Meet Motley Schu!!!

Texas Independence Relay is March 5-6, 2011.  Chuck and I will be handling 3 of the exchanges.  Our last name is Schumann so we are team Motley Schu.  What will the runners see when they arrive at the exchange?

Rock on, party people.

 That image will be on a banner hanging from our tent at each exchange. LOL  We get tee shirts so it's all worth it.  Plus it'll be fun to experience the relay without having to actually run it.  I love the Guitar Hero guitar and Chuck's guy-liner. I think the only time I've ever seen him dress up is when he wore a priest costume and I wore a nun costume and we went to a bar to drink and bless people.  It was Halloween.  Lots of fun.

Speaking of running, I haven't.  First I was sick.  Then I got better but it was freezing outside.  Then my sinuses attacked me.  Then my right hip started acting up again.  I went to the chiropractor and she said my lower back was out of alignment.  She got a big crack out of it and it felt better.  But now it's bothering me again somewhat.  Darn hip.  I keep inviting it to the party and it doesn't want to play.

I have been keeping up with my strength training though.  I'm starting to see a big difference because of it.  I can pull off my size 16 jeans without unbuttoning them.  The size 14s fit terrific.  I can wear my daughter's jeans and some of her tops (that's her purple top in the Motley Schu picture and an old XL black shirt I had in the closet).  I can feel the muscles under my protective layer of fat. Slowly but surely that fat will melt off.

The new dumbbells are working out fairly well.  It's nice to have a variety of weights.  I'm weak on lateral raises but can lift a lot more on dead lifts.  The dead lifts scare me a little because I'm so afraid of hurting my back so I am very careful with form.  Which reminds me: Chuck's back is still hurt from bringing in the weights. :(  Poor guy.  We've been to the doctor and the chiropractor.  It's better but it's still hurt.

The weights have two slides per dumbbell.  Just adjust to the desired weight and lift. They go up to 55 pounds.

 It holds plates to the dumbbell depending on how much weight you selected.  5 pounds=no plates. I think this is 15 pounds.

 I got them at Academy for about $200.  What I don't like is that they can be kind of awkward on some exercises.  But I don't want to have a mountain of dumbbells so this is an acceptable trade off.  The cool part is that they look like I'm lifting a ton of weight because of their size. :)

Last night Rachel started her cake decorating class at Michaels.  She was the only person who signed up!  That's good though because she got the teacher's undivided attention.  She came home with two pretty gum paste flowers.  We had to eat the unpictured pansy flower to see what it tasted like.  Guess I should have taken a picture first. :)

I'm so proud of my little baker. I can't believe my baby is 15 already.  Time goes by way too fast.

I guess I should give myself some tough love and go to the Y and use their treadmills.  It seems that treadmills aggravate my hip worse than running outside.  Maybe it's mental.  Maybe I'm mental!

Keep warm out there.  It's supposed to rain here then get down to the 20s.  Icy roads in Houston is never a good thing.