I also had no idea that my fellow suburban women would be so good at it. As our perky, pony-tailed leader bobbed along in her bike seat, yelling at us to inflatable water games "add tension," the women around me sweated in stoic silence.

Meanwhile, I literally held on, hoping I wouldn't distinguish myself by falling over. Some days our goal was to make the final leg of our race across the U.S.; other days I tried to keep up as we circled Cuba with the goal of swilling mojitos at the finish line.

Those first few spins left me exhausted, or  freshwater pearl worse, faint. It didn't help that I had once written a magazine article about young heart attack survivors, including a 30-something guy who had pushed himself through part of a gym workout and then managed to drive home, where his wife realized he was having a heart attack and called an ambulance.

Eventually, the paranoia subsided, with help from my wireless heart monitor, which kept insisting I wasn't dying even though my gasping told me otherwise. Then, after a few weeks, spin started feeling … normal. I started going three, four times a week.

The American Heart Association recommends 30 minutes of moderate intensity exercise five days a week. For once, I was meeting their guidelines.

Then I did what a lot of busy women do: I found plenty of excellent reasons not to go. First, my beloved mother-in-law died. Then, too many deadlines. Then I had to freshwater perl jewelry stay home with the kids, who were out of school. Then they were in summer school, but I had to clean the house. Then the house was clean, but I had to pack for vacation. Then we came back from vacation, dumped all our bags in the foyer and the house was a mess all over again. Then we kept leaving town. By the time we stopped, new deadlines were looming and the PTA had found a use for my mornings.

All told, eight months lapsed with no exercise, save a few weekend hikes and bike trips in the pearl jewelry wholesale real world.

And let me note: The buddy system wasn't working for me, since I had managed to blow off my buddy off many months running.

In the end, it wasn't peer pressure or even health fears that sent me back. It was money. A few weeks ago, I did the numbers: Since February, I've been paying $33 a month to not go to the gym. So when I finally did go back, my first spin session last week cost me $264, or $6.60 per minute for pearl earrings 40 minutes.

A few days later, I went again, knocking the price down per minute down by half. Now if I can only get it down to a dime a minute.

That would require … about 125 workouts between now and June. Mojitos on the beach, here I come.

here are plenty of reasons to freshwater pearl beads go back to the gym after a long time away. One is fear of death.

I was reminded of this last year after being carted out of my primary care physician's office on a gurney with an abnormal EKG that turned out to have plenty to do with stress and nothing to do with my heart.
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Repentant, I bought a wireless heart monitor and pair of sneakers. Then I took my neighbor up on her offer to freshwater pearl pendant  join her for a spin class.

I knew spin had something to do with a bunch of stationary bicycles in a room. Having once spent two years riding my bicycle around the world, including a weeks-long climb over the Himalayas, I figured it wouldn't be too hard to keep up.

As it turns out, since that trip had taken place a decade earlier, my body had forgotten all about it.

This made my first spin class somewhat shocking. I had no idea that they would jam us into a hot little room, turn out the lights, crank up the tunes ("I want the teacher! I want the freshwater pearl jewelry teacher bad!!) and start yelling at us, boot-camp style, to do things that like "jump" over imaginary mud puddles and sprint after imaginary rivals, all while staring at neon murals of sturdy bodies cycling off into the sunset.

A survey of 2,000 women in the U.K. found that women who aren't mothers want maternity leave too.

In related news: 74% of  pearl jewelry sets women also claimed to want stretch marks and sleepless nights.

OK, that last figure isn't entirely accurate, but this is: Nearly three-quarters of women surveyed favor mandated "maternity" leave for women who aren't mothers.

In the U.K., mums are entitled to a year of maternity leave, 39 of those weeks paid. (Raise your hand if you're jealous--a whole year!) Red Magazine editor-in-chief Sam Baker told the Telegraph: "I think a lot of women who have worked for their employer for 10 or 15 years look around at their colleagues taking maternity leave and feel some element of envy and  freshwater pearl necklace think, 'What would I do with that time away from the workplace?'"

Businesses, understandably, are alarmed by the notion. If they have to start offering a paid year off to women without children, it's only logical that men will follow. After all, who wouldn't love a company-sponsored sabbatical to follow their bliss? I'd love to lose 10 pounds on a chocolate diet, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea.

Giving birth to or adopting a child could arguably being defined as "following your bliss" for some, but maternity leave is not a vacation. At least, it's not like any vacation I've ever been on--there's no room service and no one comes in to shell pearl change the sheets after your newborn's diaper leaks all over them.

The idea that everyone needs time off downplays exactly why maternity is needed in the first place: Because moms need time to heal from childbirth, because they need uninterrupted time to breastfeed without hiding in a company closet to pump, because babies never sleep and because families (and yes, this includes fathers) need time to bond and adapt to a new life.

It's a two-way street: The charity absolutely benefits from partnering with a big-name, tabloid-worthy celeb when it comes time for fundraising, PR for a new initiative or a visit to the pearl jewelry wholesale House of Representatives.

But if this seemingly shallow partnership rubs you the wrong way, consider this: If even 10 women across the country read about Kidman's testimony, look up the International Violence Against Women Act and either donate money to or become involved in Amnesty International to support the bill, who really cares if inflatable water games they did it because they loved Moulin Rouge?

If a single child enjoys his first healthy meal as a result of Angelina Jolie's high profile appearances for the United Nations, does it really matter whether she's in it for the good press? Do the ends justify the possibly suspect, potentially selfish and occasionally silly means?

Yes.

Nicole Kidman sat in front of Congress on Wednesday and avowed her support for the safety of women around the world: "I became UNIFEM's Goodwill Ambassador in 2006 to freshwater perl jewelry amplify the voices of women and shine a light on solutions that work and make a lasting difference. Until recently, violence against women and the instability it causes hid in the shadows. I think the attention today underscores a new recognition that the issue is urgent and belongs on center stage."

The rising trend of celebrity ambassadors for charities and global outreach is a thorny one. It is completely annoying, for example, how they--even reality stars like Heidi Montag from The Hills--can count on good press by attaching their name to freshwater pearl pendant a goodwill trip to Africa.

And it's crazy how quickly celebrities-gone-wild turn downright humanitarian by just an appearance at a charity gala; Naomi Campbell, supermodel and convicted rageaholic, for pearl necklace example, is an ambassador for the White Ribbon Alliance and has organized relief drives for victims of Hurricane Katrina. Even Pam Anderson's support for PETA gets more press than her sex tape.

What else can you say but, "Good for PETA" and "Good for you, Pam."

"Celebrities partner up with charity organizations because their influential voice in pop culture can make a difference, but also because it is positive for their public image," says Kyle Hulcher, a New York-based publicist with the Fusion Group. Call it the wholesale pearl jewelry "Bono Conundrum"--reconciling whether the great press a celebrity can garner for internationally important causes can outweigh their potentially shallow or self-serving reasons for getting involved in the first place.