On My Way, Everything’s A-OK….

It’s Thursday. You know what that means. Please check out my weekly blog group, comprised of a fantastic group of ladies who will dazzle you with insight on various topics.  After reading my post, check out their blogs as well, listed under my Blogroll section. Just click on:

Froggie (Tracey): One frog’s distinct voice on the world around her.

Merry Land Girl (Melissa): Tales of a suburban mom who likes to talk about pop culture, books, Judaism, family, friendship and anything else that comes to mind.

Mom Of Many (Susanna): One Mom’s perspective on life, raising kids, knitting and other unrelated topics.

For this week, Melissa was all sorts of nostalgic with her topic choice: Share your favorite memories of “Sesame Street” or talk about the role it has played in your life.

Like many others born in the 70’s, I was raised on Sesame Street. I remember sitting in front of the television set, singing the theme song and eagerly anticipating my favorite parts of the show. Some of my own personal highlights:

TEENY LITTLE SUPER GUY:

 

I just loved him. I thought he was so cute, and I thought it was so cool how he’d disappear into cupboards or counter tops. I can still hear his gravelly little voice as he would sing: “You can’t tell a hero by his size, I’m just a teeny little super guy”.

COUNTING PINBALL MACHINE:

I always looked forward to the pinball, and the counting. I’d count right along, and groove out to the music and belt out the special number of the day.

OSCAR THE GROUCH:

What kid doesn’t appreciate a character who can say whatever he wants and doesn’t get into trouble for it? Oscar was grumpy, mean, scruffy and never apologized for it, although you’d see his tender side with his best friend, Slimey. You knew beneath that gruff exterior he had a heart of gold.

ELMO:

Nolan LOVES Elmo. He doesn’t watch a whole lot of Sesame Street, but he appreciates the times he sees Elmo on the screen. He gets so excited! We have many books with Elmo in them, and he almost always picks books based on whether Elmo is on the cover or not.

I have a new found appreciation for the puppeteer of Elmo, Kevin Clash. I watched Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey and I was in awe of the man behind the puppet, and felt very emotional when he talked about how children with cancer request to see Elmo as one of their lifelong dreams. It’s such a beautiful thing, what Kevin is able to do for millions of children everywhere; putting a smile on their face. Making them laugh. Helping to make them feel loved.

That’s what Sesame Street is all about. It’s an educational show, but children feel important, and special when they watch it. I think it’s so hard to find good quality shows for children on standard channels, and Sesame Street is available to everyone, no matter if they have cable or not.

I have great memories from when I was a child, and I’m glad I can pass that on to my boys.

 

Netflix- Not Just For Movies

I’ve got a ton of work out DVD’s.  Cathe.  P90X.  Miscellaneous trainers showing me the latest pilates moves, etc.  And I’ve done them all.  I love them all.  At times though, I need a change.

Recently my husband sent me a link to an online article regarding cheap ways to stay fit.  One suggestion that was listed was to check out the programs on Netflix.  I never even thought to do something like that, but so far, I’ve done two different work outs using programs Netflix has to offer!

As it is, my husband and I don’t have cable.  The shows we enjoy watching can be looked at on Netflix, Hulu, etc.  It just blows my mind that I never thought to use Netflix for work outs videos.

And Baby Makes Three….

Nolan decided to grace us with his cheery disposition around 5:30am. I thought I’d heard him squawking in his crib, but decided it must have been some sort of audio apparition. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. And, Kevin and I had planned on getting a quick work out done BEFORE the boys woke up.

I quickly fed Nolan, while Ben (the soon to be six year old) still slept blissfully in his own room. And, living by the old adage, “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em”, that’s just what Kevin and I had to do!

We really only had time for three core moves this morning:
SQUATS:

Now, we did perform this while holding Nolan. He was sitting right on my lap, which added an extra 13 or so pounds to the move.

PUSH UPS:

Now, I placed Nolan underneath me while I did these, kissing his forehead while I did it, and counting to him. He really got a kick out of these!

STOMACH CRUNCHES:

I did something like this, only I had Nolan on my legs, and holding onto his arms, crunching, and counting.  This was his favorite move!

We did a few sets of each move, and by that time, it was time to get Ben up, and start the rest of our day.

Circuit Training

In life, if you do just one thing… all the time…. you get bored.  Not to say I don’t enjoy running.  I’m passionate about it!  But, you have to take a break from your passions every once in a while, or you get stagnant.

And in comes circuit training.  Circuit training is mixing high intensity workouts with resistance training, and you complete different “circuits”, or rotations.  So, you start out with a minute of jumping jacks, let’s say.  Followed by a minute of leg lunges, then a minute of push ups, completing the circuit with a minute of sit ups.  You’ve completed your first circuit.  And then you move onto the next one.  Whatever that may be.  What’s nice is that you can invent your own circuits, so the work out is far from boring, and you can create it to be as challenging as you want it to be.  You don’t even need machines or a treadmill.

This morning, Kevin and I completed Cathe’s Boot Camp work out:

I noticed there were longer videos posted on Youtube of not only Cathe, but many others that have circuit training work outs.  Just a nice little way to save some money.