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Friday, December 30, 2011

we be illin'

yeah, so. the end of 2011 is headed out with a bunch of sneezes and sinus pressure. maybe a little fever, too. ugh.
luckily most of my 17 day vacation has been healthy, although i did spend most of it in bed, sleeping and napping. but this week i felt like i was making some progress and then bam, like sick. which after taking a week off from swimming to let my plastic surgery heal, the one swim i did do on tuesday felt as though i hadn't swam in like ever, like it was my very first swim evar. and then i skipped the swim yesterday and now i will likely skip it tomorrow too. yesterday because i felt some arse coming on. today was a rest day unless i was feeling antsy then i was to go on an easy run. SO we picked up my skate skiis and i tried it out to get in some practice for sunday, assumming we are better by then. it was so fun. maybe not the most brilliant thing to do considering i wasn't feeling so awesome, but it was way fun. then we came home, watched empire strikes back with the kids, drank three mugs of hot water with lemon and then had a bunch of ice cream.
we watched star wars with the kids yesterday and today empire strikes back. today was awesome because as darth vader was kneeling down talking to the emperor and sirus asked "why is darth vader sitting criss cross applesauce?" what a funny thing to imagine. oh i wish i could remember some of the funny things he was saying while we were watching star wars though. he got r2ds, c3po, chewbaca and darth vader for xmas. he of course referred to that peanut butter guy and seamus was excited to say she knew who chewbacwa was. love it.
now i am counting down the moments until i can take a few swigs of the nyquil and hit the hay.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

if i could turn back time

ok, cher, you can lay off..

so back in august amazon local had a deal for lash extensions! after seeing a friend with beautiful, natural, lovely looking lashes i jumped on that opportunity!!
so i finally got in to have them installed. she put some cooling pads on my lower eyes which were nice since i was uber puffy from two days of ham dinners, and an hour of swimming right before. then she taped my lower lashes down! and thank goodness i got to have the whole thing done with my eyes closed, i really hadn't thought about how they would be installed until i go there but was pretty sure i did not want to have my eyes open for the 2hrs that it was going to take. then she taped my upper lids up? but not open, but up enough to have the lashes point up or something. i told her it was all clock work orange and stuff. AND THEN!!! i fell asleep. for like an hour and 1/2!! how funny is that?? every once in a while i woke up because she'd be tugging on something but mostly i was just asleep. when i woke up though, my hands had fallen asleep and the back of my head was killing me!!! so she let me roll my head a little and i bent my knees up some and shook my hands some and then, bam i was done.
wow. so yeah. hmm. mixed feelings about the results. crayz! a bit crazyier than expected. my friend's were so pretty an natural. mine, not so much. i went into it as an experiment, to see if i might want to do them again for a special occasion, not really with the intention of all the upkeep, but wow, did not expect the craziness that ensured. i went to gym after and felt like everyone was staring at me! ok, so normally they do stare because they are amazed at my extreme athleticism and all, but this time, i was like, hmm, they really are staring. when i got home, sirus said he wished i had my normal lashes back. and seamus didn't even notice until i stared at her and then she said she wanted her real mommy back. good lord. so they are on there until they fall out with my normal lash shedding pattern. maybe i will get to wear my NEW dress with my NEW lashes sometime before they fall out?? oh yeah, i accidentally got a new dress.
the kids and i went down town and i tried on a bunch of dresses at betsey johnson and everyone knows that is a terrible idea and sirus was so funny! as the girl was hanging the dress and pulling a lovely pink bag over it, he was pretty much narrating what she was doing with the giant bag to the point where he told her she was doing a really great job. she paused and stared at him and then just kind of giggled. but OMG on the drive to the gym after the lashes, OMG OMG a GIGANTIC spider crawled across the ceiling of the car!! right overtop of me!! i almost crashed like 8706 times while i watched it make its journey until it got to the other side AND THEN!! spun a web and lowered itself down to the floor where it disappeared!! totally forgot about the spider by the time i got back into the car after the run until i was about 1/2 way home, and it was dark and couldn't see it even if the spider was dangling right in front of my face.


this is my before look, totally eastern european, goggle remnants from the morning swim, dermatologist healings, bad hair, you know. kind of what i look like on a daily basis. good lord is that really what I look like on a daily basis?? wow TMZ and the paparazzi are going to love this!!!


and the after look - less puffy eyes, doe eyed deer look, possible anime, still no makeup. better? not sure. oh, i got my eye brows done, too.


and the new dress!! can't wait to wear it!! i will wear heels with it though. no flats here. and the feathery thing is detachable, so might just detach it and mix in something else.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

surgeried upon parts trois and quatre

oh the lemon drop has gone straight to my legs. i love that feeling. but the legs, she are tired. sunday i did a fun run with some of the goils. then thank goodness it was raining so we skipped sledding and i hung for some coffee talk then went to the gym. good gracious, i did some step ups and bulgarian split squats, both with weights an omg, days and days later i am still suffering!! ok, it was only a day ago, sort of, depending on how you count.
but this mornign i went to the dermatoligist. i was surgeried upon for dermatology relates issues in 2006 and in 2009. 2006 was abnormal but they got it all. 2009 was all displasiaed and stuff and i had to go back again to get it dug out even more. so anyway, i got back every year and every year, she takes my butt cheeks and looks between them. this year was no different. but also this time i got that thing on my leg frozen off and then the thing on face cut off. chop chop. slipped outta there in sunglasses and a hat pulled down low all movie starlet pastic surgeried like. i say i had an exorcism performed upon me, i am no longer a witch! and sirus was happy to hear it! and then there is a spot on my head that i need to keep an eye on. sweet. wrinkles, pimples, grey hairs and stuff on my face that i need to get cut off. awesome. i am aging gracefully.

Thursday, December 08, 2011

dream

last night i had a dream about my dad. that doesn't happen very often, i think i can only remember having dreamt about him a few times before. but last night he came to move in with us, which was a little odd. he was friends with one of my co-workers and they would hang out. my co-worker would refer to him as an old man, because he was 67, and then i said to my co-worker that he was pretty much an old man himself. he had all his mail forwarded to our house. i went to get the mail and there was a "make your own pair of shoes" kit for me, but then a huge stack of business reply cards for my dad. i went through them and noticed that he was doing a lot of business with my current work. how did i not know that? did he know i worked there too?

