You Should Be Drinking Not Climbing or Month-End Review, December

One of my friends was taunting me by waving a bowl of Hershey's chocolate in my vicinity; she, essentially, beckoned me in a voice that said chill out about the sweet stuff.

I decided to retaliate in my own little way and asked her if she wanted to go rock climbing after our half day at work. She looked at me in horror when another associate actually voiced his horror. You should be drinking not climbing. Oh well, to each his or her own.

Plus, the taunter failed to realize that Hershey's would not make me cave. Kinder Bueno? Yes. Hershey's? No...

As I was belaying for Jessica, one of the Upper Limits folks came to give us the countdown to closure. What? We thought the gym was closing at 4 p.m. instead of 2 p.m. Can you say rock climbing interruptus?

Before I left the gym, though, I was able to make it up the 5.8 Face Plant route. So, I'm able to climb that route on every other outing. Ha.

I headed to the bank with the intention of going from there straight to the gym and squeaking in because, clearly, I hadn't worked out enough but, dang it, I didn't have my tennis shoes.

I headed by the house, ate a few Wasa crackers and hummus and headed back out. When I got to the gym, there were no signs about early closure and I was told that there would be no early closure. Hmmm, I could potentially play Biggest Loser contestant and really get my exercise in today.

When I got to the locker room, I discovered that I did not have my MP3 player. Ironically, I did not have the energy to put on my street clothes and go back to the car to retrieve my tunes. I blame my misplaced MP3 player on too many bags: bag with rock climbing gear, bag with work gear and another gym bag with my regular workout stuff. I did a little self-talk and told myself that I could gut it out for at least 30 minutes without the television or music. Almost the whole time, It Takes Two, was on loop in my head. It's all the fault of that goofy little flick, The Proposal.

Here's how things played out this month. I deliberately set aside more time for stretching which felt good...

10 Minute Solution: Fitness Ball Workouts (Upper Body), 1 x

10 Minute Solution: Kickbox Bootcamp (Fat Burning Blast), 1 x

10 Minute Solution: Tone Trouble Zones! (Stretching), 3 x's

10 Minute Solution: Yoga (Flexibility and Relaxation), 1 x

Adaptive Motion Trainer, 3 x's

Crunch: Candlelight Yoga, 1 x

Drills To Make You Sweat (Class), 1 x

Rock Climbing, 6 x's

StairMaster, 3 x's

Stationary Bike, 1 x

Step and Muscle (Class), 3 x's

Swimming, 6 x's

Treadmill (with bouts of jogging), 14 x's

Best sound of the day: Primal screams from a female lead climber as she made an ascent.

Honorable mention: Me. I'm told that I was making Serena Williams-like sounds going up the Face Plant route.

Phrase of the day: Amazonian Toes -- a male to his female friend after a discussion about rock climbing shoes.


And the song of the day?????????