You knew it was just a matter of time before a Final Fantasy Sackboy was made, right?

No, I didn’t start with Cloud or Sephiroth. It turns out that my co-worker Michael D. prefers Reno, one of the Turks from Final Fantasy VII.

Reno’s goggles are removable, and he will eventually have a black and silver staff to complete his outfit.

March has been a very wolfy month for me. No sooner had I finished the Fruit Brute mask Sackboy then yet another wolf-themed doll order came in from a co-worker. He wanted a Sackboy doll based on the Teen Wolf character played by Michael J. Fox in the 1980’s. He even provided some nifty screen shots of Teen Wolf in his basketball outfit for reference.

The base head and body were crocheted as usual from Red Heart Soft and Bernat Satin yarns, but once the main doll was finished, stuffed and assembled, I crocheted some furry overlay pieces using Lion Brand Fun Fur in Chocolate using a large size K hook and big, loose stitches. The overlays went on the legs, outer surfaces of the arms, and the head and chin. I finished the head by adding an extra row of regular yarn around the edge of his face. The uniform was crocheted with yellow Peaches & Creme cotton yarn with numbers made from chains of black crochet thread. The basketball was also made from Peaches & Creme cotton.

What do you get when you mash up a regular classic Sackboy and an obscure kid’s cereal from the 70’s?

Fruit Brute Sackboy!

The Fruit Brute mask is completely removable via a slit in the bottom of the mask. Due to the relatively large size of the Sackboy’s head, the mask is removed by pulling the doll’s head through the mouth and the body through the bottom of the mask vs. the other way around. The Sackboy uses my regular Sackboy base while the mask was completely improvised from a reference image of the cereal mascot I obtained from the Interwebs.

Fruit Brute Sackboy was commissioned as a gift for Gaygamer.net regular Fruit Brute, who posted about it here.

It’s rare that I get an order for a female Sackperson since most people seem to want male characters turned into custom dolls, so when Game-Boy from Gaygamer.net asked if I could make Miss Ulala from the Sega Dreamcast game Space Channel 5, I agreed immediately.

She’s about 9.5″ tall thanks to her platform boots and big pink pigtails, and wears an orange and white miniskirt and matching crop top, huge headphones with hands-free mic, and (not pictured but there!) red undies. And she has a huge microphone, too.

Ooh la la indeed!

Gosh, I love it when Champion runs their semi-annual $19.99 sports bra sales!. They always seem to know when my motivation is flagging and could use a little boost by way of a cute new pink sports bra with high motion control and wicking Double Dry lining.

Even better, through 3/29, you’ll also get an additional 20% off your entire order as well as free shipping for orders over $100. I doubt that I’ll hit that free shipping threshold, but 20% sure isn’t bad, especially since several styles in discontinued colors are only $15.99.

The $19.99 sports bra sale runs through April 27, but the 20% off ends this Sunday, so pop on over and take a look if the girls need a little pick me up, LOL. (And if you don’t happen to be a female, they also have an $8.99 Double Dry workout gear sale going on for the men, too.)

Chris is in CO this week for five days of corporate inprocessing and indoctrination at his new company, so I am taking the opportunity to toss out the crap in the fridge and pantry and get myself back to clean eats. In some ways my good habits have rubbed off a bit on DH, but in the process some of his bad ones have rubbed off on ME. So he is a little better than he used to be, but I am a little worse when it comes to diet. Pfft.

I’m resetting myself this week, and poor DH will just have to deal with it when he gets back on Saturday.

So, like Kyra, I think I’m giving up on the Chalean Extreme DVDs for the time being and going back to the old training notebook and TV-less workouts I know work for me. I am tired of smothering my dislike of DVD workouts to do this program just for the sake of doing it, and frankly, I don’t like the exercises. I don’t think that the combination moves are as effective for me as non-competing supersets or straight sets. With the hybrid moves I don’t seem to concentrate on the targeted muscle groups as well as I could with more traditional lifts, especially those that are supposed to work my lower body. What it boils down to is that I feel like I am only putting 50% of my attention and effort into each half of these combination moves, and therefore only (literally sometimes, because I am so quad-dominant that I need to really THINK about engaging my hamstrings and glutes in lunges, sumo squats, and squats) half-assing them.

I also can’t get into the two included cardio workouts, but I’ve already mentioned that in an earlier log.

Jillian Michaels’s 30 day “Making the Cut” book was recommended to me a while back by one of my blog readers, and I think I will give it a go starting Monday. I’m going to take the next three days to familiarize myself with the exercises and do 20 minutes of HIIT daily before launching into a full Monday start on 3/23. I’ve been slacking off enough on CLX that just about any regular program and cleanish eats should start sloughing the fluff off pretty readily.

