A long time ago I started doing Bikram yoga. If you're not familiar with it, that's a series of 27 poses done over an hour and a half in a very hot, humid room. I liked it OK; it was challenging but not impossible, and I could feel some benefits from it fairly quickly.
Then I let myself get talked into doing a Bikram Challenge: For $60, you could attend 60 Bikram classes – six times a week for 10 weeks. The catch being that if you attended fewer than six classes in any week, you were out, and your money forfeit. My friend and I figured that even if we did it for a couple of weeks, we'd get our money's worth (classes were normally $12 per session).
My friend dropped out after three weeks. Somehow I managed to do the whole 10, including one hellish week where I doubled up on classes three days in a row because I was going out of town.
Oh my god, I had
six-pack abs. And my skin looked great. And I had no more lower back pain from hunching over a computer all the time. And I was so friggin' sick and tired of Bikram yoga that I pretty much never did again.
I've been reading another blogger's account of doing a similar challenge, and it's interesting to see a different perspective on it. I'm thinking, hmm, I really need to get back into some kind of disciplined exercise routine (beyond walking the dogs). Yoga is possible, but it's not going to be Bikram. Maybe pilates? Or maybe I should try a mix of weight and interval training.
What do
you do for regular exercise?
Yesterday was the annual summer poodle party, with close to 50 people and 30 poodles in attendance. The photo session was a little chaotic. The photographers (many) and their dogs were on one side of the yard and the photo subjects on the other. So, I'm not in the photo. 
I don't watch TV. I don't watch it for many reasons:
Then I discovered Hulu. I had learned about "Glee" when I read an interview with Jane Lynch (she was so awesome in "40 Year Old Virgin"), so I watched the pilot on Hulu. Then I did a search for other pilots and discovered they had almost all of "Lost." Then I heard about "Community." And "Modern Family." I watched some episodes of "Scrubs." 
I used to have a lot of trouble sleeping. Even as a baby, I wasn't much of a napper. I remember it being particularly bad when I was working swing shift in South Dakota. I didn't have TV, so I got a lot of reading done, often until the sun came up. 
Passport prices are going up on Tuesday, I just found out. I was thinking I could slide under the wire on renewing mine, but I won't have all the name-change documentation ready in time. 
With the addition of another household to this household, my haphazard storage solutions and packrattiness have undergone serious re-evaluation. When you're one person with a fair amount of space, it's easy to just let stuff spread and fill it. 
This is just the bottom half of that rack – the top has been out in the garage.
Yes, at last all that wine is getting a proper home, thanks to my handy Sergeant.
And we'll now have more space in the laundry room for the overflow of our combined kitchen goods. 
This is a photo from Friday night. Our friends have a place with a rooftop deck overlooking downtown and the ballpark. I took along fixings for mojitos and we enjoyed watching the post-game fireworks.
Exercising the dogs is a good way to avoid other responsibilities. It's a necessary interruption. Walking in town is good exercise for all of us. Going to the dog park is better for the dogs and worse for us. The dogs run; we stand and watch. Or we stroll. Or wade. 
A long time ago I started doing Bikram yoga. If you're not familiar with it, that's a series of 27 poses done over an hour and a half in a very hot, humid room. I liked it OK; it was challenging but not impossible, and I could feel some benefits from it fairly quickly. 
