Her laughter is like a drug, and I’m afraid I’m addicted.

I was a few minutes early for my fitness class this morning, so I had a chance to chat with Lori. I’ll be honest, I was telling jokes on purpose. She has a nice smile, I and I wanted some. Is that so wrong?

Maybe she was just humoring me, but I got what I came for. Plus maybe some giggle — you know, for the effort.

It was just me for class, so we retired from the aerobics room back to the fitness center. She was going to have me do my elliptical cardio, but I told her I’d already done my 5K this morning. So she had me do some leg work on the Cybex instead. Yesterday we did upper body weights, and today’s class was supposed to be lower body.

The point of this… oh yeah, so I’m doing — I don’t know, I think it was the hamstring curls and she asked if I was feeling any pain. No pain, I told her, but I could definitely feel it. And then I said, “you know — pain is your body’s way of saying ‘oww’.” To which she burst out laughing.

I can still hear it now, and it still sounds nice. And maybe I’m being greedy. But I want me some more of that.

This was bound to happen sooner or later, what with all of the pants on fire and all.

What, nothing about Rome burning? OK, fine. Well there you go. :)

Hey, have I told you all about my new daily routine?

Maybe I should start with the big news… guess how much weight I’ve lost? 17? 63? 103? 38? Nope… 70 pounds!! Well that’s according to my scale at home.

I’ve really cranked this thing into overdrive. It all started when I realized my tendonitis doesn’t hurt anymore, even when I use the tradmill. So first I thought on weekends I’d do some running at home. Then I figured on days when I take a fitness class at work, I’ll do my cardio at home. Well hell, I’m just going to do double workouts every day. I’ve got class on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. On Thursday and Friday I’ll use the universal weights or elliptical, depending on my mood.

But every day is going to start with 5K! Lori was thrilled when I told her I’d been running three mornings in a row. “Keep it up,” is the only motivation I need to stick with it, too!

The other news is the Wifey and I have joined this raquet club, because I want to play tennis and raquetball. They also have classes and she took spinning today and we’re going to take it together this Thursday night.

So here’s what she said shortly after we signed up. “Now that you won’t be working out at work…”

HUH?

“Now that you won’t be working out at work…”

I wish I had a clue, an inkling, a shred of an idea why she’d say something like that. Oh sure, *I* know why she’d want to say something like that, but she doesn’t. All kidding aside, though, she really has nothing to worry about.

When I told Lori about the club, and about what Wifey said, she said she’d hate to lose me from class. “Oh no,” I told her, I’m staying. It’s going to be double- and even triple-workouts for me from now on, I might have even told her.

So yeah, 70 pounds or thereabouts. And another four pounds — I told you there was another milestone coming up. In about four more pounds, I’ll be overweight. That’s right, I’ll take that obese label and throw it away. I’d have to lose another 37 pounds beyond that to get to normal and that’s just not going to happen. I don’t think I even want that.

I think 30-35 pounds from where I am, that’s about where I want to be. First of all, I love the idea of the 100 pounds. Just the nice roundness of the number. And I think that is a plenty healthy weight for me. At times it has seemed like such an impossible goal, but now it’s SO within my reach. And I think the more I run, the faster I’ll get there!

And I’m not even talking about the snow storm currently dumping God-knows-how-much snow on us at the present moment.

I went down in the basement this morning to work out. Yes, I’m at the point where the treadmill doesn’t aggravate my tendonitis that much, so I figure on weekends I can keep up my cardio. Yesterday and today I did 5K each day. This morning I did it in 28:50, which is darn good for me!

As I was getting ready to go, I noticed a mouse — yes, EEEEEEK A MOUSE!! — it was lurking up on the inside ledge of top of the concrete foundation — you know, where the house rests.

So I went over to Uisce’s House of Death — I only wish I had a picture of it! Maybe this week’s Wordless Wednesday, and now you’ll know all about it. Anyway, it’s a cardboard box that houses three mouse traps. I don’t wish to get overly graphic about this, but the HOD is located right near these steel shelves where we keep spare food. So if there was any, shall we say mouse splatter it wouldn’t get on the food, it would stay inside of the box that is the House of Death.

