31 May 2010

Sick of it!

I am so sick of being sick. It all started a few weeks back when MS caught something while at work before we went to Sconnie. We came back and I started coughing like he was. Then I ran a half, and since then I can't get over this crap.

I had gone to the doctor a couple weeks ago and he said it was just allergies and to take Claritin-D. That made it worse! I was coughing more and and up more throughout the night after taking that then if I just went with my cough meds. But I wanted to get over it all, so I took both Claritin-D and Robitussin.

That combo seemed to help and I started to get better. But Saturday I woke up with swollen glands and heaviness in my head. Sunday was just as bad. I can breathe through my nose fine. It's just this sinus crap.

I want it to go away. I don't want to get MS sick and he doesn't want to get sick either, so we hang out together but there's no touching allowed. This sucks.

And on top of that, this morning is an amazingly beautiful morning and I REALLY want to go for a run. But I have a sharp pain in my right temple and crud in my throat.

Sucky.

29 May 2010

I made it about 19 hours

I'm not going to apologize. I'm not going to feel bad. It's not like I'm breaking down completely and gorging myself.

But I went on a walk...the the store...to buy a watermelon...and also got...dark chocolate kisses...and Cheerios.

None of these items are on Phase 1, let alone the cleanse plan. But I'm not going to feel bad. I'm not! I'm just figuring out that there are things in my life that I need.

Like food.

And not all food is bad. To quote the CD I've been listening to: "Food is food. It's not bad. It's just we can't overindulge."

She has an 80/20 rule when it comes to food - Eat well 80% of the meal, or the day, and the other 20% is yours. You eliminate the guilt, which can cause stress, which can cause weight gain.

So there you go. 80/20. And I need to run.

Edited to add: Okay, that was kind of a lame post, but the fact is I was sitting here with no motivation, could barely think let alone move so I could actually de-clutter which is my goal for today, so I needed to get something in me that would provide some sustenance and brain help. And it's not like I gave in completely and popped in the white trash pizza I have in my freezer, though I wouldn't be completely shocked if that happened later, at the rate I'm going.

Starting again

I need a fresh start. I need to lose weight which will in turn help me to feel better which in turn will give me a little more motivation to run which in turn will help me feel even better. A nice cycle.

So today is a cleansing day. Three days of Jay's special program (which is supposed to be a week - ugh). Today is water and juice. Tomorrow I can add in fresh fruit (watermelon is sounding REALLY good right now). Monday I add in fresh veggies - which is usually my cue to go to Olive Garden for salad (not that I can eat the breadsticks, which is sad, but the salad is good). For the latter, I'll probably just buy my own lettuce and get some more of their dressing.

Then Tuesday I'm starting Phase1. I talked MS into doing this with me again. He did it after we got back from Hawaii and lost 10 pounds. Of course then we went back to eating normal so that didn't really help. But we both need to slim down a bit.

We had thought about trying Ideal Protein, the latest craze at my workplace, but I'm not a big fan of just drinking shakes all day and eating salad and then a tiny sliver of protein at night. That feels too Slim Fastish for me. I'd rather eat real food.

So I'm going to do this again. I need to cut out my sugar intake; it's been bad lately. I need to drink more water. I need to eat breakfast - that's a big one. And that's my plan.

25 May 2010

A lot of walking!!

Okay, so 4 miles was a little rough, but felt pretty good. The bad thing is I start to get in my head and then I was choking up and had a moment where I couldn't quite breathe. I did walk quite a bit, but I'll get it back. It's early in the season yet.

Running!!!!

I had my "Union" meeting today (I'm just the recorder since I don't qualify to be union or management) and we ended early. I asked our facilitator if I had to go back to the office. "Nope! This was the duty for today. You're free!"

YAY! I love early days (which makes me wonder just how much I'm actually liking my job these days...I may need to reevaluate that). So I'm going to go for a run! I tried the 10 minute Trainer (via Tony Horton) this morning but that sucked. A run will be much better.

Off I go!!! (shortly...I have to get my shoes on, watch, etc.)

24 May 2010

Flip!

My life has flipped. Or turned 180 degrees. Or something.

