After months of fruitless longing, I have finally acquired not just a Wii – which was a chore in and of itself – but also my whole reason for wanting a Wii – Wii Fit!

I’m not much of one for reviewing things because I feel ridiculous doing it, but I just wanted to share that I did 35 minutes today of strength training, yoga and balance games and I hurt in ways I was not aware I could hurt.

And here I thought my daily meanderings to the mailbox counted as exercise. Tomorrow is going to be awful, I can just tell.

Anyway, it’s so much fun! I’ve always wanted to try yoga, since I have such a hard time relaxing it seemed like something I would get a lot of benefit from. Earlier this afternoon I was doing the tree pose and Warren goes, "You seem to be well suited to yoga, I hope you’re not insulted by my surprise." or something very like that. I suspect he was commenting on my outstanding natural grace.

OK, fine, or my obvious lack thereof. Anyway, it’s nice to be able to try it out without publicly humiliating myself. So, Wii Fit gets two thumbs up from for that alone, let alone the fact that I can slalom, ski jump and hula hoop!

The console itself was bundled with Wii Play, Wii Sports and Super Mario Galaxy. I haven’t played the latter at all, though Warren seems to enjoy it. Play is very…meh. Wii Sports is bad ass. I never thought I had violent tendencies but I gravitate towards the boxing like it’s cornbread or something deep-fried. I’m all pow pow BAM! It’s impossible to be mature about because the whole time I’m playing I’m hunched over with the remote and nunchuk like I’m boxing for real and trash talking my non-human opponent. I’d be embarrassed if I didn’t enjoy it so much.

So, in conclusion, if you don’t hear from me it’s because I’ve either sprained every muscle in my body or I’m boxing on my Wii. ^_^

Since this is the first part of what will undoubtedly become a lengthy list of parts, let me preface it by saying that I am currently averaging no less than 10 ~300 page paperback historical romance and/or romantic suspense books per week, and it’s probably closer to 14 or 15. My hobby is scorned in my household by my literary snob of a husband and, frankly, most of the rest of the world as well. As a result, admitting it carries a faint hint of shame, and that I should feel any shame at all for READING BOOKS is just ridiculous, so there’s a wee bit of anger and really, it’s just a terrible cycle.

And all that, just for the introduction to a short list! Anyway, because I read so prolifically and obsessively, I quickly run out of the authors known to me and hit up the library selecting at random. I carry a green tote of doom to le bibliotheque and I have very little criteria about the books that end up there – I read the first page, then find a more…involved scene in the middle. If I don’t roll my eyes, it goes in the bag. Once home, if I make it 20 pages in without my lip curling in disdain, I’ll keep reading. If I make it halfway through without being bored to tears, I’ll pick up another book by the same author. Really it’s quite systematic and I cannot possibly imagine anyone reading this being interested in my book selection methodology. I’m sorry, I just get so caught up in the setup.

What I really want to say is that Lisa Kleypas deserves public ridicule for a multitude of things, but since I just finished one of her books tonight and this in particular stood out:

The phrase “…amorous, marauding mouth”

I MEAN, REALLY.

Never mind that there are scads of historical romance novels (I favor Regencies, personally) that are so well written that the genre is incidental, that phrase single-handedly illustrates why Warren sneers at my reading material. Well, that and the god-awful cover art on so many of them, but still. Yes, it loosely makes sense, the adjectives fit and contextually it was fine (though no actual plundering in the piratical sense was occurring) BUT IT SOUNDS COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS. AMOROUS MAURADING.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go amorously maraud my refrigerator.

Before I moved to Utah to live with Warren, Sunday morning was sales ads and a bowl of cereal before heading off to work. I didn’t give a single thought to domestic or international politics, couldn’t possibly have cared less about the talking heads that feature so prominently on the television. The TV itself was rarely on in my household before either the evening or before my brother was awake, which was frequently the same time.

Even after I moved out here, for the first few years in the old house on 17th South, my routine didn’t change much except I no longer worked on Sundays. It was still cereal and the Sunday sales ads. It’s a habit I picked up from my parents, who for as long as I can remember spent their average Sundays in the same way, except coffee instead of cereal. But it was always the Sunday paper.

My life today still includes the Sunday paper – I read the sales ads, and Warren reads the paper itself and the New York Times, but the difference is the talking heads are always on in the background. Warren has a pattern established, his own routine, that while he reads the paper he points the kitchen TiVo* to Face The Nation with Bob Schieffer, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, The Chris Matthews Show, and his personal favorite, Meet the Press with Tim Russert.

I don’t personally care for any of them, and it would be hypocritical and stupid for me to pretend that I feel a personal grief for the passing of Tim Russert earlier this week. I don’t, however, want to minimize his contributions to both journalism and politics by that statement. Warren was immensely respectful of Tim Russert and he was far and away his favorite of the Sunday morning political hosts, and so it’s for him that I mention the much too early death of Tim Russert, and that in this household in particular, he will be missed.

*i love you, tivo

I’ve had a blog on Livejournal for many years now and so every time I try to host one of my own I feel like I’m cheating on it. Which, honestly, is stupid and I’m OK with admitting it. I’m OK with most things, which is a surprisingly frustrating state of being.

Blog is such an ugly word. It sounds like some kind of anaphylactic byproduct. Or something my dog might cough up on the carpet. Anyway.

The sun is setting orange and red over the Oquirrh mountains tonight and it’s beautiful. I’d take a picture but, well, I stole batteries out of my flash to power my laptop mouse. Sometimes you have to make those kinds of difficult decisions in your life when you’re lazy and Costco is a 10 minute drive away. AND YOU CAN’T MAKE ME NOT GET MY BATTERIES AT COSTCO!