Lifestyles of the Frantic and Frazzled: {all’s fair at the fair}

After a rough day yesterday between myself and Ayden, myself and Jay, and Jay and Ayden… we all needed to get out and do something fun together. Unfortunately, everyone’s moods this morning were still pretty sour and our Sunday didn’t quite start off as planned.

Jay made everyone a nice big breakfast that was super yummy. Eggs, hash browns, and venison bacon. Just what I needed, a nice fattening breakfast, ha! Right before breakfast was done, Ayden managed to accidently spill an entire glass of chocolate milk in the living room. Yes, we do eat in front of the TV. Our ‘dining’ room really isn’t conducive to sitting down and having meals at. The table is our catch all place and because our kitchen area is so small, it works best to keep the table pushed up against the wall in the corner which means only two available seats. And, eating in the living room works for us. We’ve had plenty of spills before, but for some reason this one this morning just really got to me. Most of the milk ended up on a side table not even hitting the carpet, but that was the last straw. Despite the fact that it was an accident, Ayden is now eating at the kitchen table for the rest of the week. I will re-evaluate the situation at the end of the week. One of our biggest rules about eating in the living room is that we do not watch cartoons while we are eating. Ayden has the tendency to not pay attention to what he is doing then and we end up with more spills.

Thankfully, after breakfast was done, everyone had full stomachs and was in much better moods. We all get ready and headed to Marshfield. The main purpose of the trip was to find the clinic that I will be working at this fall for my off campus audiology rotation, but it just so happened that the Central Wisconsin State Fair was going on in Marshfield at the time as well. I thought it would be a nice family outing.

Due to some current construction, we discovered that my drive to the clinic will take just under an hour. Boo! But thankfully, most of the time I should only have to make that drive once a week. For my other clinic day, my supervisor said that she is usually at the Wisconsin Rapids clinic which means I might even be able to carpool with Jay on Thursdays which would save us at least a little bit of gas. The drive to the clinic was relatively easy so I’m not too worried about that.

After finding the clinic, we wound our way around town until we ended up at the fair. Well, actually, we just followed the GPS. It wasn’t that hard.

We did all of the normal fair things, except for ride any rides. I had sort of wanted to ride a few rides with Ayden, but they were expensive and it had already cost us $21 to get into the fair. So instead, we just walked around and looked at all of the animals and had some yummy fair food! It all smelt SO good and I could have had just about one of everything the vendors were making there. This lion head bunny was the cutest thing there! I could have just cuddled with it all day, just so long as it didn’t bite me, ha! I have a fear of being bit by little animals like that because, dang, it hurts!Ayden was too chicken to pet the pony! They had a little petting zoo type set up and then an animal show. We had gotten seats for the animal show and were all set to watch it and then it started to rain. So instead of sitting in the rain and watching it and getting wet, we got up and went into a building and walked around looking at some more stuff. But this little pony was super cute!And what is a fair without an ELEPHANT EAR! Oh, it was SO yummy and SO worth all of the calories it was filled with! I could probably have eating two! Yes, I ate the whole larger than the plate elephant ear by MYSELF! And Ayden ate an ENTIRE foot long hotdog in a foot long bun! And a little while after the elephant ear, Jay was so kind to ‘share’ his deep friend cookie dough with me. (I mean, it’s not like I ‘demanded’ that he give me some too, even though he hadn’t eaten anything for lunch yet. I would never do such a thing.)And then we saw some beautiful Clydesdale horses! They were SO pretty and SO huge! This horse’s body was taller than me, we are talking body of the body where the saddle would go, taller than me! Now that is a large horse! It was cool to watch them go around the ring though. It was a good way to spend the afternoon and we were all in better moods having gotten out and about for a while.

When we got home, Jay found some little critters in our back yard that he thought would look cool as pictures. One was a spider and the other a nice big bumble bee. I don’t think I’ve gotten so close to either one of these things before, but with my camera in hand, I ‘braved’ it and shot away at both bugs. It was easier to get to the spider because I knew it wasn’t going to go anywhere, but I was a little apprehensive that the bee was going to come flying right at me. I mean, I had to get pretty close and I have this huge aversion to anything that can sting me!I especially like how the bee picture turned out because you can see the hair on the body of the bee and the flower is really pretty!I must admit that I have a small love affair with whom I’m affectionately now referring to as ‘The J’s’. I started working out again on August 8th and since then I have worked out 26 of the 28 days and it’s starting to become a bit of an addiction. Okay, so maybe I wouldn’t say addiction, but I am actually enjoying it. It is still hard for me to get up earlier in the morning and workout then, but by the end of the night I am looking forward to going downstairs and working up a good sweat because I know I will feel good afterwards.

I really enjoyed Jillian Michael’s Ripped in 30 dvd. Even after 26 days of working out, her 20 minute workouts have me dripping sweat afterwards… that (for me) means I’ve done some good work. But I’m getting to the point where I think I need to up the ante and workout for a little while longer.So, I popped in her Banish Fat Boost Metabolism dvd the other day, even though I haven’t quite finished the Ripped in 30 Week 4 and got my sweat on! That dvd says that it is a 40 minute workout, but it is more of a 50 minute workout when you include the warm-up and I don’t even do the stretches afterwards. I made it through the first six (of seven) circuits before I was huffing and puffing too much to push through the last one. And I didn’t even stop! I have to tell you, I felt awesome afterwards!

But alas, I wanted to try something new as well because repetition for me starts to get boring. I looked around at the store and read some reviews online and decided that I was going to try one of Jackie Warner’s workout dvds as well. This is the one that I ended up getting, although I wanted her new timesaver one (the store just didn’t have it and I wasn’t going to order it). I’ve been a fan of hers since seeing her show on Bravo… Workout. She is hardcore trainer.

Unfortunately, this dvd was a little lack luster for me. I did the entire 40 minute total body workout tonight (there is a 40 minute total body workout, 15 minute total body workout, 15 minute upper body workout, 15 minute lower body workout, and 15 minute ab workout). I had tried the 15 minute total body workout yesterday and thought it was okay. I have to say, it’s not that you don’t work your muscles with the 40 minute total body workout (or even the 15 minute one) because you do. I was especially cringing during the ab workout because it hurt, but even after 40 minutes of constantly moving, I wasn’t dripping sweat like I had anticipated.I’m wondering if maybe I need to up the weights that I am using. I am currently using 3 pound weights in each hand and although I am feeling somewhat of a burn, I think my muscles are asking for something a little bit heavier. Personally, I think if you are a beginner and/or looking for something that will help tone you up, this is a good workout. If you workout avidly, then you might not get anything from this. I am going to continue to use it because I know that it will continue to tone me up, but it doesn’t offer the cardio that Jillian does. I think if I alternate between Jillian’s cardio and Jacki’s muscle training I won’t get as bored. I am also going to work in a little bit of what I can do of P90X’s cardio and kenpo.