Yesterday MS and I went to my niece and nephew's b-day party. Em's b-day was a month ago, but they were redoing their kitchen; Zach's b-day is next month but he has a baseball tournament that weekend. So my brilliant sister decided to hold the parties together.

It was a nice afternoon, albeit hot and muggy. Zach & MS hit some golf balls into the field across the road then played basketball. I went back and forth between the house and outside, stupidly having worn jeans so I was warm.

After the party, MS and I swung by the house so I could change and then we went to a nearby state lake to fish one last time during the "free fishing weekend". We caught one bullhead, 3 blue gills (only one worth keeping), and one carp (which I snagged) but then he got away despite the team effort. It was a nice, relaxing way to end the weekend.

But the flip is because while I was fishing, my dear friend Debbie was at the Guthrie enjoying one of my theater tickets - seeing "M. Butterfly". She texted when she got to the theatre, "OMG! The front row!" which is where my tickets are so I don't get distracted by the small aisles or the weird people. :) Then at intermission she texted she was loving the show. Then she called on her way home to tell me all about it.

I hung up the phone realizing that my life has completely done a 180. I now go camping and fishing. I'm trying to fit theater into my life. It's weird. Not necessarily bad, just weird.

22 May 2010

It's the wrong time of year, I know

I'm trying to find my Discardia moment. I missed it in March and I'm not sure I can wait until the end of June to start on this stuff.

I've been sorting through a bunch of papers, receipts, magazines, etc, that I've had in a box lid the past few months. I finally put a bunch of it in the burn box and have the recycling box filling up. But I also have the "Pile to Read". At least it's not as big as it once was.

The bad thing is I have always sorted on the floor and in a horseshoe around where I sit. So I have this huge space taken up with piles of a few papers all organized pretty like. What happens is I usually stack these, put them in a box and then in a few weeks go through them again - spreading them out in the horseshoe and hopefully whittling it down a little further. The cycle continues.

I really need to get a file cabinet. Really Really bad. Maybe I can talk MS into getting me one tomorrow after Zach & Em's b-day party. I think that would help. I could sort it into the files right away, even having files of "to-read" but they would at least be off my floor.

This might be the next best step. Until then, I'm going to just keep sorting and hopefully finding more to shred/burn and recycle.

Date Night

MS and I have instituted Date Night once a week (starting last night). We kind of made a day of it, so I took yesterday off. YAY for vacation time!

Of course, I got called in for an hour so MS mowed while I went in and took care of business and then swung to the mall to get my hairs cut. The latter was desperately needed.

Then because the state had open parks this weekend, include free fishing, we headed to a local state park and spent the afternoon fishing for whatever we could find. Of course we went at the wrong time of day, but we did get a little Blue Gill and 5 Bullheads. We threw one of the latter back, hoping for something bigger, but we decided to keep the other 4. And because we're such big fish lovers, we buried them in the garden for fertilizer. :)

Official Date Night was low key, but very nice. We went to Qdoba for supper (I felt like I was cheating on Chipotle a bit, but there's no Chipotle around here!) and then went to the bike trails and walked a couple miles chatting about things we want to do in the future - kayaking, theater, travel to the west coast to see friends, travel south to see other friends, maybe go to Ireland or Australia. And we talked about work futures and other just normal stuff.

That was it, but it was really nice to just get out of the house and be with each other. It's too bad we're both still a little sick. If only we could get over this crap, life would be so much better. :)

20 May 2010

*hack hack*

This has been a week of the cough.

So MS started to get sick a couple days before we went to Sconnie. He got back and went to the doctor last Wednesday who told him he had a sinus infection and bronchitis. Nice.

I started coughing Wednesday night. Dammit.

My half marathon was scheduled for Saturday. Nervous I was, but I decided to test the waters Friday and then see how my knees felt. Yes, I was worried about my knees more than my lungs. MS was the other way around.

Well both felt okay Friday...knees were great (new shoes rock!) and the lungs were a little tight but I thought it was doable.

So I ran. And then I spent the rest of the day hacking. And Sunday. And Sunday night.

