Violin Concerts

Owen had his first group Suzuki concert this last Saturday. He played Variation B of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Click here to view.

Ryanna broke away from the typical Suzuki songs and played Mosquito Dance by Ludwig Mendelssohn. Click here. They both did a great job!

My Exercise Routine

I have been a huge fan of at home exercising for almost my entire life. I seriously started doing tapes at home when I was about 15 and I never really stopped--except for the time in college when I actually went to a gym. I love to push myself really hard during a workout. I like to feel like I'm going to die and then keep going. With four kids and a busy schedule, going to the gym adds extra time that is not convenient for me at this point in my life. I have had some people ask me what tapes I do at home and I thought I'd share some of my favorites.

Remember--I like to work out for 50 minutes to an hour, so if you're looking for a 30 minute workout, you could easily do that with any of these tapes and get an awesome workout. I feel like a lot of 30 minute workouts don't get your heart rate up enough because they include a warm-up and cool-down.

My new favorite--I just did it for the first time today--Banish Fat, Boost Metabolism by Jillian Michaels. I really like to do Jillian's workouts because she is extremely real with you. When you're doing something that is hard, she acknowledges she knows she's pushing you and reminds you to tell yourself that you bought her tape because you wanted to be pushed hard. If you know her personality, you know it will be hard!

Another favorite--Bob Harper's Cardio Conditioning This tape starts out so mellow that you wonder if you're really going to be challenged. Plus, if you're at all familiar with Bob Harper, you know he has a reputation for being calm and zenlike, so I wasn't sure where the workout would go. Let me tell you that I have done this video with my sister-in-law and my husband both and they were both incredibly sore the next day. My husband was sore for five full days. If you don't squat all that often beware. There's probably about 20 minutes of continuous squatting in this video not to mention scorpion push-ups. OUCH!

This next video is a totally different type of video that I got while I was pregnant to use after pregnancy: Tracey Mallet--The Booty Barre--Total New Body. If you want to exercise while you're pregnant--and I did--it was hard to find a video that got my heart rate up at all and her pregnancy video is great, so I decided to try another one of her workouts. This is not for pregnant women. Tracey was apparently a dancer before she got into doing workout videos. This video gave me a whole new respect for my sister in law that does ballet. Holy cow!!! How long do you think you can stand on your toes, feet together and squat? Apparently I can't do it as long as I'd like to. This tape makes your legs feel like they are going to fall off. I don't like the way the video feels like it was filmed from too far away for a lot of the shots, but the exercise will have you dripping in sweat. You'll need a sturdy chair and some light weights and you'll probably find yourself wondering how it's possible to do everything she does, but then you look at her six pack and you know you must have to workout hard to get that.

If you're more into pure aerobics, I love: The Firm: 500 Calorie Workout. For those of you who do exercise videos or have done them in the early 90s you will be familiar with The Firm. They have a lot of exercise videos. I love this video because it doesn't require you to use any equipment that you'd have to buy from their company--you only need hand weights and a mat. You do alternating cardio sequences and then you do weights. She ends the whole thing with ab work. I love that the very last cardio segment is the hardest on the tape. A lot of tapes start to taper you down as your cardio is ending. This tape makes you work the hardest when you are ending your cardio. I do have to confess that she has you do 32 push-ups in this routine and you lunge and lunge and lunge, but I modify the push-ups--I always do--and trust me, modified push-ups will still rock your upper body when you are doing that many.

Back to those Biggest Loser trainers--The Biggest Loser Cardio Max is a great cardio workout. I love this tape because it's one that you can grow with--though I always do the max--but you can design your own workout if you'd like to. A lot of these tapes have that option, but I really like it on this one because you have a 6 minute warm-up with Bob, 20 minutes with Bob, 10 minutes with Jillian, 10 minutes with Kim Lyons (remember her?) and then 6 minutes of cool-down with Bob. This cardio really gets your heart rate up and I love to do a segment of it if I do another tape that is only 40 minutes and I really want to push it, I'll do Jillian's 10 minutes and feel strong.

Now I have to say that I have not done the whole P90X series, I've only done their Plyometrics workout, but it is tough! Plyometrics is jump training, so you can imagine that jumping while doing anything is going to get your heart pumping. This tape will make you sweat, but he gives you frequent recoveries, so it's doable. I do find him rather annoying though, so I would never want to do this tape in my frequent rotation.

Back to Jillian. No More Trouble Zones is awesome! It's the companion to Banish Fat, Boost Metabolism and it's great. You really work those trouble zones--triceps and legs. It's a slower pace feel than some of her other tapes, but you feel it and I love the mat work at the end.