it was late december 1997 when i was back in Ohio visiting my mom for xmas, when i had gone to Eat N' Park with Cary for coffee. we were supposed to go to lisa's after and when we got to her house, lisa came out crying. it is such a weird thing to see your friends crying, you don't want it to happen and i instantly wanted to console her. i didn't understand what was going on but she told me i had to call home right away. my brother was at the house and he told me what had happened and that i needed to come home. dad had been out running while on vacation in mexico and he had been hit by a truck. of course my initial reaction was - but he's ok, right? he was not ok.
i can't remember if i cried then. it was a really weird, sureal feeling. i probably cried but it was also almost too big to comprehend, and what if i misunderstood what my brother had told me. i got home and what i had heard was confirmed to be true. he was not ok. he wasn't coming back. he was only 53. then i cried a lot.
my initial selfish thought was - who is going to walk me down the isle when i get married? i also remembered that i hadn't spoken to him since november, and that when i got off the phone after that call, i had remembered thinking how it was probably the best phone conversation i had ever had with him. he had moved to mexico for work not even a year before. i remember him calling me at school and even though my parents had been divorced for 10 years already, when he said he was moving to mexico, it was really the first time i ever felt like he was leaving. i didn't really want him to go, even though i saw him maybe once or twice a year, but i also thought it was a pretty great opportunity and i was hoping to get the chance to visit someday. we weren't going to get together over xmas because we were planning a family trip to all meet up in las vegas in february. he was going to run the marathon which was in february back then and us kids were going to head out there to see him and to hang out. we hadn't ever had a vacation like that before, so we were all looking forward to it. i was also excited to show him my bleach blonde hair, my newly pierced nose and tell him more about my exciting (cough cough) job at a successful internet start up. i was a success!! and i wanted to tell him all about it.
but on december 21 1997, that opportunity was taken away.
those first few years were weird. i had a lot of growing up to do so this only added to the turmoil i was already experiencing. the blonde hair grew out, the exciting job at the start up turned into a trip to thailand, to london, to morocco and then 2 months in costa rica. after the trip to costa rica i was a different person. i swear that that trip saved my life.
i started mountain biking, i was taking better care of myself, i adopted a 3rd cat and i met eric.
i think about my dad quite a bit. when i have tough times at work, and really don't know what to do, i really wish he was here to talk to. once i asked him what he did for work and after like 45 minutes of explaining, i really couldn't tell you what it was. but now so often i would really like to bounce some ideas of off him and get his advice.
i think about him when i run. he was a great runner. he had run on and off for as long as i can remember, i even remember all piling in the car with my mom to go track him down when he was caught in a torrential down pour and asking him why he walked to the end of the driveway before starting to run. but when he was like 45 he started running more regularly. he ran, and he ran, he ran some more. i didn't understand his accomplishments, and i fear that none of us in the family did. he had a personal best of just under 3hrs for a marathon, he placed top 5 in his age group in many races, one year he ran 11 marathons in 12 months. again, i would love to be able to talk him about running, to find out how he could run so fast and what drove him to run the many miles he did. its also so sad that he never got to have a garmin!! he would have loved a garmin!!!
i also think about him when i look at my kids. he never got to meet my kids. i can't even imagine what he would have been like with them. i don't think i had ever seen him even interact with kids. i think he would have liked them. i get the weepiest about that, even 14 years later.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

sunday sunday, la la, la la la la

today is the last day of my staycation. so sad. it was glorious but it went by so very quickly. but ever since friday i kept thinking it was sunday. but now, it is.
we took the kids up to go sledding up at snoqualmie pass for some sledding the other day. it was so fun. we didn't know what we were doing, so we wound up parked by some sign that said sno park, but there really wasn't any that we were expecting. but we hiked up this hill, we think it must be a snowshoe or maybe even xc skiing trail, but we went up about a mile, every 5th step dropping in at least knee deep if not further, but it was up up up. so fresh, and clear and brisk. it was sunny and i even started to build up a little sweat even. i was impressed that the kids kept trucking forward, too. there was some complaining but not a ton, but enough. eventually, we put the kids on the sleds and then pushed them down the hill. i was on sirus's sled for a while until he kicked me off saying that i was too big and i was slowing him down. this turned out to be true, because once he was by himself, he was going going going! screaming and yelling the entire time. it was very funny. when we got to the bottom they wanted to do it again, but we needed to get home, it was late.
today i was on the trainer for a few hours. i really do like the trainer. i like a controlled environment and numbers and stuff. plus i would rather drip sweat than be rained on in the cold.
i have gotten all caught up with dexter, season 5 was so good!!! season 3 and 4 were ok but not great but season 5 was awesome. then based on the advice of my boss i decided to start watching breaking bad which i am almost all the way through season 1 of (are there more seasons?) but i am very much enjoying it!
the other night eric and i watched this show called being human. its brittish, about a vampire and warewolf who live together in a house that is occupied by a ghost. it was actually quite good.
today at the mall, i bought a pair of leggings. goodness, i don't know if i will have the balls to wear them out of the house, especially with no boots to wear them with! but then i came home and ordered a few things from my new favorite store Splendid! love it.
.

Saturday, November 26, 2011

fine line

there is a fine line between feeling quite good and feeling hammered. that is all i have to say about that.
things have been pretty good lately. my back and ass have been on and off again, i got a "medical" bike fit, so i may look like a barney on my bike but it is allowing me to heal. allegedly. it does feel better for sure, but it needs some lubey, too. and i ran today! i've run a few times, on the treadmill, with a walk break here and there but today was the first run i have done where it was run the whole 50 minutes! hooray! and i felt ok after even! i swam after and i could have been swimming in place for all it was worth but still, it was pretty good.
i had the whole week off from work which was totally delux. except i started it off totally sick which in hind site was fine since i slept like 36 hours with a few wake breaks in there, but then i was better! hooray!!
i did an indoor tri a few weeks back, can't remember if i mentioned that. it was super short but super tough. i haven't done any intensity since like august so it totally kicked my butt. thankfully i hadn't done any straight running yet eihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifther so i took some walk breaks during my 1.5 mile run. haha, yes, 1.5 miles. walk breaks. multiple walk breaks. sweet. i was dying. it was fun though.
what else? every since my shopping excursion with brooke, ive been doing some more shopping on my own. i have to calm it down here pretty soon. i have had no luck with boots, even had two pairs at home recently which i thought were pretty good but decided that i wouldn'tactaully ever wear, at least not as often as i would like, so back they went. these crocs sandals are going to have to be replaced for the winter here real soon though. real soon. but i have total insecurities about the boots! i have two pairs of boots that i already own that i totally love! the one pair that i bought a bout a year ago which i thought were quite sensible, i got rid of those because i am convinced they are at the root of my problem. but i have my stupid favorite boots, that are perfect in every single way, i got them right after i had sirus and they are perfect!!! except i can't wear them any more because of the heel, at least not for every day wear. but if they had a flat heel, then we would be talking!! then i have some other boots that have a totally sensible square heel which are perfect except that that square heel is too tall for my messed up feet, legs and back these days. ugh. two pairs of perfect boots, that i already own even, that i can't really wear. :( so i am trying to get something that measures up to their awesomeness. i do have some sweet motorcycle boots but because brooke worked with me to find the perfect skinny jeans, i can't wear them unless i wear my boot cuts, and if i am going to wear the boot cuts, i am going to wear the danskos, because they are comfortable. and awesome. and great. and i love them.
trying to figure out xmas presents for the kids. i want sirus to have a very star wars xmas, but he is only sort of into star wars. so i will only force a little bit of star wars on him - got him some sheets and going to get him some action figures - that he will love!!! and seamus, good grief, what do the almost 8 year olds want these days?? from what i can gather, teeny tiny things that they can leave all over the house. she is growing out her hair! its cute! but long, but not really yet. her one front tooth that she has lost has now grown back in and is HUGE compared to all the baby teeth around it. i think the only reason she lost it was because she banged her face on sirus's head. but she has lost only 4 teeth. pretty sure she should have lost more than that by now. sirus hasn't lost any! she had a wiggly tooth a few weeks ago, i jsut asked her about it, she said it is less wiggly than it was, she says she doesn't have time to always be remembering to wiggle it.
feeling pretty good these days, a little more on the optimistic side of things!