So Monday I went to the doctor and told him my plight. He checked me out and said, "It's allergies. Take Claritin-D." Uh, okay.

So Tuesday I picked up the drugs. And took them Tuesday night. And coughed all night.

And coughed all day Wednesday. Dr. Mom called that early afternoon and said, "You should be taking Robitussin." Uh, okay.

So I bought some. And hacked only a little Wednesday night, but still woke up. And woke up with a bloody nose (which tells me it's very dry in this house). And I've hacked off and on most of today.

But I feel a little better now. And I'm going to take some drugs and pray I make it through the night. I'm going on vacation tomorrow - one day - and I need to breathe. I also need to get over this crap so I can start running again. Moe is getting chubby. Not good.

16 May 2010

Race

Okay, so I ran it. I actually drove an hour yesterday AM, picked up my packet, ran 3 hours for 13.1 miles, spent 30 minutes with my brother, and drove an hour back. Then I spent the afternoon on the couch in pain. I really should have gone for a walk but that didn't work.

Initially I was happy I finished. I haven't been running like I should - training? ha! That's a joke. And then this past week catching either bronchitis from MS or just a really nasty cough with a tiny bit of congestion wasn't good either. So the run was rough. The first couple miles I was okay, but just before the water stop at mile 2.5 I started to have some shallow breathing. I walked through the water stop and then headed out again. The rest of the race was a lot of walking with some running intermixed. When I'd start to run, my breathing would get labored so I'd walk. My legs were a little tight too, but it wasn't bad.

But then I got to thinking about it and realized how stupid I probably was in running it, but I just wanted to finish. And it didn't help that the first full marathon female finisher came in 4 minutes after me. Wow...I felt slow. It took me the same amount of time to finish 13.1 that it took her to finish 26.2. Sad. My time really depressed me. I felt like I had regressed three years in my running. Not good.

So I'm going back and forth. I have a pretty medal for finishing. But I finished 34 minutes slower than my half PR. But I can still walk. But my legs still hurt.

I have learned this:
- Don't run when you're congested - at least not 13.1 miles
- Training is a good thing
- P90X must return to my life ASAP
- Running must return to my life ASAP
- Proper fuel is important too (I had four bites of a PB sandwich before running - that probably didn't help)
- Stretch!!!
- If you're going to give yourself a "No-Slower-Than" time (NST) be smart about it (mine on Saturday was 3 hours...and I made that...but it makes me wonder if I had said 2:40 if I would have made that as well)
- Breathe and relax
and most important
- You can do anything you put your mind to - make sure you put your mind to the right things.

14 May 2010

Going to do it

My run wasn't too bad this afternoon. My knees felt pretty good (new shoes!) and my time was ...eh, okay. I ran a 5K in 34.56. That felt good considering I thought I was just under 3 miles in that time. My splits were good, though as I'm rethinking them...I thought my first mile was 10:31 but that was with some extra running because the mile actually ended earlier than I thought per my map. So not bad. My pace was 11:11 and that would get me ending right around 2 1/2 hours, which is decent for me considering everything. I just hope my lungs and legs hold up. Now it's mind game.

Really need to stop this...

For the last few years I have signed up for the marathon that is traditionally held this weekend. Two years ago I bailed having not ran at all leading up to it. Last year I ran it but only go through mile 13 before bailing to save my knee. This year I just signed up for the half and on top of the fact I haven't really been running much, I have a great cough (thanks, MS!) that concerns me a bit.

Am I nuts for considering it still? I came home from work early so I can rest a bit and then go for a short exploratory run to test the knee and the lungs. We'll see how it goes I guess. I really hate committing to something and then backing out...again. But sometimes that's the breaks, I guess. It just sucks.

13 May 2010

A plan because...

Without a plan there's no attack, and without an attack there's no victory!

I'm going to take next Friday off from work I think and start the process of decluttering (for real this time) my apartment. I have great new artwork via Edith from E&K that I want to get hung up. I have piles of paper that are just driving me insane. I need to get this accomplished and to do that I need to start. And to start I need a plan.

