Jen Russum

Lunges

Lunges

Lunges. They are the best exercise in the world. But I hate them. Oh, how I hate them. They work all those problem areas on my thighs and butt. But they hurt me. One time back in college, my roommates and I had a roommate night. (We were very dedicated to having a roommate night every month or two. Must have been good prep for date nights now that we are married and live with BOYS! Ew :) So we had many roommate nights, but on this particular night we decided to do lunges. Around the block lunges. I don't know why. I think this was our senior year when Stacey and Sarah were engaged, so this was our idea of a pre-wedding workout. We decided we would do walking lunges down our block, turn right, turn right again, down the street behind our house, turn right, back to our place. It seemed fun and funny at the time. However, those walking lunges were the last walking we did for a few days... Gosh, I have never been in so much pain. I could hardly walk for the next 2-3 days. I remember having to hold onto the roof of my car and gently lower myself into the driver's seat. It was bad. Lesson learned: never go from doing no lunges to doing a 1/4 mile of lunges all in one night. It's not pretty.  Here is a pic of my college roommates. We are the Greenhouse Girls. Clearly, we are not doing lunges here. We are getting Camille married off. Last year, I made lunges a regular part of my workouts. And I must say I got pretty good at them. I did different types in the months before my own wedding and I was very happy with the results. I also lifted weights and did ab exercises daily. It got to the point where Micah told me to stop lifting such heavy weights on my arms, because he didn't want me to get flabby later on! I was slightly offended that he would brush off my success in the weight room with such disdain (I am NOT known for my upper body strength, so this was quite a feat). But then my dad agreed with him! They said I should lower my weight and increase my reps for toning. Neither of them had confidence that I would maintain my lifting in the long run and they were right... While I have been running a ton this first year of marriage (hello Phoenix half-marathon), I have NOT been toning. I know the truth - resistance training is just as important as cardio - but I have been turning a deaf ear for the past nine months. Well, summer is here and one of my summer goals is to add strength training and ab exercises back into my workouts. So this week, I made the attempt. I decided to do some lunges and abs after my run on Saturday. Since I haven't been doing lunges lately, I tried to ease myself back into it. I did twelve walking lunges (six on each leg) and two other kinds of bench lunges like this... These lunges are super hard. The first kind I do are the ones the lady is doing above (except I don't look anything like the lady above and I will not provide pictures of my sweaty, gross self doing lunges for the first time in months). I didn't even use weights on Saturday to help ease myself into it. The second type I do is exactly like the picture above, but intead of just lunging down and rising up, you jump up! Both of these lunges are pretty intense, so I only did three of each type per leg. I thought I was safe. That I would be a little sore, but due to the moderation of my workout I would be okay. I am not okay. I hurt. I took a day off from working out and yesterday I tried to go running again. My legs felt heavy and achy. (Okay, the heavy part might have been caused by the SMASHBURGER I ate for lunch), but the achy part was due to the lunges. My legs are not recovering. I stretched on Sunday and yesterday but today I still hurt. I am trying to stretch in discreet ways while sittting in my workshop. Yes, I am blogging in my workshop about teaching online. See how savvy I am online? I can even blog during my workshop. Bam. Anyway, the lunges are back. They are my worst enemy and my best friend. I will be popping some ibuprofen and doing them again this afternoon. Anything that hurts me this much must be good for me. ... Read more

