Soup to Nuts Part 1

The title is a dead giveaway for the contents of this post.  I got up early Saturday morning, and decided I needed to go exercise.  Off I go to Snap Fitness.  I started out by walking rapidly for 30 minutes on the treadmill, then did 20 minutes of circuit training on my lower body (no arm machines).  I was pooped, but mentally felt better.  Thank goodness that's over with.  I came home, had a diet type of breakfast, and was so happy with my fitness program, that I decided to try out my new Exercise Ball Yoga DVD.  I get dressed in comfy clothes, get the medicine ball out, and then start getting ready.  Gary heads out to walk the dog and YES, it is colder than hell.

I start out... not too bad.  You just sit on the exercise ball and reach here, there, bend a little here, there.... piece of cake.   Here are snapshots of the moves.

You get the drift.  Pretty easy, if I do say so myself.  I'm tooling along, just barely able to so some of them, but feeling pretty confident that I would be a pro at this in not time.

Then the shit hit the fan, to put it mildly.  We began by sitting on the ball, feet on the floor, then we go into the eagle position with our arms only.

To be honest, I couldn't quite get there with my arms.  I only got about 50 % there, but hey, I'm new to this, right?  Then, they told us to cross our legs and continue on into the FULL eagle pose.  Instead of crossing our ankle to our knee as shown below, they had us cross our legs, then wrap our ankle of the left leg around our right calf.

That is the moment I started falling.  My arms came out of pose and I slapped my face with one hand that was rapidly flailing the air in a failed attempt to catch my balance.  I ended up not in an eagle pose, but in a spread eagle pose on the floor.  I asked my self.... what just happened... am I hurt....is my knee okay..... will Gary be able to get home any time soon from his walk and help me get up off the floor???

I decided I was okay, and all I needed to do was use the exercise ball to get up.  Here is a sort of sequence of the attempt to get up....

The above picture was of me praying on the exercise ball hoping somehow I could finish getting up.  I finally made it, and immediately took the damned ball into the bedroom and stuck it in a corner.  I was through.  Gary came home, and actually laughed when I tried to explain what had happened.  He is NOT encouraging when he can't stop laughing.

The girls ended up coming over and then spent the night.  Chloe and I watched TV for a while, then Morgan and Gary decided to dance.  I watched them for a while.

You're welcome for not showing too very long of a video of it.  Honestly, they had a ball.  I was tired quickly of watching them, cause I wanted to join in on the fun, but I couldn't hardly walk.  My face was still sore from slapping myself, and my butt cheeks felt like someone had glued them in the standing up position.  They didn't cooperate when I walked.  I went back to watch TV with Chloe, and was telling her my aches and pains caused by Yoga, and she didn't believe it would be difficult to do the pose.  

Nothing like a challenge.... she was on.  I got the exercise ball out and put on the DVD Yoga tape.  She did fairly well, but honestly, I did "almost" as good as she did, and she's 15.  However, when she got to the the eagle pose, she fell also.  Morgan and Gary had joined us to watch at that point, and Morgan just knew she could do it.  The ball is really too tall for her, as she's only 11, but she got on it and did the pose perfectly.  Then she started showing off.  This is the closest I could get to an image of the pose she was doing... EXCEPT, it was on top of the exercise ball.

Morgan is one fit girl.  I'm not going to say anything more about the subject, but I have NOT tried it since.  The girls spent the night, and Sunday morning I got up and started my Super Bowl Party.   I decided to see if we were going to have any more winter, so I got Stella outside to see if we could see her shadow.

Try as I might, we could NOT see her shadow.... which means, once this cold spell goes away, it will stay warm.  Now, if only it would go away.  For those of you that know what Stella normally looks like, you know that she isn't usually fuzzy.  Because it's been so cold, Gary asked me to stop cutting her hair.  See, only her gray/white hair grows long.  The black hair stays short.  She does really start looking snarly when it grows out.  I did agree that it's too damned cold to go out without a lot of hair.  Hell, even I've started letting mine grow out.

Yup, the annual Coles Super Bowl Party was Sunday night.  Carlos and Sue didn't make it this year.  Carlos is down in his back.  Too bad... we missed him cause he's soooooo cool.  We really like Sue better, but we can't tell Carlos that.  I had previously told Sheila I was bringing boiled shrimp.  I head to the store for some other stuff, cause Gary advised he wanted to eat healthy, not just a lot of junk food.  I got a veggie tray, and things to make some Brat sliders with.  I'd seen a recipe in the Sunday paper about Brats, then I found a recipe on line that called for sauerkraut and dark beer.  I got everything I needed and started by grilling the brats, per the recipe.  Well, I will admit I got them a little black on the outside, but that's because they have so much fat in them.  Anyway, you caramelize some onions in butter, add some garlic, then some sauerkraut and beer, and cook it for an hour.  Then you add the grilled brats and cook for another hour on low.  I did all but the last step and put them in the crock pot on low so they'd finish up by game time.  I will admit, the smell was awful.  Got my onions chopped, a little crockpot full of canned chili, some grated cheese, a beer chest ready, sent the girls home, and Gary and I started the boiled shrimp.  WHAT?  NO WAY!!!! My shrimp were freezer burnen.  Oh well, I load everything else up, and we were off to Kroger's for "cooked" shrimp then on to the Coles.