Friday, November 11, 2011

damnt it

i want to go to bed but eric just put in a movie and i am intrigued.
other news, the new twilight movie is comign out soon and i haven't even cracked the cover of the last book despite eric running all over the airport looking for it over a month ago. i need to start reading it so i can get 1/2 way through so i can see the movie.
but i need to go to sleep BUT eric put in this stupid movie and now i must watch.
despite recently confessing on facebook that i like justin timberlake, i am not particularly fond of cameron diaz, but this is one of her movies. gah!!!
when i put sirus to bed tonight, i was overly chatty. he told me about how he would like it if i wore different earings sometimes and maybe a flower shaped nose ring. then he told me he was really tired and wished i would leave. nice.
ok, need at least 8hrs!!!

punishment

my punishment for bragging to the internets about my lower level of stress is that my car broke down!! at whole foods!! in the rain!! and it forced me to eat a camelita!!!
gah!!

stress

i have been doing pretty well in the stress department lately. not much of it happening, one of the biggest stressors right not really is why can't i find a descent pair of boots that don't make me look like a pirate? i have narrow calves i guess but its not like they are abnormally so, but its impossible. i went to nordstrom the other day, i asked the nice man, i said, i am looking for black, flat heel, narrow calf. he came back with a pair of uggs, a pair of stilettos, a pair of 3inch heels and a pair of Ivanka Trump's with a bunch of gold all over them.
what i don't understand about my lack of significant stress is that i have begun to have my stress dreams again. lots of people dream about falling, or public speaking all nekkid or whatever, i dream about tsunamis. and there have been a lot of them lately. that dream also involved an orca swallowing a swimmer in one piece. and fuzzy stripe playing in the toilet while it was flushing and getting sucked down the pipe! but i was able to get him out so that was good. anyway, tsunami dreams.
but i am sad to report that my back isn't feeling so great today, it was kind of bothering me yesterday, too. but then it kind of really bothers me today. i don't know what to do.

Sunday, November 06, 2011

on the road

so i was having a total downward spiral into depression, obesity and beyond. but luckily halloween came and i ate a cupcake and 6 giant cookies (that were really delicious at the time) and it was the first time ever that i was like, omg, i'm like dizzy and i think i am going to be sick.
the next day, i had another cupcake, a leftover from the at work halloween party and i felt dizzy and sick again. i have not had the sweets since then, unless you call the sugar rim of a few lemon drops the sweets. but its a big accomplishment. i was avoiding going to the main floor at work because i didn't think i could pass by the receptionists desk without stopping. i have since had a meeting or two up there and have been able to avoid it. i even go up there sometimes to use the ladies room because the mirror is better up there, and sometimes you need to not see a reflection of you being all squished. but also, i haven't had any of the kids halloween candy. i just haven't wanted any. we picked up full sized bars to hand out to the kids for halloween. 30 of them from costco. we have like 22 of them left. ugh, we had only 3 groups of kids, one group was only one little Dorothy and that was it.
but i feel like i am getting back on track which is good. plus my training is coming back nicely. i've been swimming, although i did have a heart to heart with my coach about how kicking is really overrated and that we should really consider not doing it. he said ixnay on the no ickingkay. but i convinved him to at least let me kick on my back for a while, which has been waaaay better. a few of the drills i have been doing are starting to stick, too, making sense in my normal stroke, so i think things are good there. still doing a good amount with the buoy but that is good. i've also done a few 2hr rides! ok, indoors on the trainer because i am the biggest woose in the world. yesterday i had the kids, so it was all i could do, but the the previous week it was beautiful out. but i was woosy. but about 50 indoor miles this week which is pretty good for me right now.
and, AND i have been running. like not in the water. again i am a woose, ok, i am just realizing that its probably wuss, but woose is kinda funny. but i did 10 indoor miles! my run intervals have increased to 4 minutes, walk intervals have decreased to 1 minute and pacing has dropped to 8:20. of course not for the whole thing but for 2 of the 4's. i am soooo out of shape. but feeling good and feeling happy.
and other good things are going on too. so right now, stuff is good. looking forward to the rest of 2011 and i think 2012 will be a good year, hoping to keep this injury at bay though. i can still feel it, but as long as i get in there and do some pt right after any activity it seems to be ok.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

yesterday and today

ugh, so last night i had 3 cookies! and the beer and 2 slices of the caramel apple. :(
i have no ability to control myself. i didn't go to the candy dish, but did i pay for it after work? today i didn't go to the candy dish either, but its still early, plenty o dammage to be done still.
help me!! help me help me!!!

Monday, October 24, 2011

pjs

the other day when i was putting sirus to bed, he wanted to wear his brand new transformers that allie and z sent to him for his birthday. i told him he should really wear different jammies because the transformers were starting to smell a little like farts. he replied with - all of my jammies smell like farts because i fart when i sleep.
im on a diet. but i am drinking a beer. did i mention that the other night while settling into bed after some good old lemon drops i resolved to not drink so much, maybe take some time off. that lasted until the next evening. ugh. BUT, really i need to drop a few. i read somewhere that its ok to gain up to 12% of your weight in the off season. holy smokes, thats a lot, and i certainly don't want to do that. but my premature off season surely jumpstarted the off season weight gain. oh and increase in bodyfat. bleck. gross. i fought all day long to not go to the candy dish at the resceptionists desk. because of this, i didn't even go upstairs during the day for fear i wouldn't be able to get past that damn dish!! so i made it all day without hitting the candy dish, and i got through lunch with some good choices - quinuio or however its spelled mixed with some crap, tasty and allegendyly good for me crap but still. i think there was pumpkin in it, billed as squash. but i am pretty sure it was raw pumpkin. and then some other stuff, like bulgar or something and crap and some spinach.
so yeah, dinner was good, nothing too terrible about that when the oven beeped stating that it had reached the desired temp. what was going into it? eric was baking cookies. WHAT THE HELL. we still have two caramel apples in the fridge - we made them the other day and they are the BOMB. but which is the smarter choice - beer, cookies or caramel apples? i bet its the caramel apples, so i am having beer.
oh baby jesus, help me to not eat too many cookies when they are done cooling!!!

Sunday, October 23, 2011

whoaaa!!!!

omg, so just like last year i am sitting here watching the posts on twitter and facebook of the xterra worlds championships. the suspense is KILLING ME!! my very best boyfriend dan hugo is bouncing around in like 2nd and 3rd since somewhere on the bike and now 3 miles into the run is still holding his own. but the twitter updates are a bit tough to follow, or maybe the race really is as close and they are making it, with the order constantly changing? conrad stoltz dropped out at mile 2 of the run due to asthma, which is crazy. he must be really messed up to drop out with only a few miles to go. hope he is ok. but dan, oh my lovely dan!! i am rooting for you!!!
anxiously waiting to hear how danelle kabush is doing as well as cori and swim coach matt!!!
aaaak!!!!