So I went over to the HOD and grabbed one of the traps. I reached up and on my tippy-toes and managed to get the trap in place on that ledge. And then I thought, should I get a camera? No, too gruesome. And then I thought, how awful it’s going to be to watch this mouse bite the dust!

And do you know what I witnessed while I was on the treadmill? That mouse went right past the trap! Passed up the delicious whatever that bait is that I dispensed from the glue-like container onto the trap’s trigger mechanism. And Friend Mouse scurried off to… oh, I don’t even want to think about where it went, but it was out of sight.

And I finished my 5K, thank you very much! Three miles in just under 28 minutes — speed set up at 6.5 MPH, and then that last half lap (eigth of a mile) I cranked the speed up to 8 MPH — cruising!!

Such torture! And I’m talking, of course, about myself, and not Friend Mouse For him, I hope it will be swift and painless. And out of my sight.

Oh, and there’s something else I wanted to mention. There are these bots that like to ead-ray the ogs-blay and then they act like they’re writing a post on their own blog about you and then they ackback-tray and yes it’s ackback-tray am-spay. Are you with me?

So I’m going to spit out some numbers, maybe 17 or 63 of them, that should not worry you at all. It’s just so I can try and atch-cay em-thay. OK-ay? Ood-gay. And then I’ll see how much snow we got — I’ll bet it’s 103 or even 38 inches! Yikes!

I’ve been so organizy lately. I don’t know why, but I’ve been gathering up all of the crap that takes up the drawers and shelves and nooks and other corners. All kinds of things like usb cables, power adapters, phone cases, you name it. It’s all going in these plastic bins in the basement.

Why don’t I just throw this stuff away? Who knows, I guess I think I’ll need it some day. I guess this is a good first step.

Oh, but that will never happen, will it? Because here’s the thing. Yesterday I needed this little headphone adapter plug thing and so I went to the directory where I keep the catalogs. Oh yes, I didn’t mention that I’m cataloging everything before I put it in a bin and put it in the basement. So I was able to see that bin #1 had this little adapter in it. And I got it and instead of taking me hours and hours searching for this thing, and this is what I usually do until I give up, but I’m always looking for this thing — anyway, I was done in five minutes and using the little adapter thingy!

And all of the batteries that still work or worse, they’re rechargeable and just get scattered to the winds — gathering them all up and centrally locating them in my office. Hey I just found two more here on this computer desk! So now instead of opening a new box of batteries, maybe I can find one that just wandered off! Tada!

Don’t even start with filing. I’m usually bad about letting incoming mail and other papers pile up and never getting to it. I’ll have receipts that never get turned into expense reports. Coupons, I’m geting coupons all the time in the mail. I’m trying to be better about keeping them all in one place so I use them and not lose them. Hey, a couple weeks ago I bought some pants for $15 because I had two $10 coupons from Bob’s!

Filing still doesn’t get done. Just stacks of papers in my closet. But you know what, I’m going to have to dig through all of that, because I know some of it I’ll need for next year’s taxes. Can you believe New Years is just 2 1/2 weeks away? That’s a good winter project.

“Winter project” — I say that all the time and then spring rolls around and I haven’t done stuff. Remember the insulation last year when I was trying to catch up on my New Years resolutions? I think I’ve done pretty well this year overall. It’s been a lot of work but I’ve accomplished so much in so many ways. Oh sure, I’ve been the world’s suckiest blogger.

Oh yes, it’s true! But hey, I have to have something to work on, don’t I? Hmm, that just gave me this idea. Hmmm.

Hope you don’t mind a heaping helping of random!!

1. It’s one of those drive-the-kids-all-over kind of days.
2. And it’s another hang-out-at-the-roller-rink kind of night.
3. AND oh boy getting dinner out, quite the adventure.
4. Lori’s been out sick for three days and I wish I could e-mail her.
5. I used my home treadmill this morning, first time in months!
6. And was supposed to have an abs class, but that was canceled.
7. So I found myself with nothing to do at lunch time!
8. But did I eat with my so-called RLF’s? As if!!
9. Whenever I do, I end up wishing I didn’t, so there you go.
10. I wanted to put away half my manicotti, but I couldn’t.
11. It was just normal size and half of that left me hungry.
12. It’s dinner time now and I could eat a horse!
13. That wouldn’t be healthy, maybe just a pony. :)=

I swear, I could title every post I write that way.