So Monday I'm going to go scope out file cabinets and buy some more hanging file folders. I have tons of the manilla folders, but not many hanging folders. I have some stuff already set up for the garage sale so I'm going to see if Mike is okay with me bringing it out to the house now so I don't have it in the apartment. I am going to take down recycling...if not tonight, this weekend. And it will begin. I have a week to work out more of my plan, but the big thing is I just need to start.

On another note, I have made a commitment via stickK.com to not bite my nails. This means I have been chewing a lot of gum this last week. They look okay after a week, but they are pretty flimsy, so if anyone has any suggestions on strengthening my nails, I'd appreciate it. When they get flimsy they tear a lot easier and that will just make me want to "trim" it a little and not in the best way. :)

I really need time at my apartment - a lot longer than a couple hours at night before bedtime. That will help. I need to make it a priority to set that time aside.

Interesting

So I have access to a few new sites at work these days - it's slowly coming on board at least. Right now I can log in to blogger, I can post to my blog, but I can't view my blog. That's where I'm at right now, at this very moment.

I'm REALLY hoping this changes soon. I have another blog that I've kept pretty private that I need to print today before my therapy session and I can't do it at home because I don't have a printer. So I'm stuck hoping and crossing fingers that by this afternoon I'll be able to view my blog.

Despite the fact that this new development will probably cause some unproductivity at work, I'm really excited for at least blogger to be up and running. While it works, I don't really like blogging on email, sending it home, and then copying and pasting it later. So this might be good.

So here's my inaugural post from the return of blogger to work. Here we go!

One note though - I will still continue to not talk about work here unless I'm talking in code. I don't need to be dooced.

11 May 2010

Weekend with Nika

Here are just a few of my pics from our weekend with Nika. To start we spent some time playing bucketball. MS would toss a small soft football into the bucket and Nika would catch it. Of course, soon the bucket turned into a hat. :)





I'm really glad MS and Nika got along. They had a lot of fun...though in this one, I'm not sure who had more. Legos and building are always a joy for MS; Nika seemed to have some fun too. :)

It's time for those-things-that-shall-not-be-named again

I’m back at work today and it’s going okay. I’m sort of staying motivated despite a heavy head and occasional snotty moment. MS picked up something last week had that over the weekend. Yesterday on the way home, all of a sudden I was achy and nauseated. Not a good combo. We stopped to eat and that helped a bit but not much. Felt pretty crappy last night and today I just have the sinus thing with occasional cough. I could have used a vacation after my vacation. But since my boss has been traveling basically non-stop for the last 3 weeks I can’t really complain.

A vacation might be in need soon though. MS asked me if my apartment disarray is a norm. Lately, yes, sadly. I explained to him that my life used to be pretty routine – Work my work week T-F, Saturday was decompression day with a run and relaxing, Sunday was church and baking or reading, Monday was errand and cleaning day. It wasn’t always a mess, though usually it has a little disarray. Part of that is I have limited places to put things and I’m a packrat when it comes to papers so I generally have NLPs that I need to sort though, file, recycle or burn. But I can sense his concern. He’s a packrat too, but he usually has his stuff in bins or boxes whereas mine is out on the floor.

So I’m going to look up the Discardia dates (which I thought were on my calendar at work, but aren’t) and schedule some vacation for me around those dates so the moon will be aligned and I’ll have a goal set for when I’m going to do some serious spring cleaning and purging. I won’t wait to start until then – I can get boxes ready and start with some stuff now. But those will be the official dates.
- I’ll get a 3 drawer file cabinet and get my work files in order.
- I’ll sort through my files and see what really needs to be kept and what can go.
- I’ll check with my bank and finance places on going electronic.
- I’ll get an external hard drive and move my photos and important files to that.
- I’ll sort through my storage containers and keep what I really need.
- I’ll get my books sold or ready for the rummage (so this will have to be soon since we were looking at a June 11 rummage) or I’ll donate them to Goodwill and chalk it up to a big tax write off.
- I’ll be diligent about not having so much sentimental value over things that are ancient and mean little.
- I will sort my crafty stuff into a crafty container.
- I’ll have my yarn in storage where it will keep dry but be easily accessible.
- I’ll purge and dwindle my belongings to the necessities – those needed and wanted only, not the things I think I might need someday.

