The husband and I recently joined a gym (yay for us!!) and we went in this week for our free fitness profile.  They asked us bunches of questions (them: how active are your jobs?  us:  um, we sit in front of computers all day.  but we move our arms!  and hands and fingers!), pinched our skin fats, took our weights and measurements, and then it was time for the physical tests.

hahahahahaha!

I’m proud to say, we survived it!  And I have to say, I think we did quite well, considering the fact that we have done little more than sit for the last 6 years.  Sure, sometimes I vacuum or walk through the grocery store - but that’s about all the physical activity my life demands these days.

I survived 15 minutes on the treadmill, did 28 sit-ups in a minute, and did 20 (girl) push-ups before my arms started shaking so much I feared I might find myself square on my face.

But then there was the flexibility test.

I have never, in my life, been able to touch my toes.  When I’ve worked on it for months, I can get kinda close - like the lower part of my shin.  When I was 8 and working on my presidential fitness stuff - I could do the mile, the sit-ups, more pull-ups than any of the other girls - but the darn flexibility test was just impossible.  I remember being met with disbelief when I stretched as far as I could go, when my legs were trembling with the strain, my knees begging to bend, and my fingertips were still nowhere near my toes.

So I failed the flexibility test miserably.  Couldn’t even register on their little measurement device, I think I only made it just past my knees.

I’ve never believed much in the whole touch-your-toes test, I guess because I’ve never been able to.  I don’t think it’s kept me from accomplishing anything physical that I’ve ever wanted to.  I’ve hiked up and down mountains, done round-house kicks, managed to get 80-pound boxes into my house.  The only thing I’ve missed out on is, well, the satisfaction of touching my toes.

What to do when you accidentally buy completely unsweetened cranberry juice?  Sprite zero to the rescue! 

With a ratio of about 10 to 1 (with the Sprite on the heavy side) sprite-cranberry is actually kinda good.  The cranberries suck the sweet right out, and you get a tangy cranberry-lemon-lime drink - very reminiscent of apple slice.  If you’re, um, old enough to remember apple slice.

My ten year reunion was this last weekend, I just got a report from my ’spy’ that there was some serious drunkenness and the cops were called in.

That’s right, R.A. Long class of ‘98 … ten years later and still not sober …

So, last night I picked up some bookcases at ikea.  Bookcases that get packaged in nice, neat flat boxes.  Nice, neat 65 and 80 pound flat boxes.

I got them into the baja ok (which, turns out, is kind of pretty awesome - with the pass-thru open and the bed extender down, the 7 ft boxes were no problem), by lifting one end at a time and sliding, it wasn’t too difficult.

But then the task of getting them into the house: up a curb and then three steps.  An 80-pound bookshelf and two 65-pounders.  Being your average girl, I can’t really carry half my body weight - I’m good for a quick burst (i.e., get the 70-pound luggage into the back of a car), but into the house isn’t really a quick burst.

Luckily we have a dolly, and none of the neighbors were out to watch me attempt things way beyond my ability.  I managed to get the boxes into the house without doing major damage to myself (or the bookcases).

But it sure woulda been easier with a husband … I guess they are good for something. 

I finally bought some new bookcases last night, so this morning I took on the task of filling them up with all the dvds, cds and books that have been boxed up for months.

And I ran across a box of the husbands old text books - text books that I’m sure he thought would be useful once he entered the working world, but books I am sure he has never looked at.

So, yeah, those stayed in their box, and are gonna hang out in the utility room.  Because, you know, computer science text books get more relevant the older they get …

A few weeks back, I picked up some stripping gloves.  At home depot.  A lovely orange pair, one size fits all.

I finally got around to trying them out today, in the backyard.  With all my basement painting, I decided I didn’t want to continue the trend of painting the breaker box cover the same as the walls.  Because, well, flat paint isn’t the best thing to use for something that people put their hands on.  And also, there were several chips in the paint, making the overall effect look haphazard and lazy.

And so I removed all that paint, with a little help from some pretty serious paint stripper.  And my stripping gloves.  (That just never gets old!)  And an old paint brush.  And a kitchen scrubby.  And some rags.

Once all the layers of paint were gone, I sprayed the cover with some metal-colored enamel spray paint.  Because I don’t mind if metal looks like metal.  

So yeah, I spent my afternoon strippin’ in the backyard.  And the husband is in vegas and missed the whole thing … 

We’re coming up on the 3-year house anniversary.  And it’s been 3 years of drying my hair in the hallway.  Because the bathroom outlets don’t work.

They managed to pass inspection just fine - but somewhere between the inspection and my first attempt at drying my hair, they stopped working.  Granted, I blow dry my hair about once every 2 months, so who knows how long it was after we moved in that I discovered it.  Who knows what may have happened.  Malicious sellers?  Careless cable or direct tv installers?  Or maybe my 1875-watt monster of a hair dry made the wires asplode.

So as part of the bathroom remodel, we negotiated in that they would fix the outlet and put in a GFI.  Because it had no such protections.

The electrician is here now, and informed me that the … wire? … is only for 15 amps, not 20 amps as is standard these days for bathrooms.  

He has discovered that our GFI is in the basement utility room.  When it is not tripped, the utility room, porch outlet, and two bathrooms work.  The backyard outlet (never even knew we had one …) and the upstairs bathrooms never work ….

The electrician is going to steal power from the upstairs hall, feed it to the guest bath, and use that to power the master bath.  (With GFI protections, of course.)  He can’t upgrade the wire without tearing up all the walls through the entire house, so I’ll be stuck with a wimpy 15 amps.  That probably won’t power my one-true-love of a hair dryer.  But - at least the husband will be able to shave in the bathroom …

The husband is in Vegas for the rest of the week for work and play.  So that means that I get to do whatever I want!  woohoo!  I sent him off with a walletful of play money, so I think that means I get to go on a shopping spree …

So the first order of business for tonight was to stop off randomly on my way home from work for a cheeseless taco and burrito.  (Which are surprisingly not bad - way better, than, say, a cheeseless pizza …)  And now I’m working on a box of teddy grahams.  And there’s no guilt about spoiling my dinner, because I just had my dinner!  And no worries about what the husband is going to eat.  I suspect Toby Keith will take care of him.

Second order of business was to turn the thermostat up.  To 73!  mwuhahahaha, farewell couch blankets.

Ok, that was fun.  I’m starting to get lonely now ….

A year or two ago, the husband decided we should join a gym. So, this week, we did it!

A new, no-frills gym is opening up in our neighborhood and they are waiving all the sign-up fees, and they even have no commitment. So we decided that’s the gym for us, one that won’t trick is into signing up for a year when we’ll really stop going after a month in a half.

So, the plan is to go Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Once they open. Here’s hoping we can stick with that plan …

So they’ve finished tiling the shower, and it is AWESOME!  We have an 8′x10′ bathroom.  And now a 5′x5′ shower.

I imagine it’ll take some time to warm up the nice big shower in the cold winter months.  I think that’s when I’ll start making the husband get up first in the morning …