You know you are an Optimimist if….
Here is another list from the funny lady with kids, the Ironic Mom! ~ Can you add to the list of signs representing an overly optimistic view?
# 6. You think they are actually cleaning their room.
OUR LIFE IN 3D
The Home of Daddy's Day Dare! ~ I am just trying to stay above water
TRAVEL: Machu Pichhu
In my first Travel post I wanted to offer one of my favorite travel stories, visiting Machu Picchu, high up in the Andes Mountains (cool name for mountains, huh?) Ms. Iconicallyrare offers some great pictures of her visit and an introduction to the mystique of this civilization.
This was the first post I saw of Ms. Rare and have been following ever since. She does an interesting blog on themes from Travel to Fashion and Elegance. Thankfully, for this boy, she does Male Fashion posts too. She does not post that often, maybe once a month. But I saw she owns about 18,000 followers so just replying to comments must take 4 days!
Give her blog a look. And check out these great, vivid travel pictures from a land I would love to visit but may never have the chance.
And please feel free to offer any great trips of your own! We all can’t travel to every great foriegn land so why don’t you tell us about one of your favorite places!
On my trip to Machu Picchu, this is what I saw upon first approach…A fortified Inca town in the Peru Andes Mountains, thought to be built in the 1400s (exact date unknown).
The invading Spaniards never found Machu Picchu during the war and so the Peruvians hiding away and thriving here remained safe. The site was not discovered until 1911 (Can you imagine discovering a place like this?). Machu Picchu is noted for its dramatic position, perched high on a steep-sided ridge. No one is certain about why the inhabitants here appeared to suddenly evacuate this seeming paradise.
A Mental Holiday
In contrast to the way my old crinkled body was feeling at the beginning of the week, I did manage to find my way to the gym Saturday morning. It was kinda vital given the state of things.
If you have been following along you may have picked up on my being seduced by the dark side of Christmas Cookies. Yes, we’ve been having a torrid love affair since pre-Christmas. I am due for a few detoxifying runs over the weeks ahead.
I did a few quick rounds around my upper body circuit. I did what I could given my neck and back. I spent a few long minutes stretching and headed over to the treadmill.
If you want to click on the video below you can get a feel for the pace and intensity I try to muster when I hit the treadmill. My running workouts usually are at a fairly quick pace. Like another blogger put it, I’m a runner not a jogger. I usually try to knock out 400-450 calories over a 30-35 minute run.
But, since those cookies told me I need to burn considerably more calories then 450, running like somebody was chasing me on the treadmill was not what I needed. My actual goal was to drain 700-800 calories over an hour long Saturday run. So, you can kill the music on the above video. I need to switch gears a bit.
As you can imagine, trying to keep a decent pace for over an hour takes a bit of willpower; or a good running Ipod. Since I can’t muster the willpower of OneFitMomma or Fitness 43 anymore, I needed a different plan. I felt like a good run on the beach instead, despite the fact that a typhoon type storm was hitting our fair city.
I pulled out my vacation Ipod, filled with the same images I dreamed of on my back in Jamaica and Curacao.
Do you feel like a mental Holiday? Click on the video below of some coastal background music and. let it play while you read on, and see if it works for you. Hopefully you can get a good visual of the beach, sounds of Caribbean drums, feeling the warm sun on your face, and a gentle tropical breeze in your hair. Maybe you too can slip away to the beach for a run; or whatever. If you are stuck inside, with some ‘weather’ going on outside, you may need this…”a great beach tune with a magic kind of medicine that no Doctor could prescribe”.
If the video has the feel of a small beach party on the banks of a tiny tropical island that’s because that’s where its at. ~Let the imagery begin!
Yes, these Jimmy Buffet songs had me running on the beach last Saturday, bronzing in a lounge chair, or sailing on a summer breeze; skipping over the ocean…like a stone. Like him or not, Mr Buffet is a genius at painting coastal images via words, melodies, or Caribbean drums.
