Glass of wine and bad TV*

This will just be a quick entry, because well... It's late and I've got to get up earlier than usual in the morning.  This week and last week are the weeks of massive work bonding (just us girls though, the boys aren't usually up for bad TV and gossip- lame).  
Last week was greasy food, gossip and a late night cookie run on a Tuesday, where Jenni and I shared our love of fried pickles with the group, if you haven't tried them- do it, you won't regret it.  The only bad thing about thing night was that the sports bar we were at couldn't get any of the hockey games on which was no bueno in my book.  
Thursday was mac and cheese night at Jenni's, where I once again pigged out on good food (not as greasy, but enough that I needed an extra long swim to feel good before I ate all that food) and learned how to shuffle in preparation for a concert that she is going to.  Learning how to shuffle, all six of us in a small living room made things very interesting, was hysterical.  There are many kinds of shuffling that one can do, and we attempted to learn many of them.  There's picture and video of us learning on my phone, hopefully in the next post or two I'll put some of them up.
Tonight was The Bachelor night at Natalie's, who happens to share my love for bad, horrible, TV.  We both adore the Bachelor, The Real Housewives (but not the Atlanta one), Grey's, Private Practice, just to name a few.  She had a nice spread of mini pizzas, cheese and crakers, chips and salsa and some wine from Trader Joes for us to snack on as we watched the train wreck that is the girls on The Bachelor.  We found out that we are spot on when guessing who goes home, correctly guessing both girls, and preparing for the drama that goes down next week.  During the commercial breaks, we gossiped (naturally!) about anything and everything.
And upcoming on Thursday is a concert with another girl from work, which should be fun, especially since I haven't been to a concert in a couple of years.  Sometime in the near future will be a brunch and mimosa adventure, and a trip out to Mesh, and many, many more outings.  Thank goodness I enjoy being around a majority of people that I work with!


Parting thought for the evening-I wish Blogger would remember what font you use in your entries; I HATE that it always defaults to Times New Roman, because, well, I hate most serif fonts (this could be a total geek moment for me).  Am I the only person that is bugged by this?


*Yes. I am of legal drinking age.


#np: Apologies- Grace Turner & The Nocturnals

2:01's

As I mentioned earlier, I had my kids do 2:01's as their main set at practice tonight, and as I (correctly) predicted, I was not their favorite person after announcing the set.  Before I get to why I'm confused as to why they dislike me so much after this set, I feel like I need to give some/my background with this set.

2:01's are a set designed to "separate the men from the boys" (as my old coach would put it).  You have 2 minutes and one second to complete 100 metres (freestyle, of course); but to make things a bit more difficult, you are assigned an interval that falls within that 2 minutes and one second.  For example, you would start out on the 1:35.  Now you have one minute and thirty-five seconds to complete 100 metres, and you also get to rest during whatever time is left from making the 1:35 interval and the 26 seconds until the 2:01 and you leave again.  Except every time you leave, the second interval gets knocked down by a second, so 1:34, 1:33, 1:32, so on and so forth until you can't make your interval.  Theoretically you're supposed to get one second faster each time and you get one second more rest each 100 metres you swim.  Confusing, right?  It was the first time I swam it.  It's a set designed to test your toughness.

This set has always been one of my favorites, and when "sprinter hell practice" rolled around( this practice was a warm up, 2:01's, fast 50's dive and pukes, then a long warm down), I was excited.  My coaches figured out that for some strange reason the more tired I get during the course of practice or a long meet weekend I actually get faster, so 2:01's are right up my alley.  They also tried to make me as tired and fatigued as possible during the 2:01's, so instead of starting me at a manageable interval like the 1:30, they started me at the 1:45 interval.  Starting at that interval meant that I did about 15 more 100's than everyone else (for you math geniuses out there that means I got an extra 1500 metres.).  My personal record during this set is 48 x 100, which means I took my interval all the way down to 57 seconds before I couldn't go any faster, which also means I was getting over a minute of rest within the whole interval.  The last 10 x 100's you do are all mental, because you want to stop and rest, catch your breath, and float, it's all telling yourself "one more time and then you can rest".  I have always felt that liking this set/practice meant that I have a couple screws loose.

So back to why my kids practically hated me for announcing this set, part of the reason is because I've caught them slacking off quite a bit during practice (and this set, you can't slack without it being super obvious), but to show them that hard work pays off and to be mentally tough when things get hard.  But this was a "big, long, scary set" according to them.  I had to explain that this, like all other practices was survivable and they just had to keep telling themselves that, even when the intervals started getting tougher.  I don't know when my baby swimmers (they're not really babies, but I still see them as that because when I was in our senior age group they were just starting out in the bronze group on the team) got so lazy/scared of working hard and it frustrates me.

/end of my swim coach rant for the day. I apologize.  

#np: At Last- Etta James

Restarting the blog

After much deliberation and thinking, I've decided to restart my blog, with a few changes.  Most of you know this from my sophomore year at Butler when I had to take an Intro to Drawing (the exact course name escapes me at the moment, but it was a pre-req for a graphic design class I wanted to take) where our professor made us take pictures of our drawings for that week and post them on a blog so he could grade them; I won't subject any reader to the progression of my drawing skills throughout a semester.  But 3 quick facts to get the restart going:


1) I have a serious love affair with blazers.  I wear them all the time, no joke.  People always tell me that I look nice and dressy when they see me with one on, and it always feels weird to tell them that blazer + whatever else is completely normal for me.  

Case in point- flower print dress and
my favorite navy blue blazer at a
wedding last weekend

Next up on my need to buy blazer list is this one: http://www.jcrew.com/womens_category/blazersandvests/noveltyblazers/PRDOVR~71042/71042.jsp .  Also, if anyone finds the J.Crew hacking jacket in a size 6, please send it my way (I'll make you ice cream as a thank you).


2) I love baking and making desserts.  So if I end up talking about whatever I just baked the other day for an entire blog post I apologize in advance (but while we're on the subject of dessert, I made an awesome batch of cake batter ice cream with sprinkles and cherry frosting mixed in.  Very labor intensive, but totally worth it.).


3) I love social media, and how it can be used to promote an organization to a greater audience.  I think that there are so many great and awesome things social media can do, which is why I'm so passionate about it and am looking into jobs where I can put all that I've learned to use (one day all those conferences and classes that I've attended will be put to use outside of my own personal use.).


That's all for now, I have to run to the pool and coach my kiddies, they're doing a set of 2:01's today so, I won't be their favorite person this practice.  But I may write later about mac and cheese night at Jenni's where we learned (or tried) to wiggle/shuffle/whatever it's called. 


#np: MoneyGrabber- Fitz and the Tantrums