Clarification

I know a few of you who pop over here, also have access to my darling husband's blog  and I wanted to make a quick clarification since my sweetie isn't into retractions or editing.

The reason I left Facebook is NOT because I'm the only kid out, though I do often feel this way, I know WHY I feel this way and also know that it's completely unfounded and when I stop to think about it, I get (got) invited to lots of places, all the time. My gals do a great job of trying to include me.

Everyone has that one Achilles's heel and for me, it's invites to social situations. As a little girl, I was always the only kid in the class either not invited, invited and ignored or I'd receive an invite only to be told that they invited me because they had to but would prefer if I didn't show up.

Can't tell you how many parties I got to hear about on Monday at school.

As an adult, this is the one thing that I'm insanely insecure about. Over the summer, it seems one of my pals invited a whole lotta mutual pals to her beach house and I only knew about it because I saw photos on the dreaded Facebook.  Not gonna lie, my feelings were super duper hurt and I started to question myself and get all manic and wacko and insecure.

When I hear of a get together, or a party that a friend had, I turn into that little girl in 5th grade who really wants to hang with the cool kids and is heartbroken that I wasn't cool enough to be a part of the party.

The rational adult in me KNOWS that no one is ever obligated to invite me everywhere and even the Queen of England doesn't get invited to all the parties but the irrational side of me wants to burrow into a hole and die and wants to slam doors and take all my toys and go home screaming "FINE! I DIDN'T WANT TO PLAY WITH YOU ANYWAY"

It's not cool, it's not adult but acceptance is something I've struggled with my entire life and I've learned as a defense mechanism to just say "Fuck you all. I'm outta here". I also need to get better at being a better friend and not expecting everyone else to pick up the phone or text me first.

That part, the reaching out part goes to my insane fear of rejection. Listen, you don't like me, that's totally cool. I'm not for everyone but if you like me and I think we are cool but you never have time for coffee or a play date when I suggest it or invite you out, that's going to make me INSANE and I will go into the "take my toys home" mode. It appears I'm an all or nothing kinda gal. I'm working on it. I really am.

HOWEVER, it's not really why I deleted Facebook. I was updating my profile every 30 seconds with total crap and nonsense. I was like a crack addict with the way I checked it all the time. I realized that most of the over 200 friends probably had my profile on ignore and the ones that didn't I'm sure rolled their eyes at a lot of my posts.

I was a huge pain in the ass and started to become really uncomfortable with myself and that fed my insecurities about acceptance. I realized I was on this icky path of self destruction, tearing down my own ego with what I thought others were thinking of me (When in reality I have no facts to base it on).

More than a few true good friends have asked where I went and I love them for that.

Where did I go? I went to Twitter. Listen, you can't take a Heroin Addict off of Heroin cold turkey. Most of them get Methadone. Consider Twitter my Methadone. I'm sure in time, that will disappear as well and I will be left with my solitary ways and I will become a total recluse with 900 cats.

So the short answer as to why I left Facebook? Call it a confidence breakdown. Will I be back? Don't know. I don't really miss it.

In the meantime, you can find me right here or on Twitter at CupcakeHussy.

Renvations part deux

Things that in renovating my apartment would make me insanely giddy and happy...

The Brooklyn Holiday Experiement

In a scant 13 days and a handful of hours, I have to have 400+ white chocolate gingerbread blondie bites ready for the general public and judges to taste.

Rather than answering the question "What are these" 400+ times (Really, I think I'd be able to say "White Chocolate Gingerbread Blondie Bites" only about 20 times without getting stabby.) I'm going to be making a sign. I also need to make a sign for when I have to leave my table in the hands of my invisible assistant to either go to the bathroom or up on stage to feed the judges.

Once again, the trouble is I don't have a program that does graphics.

Thwarted by technology...

Stair Training

I was at a bit of a loss as to where to train with stairs for the Climb to the top event but then I remembered that when Hoboken Boot Camps was at a studio upstairs at the Monroe Center he had us running up and down a back staircase.
The staircase is a little creepy because I don't think it's used too much but I think it would be a good place for me to start working out with stairs.
Here is what I found about training and the benefits of stairs. I know I'm alone in the event itself but if anyone wants to pretend they are doing the climb and come and join me on the stairs, I'm going to start training in the middle of December. I'm going to start with two days and as the event gets closer try to do 3 or 4 days.


