Lovin’ my Crossfit

I’ve always been into working out.

I love that feeling after you push yourself and you stand there sweaty and panting. And I love high tops and belted leotards.

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I also love keeping my heart healthy, my cholesterol low, my body strong and my gut in check during mealtimes. It’s hard to be tempted by french fries when you know you have to run 3 miles the next day.

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Biceps and I did P90X for several years, perfect for a life on the road of touring. If we didn’t do P90X, I would go to the usual running 3-5 miles a day and weight lifting.

But, recently with Biceps getting the firefighter’s position our lives have changed, and I spend 1/3 of my time at home-alone. I needed something new, something challenging and something to get me out of the dang house.

Cue “Crossfit”.

I was given a free 7 day pass to the YWCA close to my home-close enough that I can bike to it since we just have the one car. After just a few classes of Crossfit, I was hooked. It pushed me to try harder and go further than I would on my own-and my classmates are encouraging and really stinkin’ cool.

So, after selling a few things and pinching our pennies, I signed up for a year-long membership to the YWCA.

This tough little number, Christina, is our trainer. She’s the perfect mixture of butt kicker, teacher and motivator. Plus, I really just don’t want to make her mad. She could level me with one uppercut, I’m sure.

Somedays, I don’t want to go to Crossfit-when it’s 99 degrees outside and I have to bike the 2 miles there and back, I run through the excuses in my head.

But knowing that I need to see other humans, and need to practice my “double unders”-(two rotations of the jump rope with only one jump -see above photo), I keep going back. And keep getting bruised and whip marks and I keep loving every minute of it.

If you’ve ever done Crossfit, you probably either loved or hated it. For me, I am in love.

Weird Christmas Cards Photos

It all started when I met Kayle.

He seemed normal enough. In fact, he seemed much cooler than me. He played in a band, owned a house, had tattoos and rode a motorcycle.

As we all know, first impressions can be deceiving. After a few months of dating this cool guy, I began to get to know the real him. Here are a couple of weird things about my seemingly perfect man:

I found out he toots during ab workouts.
And he cannot be interrupted when eating cereal.
He has no ‘favorites’; as in favorite movies, candy, or food.
He folds down his socks when he wants to be ‘casual’.
Often, he gets distracted during conversation and begins to count the number of letters in the words you are saying. For example, his favorite word(s) to count is Family Restaurant. ‘Why’, you may ask? Because there are 16 letters in this phrase and that makes 4 beats of 4. Get it? Neither do I….

At any rate, all these eccentricities pointed to the fact that he was indeed weirder than me. But it is still a close race on who reigns in the weirdness department.

And when two weirdos join forces, this is what happens.

Christmas 2001. 

A little funny, but not overboard. We started off innocently enough. Also, we made the firm decision that everyone we know gets a card and a picture, no exceptions. This includes but is not limited to: our friends, relatives, accountants, pastors, boss’, etc.

Sometimes, I regret this decision.
Like pretty much every year.

And then, Christmas 2002.

We were in Boston on tour with Hubby’s band. We had to make do with what we had, and this is what we chose. It’s pretty cute, I think.
Man, I loved those mittens.

Christmas 2003.

By far our most normal picture to date. We took this at the Flea Market in Tulsa where we get our ornament for the year. Subsequently, I broke this ornament in 2009. Geesh….I am such a clutz sometimes.

However….Life really can take some twists and turns, can’t it?

Christmas 2004 was a tough one. No card or picture was sent out that we can recall. We were more concerned with the small explosion that happened at the end of 2004.

To commemorate the explosion, we sent this picture out for Christmas 2005.  As you can see, our house blew up. It was a miracle not a soul was hurt, but that is a whole other story.
And we knew our lives and the expectations on our Christmas card pictures would never be the same.

Christmas 2006. 

A missions moment with the Greiman’s.

Christmas 2007. 
How do I explain why we decided to do this? I can’t and won’t.

Bananas in hammocks for Christmas 2008. 
I wouldn’t recommend trying to drive around in one of these costumes.

Christmas 2009.
Merry Poop-mas. My pastor didn’t say a word about receiving his card this year.

Christmas 2010.I have never felt more beautiful in all my life…And crazy.

Christmas 2011. We explored our Germanic roots.

What’s better than giving Satan a wedgie? Nothing, that’s what. Christmas 2012-full of heavenly humor.

2013 Christmas Card Photo. The year of the dork.
 

Tony Horton and P90x

“I love him, but I hate him.”

P90x has never, ever, ever, ever heard of me. Never. Not once. Get the picture? However, if they knew the amount of free marketing I was giving them by telling all my friends about it, they might think twice about ‘ol Rebekah. They may even throw me a yoga mat or a ‘recovery drink’.
I love these workouts, and I’ll tell you why.

The workouts are well,…they’re just really hard.
And I love to workout. Always have. Makes me feel less guilty when I buy a box of Mike & Ike’s and eat them all in a single sitting as I watch ‘The Biggest Loser’.

And I would rather be doing this over P90x most mornings. But I force myself to wake up (actually Cowboy won’t let me sleep in once the alarm has gone off). I put in another grueling P90X DVD and listen to Tony telling me to do things I don’t want to do.

But I need to give you a bit of a disclaimer: Tony says some weird stuff sometimes. Things like this:
“That’s the gruntin’!”
“Nice muscles, dude.”
“The Makes snakin’ contact, elbow, thigh!” (no idea what he was trying to say here.)
“Oh, no! Tops are coming off!”
“Yummy, yummy, yummy!”
And the cronies in the videos with him add to the weirdness.

His favorite cronie, Dreya Webber, is that kid in class you want to punch. She actually gives Tony advice on how to make a move better. But Tony doesn’t mind and just flirts with her relentlessly, although I am pretty sure she’s a dude.
The flirting is kind’ve weird.
Yet, somehow you end up liking Dreya, too. But, that doesn’t stop the urge to still punch her.

Once you get into it, you really start to look forward to the next time Tony screams: “I know it burns! It’s supposed to burn!”

Ah. P90x. I love it, but I hate it.
My sick obsession.