Why Beauty Magazines Are Bad For You

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My life is a mess. I didn’t realize this until late yesterday afternoon when I sat down with an InStyle and an O magazine. Thank God I read them though, as I apparently have the wrong hair, clothes, mate, moisturizer, mascara, shoes, jewelry and, I suspect, breath.

Why do women read these things? The more pages I flipped through, the more I became convinced my life was lacking. While 20 minutes earlier the only thing I was craving was a piece of dark chocolate, suddenly I was obsessed with cuter clothes, oversized purses, bangles on my arm, chunky hairlights, and instigating a complete home/body make-over.

I was on the couch reading and Blair was in the leather chair across the room.

“I’ve got some good news and some bad news,” I announced, pausing on a page.

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Not Bad for 9th Grade Shop...

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Click to enlargeCheck out the beautiful bookcase my husband built me! Its installation is the final component of my writing room. I adore being in the space. I walk in instantly feel calm and inspired at the same time. Can't wait to put in some serious writing time in here.

Blair finished the bookshelves this weekend and as soon as the paint was dry I was loading them up with books. The second shelf from the top now houses my COMPLETE Stephen King collection. As these are not insubstantial books, I asked Blair as I was stacking them if the shelf could bear the weight. 

"Sure," he said. "I don't see why not."

He was silent as he watched me load more and more books on the shelf. "You know," he finally said, "Your guess is as good as mine on the weight. All I ever took was a 9th grade shop class." 

So far, so good. Click to enlarge

PushUp Challenge Check-In

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We had a crew sign up for the 100 pushup challenge discussed in last week's post here. Just wanted to check in and see what sort of progress everyone is making?

The pulled muscle in my back on Thursday set me back a bit. I'm restarting the challenge today at Week 3. I will say this... when I did the pushup series last week, it was more of a challenge then I thought it would be. I can do 20 pushups fairly easily so I didn't think doing sets of 20, 15, 18, 15, 20 etc. with a one minute rest in between sets would be all that bad. That last set of 20 though? Shaky arms, for sure. 

Not to scare anyone, but I asked my uber-fit trainer if he'd ever done 100 pushups. He said yes, then shook his head at the memory. "My triceps were screaming at me by the end," he said, and I swear I saw him give a small shudder. 

Scary... but hope everyone is still with the program. Let us know!

He Makes Me Laugh

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So yesterday I'm on the floor, doing some gentle twists and turns to help my back. I crouch into child's pose, which is a yoga pose where you sit back on your heels, arms stretched out in front of you on the floor so it appears that you're bowing. Blair came in the room.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Stretching out my lower back."

"Oh." 

I sensed he was still in the room but not saying anything. I raised my eyes and looked at him standing in front of me. As soon as I did so, he nodded at me and smiled benevolently. 

"You may rise." 

Smart ass. But he does make me laugh.