Saturday, October 22, 2011

oh good grief

good stuff going on! i went for a run yesterday!! granted it was for 2 minutes but still i was running! ok, so i got to repeat it 4 times, so 8 minutes total. during that first 2 minutes i thought i was going to die. huffing and puffing and all, how did i ever do this before? i'll never be able to be a runner again! but then by the 3rd one i was feeling much better but at the same time happy that there was only 1 more to do. i had done some aqua jogging in the shallow pool the day before and my calves were killing me. so i decided to wear the compression socks for the run, to reduce the jiggle and in the past they have helped. but i decided to do this ground breaking run at the gym, and i had an internal conflict - do i walk though the gym looking like a total tool with my compression socks pulled all the way up and hop on the treadmill for 2 minutes? or do i push them down and show off my uber hairy beast-like legs? what at dilema! so i pushed them down, walked quikly through the gym, and jumped into the room where they have the big screen tv and the lights turned down. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
then today was another ground breaking day - i rode OUTSIDE!! omg. i almost passed out just typing it. it was kind of like the injured girls ride, which was perfect because no one was pushing the pace. my back seemed ok, and still as of right now it feels ok, too. before i left for the ride i was sorta of having an anxiety attack or something where all i wanted to do was clean and organize. and when i got home that was totally what i did. went through my medicine cabinet and bathroom drawers and threw out all of the expired makeup, lotions, cleansers and other crap that i've been holding onto for some unknown reason. then i moved onto some drawers of crap that needed sorted out and i got ride of a bunch of that stuff. its so nice to clean! wow, i could do more, i want to do more! pitch it all!!!
tomorrow is the xterra world championships. i had planned on going. i was all set to go all the way up until the beginning of august when i decided i just didn't want to ride my mtn bike and i canceled my registration. i had spent most of the first part of the summer on my road bike and my sweet new tri bike, and then i went on two mtn bike rides and had two laaaame crashes. and that is when i decided. the not two weeks later i hurt my back. wtf. but now the race is tomorrow and i am sad that i am not going. so many fun people are out there right now, getting ready for the race. all without me!! waaah!!! how can they be having so much fun without me there? but at least i got to ride my bike outside with some of my fav peeps and it didn't rain on us and it was on the warmer side.
internets can you desipher my dream for me? i went to the dermitologist because i wanted her to look at this thing on my leg, kind of like by my ankle. she told me to take a shower then wrap up in some big fluffy white towels. then she told me to play family feud with these other doctor and nurse people. and i did. then like after about an hour and a 1/2 and me getting worried that eric was going to get annoyed for having to wait for me so long, i finally was like, when can you look at the thing on my ankle? she took a peek, said ooooh, yeah, well, hmm. let me get ready to work on that. then she went to take a shower and then the people i was playing family feud with said she had been drinking wine and needed to sober up. then the dream sorta drifted out into something else.
fuzy stripe got neutered yesterday. big news right there. hoping he calms down and leaves nadj alone a little bit.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

i'm watching you

ok, not really, i am watching xfactor. something weird is going on with it. its nutty. simon is getting all pist because they are making the songs their own. he doesn't like it.
on another note, i have been getting in a bit more exercise. had a 50 minute trainer workout yesterday. got up into the zone3. i even broke a but of a sweat. it was awesome. this morning janet took me to samena! i didn't go in the outside pool although i am kind of craving some cool crisp, clean water! but i was toasty warm in the inside and my intervals were hard. janet joined me for the last 10 minutes and i can see why the old ladies kind of just hang out in the pool floating around chatting. and then when i got home i did another 20 minutes on the trainer and OMG i better start some super long fat burning workouts soon!! gaaahh!!!! its baaaad!
what else? work is good!
we went to oktoberfest this past weekend. it was SO FUN. exactly what i needed. there was some beers, some chicken dancing, a little bit of a brat. ya know. good stuff.

but now i have to get my act together. make a plan and get this show back on the road.
BUT we are looking at remodeling the house! like BIG remodel! like, omg it will probably be under construction for like 5+ years but damn will it be nice when its done (i hope!) whoa!! we've been talking about it for a long time but meetings are being set up with architechts and ideas are being thrown around! let there be light! lots and lots of light!!

Thursday, October 06, 2011

mid life crisis

if i am having a midlife crisis, does that mean i will only wind up being 74?
its been rough lately. i had a total breakdown when we got back from ogden. i am tired of looking like ass all the time, tired of bad hair, bad skin, ever increasing body fat % due to lack of exercise, always being tired. so i had my breakdown, and then i went shopping. totally a risky move when feeling so horrible, but i went to nordstrom and found one of the sales girls there, brooke and told her i needed an overhaul. SHE WAS AWESOME. we picked out some jeans to start with, then she asked me what i was looking for in tops. i said nothing clingy and nothign that needed dry cleaning. she said i was really testing her fabric knowledge, but we looked at all the tags. she didn't discourage me from picking things out to try, but funny how the things i picked looked like ASS but the things she picked were super cute. but first we started with the denim, as she put it. she told me to try them on in a certain order. she got me different sizes and when i tried the smaller size and was freaking out by all the ass rolls, i asked her to come in the room and look. she said the ass rolls are exactly what they want to see! who knew??? so i picked out two pairs of skinny jeans. omg, yes, TWO. SKINNY jeans. i tried on some leggings and they looked horrible, but the skinny jeans were good.
then the tops. she brought me things to layer them all with and when i said i didn't like something she didn't try to convince me otherwise and instead just took it away and brought something else. it was awesome. i wound up with a TON of stuff, including a poncho?? what? when she was ringing me up, i asked her if she could go to shoes with me. she said she couldn't but called down there to see if her favorite shoe guy was there. he wasn't but that was ok. i did get a pair of boots but after determining they were too big around the calves i have since returned them. now i want to go back and see brooke again and see if i can hire her to be my stylist, at least for a day. go through my stuff and my shoes and all that stuff and help me put some stuff together. i did get some accessories, too, which i have been trying to encorporate every day. its been fun. NOW if only i could get my hair and face under control.
i did put my fake bangs on the other day and looked into some hair extensions. working on it. and so excited that i picked up the groupon for eyelash extenstions! cannot wait!! hate to be so obsessed with how i look, but i'm not getting any younger. and OMG the gray hairs!! wtf.
but PT is going pretty well. i have some set backs every once in a while, like yesterday i wore soem totally sensible old lady boots to work. they are aersoles for goodness sake!! low, very sensible heel, totally safe. until about 90 minutes into the work day and i realized i really really needed to take them off. luckily i brought my sandals and i changed out of them, and almost instantly the acute discomfort i was having in my back went away. i was sitting the whole time - how does that happen? anyway, those boots are going away, especially since i suspected them of sabotauging me in the past!!!. then i sat weird on the couch while using the computer and while that was ok, unfolding from it was not ok. thorough back agitation. but PT this morning fixed it. i rode on the trainer the other day!! how hooray is that? big time hooray!! and i was happy to figure out that the reason the 20 minutes i did the other day were so hard was because eric had cranked up the resistance! but i was happy to be spinning again. and swimming is going awesome. still with the pull buoy but that is more to my liking anyway. i can feel swim improvement happening! but serious lack of motivation it me the other day and i did nothing but be grumpy. i am on a leg shaving strike!! its really gross. when the PT did some work on my IT band i appologized for the extreme fur on my legs, i am not sure i have ever let it get this long, but i am protesting my injury. ok, so i did shave them before going to ogden - couldn't let dan hugo see them in that shape!! but they are baad. eric said, hmph, not a big deal, his are hairier. but still its gross.
but some good stuff going on. getting through it. not thrilled with the winter approaching but looking forward to progressing to a run here someday soon.