The songs I went running down the beach with Saturday were the same ones I listened too on those tropical trips before. I pictured myself running on the beach, running all the insulation off my 6 pack.
I heard this next song about cabin fever that made me think of my family up north and friends north of our border as he sings “I want to go where its warm!”….
Speaking of cabin fever, if you have been cooped up this weekend and you want to get up and move, here is a song that may do it for you….on the beach
‘Fins‘ is one of my girls’ favorite Buffett songs. They do “Fins to the left, Fins to the right” in the car while we are driving. Yep, she’s doing it behind me now…practically moving the curtains with the fun she has acting this one out. It may be the closest Buffett ever gets to physical fitness!
If I haven’t lost you and you still want to continue on this mental Holiday, here are few songs you know that he covers in his tropical way. I think they illustrate, again, how Jimmy can take any song and turn it into a care-free, salt on your lips, sun in your eyes casual getaway.
Brown Eyed Girl:
Take the Weather With You:
So that’s how I went for a run on the beach Saturday, to some place warm, where I’ve been before. I did run off 725 calories on the run. I hope I can take another long run on the beach next weekend too! Come on along!
What songs do you have that take you some place far?
Once Upon A Time….
Once upon a time, there lived this queen and a troll. Their first home together had everything they needed at the time, a big backyard, nice wooden cabinets, a fireplace, running water, and a roof.
But over time that house began to sink into the murk of their surroundings. The walls began to buckle. The lovely wood started to age and then decay. Their running water only ran cold…in the middle of winter. And their neighborhood may not have been the best place to educate the fine young minds of their two Princesses.
Something had to change!
They dreamed of a castle facing the sun, overlooking green fields and a calm pool of water. But every step they took they found their foot landing in something else entirely!
Yes, that seems to be the craziness of our lives lately, made to feel like an ogre as society keeps dumping on me. (sniff, sniff) I think I told you about everyone needing more money from us last week. Undaunted, we are still moving forward.
We moved all the furniture and pictures out of our living room, bedroom and hallways last weekend. So I have no computer to do posts. Plus I have to sleep in our Inlaws room this week with that ol’ forgotten mattress. I’ve had a kink in my neck ever since! You know the one…the one that makes it hurt to turn your head, lift things up, or roll your eyes at your wife. Yea. Moving is just not a fun thing to do!
But my blues are not limited to the moving. Here are the other Top 5 things that have eaten at me the past two weeks:
- Caught the flu – for 18 hours but then an infection lingered for 10 more days. (cough, cough)
- EVERY TIME I come home from work I get beaten up by my girls! Sure it all starts innocently enough with screams of, “Daddy’s home!” But then it all goes south as my oldest one crinkles her nose and threatens, “I’m gonna bust you up!” while my youngest takes great joy at “whackin’ my bottom”. She takes great pride at this skill. ~ No respect!
- Our youngest didn’t go to sleep until 4:00am last Tuesday. (!) She kept on creeping out of bed into our room and her sister’s. Of course if she’s not sleeping neither are we. Yes, we put her back in bed and threaten with bloody heck. But then I find myself lying awake, waiting to see if she gets out of bed again. These kids today! I never did that…I think.
- This week the girls are forced to sleep together, with us moving into the spare bedroom. They, unfortunately, take this literally and our youngest likes to crawl in bed with the oldest…while she’s sleeping. Dylan came to get us at 2:00am. Then at 4:30 we heard the giggles and the chatting start again…while I lay awake with a crink in my neck and now muscle spasms from being too old to sleep on Grandma’s mattress.
- Did I tell you I come home every night only to get beat up by my oldest and get my bottom whacked by my youngest and then there is no TV or computer to retreat to in order to
unwhine/ unwind before we go to bed in that nasty old bed that has no support what so ever for your neck and spine while I lay awake, in pain, wondering what ‘this’ night is going to bring after all the lights go out and planning a stategy for how I am going to get ot of bed in the morning??
