My Summer Vacation: Sunday 09/27: Kettlebell Training Do Over

In reality, this post was actually published on 10/01 because I was having problems with Blogger but I have forced it to publish in chronological order. I'm still having trouble loading photos so they are spotty and spacing between & within paragraphs is weird.

I was able to get in to the free kettlebell class on Sunday! And found that it was not so much a class on how to do it but an explanation about why kettlebell training along with shifting your relationship with food is important for women's health after 40. I'm very interested in trying it out; it will be the most organized program I have done. Ever. Except for martial arts. So I guess I should say it's the most organized health training that I have ever done. It was, of course, also a sales pitch to join the program. Which I did; I went for the full 12-month program since it makes sense. And I paid it all at once because it is more economical, plus it will provide even more motivation for me to stick with the program and complete it. Excuse me now, while I go buy a couple of kettlebells; I hope I can get them shipped directly to me!

The Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes is now 26. We had dinner out in the front yard for him; since Dylan & Bryi were also here we ate under a canopy in the front yard.

Pre-dinner birthday dessert.

Potluck Hawaiian-style dinner.

Yes, I know, we weren't supposed to do that because we had 2 households coming together for a total of 6 people. However, we decided the risk factor was low. Basically Bryi, The Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes, & I work from home. Dylan goes to work but they have no in-person customers, everything is over the phone and they wear masks & are physically separated while working. The Potential Most Favorite Roommate works at a credit union where they have a temperature scanner as people enter the office, they have a plexiglass screen between the customers & tellers, hand sanitizer is abundant, and everyone must wear a mask & keep it on. DT is the one with the highest risk since he works with students; they have lots of hand sanitizer, the students must all wear masks, they practice physical distancing, and he always has his mask on at school. We also have disinfectant spray and wipes near the door for anyone to use in case they think they might have been exposed. And I have been wiping down high touch surfaces in the communal areas at least once a day since DT started having students again.

The Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes also made a cake; he says he did not make his own birthday cake. He claims he just decided he wanted to make a cake today because he had never made one before. So he started with a 3-layer chocolate cake, made from scratch, with chocolate frosting, also made from scratch. He actually did a pretty good job. I did give him a couple pointers though to make the next one easier on himself.

And its not like we didn't have any dessert. For his birthday he received an edible arrangement made with chocolate dipped strawberries, bananas, pineapples, and apples, 8 chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting from Cakeworks, a chantilly cake, a giant cookie, and cheesecake.

My contribution to dessert was picking up cheesecake from Otto Cake. Since there were going to be 6 of us, I picked up 6 slices. I got Pineapple Macadamia Nut Coconut Cream, Big Island Lehua Blossom Honey, Peanut Butter Banana, Amazing Plain, Lilikoi, and Raspberry. I did not realize Bryi & Dylan were not staying for dessert so we ended up with 2 extra slices.

L to R: pineapple, lilikoi, honey, PB & banana, raspberry, & plain.

I finally remembered to weigh myself this morning before I drank anything. (It's a good thing I weighed myself before dinner & dessert!) I have lost 0.4 pound. It appears that I will be losing the weight I gained while doing the contact tracer training sort of in the same way I gained it; about a pound per week. Which is fine by me.

Keala was curious about the scale and getting in the way as I tried to take a photo of my weight. So I grabbed her and got back on the scale to see how much she weighed. She is 11.4 pounds; about 34% over her target weight! We had been looking in to getting the Portion Pro automatic feeder for her; the door opens differently and only a certain portion of food she is allowed for the day is available at a time. But they don't ship to Hawaiʻi. Auē! I am now looking in to having it drop shipped via Ship to Hawaiʻi. (Interestingly, when I was on the scale with Keala, it said 36.1% fat. She is rather tubby!)

Portion Pro does specifically say they only ship for free in the continental US but they did not say "not including Hawai'i & Alaska" & charge a fee for the shipping; they just don't do it. I have dealt with other companies that say free shipping in the US, then charge to ship to Hawai'i. I do not take that lightly and send complaints up the line that Hawai'i is part of the US so they need to change their false advertising. However, since they charge for shipping to Hawai'i I generally also take my business elsewhere for the same product. Or do without the product. If shipping via Ship to Hawai'i is as easy as their website makes it sound, I may return to get some of those hard to find items that way.

It took a while of searching around and comparing prices to finally find the kettlebells I need. In the end, Amazon won. Especially because I can use Curtis' Amazon Prime account for free shipping. The recommended kettlebells from FXR Sports are no longer sold through Amazon and they apparently do not ship out of the UK anymore. I had to compare the features of the FXR to kettlebells that I could order in the US; I found some by SPRI. The features were almost exactly like the FXR kettlebells, the only thing was I could not get them in 4kg and 8kg sizes; I had to go for 8# and 20#, but that's OK with me. But when I went to check the shipping, it was more expensive than the weights themselves! (Although my options are 10# and 20#. I guess it's a good thing I have done weight training before & have still retained enough muscle mass that starting with 10# won't be a problem.) So Amazon won; the cost of the kettlebells was less than the ones from SPRI and shipping was free. I also got the yoga mat and interval timer through Amazon. And some nose bridge wires so I can retrofit some masks that I have. All for 60% of what the SPRI order for only the 3 kettlebells would have cost.

Sorry, there will be no other interesting COVID news since Blo0gger is acting up.

There were 98 new cases of COVID-19 bringing the total known positive cases up to 12, 116. There was another death bringing the death toll up to 132; some of the cases from the veterans home in Hilo are still pending so there may be a big jump in this number once all the tests have been completed. The average daily cases on O'ahu is now 93 with a positivity rate of 4.2%