In somewhat related news, I had my annual GYN appointment yesterday where I discussed the possibility of switching from the low-dosage Lutera/Alesse pill I’ve been on for the past few years to the copper-based Paraguard IUD. Alas, since I have NOT had kids yet and tentatively plan to try spawning a mini-me sometime next year, my doctor said that she recommended against it for both financial (it would cost more than a year supply of pills) and medical reasons (heavier TOM bleeding, possible issues when I decide to have kids, etc.). I am seriously bummed because I’d really like to try a cutting cycle without the influence of BC to see if progress is faster without the extra chick hormones in my system. And I’d get to take one less pill in the morning with my 2 fish oil capsules, multivitamin, calcium + D, and digestive enzyme. I do admit that I’m not really eager to have all the myriad joys of a Pill-less menstrual cycle back, though.

I guess I’ll just have to do my spring cut the old-fashioned way and simply work my butt off!

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TODAY’S WORKOUT
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- 10 familiarization reps each of all of the exercises in Day 1 and Day 2 of the MtC plan
- HIIT run (20 min)

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TODAY’S MENU
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M1: 60g oatmeal and raisins, 2 whites/1 whole egg omelette with 1/2 c. spinach and 1/2 c. tomato slices
M2: 3/4 c. yogurt lassi (4 fl. oz. plain yogurt, 2 fl oz. water, 2 packets Splenda and 1.5 t. sugar)
M3: 6 pork and leek dumplings, 1/2 c. brown rice, 1 c. broccoli & cauliflower mix, 1 T. spicy garlic soy sauce
M4: 1 hardboiled egg, 1 egg white, 1 apple
M5: 3.5 oz. chicken breast over 3 c. spinach, baby greens, and tomato salad, 2 T. balsamic vinaigrette
M6: 14g almonds, 1 scoop protein

Woohoo!

There’s another great Champion sports bra and workout gear clearance sale going on at OneHanesPlace.com through the end of the month!

Several different styles of sports bras (usually $30 or so) are on sale for $9.99-$15.99, and there are also plenty of workout bottoms and wicking sports tops in the mix for $15 or less.

Check it out, and get an additional 20% off with promo code 611357 if you order before 3/11/09! (Enter the code during checkout–there’s a button on the same page where you enter your payment information.)

Oh, and there is a nice selection of men’s workout clothing, too, but who cares about that?

I miss the gym.

I really do.

ChaLEAN Extreme is a decent workout now that I am up to my old accustomed weights, but it’s just not the same as going to the gym and lifting heavy chunks of iron surrounded by other people doing the same. For one thing, the $5 bargain mirror I use at home to check my form isn’t nearly as motivating as the wall to wall mirrors at the gym. For another, I don’t get the joy of outlifting some of the guys and most of the gals.

I’m going to continue with the lifting circuits for the remainder of the 12 week program, but I am dropping the Burn Intervals and Burn It Off and Recharge workouts in favor of cardio machine intervals at the gym so I can at least WATCH the other people lifting weights while I haul ass on the treadmills, ellipticals, and bikes. I will keep the ab workouts in my rotation, though, since I am easily bored by ab exercises when I have to think up a sequence on my own.

This change is also based on my observation that fancy pants, at-home cardio workouts of any kind really aren’t as effective for my body type as regular old cardio intervals that just involve moving forward very fast for short bursts. I don’t want to think about where my feet need to go or memorize choreographed moves. I just want to GO for 20-30 minutes with the Guitar Hero playlist blasting in my ears and my lungs heaving.

Oh, and for extra kicks, I am going to bring some of my crochet gear with me the next time I have some steady-state recumbent bike time scheduled. With a Discworld audiobook in my iPod and a custom doll project in my hands, I could probably pedal for 2 hours without feeling the time go by.

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TODAY’S WORKOUT
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- CLX Burn Circuit 2 (40 min)
- Yourself Fitness yoga (15 min)

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TODAY’S EATS
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M1: PWO Protein bubble tea
M2: Curry rice noodles with tofu and veggies
M3: 30g almonds and raisins
M4: Better Whey of Life strawberry banana yogurt
M5: Chicken jambalaya with 1 c. (cooked) brown rice
M6: 3 egg white and veggie scramble

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TODAY’S PROJECTS
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- Hair and custom Sackgirl eyes for Ulala doll
- Finish mask and assemble classic Sackboy