We started out with margarita's and darts.  I decided to take a couple of pictures.

Sheila and I played against Mark and Gary.... double double.  Mark, of course, opened up right away.  We didn't open up quite so fast.  We struggled, for quite a while.  Then all of a sudden, we hit our stride.  Push came to shove, and Sheila went out before they could.  WE HAD WON!  I was so excited.  As we got ready to start another game, Mark was going to lead off, and Sheila said something to him about it wasn't his turn, winners went first.  He said something, and I said something along the lines that "we won Mark.... remember?".  He was saying something and all of a sudden Sheila says... this is a verbatim quote... "Mark, I actually won !  Don't you remember, I shot a double 4 to go our?"  WTF.... I'm thinking.  I had thought we were playing as a team.  Hell, we WERE!  I reminded Sheila that it was a team effort, and that I hand't said "I" had won, that "we" , as in TEAM, had won.  She almost fell over her tongue trying to apologize.  I wouldn't have any part of it.  She finally said... let me guess, this will be on the blog.  YOU'RE DAMNED RIGHT IT WILL.  Ah.... revenge is so sweet.

Margie and Ralph finally arrived, though they were NOT late.  Honest, they were there before the game started.  She had brought chili and cornbread.  We were good to go on food.... Sheila had also made magic cookie bars... Yummo.  The game of the day was Super Bowl Bingo.

Each of us got a bingo card, and the center had an image of a football there for the "free" spot.  Other than that, the lay out was exactly as bingo, except each square had something football related in it.  My card had things like... Coke commercial, Pepsi Commercial, Off Sides Penalty, Quarter Back Touchdown, Face mask Penalty, Tails Coin Toss, you get the drift.  Well, we got all the way to the half time show.  No winner.  Sheila had previously declared that if we didn't have a first half winner, the money would carry over to the second half and winner would take all.  If no one won that, she'd count up how many squares everyone had scored on, and the one with the most would win.  Well, finally a Pepsi commercial came on, and I had a BINGO....WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER.  Yeah, I'm so excited.  Margie, being the poor loser that she is, started telling me because the commercial was after the first two quarters had been completed, it was not a half time bingo.  Fine, I'll claim it as a 2nd half bingo and get all the money.  No she said.... well, Sheila got tired of Margie and me slapping each other around (verbally, but it didn't write as well) and claimed that I had won the first half.  That meant someone else, or me again, could win the second half.

We all decided to eat right away, cause we had to come back and watch every play so we could find our bingo squares.  I decided to try the brats, but man, the smell was awful.  I got one out anyway, and made a frito, chili, onion, cheese, sauerkraut brat.  It was delicious.  Just the smell of kraut juice and beer is a killer.  I won't make them again, cause I took home every brat except the one I ate.  I don't blame them one bit.  We all ate like pigs, except Gary, and he was happily munching his frito chili pie (no brat), shrimp and veggies with dip.  I of course, had to keep drinking margaritas, and poor Sheila had the task of keeping them made.  She burned up her blender trying... but it's just one of those things that happens.

We all got new football bingo sheets and started the second half.  Well, the game ended and no one else bingoed.  We counted up, and Mark had won with 14, but Margie and I both came in with 13 for second place, which won us NADA!  What a crock of crap.  One of the two of them (Coles) always wins.  Sure seems weird to me.  I had to go to Austin early Monday, so we left early and so did the Storeys.

I got up early and packed, etc., then picked up my neighbor and off we go.  We were going because we are board members of a non-profit group that is fighting the rebuild of a trash transfer station in our neighborhood.  Only in Richardson would they allow a trash transfer station (trash is hauled in from local collectors then transferred to a big rig that takes it to the north to a dump) in a residential area.  They are currently right next to a golf course, and about 1500 feet from my house.  When they rebuild it, parts of which are in a flood plain, it will be 650 feet from my house.  DAMN!  Hope it doesn't smell.  Not only that, the mother will be 51 feet tall, first floor and roof, not counting the tunnel or whatever it is called that the trucks enter.  It is an ugly situation, and they've been looking for land since 2002 and couldn't find anything comparable.  Yeah right... they didn't want to pay for it.

I will write tomorrow about our dinner in Austin, my day today, which included a broken front lower tooth, and a night at the Fair Hall Music Center where I saw Ghost.  I just got home, and the dentist will work me in if I can be there by 7:30 am.  I gotta go to bed.  More to write about tomorrow.

Later...