WHAT'S GOING ON

First and foremost, I stopped drinking soda. Yay me. It's funny cause everyone thinks there must be some complex reason why. But there's not - I just know that soda isn't good for you therefore, I'm refraining. I never buy it for home and rarely when eating out but I was drinking 1-3 sodas per day at work. So I've ditched the soda cans and picked up a water bottle instead. I hit the gym last night for the first time in an embarrassingly long time. Of course, I've lost a lot of my strength but I usually bounce back pretty quickly. Now that spring is around the corner, I'll start rollerblading again as well. I want to start hiking too so if anyone has tips/suggestions, let me know. I'm also considering doing a 5K at some point (walking, of course). If you can't tell, I'm on a bit of health kick. This will require some better time management skills on my part but I'm sure it will be worth it.

I spent the weekend at Sugar Mountain in North Carolina. Before I get into my ski adventures, I have to mention what has to be one of the nastiest sandwiches I've ever heard of. The Wendy's in NC serve what's called a Carolina Burger - a hamburger topped with chili, then COLE SLAW, then mustard and onions. WTF? That's sounds like a gastro-intestinal disorder waiting to happen. But hey, to each his own. Now back to my ski weekend...

All in all, the weekend was pretty good. I took a private lesson one morning and the instructor had lots of helpful tips. I hear skiing in Europe is nothing like skiing in the States so I need all the pointers I can get for my Swiss Alps trip. There were several beginners on the trip so spent some time skiing with them and trying to give some helpful advice. What turned out to be one of my pupils' last run of the day can only be described as lemony snickets*. At one of the girl's insistence (I shall call her WonderGirl), we headed up to the "intermediate" part of the mountain. The plan was for me to give a few strategies then they would head down the mountain one by one with me bringing up the rear. Before I could finish the strategy session, WonderGirl took off - straight down, full speed with nary a turn. We were all marveling at her daring (or her insanity - LOL) until we saw her turn into a puff of white. She had wiped out at full speed! I stated that I was going to ski down to check out her and for the others to stay put. I got down the hill and she was okay, albeit ski-less. I looked back up the mountain to motion to the others and saw WonderBoy coming down full speed with much wobbling and flailing. Before I knew what happened, he had wiped out too! He hit the ground HARD and was coming right at me. There was no time to reaction. I got knocked over like a bowling pin.

Okay, gotta do some work. I'll be back in a few to finish the story.


*an unfortunate series of events