Fitness Tuesday

by Carol8 Comments
Here's my plan, more or less. Since last check-in, I finished Week 2 and am starting Week 3. Tuesday I did 30 minutes of Yoga and took the dog for a mile walk. Wow, the yoga made my inner-thighs sore. It's been a while since I've done it. Wednesday I was supposed to do 30 minutes of cross-training, but I must have read  the plan wrong before I went to the gym. I ended up doing 60 easy minutes on the elliptical on the "hills" setting. Thursday I ran 2.3 miles and took the dog for a mile walk. We also went fishing, but the only exercise to that is walking up the hill from the parking lot and down the trail to the lake. Saturday I ran in the Debbie Green 5K in Wheeling. My time was 32:41, 19 out of 36 in my class. You can tell I forgot to "finish" my workout on my watch right at the finish line. Not a great time...
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At the Movies: Lucy (2014)

by Carol7 Comments
Title: Lucy Director: Luc Besson Writer: Luc Besson In theaters: July 25, 2014  from Universal Pictures Genre: Sci-fi/Action Rating: R Rating: 2½ out of 5 stars A woman, accidentally caught in a dark deal, turns the tables on her captors and transforms into a merciless warrior evolved beyond human logic. Lucy is not a good movie, but since we were using a gift card and just having a night out since Amber's out of town for the week, it was fun enough. First, you have to overlook that it's not actually true that people only use 10% of their brain, a "fact" the movie is based on. I'm okay with overlooking that, although I do think they could have made more or less the same movie with a different base theory that wouldn't have immediately turned some people off. It's like the movie is stuck. It wants to be an action flick, but how much action can you really have when the main character can control people, objects, is...
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Thursday’s Tale: How the Goats Came to Hessen

by Carol3 Comments
"How the Goats Came to Hessen" is a German tale told in Sagen Gebräuche und Märchen aus Westfalen und einigen andern, besonders den angrenzenden Gegenden Norddeutschlands by Adalbert Kuhn, 1859. The version I read was a translation by D. L. Ashliman. It's a bit like the "Three Billy Goats Gruff," but this time around cleverness wins rather than pure size and strength. Hessen is apparently a lovely area, but it was surrounded by giant forests. As any reader of fairy tales knows, scary dangerous things live in the woods, in this case it's wolves. Many goat families who attempted to enter Hessen were devoured by the wolves. One day a week little kid goat was trying to get to Hessen. Almost immediately after he entered the woods, he was met by a wolf. The kid told the wolf that his mother was coming, and the wolf decided to wait and eat the mother who would be bigger and make a better meal. When...
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Bucket Lists: Guest post by Jo Sparkes, author of The Agben School

by Carol6 Comments
Today, I'm happy to welcome Jo Sparkes, author of The Agben School. She's talking about bucket lists, a fun topic. You can actually find my list here. Bucket Lists by Jo Sparkes   Now life, for me, is full of mysteries.  Why didn’t the U.S.A. – Germany World Cup Soccer Game end sooner? Or a perfectly clean ten year old boy be sent to his spotless room for twenty minutes and return with grimy hands? How can a husband expert in making computers stand on their ear not know how to turn on a coffee pot? But this bucket list concept was a huge mystery. Trying again, I was sharing my latest with Carol. Carol’s the type of friend who’ll laugh at you to your face, and defend you behind your back. A true friend. She was laughing now. “You’ve got ‘finish your novel’ and ‘repaint the garage’.” Now I was truly confused. After all, Carol had write a novel on her list. That’s where I got it...
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Fitness Tuesday

by Carol8 Comments
Here's my plan, more or less. Since last check-in, I finished Week 1 and am starting Week 2. I switched Tuesday and Wednesday. I went swimming on Tuesday for about half an hour. Wednesday I went out to the gym and did some of the weight machines, concentrating on my legs. Thursday I ran the 2 miles. Saturday I ran 2 miles, give or take. I was running on the sidewalk on Main Street and a guy on a Segway pulled out of one of the parking lots right in front of me. he was taking up the whole sidewalk and was going just the wrong speed, too fast to pass easily and get comfortably in front of, and too slow for him to get some distance between us. I ended up turning around an taking another route, but my watch wasn't charged, so I can't actually say for sure how far I went, but based on my usual route, I'm guessing...
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