But seriously, what the… heck? (hi, Jen!)

And where does my brain go? Maybe that’s the better question. This weekend was so incredibly busy. Drive kids this way and that, gotta shop for this, gotta make sure the youngest doesn’t find about about you-know-who.

OK, so the brain thing. All weekend I’d be doing stuff, all this stuff — and yes, I got my entire honey-do list completely honey-done! I’d be doing all this stuff and think, oh I’ve gotta blog this, I’ve gotta write this down! And can I remember any of it? NoooOOOooo!!

I should just text stuff to my blog and see how it looks when it arrives. I think it would probably have no title and then at the end it would have some kind of ad for my phone company. Maybe if i just tweak the plugin that handles incoming e-mails. Hmm, like I’ve got time for that!

Oh but tomorrow I am going to MMS-mail my Wordless Wednesday post and with any luck the new pinger I’m testing over at Linky Land and with any luck the widget will show up automagically — fingers crossed!! And oh yeah, then I have to implement e-mail pinging because Blogger doesn’t let you add your own ping server, DUH.

Well I’ve gotta run off and jump in the shower and have some break…

Oh that reminds me of one of things I was going to write about — LUNCH! I kind of think the guy in the cafeteria has it in for me. I don’t know why. Anyway, he’s always giving me a TON of food, like he’s trying to sabotage me, too! But you know what I’ve been doing — see, I’ve got this rice cooker and you can’t make just one serving of rice, and I’ve been eating a whole can of beans and that’s gotta be too much. So I’ve been making my lunch and cutting it in half and putting the other half away in the fridge for the next day. Well yesterday I got lunch in the cafeteria cause I was hoping to run into cafe-guy cause he lives right near Lori and she was out of the office and I was kind of curious, I hope she’s not sick! Anyway, I didn’t see that cafe-guy but other cafeteria guy gave me just as heaping a serving of their vegetarian peanut noodly dish, so the first thing I did was put half of it in a container and throw it in the refrigerator. Out of sight, out of my belly, right? Yay, me!

Speaking of all that, and aren’t you all sick of this? I’ve got another couple pounds before another milestone, and then a few more pounds from that is the lowest recorded weight I reached back in 2002. And then a few pounds after that… well, you’ll just have to wait for that announcement! I can’t wait, my own self! :)

One might consider it some kind of perfect storm.

My son called me at work and asked if he could have a couple friends sleep over so they could work on a project for school. Let me get back to you, I told him.

Then my (younger) daughter called me and asked pretty much the same thing — could she have a friend sleep over? But your brother wants to have friends over, I told her.

That’s perfect, she said, and she was right. What’s one more mouth in the spaghetti pot?

So two mouths turned into three. And then three mouths turned into four — my daughter invited twin friends to sleep over. They’re small, though, don’t eat much.

My older daughter was herself away for the night, so there we were with three 13-14 boys and three 9-10 girls. The boys worked on their project and then scurried upstairs to instant-message their other friends. The girls listened to music for a while with all of the jumping around that seems to go with it.

Wifey and I watched some TV, caught up on our 30 Rock and Project Runway. Around 9:00, all was well. I’m going to bed, I told all of the kids.

The boys must have gone downstairs to the playroom to watch TV and sleep. That left the girls upstairs in my daughter’s room. And all was quiet enough. By 9:45, I think, I’d fallen asleep.

Whatever the boys were doing was totally quiet. But the girls were right next to our room and… not so quiet. Around midnight, the girls were making enough noise that they woke Wifey up, and so Wifey woke me up. Knock knock knock — would you girls keep it down, please? Which I guess they did.

Usually I’m up at 4:30, but I ended up sleeping in — 6:45 was the next thing I remember seeing on my alarm clock.

Was I crazy to let both kids have friends over? Maybe, but it’s better to get it over with on one night than to have it spread over two. But next time, I think the boys will stay in my son’s room and my daughter’s noisy entourage will be located as far from my room as possible.

