I'm on FIRE and other random stuff

I am on FIRE! I have read the Book of Mormon everyday. I am keeping track of my dwindling money. I gave my students a break--no weekend homework (You're welcome moms!)And bonus resolutions: I'm blogging again and have been exercising (more on that later).

Most people wouldn't like a birthday in January. I haven't always liked it because, growing up, it was difficult to have a pool or beach party in January even in California. A January birthday is right after Christmas (duh)so it sometimes gets passed over after the holidays. But as I've gotten older, I've liked my birthday month much better. There's something about a birthday at the beginning of the year to help one make a fresh start. 

My birthday yesterday was tons of fun. I ate some ribs at Texas Road House. We celebrated Lindsey's 18th as well so thankfully when they brought out the saddle, she sat on it and I could stand behind/next to her while they sang to us. Such fun! BTW Facebook is great for birthdays because I get so many good wishes and hear from people I haven't in a while. I loved all my birthday wishes but the ones from my students in Oklahoma really made my heart smile. I love those kiddos!

Besides blogging, my other bonus resolution is to exercise more. My knees have really been bothering me lately and I know that riding the stationary bike helps them. So far I've exercised 5 out of the first 7 days of the new year! Go me!! I go to the Y to workout. The Y, for all you Mormons out there, is the YMCA not BYU. I'd love to be able to work out at BYU but it's a bit of a drive!  I'm not as concerned with weight loss--that would be a definite added bonus and help my knees in the process--but I really want to strengthen the muscles around my knees. And for whatever reason, the biking helps them feel better. The weird thing I still can't figure out is why I've been stiff in my neck and shoulders. Am I gripping the heart monitor bars too tightly and tensing up my shoulders? Who knows but the first few days, I felt the biking effects more in my upper body than in my legs. 

When I first started exercising at the Y a couple of years ago, I brought my iPhone and listened to music while I biked. Lately I've been plugging into Pandora and listening to comedy. Pandora is great. If you haven't discovered it, you should. It is radio on the Internet. Until they blocked it at my school, we could listen to commercial free radio at school. Anyway, on Pandora you can listen to more than music. I listen to comedy! I know, cool huh! They have a PG Comedy station. And I also put in favorite comedians like Jeff Foxworthy and Pandora creates a station for me. I keep my comedy clean obviously but I do get into my comedy. I'm sure I look a little mental riding the recumbent bike giggling to myself. Who cares? I'm too old to care what other people think. And that's the best thing about getting older--I'm losing all self-consciousness. While I ride the bike, listening to my comedy, I watch TV on the large screen in the sky. I know it's weird to watch TV while listening to something else but I think it's more appropriate to watch the TV than to watch the other exercisers. So today, while biking and listening and watching (TV, nothing else) Sports Center came on. Sports Center is the BEST to watch with no sound cuz you can still tell what's going on. Side note, that is how I got into watching tennis on TV. I was in France on the business trip with Roy years ago. French TV does not include English subtitles or have dubbed English shows. So when I was in the hotel room before going site seeing, the only thing I could watch and understand what was going on was tennis. I could figure that out just fine. Anyway, watching Sports Center this morning, I noticed an interesting phenomenon occurred. They were showing basketball highlights (I hadn't realized that the basketball strike was over but I've been busy.) Apparently there was an amazing play the commentators were describing and also apparently the commentators couldn't just describe and show the play. Apparently American audiences are stupid and couldn't follow the play with description. So to aid the description of the play, Sports Center highlighted the players to show the progression of the play. But they weren't highlighted with a spotlight or anything like that. NO, a beam came out of the top of the screen landing on the player in question as if to beam him up to the mother ship. The beam remained on the player throughout the duration of the play. It was the most bizarre way I've ever seen to show a sports play. I remember John Madden and his drawing marker superimposed on the football play as it unfolded. John had a knack for description which was only aided by his possessed marker drawings on the screen. The beam up highlight just made me feel like I'd found a lost Star Trek episode. I also can't believe they didn't develop the beam up spotlight when MJ was still playing. I mean this beam is perfect for MJ whom all sports announcers felt could walk on water, ascend to heaven, heal the sick, and cure the ill, all while dunking a basketball from half court without ever getting called for traveling. I bet you couldn't tell I'm still bitter about the Jazz loss to MJ's Bulls. Back to the beam, I don't know who was involved in the beam play I saw on Sports Center but you can bet Kobe will be getting a lot of beam-time on TV. He's another sports figure who can do no wrong in the eyes of the sports media. He's probably keeping a low profile what with his marriage break up. His wife is seeing dollar signs every time Kobe is shown in highlights--cha ching! BTW, I hope she gets an obscene settlement from him. I know that's not a very nice thing to think but I'm almost old now so I don't care much. I'm also on FIRE with more blog topics to come!