Amelia

How have I not seen any figure skating/ice dancing yet? Also, ski jumping is *insane*.

Friday D. and I went out to Russia House for a belated Valentine's Day celebration. We had a good time, would recommend. Lovely atmosphere (dark, cozy, and Russian, duh), and yummy drinks (I had a Moscow Mule, D. a Sputnik, the vodka menu is extensive). We had the wild game sausages, the rabbit was awesome, and the other two were good. My beef stroganoff was very tasty (much better than the "stroganoff" my mother used to make with canned soup) and D.'s lamb was incredible, even though his blackbread pudding and greens were a little too salty.

We had a great time. It looks like a fun place to go out for drinks. The bar area was pretty noisy, but it's 4 levels so our little dining room was quiet and intimate. We went because we had a groupon. Groupon is bringing date night back! We've gone out a few times now, it's really nice. Even if some place is overpriced (Russia house isn't, an Indian place we went to earlier was) you don't feel so bad because of the discount.

Saturday I went out to Reston with ellen_fremedon and then to the curling open house, which seemed to be a great success! When I got home D. had cleaned the house! And not just the regular cleaning, but some of the annoying cleaning that I keep avoiding. It led to exchanges like this:

D: have you ever noticed that spot [that is annoying to vacuum] was really dusty?
me: yes, I notice it several times a day and it annoys me (but apparently not enough to drag the vacuum up there)
D: oh, I just noticed it.
me: thank you very much for cleaning it.
D: did you dust area X?
me: yes, when I see things are dusty I often dust.
D: I thought it was funny that there wasn't any dust there when the other room was so dusty.
me: I do stuff! Including a lot of cleaning that you don't notice. :) Thanks for doing all that dusting and cleaning the floor! clean house yay!
D: clean house yay!
*hugs*

Sunday we went to the YMCA, worked out together (!), and then joined! The only annoying thing is that the Y doesn't have a squat rack. How can this be?! Squats and deadlifts are my favorite things ever. I guess I can make do with the smith machine and dumbbells, but it's just not the same. I'll get over it, just whining a little. Am exciting to try to exercise regularly again. We've also done some cooking this week: chicken/chickpea/cardamom thing, roasted cauliflower (omg so good), cucumber salad, bean soup, spinach, quinoa, salmon. Nothing fancy, but more than we usually cook. I'm hoping we can keep it up.

Gym, cooking, and housecleaning. Our life is so exciting.

Trapeze ended last week :(

My last two classes were great in terms of fun, but not in terms of progress. I continued to work on split and had a hard time being consistent. #11 was in the evening and it was chilly. There was a family there with four kids who were fun to watch. #12 it was foggy and wet. I had a hard time with grip. I lost my grip a couple times and actually flew off the bar once. This didn't hurt but really freaked me out. I abandoned my grips and felt more secure but some combination of the time (it was a small class) and the adrenaline had tired me out. We didn't end up catching for that final class because it was so damp. Now I just need to experience it when it's 100 degrees outside and everyone is sweaty :)

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Yesterday I joined a gym in my neighborhood walking distance from the apartment. I really need to work on strength and endurance and it's been about two years since I've gone to a gym on a regular basis. Today I had a session with a personal trainer (they give you three cheap when you sign up to suck you in to personal training, a rather effective strategy since the guy today was great).

It became clear about half-way through that my body was not used to this and was not having it. I felt my muscles work, duh, but the bigger issue was that I got a queasy and light-headed. I had eaten breakfast and drank lots of water so it was really just that my body wasn't used to full-body strength exercises and was freaking out. If I go with any consistency I should adjust pretty quickly. (The trainer was great about checking in and giving me a little longer to rest and have some water, etc. He was a good combination of pushing me and listening to what I was saying about how I felt.) I finished the hour but we slowed the pace down for the second half.