World Class Athlete Training

I have decided that the title of my post sounds a lot better than Fit 4- 50. I am so sore today and it hasn't even been 12 hours since my aerobics class. Today the teacher said, "I am really sore in my triceps, quads and glutes---how are all of you doing? Did you feel Monday's workout?" Well, that was enough motivation for me! I worked extra hard today. And now I really feel it!

She will be really happy with me when I tell her at our next class. I should learn her name.

If you see me around, just call me "World Class Athlete". I'll try not to let my giant pretend gold medal swing over and hit you as I run by!!

Make it a great day!

Sunshine Chicken

Today I decided to make a chicken recipe that is one of my favorites. I don't think it is particularly lowfat but it is quite tasty and reheats beautifully.

I will post the recipe at the end for those of you who'd like to try this. I haven't made this recipe in several years. It calls for a healthy amount of orange juice, raisins, cinnamon,almonds, mandarin oranges, and a touch of ginger. I made the recipe according to the directions and after I put the chicken in, I realized that my cinnamon had started to clump in my orange juice gravy. It was not a happy moment in my kitchen....no one that I know of should have to eat lumps of cinnamon in their gravy! I quickly grabbed my weapon of choice which happened to be a wisk, and started to wildly stir the gravy. I was quite disgusted with myself when I realized that the clumps were the raisins not the cinnamon!

Without further adieu, I give you "Sunshine Chicken"
6 halves Chicken Breast
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter

Sprinkle the chicken with salt while melting the butter in a large skillet. Lay the chicken in the pan and brown both sides a minute or so on each side. Remove chicken and leave drippings in pan. Add to the pan one more tablespoon of butter.

Mix into the melted butter:
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch of ginger

Stir well. Add 1 1/2 cups orange juice and stir until thickened. Turn heat to low and add the chicken pieces back into the pan. Add 1/2 cup raisins (Golden ones are pretty but the black ones are just as good.) and 1/2 cup toasted almond slivers.

Let cook about 45-50 minutes covered. Stir occasionally. Right before serving over a bed or rice, add a can of mandarin oranges that have been drained.

Voila, stove top dinner at its finest!
Enjoy.

Fit 4-50

The title of this post reflects the name of the Aerobics class I took today. I am not sure it if means you can take this class if you are between the ages of 4 and 50 or if it is a play on words and is geared towards the 50 year old person!

Whatever it means, it totally kicked my rumpus today! The lady that was leading the class was really good, inspirational, and challenging. She made the absolutely grueling 60 minutes class a lot of fun! I will go back on Wednesday.

I also want you to know that for the record, I HATE those yoga balls. They are too big for a 5 foot frame--even the little ones are too big. Since my arms are less than a foot long and my chest is large, it poses a bit of a problem when the instructor asks you to lean over the ball and touch the floor. My hands were about 3 inches away from that floor and it didn't matter how I shifted....the floor wasn't getting any closer. The final straw came when the nice instructor shouted out, "Ok, everyone, now that you are all comfortable on the ball, lift your left leg up high for leg lifts to the ceiling." I'm sure I had a panicked look on my face because she quickly gave me a modification!

Well, off to bed. I think I may lose a pound tonight. That would be encouraging!

Chickened Out

Today I woke up with a specific fitness goal in mind. Since I have been exercising for a little more than a week now, I decided to change up my routine and attend a fitness class. My schedule doesn't permit me to be able to make many of these classes during the week because they are either too early or too late in the day. But Saturdays are different. And for that I am thankful.

I am a very social person and group classes are fun for me. It doesn't really matter what kind of class it is although Yoga and Kickboxing scare me so I usually avoid these. Today was a class called "BAC Conditioning" and we all know that I am in need of conditioning!

When I arrived, I nonchalantly surveyed the situation through the glass walls that surround the rest of the workout area. I can not begin to explain the emotional meltdown that was happening in my head as I looked into the classroom and saw the following: Steps that were all on the highest level, bands for your legs and arms, free weights, a 10 lb. bar for lifting, and the dreaded giant ball. EACH station had ALL of this stuff in a pile. It was truly overwhelming. And to put it all into perfect perspective, every person that was scurrying around to get their spot set up, had the body that really didn't look like it needed exercise. And they all were dressed in cute workout clothes! It was almost like I was looking at the filming of an exercise video in the making. I paced up and down the glass wall twice...and I never opened up the door. Instead I sat down in the recumbent bike, set it to 30 minutes and interval trained for 5 grueling miles as I watched the class through the window.

