Winsor Pilates 101

After watching the Winsor Pilates info-mercial almost a year ago, I gave in and purchased their workout DVD for the low, low price of $9.99 with our selection of two free gifts since I had called within the next 20 minutes! It looked so easy! All we had to do was this 45 minute fat-burning workout every day for 10 days, and we would lose 10 pounds or a dress size! After that, we could work out only 5 days a week, alternating programs, and sculpt our bodies in mere months!

Well, after simply putting off starting the intense workout program for the last 11 months, we finally decided to give it a try a couple of days ago. What were we thinking? Well, Janelle and I have been trying to figure out a way to get back into shape in time for summer, and this seemed like an easy way to do it. We figured we should at least give it a try! Who knows?

So after 2 days, we are feelin' it! It's a lot harder than it looks, and wow, it works those abs! We better start shedding the pounds after this!

Yearning for Yellowstone

I know that this picture is actually of Grand Teton National Park, not Yellowstone, but it's a great picture, and only a few miles south of Yellowstone, so it works! Anyway, Janelle and I are planning a trip there this coming July, and we are so excited to experience the great outdoors in the untamed West!! And with all this cold weather we've had recently, I've also been yearning for a warmer climate--one in which I can go camping, swimming, and all things summer! But alas, it is still months before that time comes. But I can dream, can't I?

Eight Valentine's, but what did we do last year?

On this, our 8th annual Valentine's celebration, we decided to explore the downtown night life of Denver. The trip, which began with us both ordering extra hearty portions of pasta at The Olde Spaghetti Factory, was a wonderful success. We explored the adventures of the 16th Street Mall, where Chris tried desperately to get me to try on a full-fledged wig at none other than "The Wig Store," ( I refused!) and where we later ran into a friendly gentlemen who willingly recommended restraunts to us, as well as congratulated us on our engagement and ordered a horse-drawn carriage for us which we politely declined.

We stayed at the Comfort Inn within walking distance of the Colorado Performing Arts Center, and it was for once, quite comfortable. We had tickets for the Colorado Symphony Orchestra Pops performance of the Most Romantic Classics, Part Deux. Despite the location of our nosebleed seats we enjoyed the symphony immensely and are still humming our favorites from Les Miserables and The Phantom of the Opera. It was also a chance for Chris to give me my annual "What's that instrument?" lesson seeing as none of the symphonic band members were playing the ukulele. (How odd!) We rounded out the evening with late night cheeseburgers and hot wings and by watching the women's moguls in Torino. We really had a wonderful time, and were reminded once again about what a wonderful time we always have together. I love how we never get bored of one another!

At any rate, the events of this Valentine's did spark a spirited conversation about all our previous celeberations. After much wracking of our ancient brains we have been able to recall everything we have done each Valentine's, except for last year! There was the 1st Valentine's, spent squished in the back of Drew's white chariot with Mike and Becca on the way to Broomball, such fun! The second Valentine's, performing with the hula halau at the Sounds banquet, and a late night dinner in Indy at the Loon Lake Lodge-- yummy. The third Valentine's, when Chris sent a dozen roses to me in Ireland, Justin sent a dozen to Lori, and lo and behold Barrett sent a dozen to Suzanne (meaning?!). The fourth Valentine's, going to the Sounds banquet with my beautiful date Becca and eating hardened steaks at Texas Roadhouse with Chris. The fifth Valentine's, eating surrounded by children at the Rainforest Cafe in Woodfield Mall and a lovely visit from Nate and his then current babe, Ann. The sixth Valentine's, Awesome Italian in downtown Chicago, ushering Blueman Group at the Briarstreet Theater and drinks in the Signature Room with Kris and Bridgit. But last year, well that remains a mystery!

It is clear however, that many of our favorite occassions were spent with dear friends. So, even though Valentine's is a contrived holiday created for florist's and candy-maker's, I think this year, with cards from friends and from family, Chris and I realized that Valentine's is just a really great excuse to say again, "Hey, I love you, and I really mean it!"

Computer Woes

A computer crash. It's never going to happen to you. I mean, you have a fairly new computer, you have a virus checker, and you don't download weird files from the internet. It's all safe, you think, right?

Not quite. Janelle and I experienced a complete hard drive failure last week, and literally lost everything. We thought that we were doing things right, and nothing like it had happened to us before, so we thought we were safe. We knew that we wanted to save some important things on CD for safe-keeping, but it wasn't important enough for us ever to get around to it. That was a mistake!

We lost everything--all of our digital pictures from the past year and a half; all of Janelle's graduate work (literally hundreds of hours of papers, powerpoints, and spreadsheets); and just everthing else we had saved on our computer--music, programs, resumes, and more.

For a few days following the traumatic experience, we were simply in a state of shock and disbelief--how could this have happened to us! Luckily, we have hard copies of most of Janelle's graduate work(which we will have to scan back into the computer or retype--but at least we have it), but it's all the pictures that we lost that caught us most off-guard. We'd had our digital camera for just over a year, and every picture was saved on that hard drive. We had printed off a few-maybe 2% of them-and had a few that we could get back from sending them to friends-maybe another 8% of them-but the other 90% are gone for good. They have simply ceased to exist.

These were our pictures of holidays, birthdays, special events; our trip to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon (so many good pictures-that are now only a memory); or our pictures from the 5 weddings we went to this summer (Drew&Lisa's, Nate&Jessica's, Jeff&Justine's, Tiffany&Gary's, and Barrett&Suzanne's); and my trips to Mesa Verde, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, 4 Corners, Grand Teton, Yellowstone, and Chicago. I still can't believe that they are gone.

After purchasing the new hard drive, we have been able to fix our computer, thanks to our friend Mait, who is a computer whiz, but it seems to be only a shell of what it was. We had to start from scratch again. Oddly enough the only good thing to happen with all this is that our computer runs much faster again! And we now have a 60gig hard drive, versus a 40gig that we had before. Granted much of that space was never used to begin with!

So the moral of the story is: Save early and often, and you will not be sad when the piece of junk crashes.

Here we are - 1st time bloggers!

I can't believe that we're even doing this! At first I thought that blogging was kind of dumb, but the more and more that I got used to the idea, the more I realized that we should join this figurative bandwagon!

The whole idea of putting your life out for all to see is kind of intriguing--but also kind of scary! But as long as we keep our personal information out of this (ie., last names, birthdates, social security #'s, etc.), we should be fine. I'm not really worried. So here goes...welcome to our lives.

More to come soon!