Beach Babe 2 DVD

The Tone It Up ladies, Katrina and Karena, recently came out with their 3^rd DVD, Beach Babe 3. It’s my belief that they put their 2^nd DVD on sale because of this release. I have no proof of this of course but whatever. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I was finally able to afford it.

The DVD is sold out but the digital download is still available on sale for $27. You can check out their site – Tone It Up – for more info.

After a mishap where I never received my initial purchase (I have a suspicion wires got crossed and it never got sent out because the tracking # they sent me never worked), I sent an e-mail explaining the situation and they immediately sent another with an apology. Wonderful service! The tracking # worked this time and I received the DVD less than a week later.

Luckily the next day their Bikini Series had the Beach Barre routine from this 2^nd DVD scheduled so I got to try it out almost immediately! Another big piece of luck is that I’m healed from my previous injury and I’m almost better from my cold. There’s still a nagging chest cough and a bit of a sore throat that refuse to go away, but mostly I’m better so I’m getting back into my exercise.

The beginning of the Beach Barre routine was easy and I thought, “Woo! Piece of cake!” The moves were deceptively simple as well, making the 30-minute workout (about 35 minutes with the warmup and cooldown) fly by pretty quickly. I kept to light weights for the most part because I didn’t know what I was in for and I’ve lost a lot of muscle from inactivity. Considering most of the dumbbell exercises were for the shoulders, I’m glad I stuck with light weights.

By the end of the workout I was sweaty, hot, and my legs wobbled. They actually wobbled.

Like I said, “Deceptively simple.” The whole time I was thinking, “I can do this. I’ve totally got this.”

My arm tune was different by the end. It sounded more like, “OMG! My arms are gonna fall off!” My butt tune sounded similar.

It was really enjoyable to try something new again and to be guided through a warmup and an adequate cooldown. It’s been awhile for me because I’ve been lazy with my formatting – skipping things like warmups and cooldown stretching.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Cassey Ho and her Blogilates, but I seriously enjoy Tone It Up as well. Beach Barre was so much fun!

Trying out this Beach Babe 2 DVD makes me want the other 2 DVDs as well. I know, I’m unappeasable. But I’ll enjoy what I’ve got for a while. Maybe by Christmas I’ll have enough money to buy another. Or maybe both!

Horseback Riding

Growing up in SoCal in the middle of one of the multitude of intertwining cities over there, there wasn’t exactly space to own a horse and to go for rides you’d have to go miles and miles out of your way. Maybe I would’ve thought to ask my parents if we could try it, but some of the people in my grade school were pretty vocal about things they didn’t like and thought were “bad.” And when I say bad, I mean the dreaded uncool.

Being or looking like a farmer was bad.

Surfing was bad.

Cowboys were bad.

Horseback riding was bad.

Bad bad bad bad bad bad. Being different was BAD!

Pretty much everything was bad and you’d get teased (to say the least) for it. I didn’t question it so much when I was a kid, but now that I think about it, these people’s lives must have been seriously boring! How limited!

Unfortunately, this mentality stayed with me (it was pretty much the only one I knew) when I moved to Colorado where people owned cows and horses and alpacas (cousin of the llama). I was surrounded by uncool people. I was in Hicksville! HORRORS!!!!!

Through the years of Colorado life I was cured of the idea that country people are from another planet and I have been able to assimilate myself into their culture…to a degree. My own husband grew up on an apple orchard. I married a farmer’s son. See? I assimilated. The human race has access to mind-blowing adaptation skills.

One day he suggested we all (our son included) go for a horseback ride. Spur of the moment kind of thing. Luckily they had room for us in a group that was going to leave in about 15 minutes. My son rode safely in my arms and was terrified for the first 5 minutes…while we sat there waiting for the others to finish getting ready. My husband was lucky to be on his own – my arms were killing me by the end of the hour. All I was doing was holding him in place but he was leaning forward over the pommel the whole time.