As I settled into my workout, way in the corner of the room, I spied a fat lady. She couldn't do all of the exercises but she was hanging in there. It was humbling and angering to see. I should have been in the class. I knew that. But, when you are overweight, you don't want to be the fattest person in there. Pride. Simple as that.

After the class, I was really bold and went up to the fat lady and said, "I want you to know that you inspired me today to try this class next week." She smiled and was a bit taken aback and replied, "Thanks for inspiring me to keep going! See you next Saturday".

So there you have it. A really truthful post. I better move off this couch before I can't move my sore muscles! Make it a great day!

A good buy?

I can never resist a sale or a bargain or a markdown. It must be from my dad's side....he likes cheap too!

Unfortuneately, I have never been able to shop sales for my footwear. I wear a size 5 1/2 WW. In fact the shoe salesman today said after measuring my foot, "hmmmm....you should wear a size 4 1/2 on your right foot and a 5 1/2 on your left foot and you are right between a wide and a double wide". Wide sizes start at size 6 in a normal shoe. I have tried to wear size 6's....they are too big. So, I have to shop in the "special" shoe stores--the ones that reek of leather the moment you walk into them and contain little short men that walk around and insist on measuring your feet the moment you sit down in one of thier little cushy seats. That last sentence was all code words for two really simple words: "EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE".

When I moved to the Zoo, I found a special shoe store that carried my special size for my special feet. And they have a special deal for thier "best" customers! If you buy 6 pair of shoes at the normal price, you will get your 7th pair of shoes for a reduced price. They keep track of how much you spend, average it out, divide it in half and then give you that amount off your seventh pair. It's pretty high level math if you ask me.

Since I have been vigorously exercising during lent, my tennis shoes have not been performing well at all. Yesterday I came home with a blister on the bottom of my foot! I decided that I would either need to get new tennis shoes today or I would have to go swimming as my workout tonight. Weighing in on the two options, swimming in public was not part of my future so I headed to my special shoe store with high hopes.

I walked in and my salespeople flocked to my feet. They know me as the "hard to fit teacher". After exchanging pleasantries, I asked if they had any 5 1/2 WW tennis shoes. I recieved the furled eyebrow look and got the common response that I have come to expect: "Well, let's measure your foot"....as if my foot has really changed sizes in the last 17 years!!!! So I smile, they measure and then we usually put in a special order.... because I really am a size 5 1/2WW.... BUT TODAY WAS DIFFERENT.
Today I actually got to try on a pair of shoes. It was delighful.
The shoeman tied my laces for me. It was divine.
And I bought the shoes! It was a miracle!!

And with the purchase of my 7th pair of shoes, I paid a mere $11.74 for a $69 pair of shoes. You can do the math....I have spent a fortune on the other 6 pairs!

Off to the gym, in my new shoes~

Anybody still there?

It has been a long time since I last looked at this screen that I create paragraphs on for my blog. I miss it. I have decided to add two things for Lent this year: 1) Blogging at least once a week, and 2) Exercising.

I am not sure how either one of them will work out. I know that I do better at exercise in a "club" environment because I am so social so during my two day break from school, I plan to check out a few places. And in the meantime, I plan to do SOMETHING even if it is little in the basement each night.

I am getting ready to cut back on my teaching load. I have taught a 125% schedule for the past 4 months and I am exhausted from it. I have two more class days left and then I will drop down to a 75% teacher to make up for the overload. This just means that I will teach 2 choirs and run the auditorium in the spring trimester! It will be AWESOME. I will teach from 10-1 everyday and then have flex time for running the auditorium!

I have decided to have all auditioned choirs next year. I currently have 3 students who can't match pitch and it is DRIVING ME CRAZY. I also think that I can see if they really want to work during an audition process. We'll see.

Ok. This is not really the bells and whistles re entry into blogging that I was planning in my head but it will do!

Make it a great beginning to Lent.

Just checking.

I want to see if my signature looks better.