And maybe, just maybe, I’ll find some peace.

09 May 2010

Sconnie!

Everyone is asleep except MS and me. Well, basically that's Nika and K because E had to go on an unexpected trip. So we're watching Superman and I thought I'd write.

We're in Sconnie which is always a good time. I thought it would be fun to introduce MS to the world of cheese and beer and enjoy some time with my adorable Goddaughter. I have a lot of pictures but I haven't uploaded them yet.

It's been a great trip. We got in Friday night and relaxed over some kabobs. Saturday we went to the Domes in Milwaukee and had a little road trip (complete with a sideroad tour and some accidents and traffic to work around). We ate lunch at the best Mexican place I know and then headed back home for naps. Hyde decided to curl up with me so I didn't sleep - sneezing and chest tightening up left a nap to be desired.

Saturday night Alicia came over, K's sister, and we had pizza from Marty's and played a little Farkle. I still can't believe E won with a 14000+ roll. Insane! But a lot of fun.

Today MS and I hung out with Nika while E&K went to work. This is where I have a lot of photos but I'll get them up this week, I promise. WE had a blast and Nike and MS really hit it off. :)

After lunch K and I went for a trail hike to have our time alone, as we do. It was a beautiful mother's day and the trail was wonderful. I drug MS out for some fresh air after we got back and we had a nice little walk.

So now we're just chillin' while the ladies nap. We're taking K out for dinner tonight for Mother's Day and as a thank you for the great weekend. Like K said though...we're family so it's just great to have us together again.

04 May 2010

Two in a row

Therapy two days in a row is not something I would recommend. Today hurt. I felt physically exhausted before I even showed up. Probably not the best way to start. And I have to say, I hate sitting in silence with someone looking at me the whole time. I understand the reasoning but man, i hate that. I felt like I was under a microscope. blech.

Anyway, my tasker this week is to journal and I'm supposed to bring it with me. The thing is, I don't write in a journal...I'll type it. I can keep up with my brain better, but she didn't seem to keen on that.

Well, too bad. I'm going to stand up for me for once and do what works best for me. The point is for me to journal about the stuff she wants me to journal about, right? And this will help me to do it best. This is my tool, my instrument for writing...the "typewriter" of today. So I will begin.

02 May 2010

Look up

This month's NaBloPoMo theme is "Look Up". Not that I've signed up this month, or anything, but I do like the theme. Someday I will blog every day again. I miss writing.

But for now, I was thinking about the theme. Yesterday, we had a work party - a spring fiesta, if you will (or as I continued to call it - "Uno de Mayo") and KC and I did the planning.

We were thinking about a cookout, but let's face it, we cannot trust the weather in this state at all. So we opted for a Mexican themed party instead. We had a salsa contest and the winner got a big can of cheddar cheese (expired 2006) that we found in one of our breakroom cupboards; we had a jeopardy game to help the different sections get to know one another (we had a lot of fun making that one - the first question someone chose was "This person is considered the top dog" to which the answer was Boss1 or we would also accept Moe (me); and of course a pinata smashing contest.

KC made a sun and named him Miguel and we borrowed some goggles that were "fatal vision" goggles where they were warped to look like certain blood alcohol levels. Now the fact we already had quite a bit of alcohol before the pinata contest, I'm not sure we needed the goggles too.

The fun part was spinning folks slowly (so they wouldn't throw up) and then handing them the plunger handle and telling them to aim right in front of them. Finally Boss1 broke it down and the boys scrambled for the candy.

"Look Up" Definitely needed when hitting a pinata in a tree, and when you don't know where you should look or aim, it's tough.

That's kind of how I feel sometimes. I need to remember to look up more. I feel this need to fix me lately and I know I need to look up a bit more to get there. It's not that I don't now, but maybe a little bit more would help.

So I'm reading "Eat, Pray, Love" again. I only got through Italy the last time I started it, but I really want to read the whole thing (not because the movie is coming out). For one, I need a lighter book instead of my "How the way we talk can change the way we work" or "Tired of trying to measure up" books. And for two, it's just a good read. I need a break.