My first real experience on a horse. I had watched movies with horseback riding in them. It was easy. I could totally do it. I was going to be a pro. And my farmer-turned-city husband would be wowed by my awesomeness. He was scared because it wasn’t a dog, it was really big, and he had never been on one before. I took care of my neighbor’s horse once for about a week when I was in high school in Colorado, therefore I had more experience than him and I had to show it so I swallowed my own fear and acted like I was cool.

I knew to kick the horse with my feet/knees and pull on the reigns to get the horse to stop or go in whatever direction I wanted. I totally had it.

Or so I thought.

My horse started walking without my doing anything. My City Girl came out. Instead of pulling on the reigns, I said, “Stop! Horse, stop moving! No, don’t go over there. Stop!” I felt like a total dork when I realized what I had just said. Seriously? I’m not going to stop a horse by saying “stop” and yet that was the first thing that I did.

Despite being told that I could not hurt the horse, I was worried about kicking it too hard so I was always falling behind a bit. By the end my fear was gone but my legs were tired so I couldn’t kick hard anyway.

My husband had almost as bad a time as I did except his City Boy didn’t show itself verbally. He didn’t want to spur his horse forward after a short break because his horse was peeing. He argued that it needed its privacy and he was going to let it do its business. To this day I love playing back this memory and laughing at how he didn’t want to disturb his horse while it was peeing. It needed privacy.

Our horses were trained to follow each other (and ultimately the guide) so basically all we had to do was stay in the saddle. Despite this easy ride, my body was super sore the next day. Holy cow! It was 2 miles and it took an hour. No biggie at the time. Arm soreness I understood from holding my son’s weight in place while he constantly leaned over the pommel. My whole body must’ve been tensed the whole time from keeping him (and therefore me) in place. That’s the only thing I can think of that would’ve made me ache so much.

We went again last weekend. We had been planning to do it when my son was in school but that didn’t work out so we opted to take him along provided he could ride his own horse. And he did. His horse’s name was Tootie and he was tied to the guide’s horse so he got to lead everyone. The ride took an hour (2 miles) and not once did he cause any problems. Mini Me did an awesome job!

My horse’s name was Comanche and he was actually a very tall pig in disguise. Every time we passed certain plants, he’d veer off course to eat. I had been warned this would happen but I didn’t anticipate how strong a horse is. I ended up having to use every ounce of arm strength in a tug-o-war against Comanche’s neck. I think he let me win. He also gave me a few unanticipated canters to liven things up. And we cut in front of my husband’s horse when they stopped paying attention at one point toward the end. It wasn’t my idea but it was fun.

I liked my horse. He knew how to give me a fun time.

My knees hurt afterwards though the pain didn’t linger long after I dismounted. The pain in my butt, however, is still present. Now I want horseback riding lessons! WOO!

Don’t let anyone tell you something is bad because they think it’s uncool. Life is short. DO EVERYTHING! As long as it’s safe and legal.

Illness Strikes Again

Good grief. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. I hurt my hip two weeks ago and deemed it time to start working it again. The rest was nice though I did feel lazy after a while. So now that I’m ready to step it up a notch with cardio, what happens? I get sick.

Super sick.

I feel like I’m dying. I’m pretty good at dealing with injuries and most of what life throws at me but when it comes to pain and illness, I’m a big baby. So it’s not so much that I feel like I’m dying as I hope I’m dying. At this point I’m hoping I’ll fall asleep and never wake up so I don’t have to deal with the aches and pains and general craptacularness that is this illness.

Yep, that is the melodramatic crybaby that I hide from the world.

My son is sick too (like everyone in this town right now it seems) but the doctor thinks it was caused by allergies. Naturally my husband thought mine was allergies too but I’ve never had it this bad if that’s the case. Of course, neither has Super Turd for that matter.

I’m still getting in some workouts, just not as many as I would if I were healthy and didn’t feel as if I had been hit by a bus, had garbage dumped on me, and then was run over by the garbage truck. Unfortunately the main reason for my aching body is the illness because the only thing I did yesterday was a super slow mile-long walk and I wasn’t sore from the previous day’s bike ride and toning session.

It’s pretty much at this point that I want that donut that I didn’t get at the store today. And pastries. And donut holes. Ugh. I want to shove junk in my face right now.

What do you do when you’re sick?