In the barn, maybe? :)

Why does life have to be so complicated? All I want to do is be healthier. OK, we all know that my motives have not always been as pure as Ivory soap.

I did not have a crumb of pie or cake over Thanksgiving weekend. I am just the picture of will power, you must think. Well it wasn’t easy, let me tell you!

So then why, a couple days later, am I faced with a big box of bon bons? White chocolate, the kind I absolutely love. Wifey gives them to me “for my birthday” — HELLO, did you not notice I didn’t eat any yummy pies? I demanded that there be no birthday cake?

I was just telling Lori yesterday how I’m probably going to give them away in one of the yankee swaps that always take place this time of year. There will be one at work, and now that I think about it, that may be the only one. Anyway, that’s my plan — don’t open ‘em, just dispose of ‘em.

Of course I’ve come to my senses since then and realize that if I go to the holiday party at work, there will be all this food there — yummy party food, the kind I just cannot say no to — and I’ll be sunk.

I’m trying so hard. I’m working out so hard.

And then today, I get home — oh, and my son had an unexpected late practice, so I had to get something to eat. I drive by the Burger King so many times a day and it smells so good — so what do I do? Get a pocket at d’Angelo instead. And then later my son hadn’t eaten so I stopped and got him a shake and fries — torture, I tell you!! And I didn’t even collect a fry tax!

So I get home, and what does Wifey present me with? God bless her, we were in this store the other day where they sell Toblerone and I said that if there was a white one I might buy it. But that was really just talk and I wouldn’t have gotten one. I’m always doing that. Well she gave me this white Toblerone. I don’t know what to do. I know I don’t want to eat it.

What if it were something else? What if she starts suggesting we get Chinese takeout? I don’t think I could resist that, I really don’t.

Always busy, and here I promised I’d do more posting! So here’s a mashup^† of everything I’ve got going on.

• Winter has arrived with a vengeance — and by “vengeance” I mean that the schools were closed for no good reason. I guess the roads were a bit treacherous — and by “treacherous” I mean that there was snow on them.

• I’m sure this “winter storm” would be much worse if Wifey and I hadn’t spent a couple hours winterizing our porch. It used to be a three-season porch and now, at least temporarily, it’s a zero-season porch.

• I feel so proud to be an American today — if I’m not mistaken, we’re now the only developed nation that hasn’t ratified Kyoto. Read all about it here and swell with pride your own self!

• My parents were in town yesterday and took me and Wifey out to brunch. I’ve been avoiding buffets like the plague, but we’re talking about on of the best restaurants in the area. I’ve always been a sucker for sausages and I had zero of them. I had none of the carved meats, except for the little bit of roast beast Wifey put on my plate. I skipped the desert table and I hadn’t had any of the pastries, so I had a croissant, which was super fabulous. And overall, I felt I did pretty well reigning in my gotta-get-your-moneys-worth tendencies.

• Oh yeah, here’s another winter tip for all of you cold-climated people with basements. I was thinking about putting up some plywood and insulation over that big gaping hole in my basement — the steps up to the bulkhead. So there we were at The Home Depot and I sauntered over to the insulation department, thinking I might find just the thing. And I did, it’s a 4×8 piece of form board, a couple inches thick, and just the right size for the bulkhead opening. I wedged it in place and I swear you can feel the difference. So there you go.

• Youngest Daughter just called me here at the office and asked me to print some photos off of my laptop for a project she’s doing at school. I looked through my iPhoto library and all of the pictures of me are very before-esque, shall we say. So I fired up PhotoBooth, the Mac’s little picture taking program, and I took a picture of myself. Now would somebody please tell me… WHO THE HECK IS THE HANDSOME DEVIL IN THAT PICTURE?? :)

^†I know, it’s not really a mashup but I really hate that word — I hate all things that are both trendy and completely devoid of meaningfulness, and I just want to try and hasten its demise. I figure it’s got a limited number of uses before it just crumbles under its own weight. :)

Update Not logged in? ::whistle:: You just might want to dust off that password! LOL, on second thought, maybe not! :)