Monday, October 03, 2011

so what else is new?

omagosh! so much!!!
we went to ogden! good times at xterra usa championships! we decided to take the kids which turned out to be very fun. we flew out friday and got a MONSTER huge 11 person passenger van. best van ever!! sirus sat in the very backest back and seamus sat right behind us.
we went straight to ogden, the kids and i checked into the hotel then went over to the expo area. eric put his bike together and then met up with his buddy troy, who i had forgotten was the one who gave me all the pointers on which coffee grinder to get eric for xmas 6 or so years ago. the kids started running around all over the place in the kids zone. crazy non stop at altitude in the heat running around. i thought they were going to wear themselves out before the kids race, but they got some snow cones, met xterra world champ shonny vanlandingham and then were off. the xterra peeps did a great job with the kids race. it was one of the best kids races ever. the run was actually pretty far but then after, the called each kid up to get their medals. they used old number plates and medals from races all over which was super cool. then we went to the dinner - eric was regional champ! the dinner options were odd, and had i been racing i would have been like, uh, not nearly enough... it was all gluten free except the bread they had, and totally unfilling. anyway, it wound up being pretty expensive for the kids to each eat a plate of pineapple, strawberries and grapes, but whatever.
in the morning we all piled into the giant van, dropped erics shoes at t1 and then headed down to t2. eric stood in line for a million minutes for packet pickup and then finally got things going.
lance armstrong was there, he had an entourage and stuff. it was kind of cool to see him and the hubub and all that. he looked like a normal dude, only all of his stuff matched. all his nike live strong gear, all perfectly laid out. he was wearing the brand new TYR Freak of Nature wetsuit and had a really good swim. bff matt from high school came out for the race, so we hung out during the bike and run legs. seamus made some signs for all of her favorite racers! Daddy, Mat, Shonny, Danelle, Cori, Ashlie, Marci, Jason and Dan Hugo. we cheered as they all passed by on the bike and then rearranged ourselves a little up the hill to see them on the run. it was cool because we could see them coming down the mountain, head into and out of the switchbacks and then head up the hill again right before heading back down to the finish. i brought my outside voice and yelled for alls of them when we saw them on the switch backs, and then when they passed right by us. sirus even told me i was being too loud which is funny. lots of really great races going on out there! matt and jason both won their age groups, danelle came in 3rd overall for the women's, shonny, i don't know how she does it but she raced with a torn acl coming in 7th, and Dan Hugo came in 2nd! super stellar racing by these guys and everyone else. i was a little sad not racing and being part of the fun, but i really did have a good time watching and cheering.
later we took sirus to iFly Utah. seamus didn't want to do it but sirus was hilarious, bringing down the house with how funny he was!
what else?
omg, sirus turned 6 today. my sweet little baby is a big grown up 6. how in the world did that happen. makes me want to cry!!















Monday, September 19, 2011

ready

dude, if it weren't for the fact that the window is only 4 inches off the ground, i would totally jump out of it!! it took every iota of will power i had today to not visit the candy dish at work a 2nd time. now i am anxiously waiting for the kids to get themselves busy something so i can snag one of the last donuts.
the other night, the kids were all giving pointers as to what eric should do. i said i knew of something he should do but that i couldn't say it out loud. reason being is that i thot he should go to the store and get some stuff to make brownies and i didn't think the kids needed brownies. just me. but seamus wanted to guess what it was, so she asked if i wanted him to do an underwear fashion show. it was not, instead eric went on to display how either loves me or hates me by going to the store and getting the stuff to make the brownies, plus the extra chocolate chips and walnuts to load into them. they were geeeewwwddd. but those brownies are long gone, and now instead of that donut i am eyeing, which very well might not even be in the box sitting on the counter, i might instead go for a handful or two of chocolate chips and walnuts, or better yet, get a giant spoonful of peanut butter and toss chocolate chips on top of that.

OMG what is wrong with me???

and even more, i am facing quite the dilemma right now. eclipse just showed up from netflix. i want to watch it. BUT tonight is the first show of 2 and 1/2 men with ashton kutcher. i hate that show. but gawwdamitall, sometimes erci flips around and lands on the reruns and every single time i laugh at least once and it pisses me off!! but anyway, i kinda want to see what happens.

i ran on sunday! hooray! i am running tomorrow too! still walk 2 run 1. easy easy. lookin forward to it!!

Thursday, September 15, 2011

appendicitis

so i am having one. right now. i must be! what else could it be? no wonder i have been feeling weird lately. whew, glad to have that figured out. i had an appendicitis last week soemtime, too. seems like i just keep getting them.
ugh.
so excited that i have been cleared to start running on saturday! 1 mile!! 2 min walk / 1 min run for that 1 mile. IF i feel ok, i can continue on for another mile.
omagosh - i am SO stuck in Twilight. i totally love it, i'm most of the way through the 3rd book, then i'll see the movie and i am hoping to get far enough along in Breaking Dawn by the time that movie comes out so i can see it in the theater. i have been cheating by looking at photos and watching the previews and trailers and stuff. SO excited about it. its rediculous. I'M rediculous.
i have been having interesting conversations with people about the movies. eric says he is team jacob. mat says so is he. i can't decide! i know its totally superficial and lame of me, but i really don't like that Edward has a big butt and it bothers me that jacob is supposed to be like 6'7" and he is only a little taller than Bella. Eric says the reason that none of the vampire's powers like being able to read her mind, or see her memories work is because there is nothing in there for them to see. she is a rock. totally empty. i want to know why we can call jacob, Jake but we can't call Edward, Ed. janet wants to know why edward doesn't turn into a bat. i asked eric this question. he said its because that is silly, but janet insists that it makes more sense for edward to turn into a bat then it does for him to be in love with bella. but bella smells delicious. i once worked with a girl names delicia, and my bf at the time called her delicious. she wore blue stirrup pants that were too small. she was nice but she was not delicious.
i want to know what would have happened if bella hadn't have gone to forks in the first place. i also want to know, other than his big butt/pear shape, why isn't edward a little more muscularly defined? she goes on and one about he is hard as stone but yet he looks kinda squishy. and why doesn't her mother love her and why can't her dad fix himself dinner? and was it career limiting that i told one of the sales people at work that the instant he walked into the office i was just like - OMG, its Edward! not because he reminds me of robert pattinson or whoever, but because he is sorta more like what i expected edward to be.
eric went to costco today. he called me to ask if there was anything i wanted him to get. i said NO GRANOLA! so i came home from work and there was granola. he said the woman in line in front of him had nothing but 6 boxes of the granola in her cart. well, DUH, its THAT good. i do wonder if my appendicitises are because of all the granola and blueberries i have been eating.

the kids and i are watching old school smurf cartoons.