Phew! That’s been life the past two weeks. But don’t get me wrong…..I don’t want to sound like a (big) whiner with these moving ‘lows’! There have actually been some bright ‘highs’ these past few weeks as well. Take a look:
- I can still beat my two girls at ‘Simon Says’. Did I tell you my TV is packed up this week? I upped my game!
- I had to run to get milk and a few other things mid-week last week as we ran out early. I was actually quizzed by my wife on ‘how to shop’ to make sure I was getting the best deal! She IS a savvy shopper! Guess what? I failed! (meaning I didn’t have to go)
- We made reservations for our summer vacay last week. It’s at a great family resort on the Jersey shore miracoulously spared by Sandy.
See future posts on this at the new “Travel Blog” I am trying to create on my site…with YOUR help.
4. Our favorite house we were looking at, one of the one’s with the pool, was just reduced $14,000 last week.
5. I was trying to explain the flow of hot air and cold air to Dylan one particularly cold night. I told her how the hot air rises to the secong floor and the cold air from there comes down to our room below, making the heater have to run harder. Dylan explains, “Its OK Daddy. I love hot air and I love cold air. You see, when you mix them both together it feels great!”
6. Last week I had two region wide shouts , via email, based on some ideas I had and my performance. The emails were circulated all the way to our region VP’s. This week I was asked to join a corproate panel of 20 executives in our Logistics and Distribution departments focused on innovative ideas to save money for the company. The Director inviting me to join the panel tried to explain that it is an old panel set up 5-6 years ago. I reassured him that I would fit in quite nicely as I was kinda old myself!
7. Working for this snack food giant, I set Personal Bests in Christmas Cookies consumed, topping out at a full box last Monday(sigh). 
The second PB is I have been on the cookie wagon ever since. I have not had one single cookie, although there are still plenty around!
8. Its been warm enough on a few days where I can hop on my bike over lunch and ride a few miles down to our favorite development and shop for houses. That has been a lot of fun and kinda vital based on #7 above!
9. My post last week, Party Time, set a record high for ‘Likes’ in one day.
The party crew: Dylan, holding Ariel in her PJ’s, Eric, and King Triton
~ OK, the record was just for my blog, not all of WordPress.
10. And while my blog has not seen a lot of fresh or creative ideas run across these pages the past two weeks (see #’s 1-5 in the section above) I actually did 3 Guest Posts for some of my favorite blogs the past few weeks, as well as having a few reblogs to other sites. Kinda cool I thought!
11. Last week, our nanny wanted to take our two little cherubs to a Valentine’s party at the First Grade class her sister teaches. A big reason for doing this is that she wanted our 4 year old Dylan to READ to the rest of the First Grade class. She says Dylan already reads better than most of the first graders there. (Yeahhh!)
Speaking of Guest Posts, I am trying to create some Travel interest on this blog. We love to travel as a family, not doing it nearly as often as we would like. So I wanted to invite YOU to do a Guest Post on one of your favorite trips you would like to share.
Or, if you already did a post on a great trip, please let me know and I can reblog it here. I know some of you are real good at writing these travel stories. I think its one way for all of us to see parts of the world without leaving the comforts of our own computers. Think about it! Where would you like to share?
Thank goodness for the Justice League!
Did you hear there is a good size meteor heading our way today? Yes, a meteor, about 150 yards in width will travel within 17,000 miles to our planet. That’s closer than our moon is and within the satellites belt that controls every way we talk to each other on this planet.
This calls for the Justice League!
This is just the sort of thing we have come to rely on the Justice League for. To make a decision. Take action. And keep our world safe from harm.
Because the Republicans say doing any sort of action would cost us trillions of new jobs.
The Democrats say sending any sort of resources to deter the meteor would cost our economy’s GNP zillions of dollars and increase to the spending budget deficit.
Thank goodness for the Justice League to take care of us!
At least we have one real group we can have faith in to look out for us. A group we can count on to do the right thing and get the job done.
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