VERT !!!

Okay! Hello! Sorry I've fallen out of my blogging routine, but this might be more like how it goes for me... this is always how I've been with journaling anything, so no big surprise... if I have something to say, and time to say it, then here I am, if I'm busy or boring, then sorry Charlie, I got nuthin'. ;)

Anyways, so today I went to my first freebie VERT session... What is VERT?, you may say... well, VERT is an acronym that stands for Velocity Enhanced Resistance Training. Essentially, the amount of resistance you are working against, is directly proportional to the rate at which you're performing the exercise. If you are very slow, then no resistance is added... if you are very quick, then lots of resistance. It's intense. Here's a clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7AtSBAvJi8. Or you can go to www.vertfitness.com to check it out as well.

I was able to experience this amazing opportunity as part of my 3-month trial membership to 5280 Sport & Fitness in Highlands Ranch. With the 3 months unlimited classes at 5280, I also received 1 month free VERT sessions! They recommend that you participate in TaeBo for a month before trying VERT, so I did, and today was my first ever attempt at VERT. I was scared. I won't lie. But it was AWESOME. Oh, it was hard... very hard... I was DRIPPING with sweat... but all the same, it was an amazing workout, and what a cool experience to have such personalized training. It was just myself and another woman with a personal trainer.

Here's what we did in our hour-long session...

First I warmed up on the treadmill for 10 mins at about a 9:30 min mile or so

Then we started with some exercises not using the VERT machines:
- 1 minute of toe-tapping on platforms (30 seconds on a platform about 6 inches high and 30 seconds on one about 12 inches high)
- 1 minute of one-legged squats with side-leg-raise (30 second on one side, then switch legs)
- 1 minute of push-ups with one hand on the floor and one hand on a 12 pound medicine ball, that we would roll from one hand to the other between push-ups
---- we repeated this circuit 3 times (OUCH)

Our next circuit utilized the VERT machines that have pos and neg resistance (so in both directions):
- 30 reps of quick squats
- 30 reps of bench press
- 30 reps of an exercise using pullys (one in each hand) and we would squat with one leg on a bosu-ball while pulling the pullys back, then as we released the pullys up, we would hop up and over on the bosu, and then squat down on the other side while pulling the pullys back again...
---- this was also repeated 3 times (more OUCH)

Next circuit:
- 2 minutes standing on an inverted bosu in a half-squat position while using one of those arm bicycle thingys for our arms (basically like pedaling a bike but with your hands...???)... forwards for 30 seconds, then backwards 30, then repeat forward 30 and then back another 30
- 2 minutes strapped to one of the pullys around your waist, we'd run out at a 45 degree angle like 3 or 4 steps, lunge down and tap a cone, back-pedal, turn to the other 45 degree angle and run out and touch a cone on that side, and back... over and over.
---- repeated 3 times (yeowzahh)

Final Circuit:
- 1 minute hopping on the ground side to side in rings that Jeremy laid on the floor (there were like 8 rings, staggered 2 per row, basically... then when you get to the end, turn and go back, over and over)
- 30 reps of over-head press on the VERT machines
- 1 minute of standing row (kind of... holding a weighted bar with hands close together, and then pulling straight up to your chin with your elbows out to the side)
---- this one we repeated only twice (phewf)

Then we stretched and called it a day. WHEWEE!!! Burn baby burn! It was INSANE! I loved it!!! So even though I will dread it and be scared of it and it will hurt... I signed up for it again on Thursday morning, and then next Tues/Thurs as well!!!! Yeah! So I'll be doing TaeBo on Mon/Wed/Sat and then VERT o n Tues/Thurs and Power Yoga (also offered there) on Fridays. Yay! Eventually when my membership runs out, I hope to be in stellar shape and it will be warm out and I can get back to running outdoors... :)

So anyways, that's my news of the day... I'm trying to avoid the topic of sadness in my life (my brother and his wife are separating and are probably divorcing)... so this is really my big UP for now... please keep my family in your thoughts and prayers as we struggle through this loss... we are sad to lose a wife, sister, daughter and friend...

Much love always,
allimaewilli

An Early Valentine's Day...

Last night Ryan and I celebrated Valentine's Day early! I hate fighting with the crowds on the actual holiday, and I can only imagine that on a Saturday it'll be even worse than usual. Eek! So we decided to do it this week! For our 3rd wedding anniversary in October, my parents gave us a very generous gift certificate to the Brown Palace Hotel & Spa which we decided would be best spent at their very swanky restaurant, The Palace Arms. My parents had taken us there in celebration of our 30th birthdays back in August and we loved it.

