Can I Pick 'Em?

I think my picker is busted.

I kind of wondered about my picker when my first marriage unraveled after the first month of matrimony.  After a solid year of counseling I branched out again.  This time I picked someone who would eventually reveal himself as a verbal and emotional bully.  My man-picker needs realignment.

I picked a house to buy in 2007.  I closed on it one month before the flipping stock market crash.  And I paid the full asking price because I loved the neighborhood, the yard, and felt incredibly safe here.  I'm going to have to live here 20 years to have the house worth what I paid for it. All at once, the major appliances have almost all kicked the bucket, and speaking of buckets, the roof started leaking...not in one spot....but all over the place.  Oh, and I was robbed twice in the first two years before alarming every nook and cranny.  Oy vey.  My house-picker clearly needs a tune-up.

And yesterday, I got the following letter from Team Fitness America, the company I paid for my personal trainer.  "We regret to inform you that FIT2MAX, LLC., dba Team Fitness America is immediately closed down indefinitely......The company is insolvent and we have retained a business attorney....." and it goes on to list the attorney's name and address.  Even my friggen exercise picker is broken!

So that's that.  I am glad I didn't pay them all of the year's fees up front.  I am losing some prepaid money, but not as bad as my actual personal trainer (Nina) who didn't get paid by them for a substantial amount of her time.  At least I got a service for the money I paid.  She provided the service and didn't get paid!  I'm going to make a blog post all about her soon....she's really been awesome!

I'm not sure what this is going to mean going forward.  Nina and I are going to step back and regroup and talk over the weekend.  It's a conundrum.  I can't afford to "double pay", i.e., having already paid them and then pay her independently, too.  At the same time, I can't afford to not have a personal trainer!

I work ten times harder when she's here then when left to my own devices.  With her, I do 3 reps of 15 of various moves.  On my own I do 1 or 2 reps at most and get bored and move on.  With her, I work a solid hour.  On my own, I work a not-so-solid 20 minutes and get bored.  With her, she straps on these medieval torture devices like leg weights!  On my own, are you kidding me?  I always think I'm "not ready" for extra weights...I underestimate my abilities ALL the time.  That's why I need a personal trainer...someone to push me farther than I think I can go!  Even when I really can't do the move at first, I end up getting really mad at her and then that extra energy pumps into the exercise and I end up doing it anyway!

Well, this morning she's not here and I have to go just do it on my own.  I have to.  I cannot lose this momentum.  I've come wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy to far to turn back now.

And as far as my picker goes?  I think I'm going to lay off making any important life choices for a while until I can bring that thing into the shop and get it looked at....   ;-)