January 2018

Happy New Year!   

  2017 was such a strange, unpredictable year; politically, socially, financially. We opened our 4th location and boy was that a big endeavor, but we are looking forward to a very exciting, successful 2018. However, it is always a stressful time when we build and open new studios.  We rely on our staff and management team to advise us, as owners, with the best strategy to use in our expansion efforts. With the minimum wage going from $9.50 to $11.00 to $13.00 in the span of two years it has been a financial challenge to keep our payroll under control (but we support the raises as being past due).

  We traveled to Tulsa for Christmas & Santa Monica for New Year's. We went from 65 degree weather to 5 degrees when we came back. I was lucky to do some boogie boarding in the Pacific by the Santa Monica Pier.  At home we are binging on "Friends" (cabin fever).  On Saturday 1/20 it was amazing to see the "Women's March" in the streets; so positive, so supportive, so very necessary.

 This February starts the year of the Earth Dog in Chinese astrology. I will give an explanation next month of what that means for the year.   

 Best fitness advice: keep warm, stay active, get a flu shot if you need to and enjoy the longer days of sunlight, get outside.  Our fitness classes are really growing this year and we have more men attending than ever.  We have added more time sprints as well as power weights; non stop workouts for older adults.  New students are always welcome!  We have 4 classes per week at our 131 W. 72nd St. Studios, (Two morning and two evening classes). Classes cost $20.00 per individual class with discounted group rates. The first class is discounted to $10.00.  For more information email me at patripleyny@gmail.com.

    Gratefully, Patricia

We spent the New Year in Santa Monica, CA. While we were there we went to Universal Studios and Disneyland with my friend Rayleene. We have been to both places many times before but it's still a fun experience.

During the first part of January I saw The Killers for the first time in concert with Mom and Graham at MSG. They put on a great show.  I have many more concerts coming up in the following months that I'm looking forward to including NF, Declan McKenna, MISSIO, and AJR. We are even seeing Vance Joy perform in Glasgow Scotland when I travel there with my family in March!

My first spring semester of college is coming up and I'm so excited to start my new classes.

See you next month, Jeannie

 

Jeannie is the Daughter of RG owners Patricia Ripley & Butch Grier