimsuit bottoms.

Panache is a great brand for large cup bras and swimsuits, so when I saw them on sale I went for it and bought their Black and Fuchsia Grace Full-Fit One-Piece, which is supposed to be a figure flattering black suit with a super supportive built in bra and a pop of color. I haven't actually tried it on since it came in (it was non-returnable anyway), but I'm definitely going to have to to make sure it fits and looks good before I take it on the trip.  Maybe I'll take some before and after photos to motivate myself through Insanity.

ETA: I tried it on, and took that before photo. Never. Again. I'm not brave enough to post it, but I have to say this Insanity had better friggin' work. I thought the tummy was going to be the worst, but it was definitely the thighs. Totally gross. I need a full body suit that covers to the ankles and wrists >_< 

The right amount of coverage

Heart Attack Morning

This morning, or rather sometime last night, my indoor only kitty Button got outside. We've been house sitting for the past couple weeks, and while I've been coming home to visit her, she always gets upset when I'm away.

Don't leave me!

Yesterday we came home and I spent all evening cuddling her and went to bed thinking she had too. Instead, she must have followed me out of the bedroom at one point, and when I closed the bedroom door for the night, must have been unable to get back in. E and I are thinking that Milou may have chased her outside, they're very friendly with each other but when Button gets scared she isn't rational.

In the six years I've had her, Button has been lost once, when E and I went to visit our friends E and K in Oregon. When my mother, who was watching her, realized she was missing, we had to cut our road trip short and drive back to Los Angeles to find her. After days of searching for her, lost posters, and calling a search and rescue dog, it turned out that she had gotten scared and hid underneath our house. When she got lost this time, it was one of the first places we looked but I couldn't hear her bell jingling or a response to my calls.

This is not the face of an outdoor cat

Right about that time where I was beginning to really panic, E came outside to help me look for her and decided to look in our very back side yard where we used to keep our trash bins before the city supplied them. I followed him in and while he was looking behind an old kitty pool, I saw some silky black fur squeezed underneath a bag of mulch. It was her! The poor baby had probably been outside, squeezed under that bag of mulch terrified all night. I brought her back to her bedroom and aside from her general state of terror, she seems to be okay.

Button is not an outdoor cat, quite frankly she's not even an out of the bedroom cat, and it terrifies me to think of losing her. She would never come to anyone but me, making it really tough to find and catch her and I feel like she needs some kind of GPS tracking device. I looked into them the last time she got lost but they were all for large dogs and not sensitive enough to distinguish between the house and the yard. I'm hoping the pet tracking technology has advanced since then, I don't think I could take losing her again!

Ahh

Insanity: Day 2

Oh boy are we in for some serious pain. The first day was a "Fit Test" where you keep track of how many reps you can complete of each exercise, while taking dinky little 30 second breaks. I found out that I cannot do push ups, which comprise a significant part of the work out, and thus am attempting to do them like a little girl.

Except mine look less like exercise, and more like I'm trying to hump the floor. Rawr.

We found out today that there's even more push ups, in addition to jogging, jumping jacks, basketball shoot moves, ski jumps, football feat and these horrible suicide somethings were you jog in place, do four push ups, then jump backwards and forwards while your hands are still on the floor in the push up, and repeat. E was dripping sweat and bright red by the end of the work out, and I still felt like I was flailing on the floor propositioning it for bad sex.

Side to side floor hops. I think we do these tomorrow.

I'm really hoping that I don't look this pathetic when I need to repeat this work out next week. Regardless, we're committed! 2 days down, 58 to go!

On an unrelated note, I was supposed to pay for my classes today, but since they've cut my financial aid E and I decided to drop them. This means that I need to get my act together and figure out which grad program I want to go to.  Since I have pretty much no idea and don't want to waste tens of thousands of dollars just to get a degree, I'm wondering if a hypnotist might be able to make up my mind for me...

Aloha Insanity

Apparently, out of nowhere, E and I are going on a Hawaiian vacation this year! It actually fell into place so perfectly that I'm still not convinced it's going to happen.  Plus, we essentially owe the entire trip to E's mother and his father.

Coral Reef I will hopefully be snorkeling at

E's father's family owns a timeshare on Honolulu that his father and uncle usually visit once a year. This year, his father called us up and asked if we wanted to go with him and his wife for 7 days. They have a two bedroom suite so we'd each have a room and E was actually off work that week. He said the accommodations would be covered, we'd just need to find a way to get there. While this was a wonderful offer, plane tickets were about $1200 which was just outside of waythefuckoutside of our price range.

Random Island View

Now earlier this year, E's mother had repeatedly mentioned that she wanted to go to Hawaii. When we heard from his father, we knew we'd need to call and discuss with his mom. Right off the bat, she says she has credit card miles for the plane tickets there. Score! Then she proposed that we spend a week with her and a week with his father. A few inquiries later and bam, she had booked her friend's 10 person house on Kauai for 10 days, giving us the flexibility to stay a few extra days with her, or for E's father to stay there for a couple days while we stayed on Honolulu.

Kauai Waterfall

E's father had his plane tickets all set up, so E's mom went ahead and booked seats for her and her longtime boyfriend R to go. E and I were kind of hesitant since we're still waiting to hear about E's job interview so we hung back for as long as possible until the plane was almost completely full and we had to book. Luckily, we got seats together (after some stupid seat upgrade charges. Apparently window seats and aisle seats are $40 extra??) on the same flight in as his mom so we can carpool together. Our return flight leaves at about the same time as his father's, so we should be able to get a ride to the airport with him too. I was going to book the inter-island flight but decided against it so we'd have the flexibility to change dates if we wanted.

Sunset!

With all this excitingness going on, it hit E and  I pretty hard that we are incredibly out of shape. Actually, I'm incredibly out of shape, E is looking pretty damn good since his job is really physical. It was clear that we'd need to do something, so in a moment of insanity (ha) we signed ourselves up for the insanity fitness program! We start tomorrow and I'm psyched to see if it's as hard and impossible as it looks. E wants to tone up while I would like to lose roughly a million pounds so I don't look completely pregnant in a bathing suit. I'm a little nervous since the weight loss plan calls for 1900 calories a day (what on earth will we be doing that allows you to eat 1900 calories and lose weight??) but we're determined to do at least the full 60 days.

Insanity ahhh!

We're going to need some serious fortitude to get through this, but I'm hoping it pays off so I can look like one of these people in the end, except I'm a lot chubbier than they are so I'd settle for a decently flat stomach and some trimmer thighs. A girl has got to be realistic.

This could be me! OR more realistically, E!

Wish us luck! We're really going to need it to get in shape for this trip!