So I picked Ryno up at work at around 6:45 and we scooted downtown to the BPH and what an amazing experience! The valet met us at the door and took our car, then the maitre'D greeted us "Mr. & Mrs. Williams, yes?" and took our coats and seated us in a booth where we could both sit on the same side of the table and look out to people-watch... fabulous ;) Then they do kind of a team-waiting thing, so we had about 4 or 5 servers... so first they got us water and then brought us the wine list, and then the wine guy came by to help us select between 2 pinot noirs... we went with one from the Willamette Valley in Oregon and it was fantastic. Then the bread-lady came by and offered us from an assortment of rolls and crackers on a large tray... yum. And then they brought us their menu and explained all the foods to us... mmm... we made our selections... we both got the 5 Course Taste Sampler where we each got to choose an appetizer, soup, salad, entree, and dessert.

Ryan chose the Beef Wellington appetizer, which was very different from what you're thinking. it only sat on a small piece of puff-pastry, and there was fois gras and pate ... divine. I got the crabcake appetizer which was a small crabcake setting in the center of a delicious citrus cream sauce that had a little kick to it... just amazing. Then the soup du jour was a cauliflower soup, we were both skeptical, but it was phenomenol. It was followed by an arugula salad, and then we both got the same entree, the famous Bison Filet that sets upon some kind of a little cake/bread of some kind, with a smear of fois gras and then there is the most amazing sauce drizzled overtop. Good GRIEF, people. I have no words to describe how delicious this is. No words. I mean, it's fan-freaking-tastic. Orgasmic. There, I said it. Then for dessert they came and made Bananas Foster table-side. OMG. What a menu.

I loved how all of the courses were "tastes" so they were much smaller than a full portion and thus though we were very satisfied at the end of the night and couldn't eat anything else, we took our salty chocolates with us to-go, we were by no means stuffed and uncomfortable or sick or anything. It was just perfect.

And quite a treat, not something you do everyday, or every month, we discussed and we'd like to treat ourselves once a year. Perhaps we'll get another gift certificate next year that we can use :)

Thank you Mama & Papa Dward! What a WONDERFUL Valentine's Day!

IOU Pictures!

Okay! Well, IOU pictures of the master bedroom. Last Friday it was another balmy day here in Denver, so I was able to open all the windows and paint our master bedroom finally! As mentioned on Thursday, I already had the paints picked out and purchased... I got Midsummer Gold as my dark accent color, and Slender Reed as my base. I was hoping to at minimum get the large window wall painted in Midsummer Gold and then the 2 accent borders as well while I had the color out and going... but when I finished those I was on such a roll that I decided to keep plugging and did the other 3 walls in the Slender Reed! Woot! I ran out of slender reed before I was able to get one section way up high, but it can wait. I will paint that when I finally paint our master bath this spring. I'm hoping to carry the slender reed into the bathroom as the base color and then use 'Treasured Jade' (a dreamy blue color) as the accent. Fab!

So anyways, it was a huge success and I don't think that these pictures do it anywhere close to justice, I am NO photographer and don't know how to make the flash do magical things to ensure that the colors come across right, but as promised, I'm posting some pics.

Also, please excuse the furniture mess that is my master bedroom. We fully intend to stain our nightstands to be more of a mahogany color, and then we have the dresser to match but it hasn't made the move up to the new house yet... 7 months later... still waiting... grrr. And then all our furniture will match. I'm also hoping to make us an apholstered headboard that has light/sconces built in. I know, I have high hopes, but maybe someday HGTV will come help me. HA! :)

Enjoy!

Pinch Me...

For real? Is it February in Colorado? Because here I sit at my kitchen table working with ALL of the windows open in my home... it's going to be 68 degrees in Denver today. Is that absurd to anyone else but me? WHOA. Don't worry, it's supposed to snow by Saturday night. Ah yes, if you don't like Denver's weather, stick around for a day or 2, it'll change... drastically. HA!

Anyways, I think I'm going to take advantage of the ridiculous weather and finally paint my master bedroom tomorrow! It's an off-Friday for me and I was considering going up to the mountains to ski, but I really want to get that room painted so why not take advantage of the ODD winter weather and being able to have the windows open?! So, tomorrow my bedroom will become 'Slender Reed' and 'Midsummer Gold'. Lovely. (Check them out at www.freshairechoice.com - Loves it!)

As for today, I have quite a bit of work to hammer out before calling it a week, so I'd best hop-to-it, probably. However, it's going to be a rough day because I could NOT fall asleep last night. I think I lay awake in my bed till like 2:30am or so before finally dozing off. Argh! What's up with that?! My brain was on rapid-fire. That's how I came up with the paint-plan, actually... I was able to sleep in a bit this morning though since I didn't have any meetings, so that was good. I'm going to give myself the day off from TaeBo Madness as well and rest the bod and brain a bit. I have a volleyball game tonight and that will suffice for activity. I am in SO much pain/soreness from this week's classes! The 'Old School' circuit class on Tuesday was a DOOZIE. It was pure awesomeness, but Good GRAVY! I'm barely able to hobble around. I thought going to TaeBo last night would help break up the lactic acid and reduce the soreness, but alas, I'm just hobbling around even worse! It was a toughie class! So I'm walking like I'm 80. No biggie. Volleyball should be interesting. Hopefully I'm a bit more mobile than Nana by then. Sheesh!!!