Summer Goals

As I explained in my last post, I am completely in love, absolutely obsessed with summer! One of my favorite things about summer is the extra time to get ISH done. (Yes, "ish" is a part of my regular vocabulary.) For those of you that haven't been in school for quite awhile, you may have forgotten why school breaks are so necessary. School is intense for both students and teachers. It's like a full-time job crammed into 8-9 months. And it's different than any other full-time job. For students, they take anywhere from 6-12 different classes over 9 months' time and get graded on every single one. They have little control over the teachers they work with and often have to take subjects that are completely unrelated to anything they ever want to do for a career. For teachers, you have all our regular professional duties like preparing lesson plans (figuring out what you are going to teach and when), typing up assignment sheets and syllabi (so students will know what they are doing), physically teaching your classes (trying to cram new knowledge into sometime reluctant minds), meeting with students to give further instruction, resolve problems, deal with immaturity, and then grading and recording all student work. It's pretty fatiguing and you always take work home with you. But on top of all these responsibilites, you also deal with certain emotional burdens. You try to help students who struggle academically. You try to overcome student apathy, laziness or downright disrespect. You try to balance compassion and grace with firm expectiations and fixed boundaries, and sometimes that means you are the one teaching a student a hard lesson about responsibility. You often become a part of students' personal issues such as parent problems, depression, anxiety, break-ups, sickness, etc. You try NOT to become involved in these issues (and thankfully you get to be far more separated from them when teaching college instead of high school - praise Jesus!), but you can never avoid them completely. So teachers get breaks because they are absolutely necessary for our mental and emotional health. The almost endless cycle of grading essays needs a stopping point and that point is NOW. I do not have to grade another essay until September 27th, 2011. So what will I do until then? EVERYTHING. A number of years ago, my friend Kristin and I started creating summer goals. These goals ranged from the funny (watch all three Back to the Future movies in one sitting or learn to play chess), to the practical (paint room or work out three days a week) to the deeply significant (read or memorize Scripture). You get the idea. Since we started doing this (gosh, it must have been five or six years ago now) many of our friends have begun doing the same thing. So here are my goals for Summer 2011. I have no papers to grade, nothing I am being forced to read, and a lot of extra time on my hands. I have never been one for laziness, so here is what will be filling my time for the next three months: FIRST AND FOREMOST... FINISH WEDDING THANK YOUS BY THE END OF MAY. Reading: Catch up on reading recent additions of Real Simple that are sitting in a box next to my couch Read remaining issues of Domino (R.I.P.) that have been sitting around my house for a couple years now Read Radical Womanhood by Carolyn  McCulley Start Systematic Theology by Grudem (goal to be done by the end of summer 2012) Finish Future Grace by John Piper Get a basic grasp on qualitative research methods and read three books for my mommy blog paper Okay enough reading...I do too much reading during the year... Let's get to the fun stuff, like... Clean out house (every cupboard, closet, corner and cranny - what's a cranny?) and prepare to move Find a house to buy in Phoenix! Watch Calamity Jane and Waiting for Superman Upload old pics onto facebook Blog five days a week Get basic sewing supplies and fix/update a few articles of clothing in our closet Update i-tunes library (get rid of stupid songs I never listen to and buy new music) Print and frame a picture for Micah's desk at work Make deviled eggs for Micah  Add weights and abs back into my workouts (at least 2x per week) Make homemade Moon Pies Organize my recipe binder Begin a Scripture memorization plan Start growing a small herb garden (so I can be a true homemaker) ... Read more

Summer!

Summer!

Here is the proof that it is SUMMER. Everything on my daunting end-of-the-semester to-do list has been CONQUERED  by black ink! Ah, sweet summer. You have finally arrived! I loved my semester at school - finally had classes I enjoyed, felt a little more comfortable as a grad student, starting meeting more people in my program, but this semester was long and tiring. I am so ready for a break. I think I devoted my life to eduction (both student-ing and teaching) so that school could kick my behind for nine months of the year and I could revel in these three months we call SUMMER! I have always loved summer so much. There is something about the freedom in my schedule, the sunshine on my face, the long days, warm nights, upcoming trips, and the extra time to read for fun that just makes it my favorite time of the year. I think this summer-love was born because I grew up in Seattle where summer was so short. Really, Seattle summer equals a little less rain, temps in the 70s (80s on a rare day, 90s once every three years) and the ability to not wear a jacket between the hours of 11am and 7pm (after that, put your North Face back on). I always loved going on a summer date with Micah and wearing a fleece over my cute little summer dress as soon as the sun hit the horizon... ummm NOT. Seattle summers really are pleasant if you don't ever want to get a real tan, but the main problem with Seattle summers is that they only last from about early July to early September. That's it. Two month summer. And then it's back to rain for the next ten months. How many times in my youth did I attempt to "lay out" in sub-70 degree weather? Sad... Despite the fact that it will be over 100 degrees here for the next four to five months, I am pumped. Just put me in a cotton dress and sandals every day and I am good to go. Slap some SPF on me and set me by the pool and I am in heaven. Give me a big pile of books and magazines to read that no teacher will ever ask me to write a paper about and I am in paradise. I love summer. Things I am looking forward to this summer are: trips to California in June and Seattle in July, catching up on all the Real Simple magazines I have had to neglect for the past few months, having time to cook fun, new, healthy meals almost every night, adding weights and abs back into my workouts, being tan, looking for a house to buy, and cleaning out our apartment as we prepare to move. So much to look forward to! I will be sharing more of my specific summer goals later this week, but until then let's just all rejoice in the fact that summer is HERE! Okay, I know many of you have a few weeks left, but it's almost here. Can't you just taste the sweetness? What are your plans for this summer? ... Read more