**newsflash**

i do have core muscles!

because i have done the yoga tapes, the aerobics tapes, and the walking workout tapes, i know that somewhere deep inside the middle of my body, i do have core muscles. they are sitting there, under a layer of fat, happily atrophying as i do my treadmill workouts only. ok, maybe not happily atrophying, they might be a little jealous of my incredibly strong leg muscles i suppose. i have not tried to ignore them, i have done the occasional sit up, but if i don't see results after a couple of days and i can TOTALLY tell i've been doing sit ups because i ache, well, i stop.

enter wii fit into my daily routine. i decide to do the entire yoga routine one day, then the entire strength training routine the next. and i add my 10 minutes of advanced boxing, 10 minutes of super hula hoops, and 15 minutes of advanced step plus some soccer ball heading, some table tilting, some penguin sliding, and some down hill skiing. it's a fun and varied way to exercise. add my treadmill and walking to and from school, you'd think i'd be super skinny. but i think i have a really slow metabolism instead. oh well.

anyway, where i was going with this... the last month, my core muscles have been getting some use. i jokingly told kelly a few nights ago that i'd have a 6 pack in the near future. i honestly have seen a little more resistance when i poke myself in the gut lately. well last night, getting ready for bed, i happened to glance in the mirror and notice that my rubenesque hourglass figure looked a little different. huh? i said. upon closer inspection, i saw the VISIBLE results from my wii fit time! my waist line has noticeably pulled in a bit. the hour glass is getting more hourglass! it's not something you'd see glancing at me, but dang if that's not incentive to keep going, then i'm a fool! i went to bed a happy woman last night. so i'd like to thank my wii fit trainers, pony boy and brad. you guys were right!

this is brad, letting me know he's there for me:


and this is me, as close to downhill skiing as i'll ever get:


on another fun note: yesterday i had the pleasure of meeting ronda palazzari. it's such a small small world. we live like a mile from each other. honestly. quick story on how we met. i had noticed that she lived in the same town as i do from her master's article in the january memory makers issue. i was going to find a way to contact her, then heather prins posted on the SC boards that ronda had lost her sister. i felt kind of awkward stepping into her life at that point, but then remembered how much i'd needed friends of any kind when i'd had my heart failure, so i left a few comments on her blog about how if she needed to talk, i thought we lived close. the picture on her blog has a fence in the background that looks just like my backyard fence, so i went on that assumption. well she emailed me and we planned a meeting at starbucks. it was funny, we'd both researched each other's blogs to find out information. it was so much fun to compare notes, see who we know mutually, and share thoughts on our kids' schooling, my daughter will be going to high school next year, her's is already there and her son will be attending there as well. we talked and talked (far too much about me), i was a few minutes late to my dentist appointment, but it was totally worth it. we decided we'd both passed the test and shared phone numbers and declared we must get together again. :) this is such a fun business, i love that i've made such amazing friends because of it.

and now i must end. i have to go do strength training with (hopefully) brad. i've had pony boy for the past week and i'm always so distracted by his little pony tail. ugh. then i get to have lunch with h and a. they've let me back into the fold. i was too busy last month and didn't do any friend things. i've missed my friends.

oh, i'll leave you with my layout i did as a lift of my good friend houston. i did it for the OLW challenge as well.


eta: it was pony boy today...