And today is February 5th, so I'd like to give a shout-out to my Daddio... Happy Birthday, Dad!!! Yay! And today he shares his birthday with my cousin's son, Joshua Reilly Kelley-Cohen, born this morning in Maine. I will share more details when his mothers pass it along.

Correction!!! I just got word that Joshua was actually born yesterday, February 4th at 9:31pm and was a whopping 9 lbs 13 oz... good LORD! Whewee... giant healthy baby boy! :) Welcome, Joshua!!!

Best to all, today!

This Sore Throat Ain't Goin' Anywhere...

Rats! This is the third day in a row that I've woken with a sore throat... and it's getting increasingly worse... I also noticed that I'm more tired than usual, which also happens when I'm getting sick. I just wanna keep sleeping in the morning. It probably doesn't help that I haven't been getting to bed at a reasonable hour, and didn't drink enough agua yesterday, but still, zzzz. I think that tonight I will make a valient effort to be IN my bed by 10pm. I know the hubs will want to watch a couple shows in bed, but that doesn't mean I can't get a head-start on bedtime. Gotta nip this cold in the bud.

Yesterday I went to TaeBo again, it was awesome as usual, just dripping sweat and sore this morning... but the instructor was not my favorite. She's the owner of the studio, so I was expecting it to be really intense and difficult, but not in the way that it was. I find with all the classes that they are really hard because it's so taxing on your body, but with hers it was also taxing on the brain and I couldn't keep up with her crazy combos toward the end... there were too many moves. I was like "hey, lady, we all have brain-melt, stick to 3 moves per combo, 7 is way too many"... I found myself just doing my best to keep shuffling side to side so I didn't get punched or kicked by the people around me!!! Ha! But alas, all that matters is that I keep moving, right? Burn baby burn. I really am loving this studio and these classes... they are really hard, but you feel so good at the end, that it's totally worth while. Plus, it's a fun environment! I think I really just needed something different to motivate me and this was the perfect solution! Tonight I'm going to try their class called "Old School" which is apparently a circuit class, so cardio and strength. I'll report back with how that goes later! Eventually I'm going to need to evaluate my schedule and start working some runs in, too, because I'd like to run a half marathon this Spring, and also the Bolder Boulder 10K on Memorial Day! But in the meantime, I'm going to just enjoy these classes and the change of pace.

The only other thing going on here in Dwardland (my husband calls me Dward) is that my manager mentioned an opportunity for my virtual cohort and I that I'm getting more and more interested in... it would require that we go IN to an actual Lockheed facility a few days a week, and it turns out, I think I need that. I think that if I could have the best of both worlds, I might actually be a lot more satisfied in my job. I love being able to work from home, but man, I think I'm getting a bit of cabin fever... I miss getting dressed up a bit and interacting with people and collaborating face-to-face. So I think if this opportunity comes to fruition, we'd work a few days at the Aurora Facility, and a few days from home per week! How fab would that be?! It'd make me appreciate working from home more, AND it'd get me out of the house a few days. Here's to hoping!

Have a Lovely Tuesday!

Welcome to my New Blog...

So, "Right Up My Alli"... kind of a take-off from "Right up your alley"... I dunno, it's silly, but I like it, and my husband said once that if I had a column in a paper, that I should call it that, so since that'll never happen, here's my chance... heh heh.

Anyway, my dear friend CaliAlly told me that I really do have plenty to blog about, and so I realized that I do have plenty to say, but didn't want to post it to my "family" blog page, so I decided to give this a whirl and make a page of my own to vent off all my random thoughts and all that jazz. We'll see! I've never been a good diary/journal person, but perhaps this will be different?!

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So my thoughts for today are that I'm concerned that I always have to have something new and exciting going on in my life to be happy... like, when we were in Colorado Springs, I was always wanting to move to Denver, and then we took a TDY in California, so I was excited for that experience to happen, and then while there, I spent most of my time pining for the move back to Denver and buying the new house and all that, and now we've made the move back and I'm wanting what's next... I am not very good at living in and enjoying the present. I need to make that a better priority. For instance, even this morning I was thinking "maybe we should do another TDY somewhere"... Whoa. Stop the press. I am happy here in my fabulous new home in Colorado, loves it. Sheesh! Simmer!

How can I help myself to enjoy what I have now and live in the present. I'm always looking so far forward that I forget to cherish what I have in the moment.

Sure, I may be a bit job-frustrated now, and it's okay to be proactive and trying to find an avenue that better suits me long-term for my career... but in the meantime, I shouldn't let that run my life and dampen my spirits.

So let today's blog be a reminder to myself to "Live in the NOW, Dude..." (I forget what movie that's from, but I can totally hear the guy saying it...)

Thanks for listening!