Friendships

It is good to spend time with old friends. Yesterday, I got to spend a few hours of time with my youngest "old" friend Britt. She and I had time to eat dinner, play scrabble, and do some catching up. It was a lot of fun. And we didn't even plan to see each other!

This year I have been "finding" old friends on Facebook. In the fall, I found Vangie, my college room mate that I accidentally lost touch with for 15 years or so. During a Conference release day, I went to Michigan City and we met with each other, spent the day talking and rekindled a fabulous friendship. We have very little professional stuff in common and share no common friends anymore so it was great to reconnect. And to be able to talk about anything and know that it will never get around to anyone else!

Today was my second conference release day. Believe it or not, I found yet another friend from high school on Facebook a few weeks ago and she lives about an hour away from me! So, today I was going to get the kids on the bus and head up there for a visit. Julie was a friend that I shared A LOT of time with during my first two years of high school. We wrote notes back and forth everyday. Sometimes we would write 2 or 3 notes! It was fun. She was fun. So I was excited to rekindle another past friendship.

Enter Mother Nature. Last night we got dumped on by lake effect snow. As I traveled home from conferences, I had a good feeling that my children would have a snow day. When I woke up at 5a.m. this morning my hunches became a reality and with the temperature at -8 and the snow blowing all over, the kids had no school. Julie also had let me know that the roads were very bad up there as well. So, I sadly canceled the outing. Maybe in February......

OH, the best news of all. After 3 years of praying that Madison would find a neighborhood friend our prayers were answered. Tillie, a 5th grade tomboy that plays with little petshop pets and is very smart, moved in 4 houses down last week. They have played outside and at her house and Maddie is in friendship heaven. I think this will make our summer go faster!

Next Friday, my friend Cheryl and I will become room mates for a few days in order to attend a music conference. We have promised each other that we are going to play less cards and attend more sessions. I will let you know how that promise works out!

So, there you have it. Friendships all around.

Blessings for a great day,
Heidi

SNOW

Today was a snow day. It was a perfect set up for a great day off. The snow began to fall yesterday around 2 p.m. and it never stopped until about 7p.m. tonight. It is really too bad this didn't happen on a school day because I think we would been given at least two days off. Here is a great picture of how much snow we got. I pulled it off our local news site. I don't really know this man but I thought his smile was great!

I forgot to take a picture when it was light outside (hence the "stranger man" picture) but I would estimate that we got about 14-16 inches. Tomorrow the "snow guns" fire up for some lake effect snow event which means we will pick up a few more inches before it is all over.

Today I sat and looked outside. It was a very unproductive day. Sometimes I need those kind of days. The kids went to the neighbor's house for a few hours. The house was completely silent. It was heaven on earth. I pretended I was in a snow globe except no one was shaking me violently every 10 seconds to make the snow swirl. Life is good.

Make it a great day.
Blessings,
Heidi

Surviving Vs. Thriving

It is so hard to keep up with things lately! I haven't mentioned this on my blog (I don't think), but I am teaching an overload at school and it is really starting to catch up with me.

Last summer, my principal shared with me that he was "worried" about me last spring because of the amount of extra activity that happens in the auditorium during May and June. It seems that everyone wants to have a piece of space during these months. We had two dance recitals, two graduations, five concerts, and a vast amount of meetings, etc. I remember that I said to Stu once or twice "Well, I will see you next week". And it was only Monday night.

In order to make this year "easier", my principal and I thought it would be better if I taught 4 classes in the winter and then only two choir classes in the Spring. So, I am running the auditorium from 7:30-8:45 each morning and then I teach from 8:50-2:35 with one break at 12:47 for lunch. It is in one word, overwhelming. I feel like I am working at full strength each and every day and I still can't stay ahead. To make things more challenging, I am teaching a brand new guitar class that has no curriculum. I am embarrassed to admit that for many days in a row, I have planned out what I am going to do at 1:17 (guitar), during my lunch break.

I am bound and determined to thrive not just survive during 2009. I need to get back to exercising. And planning healthy meals. But maybe that will have to wait until March. March 5th to be exact. That will end the marking period.

So until then, I guess I just settle. And work as hard as I can. And pray for LOTS of snowdays!

By the way, we are getting a big storm tonight! Too bad it's Friday!

Blessings,
Heidi