AND eric is going to be racing against lance armstrong at xterra nationals. since its a mass start he will be right up there with him. THAT is kind of bad ass.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

this is me pist off


see! pist! super pist! its morning! my pancakes are almost gone! i have to go to work! i have been sitting on my ass far too long! the 72 pounds of "muscle" i gained in the past year have turned into fat along with the extra 47 pounds i have gained while i am recovering. wow, no wonder my back hurts!!! uuuggghhh!!
but no really, this was the first test photo we took using the camera after it made its appearance in the canadian toilet. the camera is actually focusing now, too! the camera is actually quite old, i want to say like 4-5years maybe? we got it at walmart in vernal utah. gah! so many trips to walmart!! dude, when we were in portland i wasn't wearing my wedding rings. i had actually stopped wearing them quite often because its bad to swim in them, and whatever else, and i totally stopped racing in them. but i was feeling all lovey dovey about eric while we were on our way to that portland race. i can't remember why we stopped at walmart, but i said - i want a wedding ring. so right then and there, we went to the walmart jewelry counter and i got one! a nice, white gold band that i totally love. i like my fancy rings too, but this one is good, too. so lightweight, its like wearing nothing at all.
in las vegas, i had forgotten my ear plugs. so we went to the walmart there and i got some. US Divers, professional series or something like that. i wound up not wearing ear plugs at that race. i would prefer to find a k-mart but they aren't as pleantiful.
i'm getting a new wetsuit - hooray!!
i've been down in the dumps, i was super in those dumps the other day, but today i am feeling better. strangely dizzy and kind of sick to my stomach, but not so dumpy! tomorrow is thursday and i go to the PT again. i am almost on the healed list! i have been out of commission for so long now i can't even remember what it feels like to sweat and i can't imagine being active every day, sometimes TWICE in a day?? omg.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

purge

i totally just purged all my drawers and the closet. everything that needs to be drycleaned is going to be donated. most things i haven't worn in the last year are going to be donated, too. shoes that i have tried to wear but can't stand being in for the 8hrs required at work - out. birkenstocks i've had since 1986 - staying! can't part with those!!
organized my shoes, most of which i can't wear or don't wear often but will keep for eternity because they are awesome. some i should get rid of. maybe next time around.
i would like to go through the entire house and just pitch EVERYTHING, i'm in that kind of mood, but the kids have most of their stuff confined to their rooms, so i will let it slide.
i swam. twice! yesterday and today. it was amazing. i have been so starved for some sort of physical activity that i am beside myself with its wonderfulness. i felt good, an i felt good after. well, yesterday things started to hurt on the drive back home but today, i have been feeling really good, even able to pick up the giant thing of cat food, the aforementioned purging. feeling good! what will i do tomorrow?
should i even bother mentioning how i slept in until 930 yesterday and then stayed in bed until 2:30 before finally getting up to swim? i was/am a little sick, so it was good for me!
my back has been a pain in my ass. PT all the time, no doing anything. standing is getting better but sitting pretty much blows. the one night i was in so much pain, it was a new horrible pain i didn't understand it, it had progressivly gotten worse during the day at work, but by the time i was home all i could do was lay on the floor. so that is what i did. eventually i got up and lasted about 20 seconds before i wanted to lay back down. standing on my right foot brought me to tears and just standing in general was horrible. laying down wasn't much better, i could feel my quads gradually tightening up, on the verge of cramping and then moving to my calves. it was horrible. i eventually called the nurse on call because there was no way i was going to make it through the night. we talked for a long time and she had me take some aleve and get on some ice. after a few hours i fell asleep and then in the morning, like most mornings, i was totally cured. until an hour or so later... but thank goodness that pain hasn't come back. it was horrible!
i've spent the weekend reading the 3rd of the twilight books and just chilling out. it was a sorta rough week so its been nice to just relax. can't believe its gone so fast, though.
we went to whistler!! for the xterra! i did not race. even if i was healthy i wouldn't have raced, are you kidding me? i am smart enough to know that whistler is not a place for me to be racing. mat went with us, he sat in the back seat with the kids an they loved it. he is good with them. the weekend itself was good, too. got to see friends and cheer on all the racers. it was exciting and eric did fantastic! mat did well, too, but eric broke mat's winning streak seeing as eric beat him at vashon by like 30 seconds, then mat beat eric at black diamond and portland both by about 30 seconds, so eric won this one. nationals will be an interesting one - who will win there i wonder?
everythign else has been ok i guess. i was sad to miss the two races that i had to cancel my registration for, the weather has been so amazing that its totally lame that i have not done anything! but the open water swim was delicious this morning! at least I got that in!