Stair Climbing

Five 2-minute sessions of stair climbing can give you a heart-pumping workout equivalent to 36 minutes of walking, according to a new study. When researchers tested 15 healthy but inactive young women (average age 18) for 8 weeks, those who worked up to climbing 199 steps in about 2 minutes, five times a day, posted a whopping 17% increase in cardio fitness levels compared with women who did nothing. The climbers also lowered their bad LDL cholesterol by 8%, an improvement that can cut heart disease risk by up to one-quarter. In a follow-up study, 29 older men and women (average age 40) did even less stair climbing (145 steps in 2-minute bouts, three times a day) and boosted their cardio fitness by 8%.


"I believe on average six weeks of running the stairs at least two times a week will do, if you're on a regular fitness program," she said. "Just to make it up to the top, start now and begin at least once a week on stairs and build a 10 percent weekly increase. Work your way to three times a week on the stairs and continue to cross-train on other days."


Benefits of Stair Climbing

Stair climbing burns about twice as many calories than any other sport or activity.
Because it is a grueling sport, stair climbing requires less time to do the same intensity of a workout. For example, if you run 30 minutes per day, the same workout intensity could be achieved with 15 minutes of stair climbing.
Stair climbing is a total body workout. It makes the arms stronger with the use of the arms pulling you up with the use of the rails (or banister) which is allowed and encouraged. Stair climbing especially builds muscle mass in the legs, including the quadriceps and calfs.
It is an aerobic sport as it works the cardio-vascular lung package.
Stair climbing becomes an anaerobic event after about 10 to 20 flights of stairs as it strains your aerobic capacity to hold an intense load on the cardio-vascular package to the top of a very tall building.
Since the contest is vertical, even a 70 story race up is not a total sprint and requires endurance, sprint, and muscular strength to complete in a fast time.
Stair climbing is excellent for cross-training. Runners, swimmers, cyclists, rowers, soccer (or football), and others find stair climbing to be helpful with its total workout. Cyclists, skiers, and rowers are especially attracted to the muscle mass in the legs which can be developed with stair climbing.
Stair climbing does not require the purchase of any expensive equipment. It can be done almost anywhere. You could practice stair climbing at any public place that has many flights of steps, including, but not limited to: your apartment building, condominium building, your house stairs, the stairs leading to a public building, the library, or at a gym.

METHOD

Do a sufficient warm up by stretching out the legs, calves especially. Only go up 8 to 10 flights of stairs MAX. The method I used was referred to as "marching up, running down". Going up the stairs, plant your entire foot on the stair, don't just put half of your foot on the stair with your heel off the stair. Pick a pace and stick to it, although this is tough at the beginning and even tougher at the end when calorie intake is low etc.... With your arms at your side comparable to how a runner holds their arms, march up the stairs. On the way down hold onto the rail and run down. Don't go so fast that you could trip and fall - it's not a race. There is no stopping at the top or the bottom of the stairs; when you get to the bottom immediately turn around and march back up, when you get to the top immediately turn around and run back down. I used to keep a bottle of water at the top (eighth floor) and hurriedly grab a sip before heading back down. You get into a groove after a while and don't seem to miss a beat. I also wore a pouch around my waist to put my keys in and hold my walkman. Stair climbing without music will cause you to lose your mind, guaranteed.

Bike Schedule

So it's now officially WAY too cold to take the bike out anymore and she will sit and wait for spring.

I've got a tentative list of events I want to attempt next year. I'm sure I'll round this out with other events.

February 28th, 2011 - Climb for a Cure (66 flights)
May 1st 2011, - TD Bike 5 Boro Bike Tour 42 miles
June 5th, 2011 - Tour De Brooklyn 18 miles
June 18th 2011 - Ride to Montauk 30 miles
July 17th, 2011 - Bike the River Valley 35 miles
August 28th, 2011 - North Fork Century
Septemeber 10th, 2011 - Bike the Night

Renovations

Husband casually suggested today that perhaps we should consider taking out a loan and renovating this apartment.
Silly man has to know that's like waving a red flag in front of a bull.
My other blog started when we were house hunting and I dedicated lots and lots of posts to renovating the place we were in (Which was identical to what we have now)
Here's one. To find more search for posts around this time.

@#%$@#%

So after two weeks of planning my outfit and plotting my course for this bike thing today I'm taken down by my tailbone.
Sitting for all that time yesterday (5 hours total) aggravated my bruised tailbone and sitting today is super painful.
There is no way I can ride my bike without being in constant pain the whole time.
Hopefully I'll catch the one in spring.