Day 502: Christmas Eve 2015

I worked from home today so once I woke up I headed to the gym instead of going on my way home like I usually do. 

I felt strong and focused when I arrived at the gym. I decided that I would again shorten my rest time between rounds. On Tuesday I reduced it from three minutes to two minutes and today I reduced it down to one minute. 

I kept the weight steady at 16 kg (35 lbs) through all 500 kettlebell swings. With the reduction in rest time I was able to improve my time by 3.5 minutes finishing in 24:31.  

As with last time I focused on a few key areas: 

  1. Going unbroken through every set
  2. Hinging and popping at the hip while keeping a straight back through the motion
  3. Bringing the kettlebell up to only shoulder height. After the first couple of workouts I realized that I was bringing a few inches above my shoulders. Nothing too major but just those extra degrees was slowing me down.

When I came home I worked on closing out a couple of contracts before we headed out to go grocery shopping for our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinners. 

Work was even slower than yesterday. Each day this week has gotten increasingly slower as we approached the holiday. 

Tonight we cooked our traditional Christmas Eve dinner: breaded chicken, homemade pierogies and green beans paired with Duckhorn Sauvignon Blanc. 

It was really nice sitting in front of our tree while we enjoyed our dinner. Since we don’t have a real fireplace anymore we had to substitute it with a fireplace app on our Apple TV.  

We exchanged one smaller gift with each other tonight. I bought Laura super comfy and cozy socks and she bought me a case for my new iPhone 6s Plus.  

I’m like a 5-year old when it comes to Christmas morning so I am counting down the hours until we can go to sleep and I can wake up to open gifts. Each of the past five years that we have lived here we finish gifts before our family in CT even has. 

I hope that for those of you that celebrate, that you have a very Merry Christmas spent with family and friends.