Tag Archives: Christmas

Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas?

December 7, 2014 Kim 90 Comments

Have yourself a merry little Christmas.

We wish you a merry Christmas!

When you think of some of the traditional songs, many of them use the word Christmas.

However, it seems like everywhere you go people are bothered by making sure they say the “correct” thing. But…..what is correct???

I grew up saying “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.”

Over the past number of years I’ve found myself saying a mixture of “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Holidays” just because. This year at our event venue we have had a mix of people booking Christmas parties/celebrations and holiday parties.

I don’t think that there has to be a “right or wrong” way to express this!!!

I know that many people think saying “Merry Christmas” is offensive to people who don’t celebrate Christmas but Ben Stein summed it up pretty well – it isn’t offensive, it isn’t a slight against another religion – it is just what it is.

We have been to Hanukkah with friends and loved learning how they celebrate!!! I think it is great for our boys to see different things and parts of other religions.

I know that some people choose not to celebrate Christmas for reasons beyond religion. I think that it is just like everything else in life – we should do what we do and respect what other people choose to do.

What do you say – Happy Holiday, Merry Christmas, or something completely different?

I will probably always say Merry Christmas and hope that it never offends anyone because that is not my intention!!!

Happy Monday!!

Kim

Fitness, Foam Roller, Push-Ups

The Best Part of Christmas

December 26, 2013 Kim 57 Comments

Today’s 44 was nearly a fail!!! Not long ago I did push-ups using my foam roller for the 44 of the day. The wonderful and super fit Jody suggested trying the same move but with my feet on a stability ball. Well – I’m always up for a new way to challenge myself so today I tried it!

I could not even hold the pose with my toes on the ball so I just went with the tops of my feet and still struggled!!!

This move was beyond HARD!!! I struggled and by the end my push-ups were barely going down – I’m going to have to work on this move for sure!!!

My neighbor’s daughter (she is a few years younger than me!) is still in town and she came over to workout again this morning – so much fun!! Today we did Cathe XTrain – Tabatacise!!! This is definitely a great workout. After we were done Erin asked about a challenge move (since we did the plank hold last time) so we did 10 Manmakers.

(This video clearly wasn’t today since I had blond hair!)

Yesterday we hosted our first annual Governor’s Row House Christmas Day Open House.

We had no idea if any one would come or if it would be just the 4 of us hanging out over there.

It turned out to be a really fun day. Some great friends came and hung out most of the day!

kid's playing HeadBandz — kid’s playing HeadBandz

The boys (Chris, Jordan and Hunter) played trumpet and cello tunes for us! Plenty of food (lunch and dinner!) and fun!!!

Last week I put fliers in our 3 tenants mail boxes and 2 of them came down for awhile (the 3rd, a young couple, had gone home to Chicago!).

Kelvin lives on the 3rd floor by himself (he is going to be 65 next month) and called me around 5 to see if we were still there. He came down, brought Champagne to share (nice!), ate and visited until we started packing up around 8.

He had been by himself (other than his cat) all day and would have spent the entire day that way if he hadn’t joined us. After a couple of hours he said he felt like he had an adopted family!! That comment made my day because all along, my whole goal had been to help make someone’s Christmas better than it might have been otherwise. When he got ready to go back up to his apartment he hugged me and said it had turned into a wonderful Christmas for him!

And, the best part – on the way home Jordan rode with me (I had gone earlier to clean since we had an event Christmas Eve, too) and he talked about how glad he was that we had done the Open House!!! This is big because when I first mentioned it to Jordan he did not want any part in it.

After seeing how much it meant to Kelvin, he realized that sometimes taking the time to be available to someone is the best gift you can give. (Plus he had a good time all day!!)

Happy Thursday!!!

Kim

Fitness, Push-Ups, Triceps

MONDAY, MONDAY, MONDAY

December 9, 2013 Kim 94 Comments

The 44 today might sound easy but…..It was a falling push-up. You do the move from your knees and fall forward into a triceps push-up. Then push back to the starting position.

I tried not to round my back so much on the push-up part but not very successfully!

After a couple days break, it was another day of Insanity the Asylum vol.2. Today was X-Trainer. This is the one with a solid 4 minutes of push-ups and plank holds – super fun!! I actually like this workout quite a bit because it is 50 minutes of everything – speed, agility, strength – and every single muscle is involved!!!

Did you know that Wednesday it will be just 2 weeks until Christmas?

Guess how much of my Christmas shopping I have done?!

Actually, other than decorating, I haven’t done a single thing to plan for Christmas!!! Usually we have our family picture done, our cards printed and our newsletter ready to go by now. I think we are going to cheat on the family picture and use one from this summer –

Oh – summer time memories!!!

Jordan had an English project to do over the weekend and he was actually very excited to work on it. He had to make a movie trailer for The Odyssey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2afvGzoLCU

It is really good – I should get Jordan to help me jazz up my videos!!! I don’t know how he knows how to do all of that stuff!