Other tapes that I have and really love: Tae-Bo II: Get RippedAdvanced Workout is an oldie but a goodie. You will be sweating and feeling your legs when it's done. I also love another one by Billy Blanks called TaeBo Ultimate Abs/Butt. (Just like the other TaeBo workout tape there are two full hours on this tape and you will feel your abs the next day). Lastly, back to Jillian with The Biggest Loser Last Chance Workout. I look at the size of the people doing these exercises and then I know I have no excuse to not exercise. This too can be broken up and done in segments, but you'll feel it no matter what.

Phew!!! I love to push myself and I'm always looking for a good workout. What do you do?

Craigslist: A Success Story

The time had come for us to sell our 2003 Ford Taurus. Let's say it had seen its better days--no Air Conditioning ("in Arizona!!" I hear you gasping in agony), one rear window would no longer do its job and the side of the car had gotten a little too friendly with our van on more than one occasion. Not to mention that Derek had been rear-ended a couple of months ago. AND, did I mention it's a restored salvage title? Don't get me wrong, it still got Derek from home to work and back again each day, but that funny noise one of the belts made wouldn't stop and the 20 miles to the gallon in gas was a bit mean to our pocketbook.

Being the champion craigslister that I am (I just made that term up), the duty fell to me to investigate Kelley Blue Book and see how much moola we could expect to see from selling off the car. Blue Book said that for the year of the car, with the mileage it had and IF the car was in "fair condition," I could reasonably expect to earn $1,575 in a private sale. Well, as you can imagine, our Taurus didn't quality for the "fair" title, so Derek and I talked it over and decided we'd be lucky to get $1,000 for our troubles. Tuesday night I posted the photos on craig's list and the price I wanted and didn't think anything of it.

10 minutes later I received a frantic text asking if I still had the car. I giggled with Derek (Okay I giggled, Derek chuckled 'cause he's a man) and we laughed about the person's urgency. I texted back that we did indeed have the car "still." While I was sending the text, the cell phone rang with a person asking the same question. In fact for the next twenty five minutes, I couldn't really talk on the phone because it was ringing so frequently with calls and texts that I couldn't understand the person on the other end of the line. Finally, I put the phone down--literally 25 calls/texts within that time period--and told Derek, "We have to relist the car. We're not asking enough." I had at least three people offer to come over "right now!!! I have the cash!!!" and it was 11 o'clock at night! People started offering $1,100 and then $1,200.

So, I pulled the listing and relisted for $1,700 just because...well, why the heck not? I thought this would cull our buying pool and help me get some sleep. When I woke up, I had 10 texts waiting and 3 emails and 2 phone calls. I texted everyone back letting them know that we had raised the price to $1,700 and I had two groups that were still interested.

The first guy to show up was named Umberto and he looked the car over really well and then tried to offer me $1,250, but I already had someone who had offered $1,300 without even having seen the car, so I told him it had to be $1,300. He agreed and then he got in his car and I loaded the kids up in our van and we all headed to the bank, so I could get the title notarized. While at the bank, in the middle of the notarization the phone rang with the other interested party asking frantically if I had sold the car yet. I told him he had 5 minutes and it would be gone. Umberto wanted to give me the money and have me give him the title while we were at the bank, but I told him that I had someone else coming to look at the car, so I'd meet him back at the house. He said he needed to do something at the bank and he'd meet me back at my house.

Both Umberto and a group of three Mexican men pulled up at the same time. One guy from the group ran over and threw 13 100 dollar bills in my hand and turned to Umberto and said, "It's over. Go home! We bought it!" I asked him how much he had given me and he said, "$1,300." I told him that if he was merely going to match funds then the car went to Umberto, 'cause that was what he had already offered. The group of men quickly consulted in Spanish and Umberto stood by me listening quite intently. Right before they walked over to counter, he said to me, "I'll give you $1,350." The spokesman from the other group said, "We'll give you $1,350." I told them that Umberto had already offered that much. That made them upset and they declared, "He's listening to us!!!"

Umberto then told me he'd give me $1,370 and the group said they'd do $1,400. Umberto said he'd do $1,450 and the group said they'd do $1,500. Umberto then offered $1,600 and that is when the group of guys decided to call his bluff. "Let's see you pay her then." They were sure he didn't have the necessary funds, but he whipped out 16 100 dollar bills and placed them in my hand. The other group had reached their maximum and they declared him the winner.

$1,600 late, I say the real winner was me!