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

self medicating

ugh. that is almost all i can say. but lemme tell you more.
ugh my back.
let start with friday. i called eric friday afternoon for no real reason and asked him what he was up to. he said he was on his way to taking sirus to the doctor. oh? why, what's wrong. well, he can't breathe. oh he seemed fine this morning, except when he sneezed and spewed giant snot globule all over his arm. yeah, but he got worse and now he sounds terrible.
so i come home from work, and sirus is all huffing and puffing while sitting on the couch. he had gotten two breathing treatments at the doctor's office and then started on some steroids.
i jumped on the trainer, the first bit of activity in a few days since my back had been killing me. it felt good, although i was going light and wound up averaging less than 14mph, which on the trainer is really light. nothing hurt! horray!
i went back in the house. hung out with sirus, and we decided we needed to take him to the ER.
seamus wasn't so thrilled with the idea of going, so i called around to see if someone could come watch her. the swim coach said he could, so on the way we dropped her off with him, they went out to dinner and then hung out.
we took sirus in. they took him in right away. he is such a sweet little guy. they asked him what was going on. in between puffs of air he sweetly replied with "not...much". they clipped the thing on his finger and hooked him up to oxygen. all he wanted was to lie there and have me rub his belly but he had to sit up right so he could get more oxygen in. the doctor came in, took a look at him and then started him on more breathing treatments. after the first two there was no change, so they gave him more steroids, a giant cup of apple juice, the doctor talked about more treatments and what would happen if he had to be admitted, and then started up a 3rd breathing treatment. this one seemed to start kicking in. he was becoming more alert, and started talking in full sentences, poking the doctor in the face with the finger clip while he listened to his heart, telling the nurse all about the home made black berry pie he helped make and asking her to take a look at his belly button since it was the deepest belly button in existence. the 4th breathing treatment got him to the point where the doctor finally felt comfortable with letting us go home. he said he could sirus's chatter and laughter from down the hall, and took that as a good sign. we are now the proud owner of a nebulizer, so we could give him treatments at home, and were given explicit instructions on when to bring him back or when to call an ambulance. he seemed to sleep fine, but seemed to stay the same on saturday and until sunday morning. but then he got a little active, running around like crazy on sunday. i asked him to stop and relax some. he said he couldn't breathe very well, but then hacked a few times and then was practically perfect ever since! he goes in for a follow up appointment tomorrow, hopefully all is as good as it seems!
oh that little guy tires me out, but soooo glad he is better.
my back on the other hand is not better. i swam saturday morning, did about 600yds before determining that kicking wasn't going to cut it, but with the pull buoy everything was dandy. then i came home and napped for 2 hrs! 2HRS!! had i lost that much fitness that after 1500yds i needed a 2hr nap? no, it couldn't be. then i remembered that we didn't get home from the hospital until midnight and then i got up at 5am to go volunteer at the lake sammamish triathlon, ya know, the race i was already registered for and super excited about doing but couldn't do because of my back. yeah that one. volunteering was way fun though, it was a perfect day, and it was so great to be in transition to watch all the different expressions as the racers left and came back from the bike leg. so, ok, the 2hr nap sorta made sense.
i wont mention the 1hr nap from before the swim.
then a bit later i got on the trainer for an easy 40 minutes. no pain. nothing, felt great. was able to push it a little more than the day before but still surprised by the lack of wattage. shower and then uuugh, the pain! for the rest of the evening.
sunday i felt not awesome, but i took the kids school shoe shopping. i forced seamus to get the cutest purple mary jane danskos!! SO CUTE! and then sirus said he needed sketchers. and they needed to light up. the ones he wanted were ugly and expensive so i said no and suggested some others and then, he did the funniest thing i have ever seen him do. in a funny voice, he scrunched up his nose and asked "what, are they too 'expensive'?" putting his little fingers up in quotes while saying expensive. yes, snotty of him, but he caught me off guard and it was pretty darn cute, but i said yes, too expensive. so we went to JC Pennys and found him some sketchers there that were on sale AND lit up AND weren't not totally butt ugly. he was happy. then i took them to build a bear workshop. sirus got mad because he said i was giving him too many choices!! but he decided on getting a friend for Sirus Wirus, a camoflauge bear like the one grandpa has, and he named it Wirus. sirus decided to get Wirus instead of the many accessories he was thinking of because he thought Sirus Wirus needed a friend. seamus got another cat that looks like fuzy stripe and she named it stripe. by this time my back was KILLING me, so we went home. again i got on the trainer and felt great, nothing hurt, it was relief, i felt so good just riding along watching Underworld. when i was done i still felt great. i was healed hallelujah! and then an hour later it hit me and i was just as bad off as before.
monday was a rest day and then today i went to PT. i told her everything that happened and she said that i seem to be having some increase neural tension, which she said was apparent based on how i felt fine but then an hour or so after activity it got worse. i was possibly doing more damage from riding even though it felt good and provided temporary relief. no activity for me for a week. canceled my season closer oly tri race entry for september 10 and tried to not feel sorry for myself. so for lunch i went to baskin robins and had a scoop of peanut butter n' chocolate ice cream and a scoop of chocolate fudge. then i went to the party store and looked at halloween costumes.

oh joy! so now, other cool things coming up, i'm prematurely officially in the off season so there ya go.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

internets, its been so long

that's a lie. actually, the ability to come up with something interesting to tell the internets has been my problem. lets see, what has happened since the last post? oh, i guess quite a bit actually!
a few days before xterra blackdiamond i decided i didn't want to do it. not only did i not want to do it, i decided i didn't want to do any xterra racing. and not really that, i just realized i didn't want to ride my mountain bike at all. so i canceled my registration for xterra worlds and almost begged to be taken back when i got their reply saying they took me off the start list. :( but then i changed my black diamond registration into a relay and then did not register for portland.
the relay at blackdiamond was SO MUCH FUN. i decided to go out on the swim and actually try to race the swim. it was a crazy swim start, the whole field together at once, guys and girls, nutty. it was tough but i didn't get kicked at all so that was good. i think i raced it but looking at my time, it wasn't any faster than any previous swims, so who knows. my friend rick was my biker and he headed out. he had been xterra and tri curious for some time now, but he doesn't swim. he has become quite the runner though. he did a killer job out on the bike and i was headed out on the run. so i felt like i was cheating every time i caught someone and then when i heard someone ask if i was the first woman as i ran by. but i had the big R on the leg so there ya go. i did run all of the hills which was the first time i had done that on an xterra but seeing as i didn't do the bike part, i better have run the hills and i managed to get stung at least 3 times by bees or some other stinging like thing. once in my lady parts and it really started to hurt so i went to the paramedics. later tho wow, it totally swelled into a horrible welt, itched like a mo fo, turned dark purple, all kinds of horror. after about a week, the itching and swelling calmed down, thank goodness but the big purple spot was still there. yuck, gotta see what's up with my bee reactions these days. the two on my feet however didn't bother me.
the following weekend we drove down to hagg lake for xterra portland. eric went to pre-ride, i went for a run. we had dinner with mat,. i had a beer sampler, and something for dinner?? i think?? after a few cookies back at the hotel, a good nights rest, we got up so i could volunteer at the race site and eric could get ready to race. i was parking enforcement, one might call it. i had my giant volunteer shirt on over top my puffy coat. i looked good. once the race started i headed out on the course to make sure the one place where there was two way traffic that the biker heading back stayed on the sidewalk so they wouldn't crash into the other peeps. it was quite fun being out there, i liked seeing the racers and watching them and all of their different racing personalities.
eventually i was done and jumped in the lake for a swim, then headed out on a 9mile run. eric managed 4th overall despite breaking his chain and having to fix it, mat was 3rd overall, beating eric for the 2nd race in a row by only 30 seconds. it was a pretty fun day i'd say. volunteering is good.
but then we got in the car for 4hrs to go to yakima and that was bad news. uuuugggh!! my back! by the time we got to yakima i could barely move. so the next day we went on a alsmost 3hr ride by acciendt and i took seamus out to run with me since i ws hurting a bit. ow my back! then back in the car again for 3hrs.
monday i could barely move so i went to the chiro. i love him, he is awesome. i skipped my run on tuesday but did swim and then on wednesday we did the swim for life, 2.5 mile swim accross lake washington! it was SO different than last year since it was a) warm, b) sunny, c) no white caps, d) we had eric as our kayaker! i was so relaxed this year compared to last year when i was pretty sure i was going to die. although the swim was totally fine last year, this year was so awesome. we went to fast, not because we swam fast but because we should have just floated around in the lake more since it was so beautiful. it made me want to do more swims like that!!
then thursday i went back to the chiro because i am a complete mess. he strapped me into the stretcher, ya know, the ancient torture device they use where they pull you into pieces. yeah, one of those. the whole time he was strapping me in i was just like, dude, yeah, so uh, is this going to hurt? this is really weird. i don't know about this. yeah,. no, don't turn the light off, and yeah, keep the door open. will you be able to hear me if i yell for help? oh, ok, emergency shut oswitch. that's great, thanks. good fun!

