45' on the Precor elliptical, the kind without pushmipullyu handles. Therefore its overall calorie count is lower, because it assumes you don't use your arms. I wish it didn't have stationary* handles, because who needs them? You don't have to move your feet and therefore should be able to balance okay. Where "you" means "I am inconvenienced." For the first 20' I used five-pound hand weights, but they had wide disks at either end and would tangle with each other and the handle-frame of the machine if I moved my arms freely. For the second 25' I used eight-pound weights of a different shape, but I felt the additional six pounds so much that I can't honestly say "for the second 25'." But I'll get there. Also on the arm one, I can keep my rpms around 160 without much of a struggle at whatever level I was doing, 12 or so, but on this one at the same relative level (60% difficulty), my average was about 140. I tried in a few spurts to push up to 175; these spurts lasted about a minute.
*I had "stationery" in here for four days. Those paper handles get so mushy!
Then weights.
Biceps curls, still with 10 pounds in either hand, 3x15.
Bicep curls with a dumbbell, the same 30-pound bar I've been using but apparently atrophying with, because I did a set of 5, of 7, and of 8. Lordy.
Seated row, 3x12 @ 60.
Tricep rope pull down, 3x12 @20. Twenty!
Incline press, 3x12@ 20. Twenty!
When I first started working with the trainer I apprised him of my distaste for shoulders that begin at the ear. Perhaps that's why he hasn't given me any shoulder work yet. Today I did shoulder press for the first time, not particularly writing down my weight. I think 25 pounds.
It might be possible to have a house without accumulating material weight and outlaying oodles of cash but I have no idea how.
When Haitch first saw the couch, the first and for months only furniture in the living room, she asked, "And what do you do on the couch?" I cracked up.
"Um, you think about how nice a rug might be, or a reading lamp. You could listen to music," I might have added, because RDC might have put the stereo into the built-in shelves around the fireplace as soon as the tree came down last year.
In October--six months later--we bought the rug, and now we have ordered a bookcase and coffee table (it calls itself a Mini Mule Chest; a larger version is our bureau) and a chair. We should actually have them in three weeks. Also we bought wall lamps (which aren't on the site) for over the couch and a floor lamp (the taller one in the shorter one's finish) for next to the chair.
The wall lamps I am not sure about. Just because they came from Restoration Hardware does not mean they are all they need to be. I need to keep that in mind. Their cords will hang down the wall, which spares us having to wire and rebuild that wall but means that cords will hang down the wall.
We popped into Z Gallerie. Most of its stuff is too glitzy for me, though some is appealing. They had a violet velvet chaise longe a while ago that I lusted. But velvet attracts more dust than twill, shows it worse, and shows wear more: it would only make me sad. And it would look affected, as well as ridiculous with the piles of laundry it would inevitably accumulate. Z Gallerie has prints, including the two now in the dining room, that we occasionally agree on. But we didn't have measurements for the space over the mantel or the proportions for over the couch between the lamps.
Another measurement we didn't have was for our heating register covers. Right now we have brass covers throughout the house and we are gradually replacing any metal with brushed nickel or pewter. So we want these but we didn't know whether in 10" or 12".
We waxed excessive, I know. We opened an RH credit line for the 10% off lure and had a gift certificate from my sister and had a little bit of play money from RDC's bonus and a tax return, plus all the money I saved buying my contact lenses on the cheap. So really all this stuff was nearly free.