Enough rambling – time to get on with this Monday!

Are you ready for Christmas or do you feel behind like me?

Happy Monday!!!

Kim

Biceps, Core, Fitness, Lunges, Plank, Running, Treadmill

Almost Time to Bring out the Trees!!!

November 25, 2013 Kim 84 Comments

Today I did another one of Allie’s moves from her Trifecta Arm video – she called this one “pick up the baby.” I called it HARD!!!!

Start in a plank with dumbbells (I used 10 pounds) – step right foot in, stand and lunge with a bicep curl – step right foot back to plank – repeat on left side = 1 rep.

44 of these and I nearly called my workout for the day done!!! (just kidding – sort of!)

I did Jillian Michaels Hard Body – Level 2. Umm….this was the first time I’ve done this part and it was a great workout! Lots of plyo moves with weights, some balance challenges and some core work – awesome!!!

I decided to get in a quick run – last week I had a great week of long and slow but every once in awhile I like to push my speed a little. I did 4 miles at 1.5% incline in 24:27 then 0.6 miles easy to cool down.

Today is deep clean day – baseboards, corners, under furniture – I can hardly wait!!! (well, that might be exaggerating a bit!!)

But, it’s for a good cause –

Some of my favorite people are coming later this week to spend Thanksgiving with us!!! And that is something I truly am excited about!!!

And then I can turn my super clean house into a Christmas wonderland!!! I’ve made myself hold off on decorating this year until after Thanksgiving and I feel like I’m missing out on trees and lights but it will be worth it soon!!!

I love having Christmas decorations all over the house!!! Christmas trees in every room and Santas galore – it is awesome!!!

Have you decorated for Christmas or do you wait until after Thanksgiving?

Happy Monday!

Kim

Butt, Circuit, Fitness

Epic Shelving Disaster!!!

January 6, 2013 Kim 6 Comments

The 43 today had to be lower body because my upper body is sore!!! I did an exercise to work my butt and quads plus a bonus core work-out!!

The move started with a front kick

right into a back kick

This was one of those great exercises where I did 43 with my left leg and then immediately did a second set of 43 with my right leg. I tried to barely tap my toe in between kicks so that I could get the extra core work trying to keep my balance.

The rest of my work-out today was the 12 Days of Fitness. Today was the final day so I decided to take it a step further – I did the entire thing 5x through! It was a great work-out!!! I did it like a circuit and just kept moving from one exercise to the next. My heart rate was way up there!!!

If you haven’t clicked over to check the plan out, here it is. (Gina at the Fitnessista always has great work-outs like this on her site!!!)

Day 12 12 Sumo Burpees
Day 11 11 Weighted Squats (25 pound DBs for me)
Day 10 10 Overhead Press (15 pound DBs for me)
Day 9 9 Lateral Lunges – each side (25 pound DBs for me)
Day 8 8 Bicep Curls (15 pound DBs for me)
Day 7 7 Triceps Dips
Day 6 6 Pull-Ups (assisted ones for me – used a step stool)
Day 5 5 Frog Crunches
Day 4 4 Toe Touches – each side
Day 3 3 Mountain Climbers – each side
Day 2 2 Push-Ups
Day 1 1 Minute Plank (arms extended)

It really didn’t take long to go through the whole set (less than 5 minutes) – the weights really got my heart rate going. Bonus – 5 total minutes in plank today!!!

Yesterday while putting up all of the Christmas stuff, I had a ~~minor~~ ~~large~~ DISASTER of EPIC proportion!!! I have a few cookbooks and all of them were on the jankity shelves in our storage room so that I could have Christmas decorations (Santas) everywhere!!!

I was stacking a plastic tub full of Christmas stuff in the corner by the shelves and this happened:

It was scary because I could see the shelves going down but I couldn’t do anything to stop it except jump back out of the way so that I didn’t get buried alive!!! Because the shelves contained a lot of other ~~crap~~ stuff and some of it was breakable and I heard that awful shattering noise over my loud screams! I had to keep the boys back because I didn’t want any cut feet in addition to the mess. They were troopers though – I pulled books out and they carried them upstairs – lots and lots of trips upstairs!!

Many hours later, after a trip to the store and more teamwork on the part of the boys and myself, our storage room looked like this:

Check out the new – STURDY – shelves put together by yours truly!

New Shelves - built by me! — New Shelves

We might have a bit of Christmas decorations – can’t help it – I love Christmas!!!

6 trees boxed & stacked1 $5 garage sale bargain tree left out! — 6 trees, boxed & stacked
1 $5 garage sale bargain tree left out!

Today I just need to get a few more of the green bins (I decided that if I had to reorganize I might as well color coordinate!!!) and then I think the room will be done!

Last night we had the privilege of watching a friend’s 6 month old little boy while they went to a winter party. Fun times!!! Always a joy to get in a little baby time!

Happy Sunday – hopefully no disasters ahead!!!

Kim

Day With KT