Thursday, August 04, 2011

hate, love and don't understand

hate:
people. okok, that is pretty broad. how about people who are a-holes. people who you go out of your way to help, and then when you are done, they are lame to you. people who get all aggro on you because you are going the speed limit. people who farking don't know how to park their cars or don't know how to pull their car out of a parking spot.

love:
people. okok, that is pretty broad. how about people at the gym who wear khaki pants and dress shoes on the treadmill. or blue jeans on the stair master. or flip flops on the recumbent bike. there is one dude who wears his clogs at the gym, and i would be him if i could. i also have come to the conclusion that i like it when some dudes wear flip flops with the blue jeans. some dudes can't pull it off, but some can, and when they can, i think its a good thing.

don't understand:
if you are bald, you can't have bad hair days. so do you have bad head days? i know i have bad face days, but what do the bald people have? and whats the deal with the hipster's hair? is it really THAT dirty? or do they just put so much stuff in their clean hair to make it look dirty?

Thursday, July 28, 2011

eric

tonight eric gave me a hall pass and said he would take both kids to bed so i can blog. not sure what he was thinking i would be blogging about but i guess after about an hour of us sitting at the kitchen table chit chatting over margaritas he had enough of me.
today i went to the chiropractor. i was going to try to get through a whole week without seeing him but i decided this morning that i wanted to see him. so i went. he did is usual elbow in the ass routine that i long for on a regular basis. did some hip flexor pain inducers, some it band horror and then pulled put the scraper. omg, i don't know what this scraper thing is for. something to do with fascia and whatever but i am also pretty sure it was designed for pain induction. its a funny blue thing, he puts some lubey stuff on it, he says its emollient, and then tries to scrape my skin off. dude, there are easier and less painful ways to get my DNA!! he did it on my back once and that sucked, so when he pulled it out this time, i was just like, dude, i dunno if you need to be going to such extremes. then he got all aggro on my side hip. wtf. while he was doing it he was like," uh, yeah, you are going to have a bruise from this. wow, yeah, its going to be pretty bad. hmm, you should try and ice this when you have the chance." scrape scrape scrape!!!! dude, so yeah, when i got to work i took a peek and it was all red and swollen and a mess, and by the time i got home sho-nuffs it was all black and blue. please internets, tell me if you have experienced the scraper and if you have, what was your experience like? so, i definitely felt better when i left his office, but dude. i do'nt want to do that again.
none of these are of my chiropractor. but they illustrate my experiences:
I am pretty sure this is the look my guy has when he is using that scraper and i am secreting my face juices on that paper:

I often wear my navy blue dockers, brown belt and heather blue polo shirt when i am getting a good cracking. today i wasn't able to crack to the right.
and this is a perfect illustration of my too toned ass. remember when my PT told me i had too much tone in my ass? that's because it looked like this:

not really.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

chips ahoys

everything has changed! i have made some big decisions and made some drastic moves but i am feeling quite good about it all. whew. big plans! big plans i tell you! but i won't tell those plans just yet. patience grasshopper. soon. maybe.

eric and i have also been discussing all along the changes we want to make to the house. especially this year with this super crappy summer, all i want is more light. he cleared out some of the crazy over grown bushes and underbrush around the house and that has allowed more light in but i'm talking needing waaay more. so today i almost popped another blood vessel just thinking about the lack of light and just now told eric to start working on the plans for how we're going to get some of this stuff done. we aren't ones for fancy furniture and details like that, especially right now since the kids are small and the cats are cats. eventually we will get to that but hot damn do i need more light!!! its probably just a phase and i'll get over it, especially when he comes to me with an estimate of $200k or whatever to get it done. ugh.

one of the best things i have found for when i am feeling particularly obese is to do some planks. a few days of some serious planks and everything is better. not totally but somewhat. omg, tonight i was trying really hard to not have a margarita so i had a bunch of chips ahoys and oreos. aak. but dude, eric is da'man. he fixes dinner every night. he does all the cooking. but tonight i got home from running and it smelled mighty good in the house. but as i got closer to the kitchen it started smelling somewhat fishy and i was like bleck, not in the mood for that. but i opened up the dish and what did i see? salmon with bratwursts!!! yeah!!! the brats were sliced thin and layered over top of the salmon with some zucchini, too. at first i was like, this is going to probably not taste very good but it was awesome. totally perfect. i paired that up with a giant, super juicy nectarine and i was totally in business. until i ate the chips ahoys and oreos. :(

headed to the pool tomorrow am. my swim on tuesday was actually quite nice. i do like to swim. it feels good and i like what it does to my body, but that doesn't keep me from being a sucky swimmer. back when i used to go back home each year for xmas or thanksgiving or something, my friends would make fun of me because i would always plan a trip to the local pool. even though i couldn't swim worth a hill of beans, i had fond memories of that pool and i always enjoyed going back there. i even made eric go with me the few times he went back there with me, and seamus even made an appearance the one time she went back there, too. and i used to always have dreams about being on the swim team in HS. too bad i wasn't ON the swim team, seeing as that would maybe help me now. but whatever, ya know, and stuff.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

things and stuff

wow am i tired. i was going to go do a 10 mile trail race tonight, just for mellow and just for fun but wow, yeah, the 5am wake up yesterday followed by the 1am bed time last night and 8am arrival at work this morning all started to catch up with me and i HAD TO TAKE A NAP.
tuesday night janet invited me to masters on wednesday morning. in the middle of my 2nd margarita I thought that would be a fantastic idea! i hadn't been since prepping for the swim meet back in feb or whenever it was and even that was just for diving. but i was excited to swim with janet and to see my swim friends. i had even agreed knowing it was IM wednesday. lucky for me the swim coach didnt show up! so we did our own workout but yeah, they go a lot faster than me. i had to work pretty hard for them to still even open a big gap on me with each set. but the water was lovely and i was happy to catch up with everyone! after work was a work party. actually, work was a big sponsor at big event and hosted a big party. that didn't start until 9pm. 9PM. what? so i put on my sweet betsey johnson shoes and headed out to party to the wee hours of the night. i had quite a good time but realized two things: i must really look like ASS all the time because so many of the people i work with commented that i looked nice, and it really makes people uncomfortable if you are taller than them. i am tall. always a head or more taller than my friends or folks in photos. but i normally don't stand next to people i work with. i am usually sitting and slouching and if i am standing i am wearing flats, at most danskos. but the high heels were very alarming for many people.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Chelanman

this weekend we went to chelan to race in the chelanman olympic distance triathlon.

i didn't have any alcohol since the pre-race champagne fiasco the previous weekend, but i was tired all week, borderline exhausted.

friday we headed out, registered and racked my bike. the forecast was looking like rain, and the water was looking super choppy. i had been eating pasta for the past two days non stop and was going to hurl if i had it again, so i had french toast and eggs for dinner. and i started hydrating.

i slept ok and got up at 4:30, before my Groupon email arrived even, to have pbj and some heed but since everyone else was still asleep i laid back down until 5:20. then i headed over to the race site with friends and got everything set up.

after the start of the 1/2 iron swim I futzed around, did a short warm up which i am pretty sure didn't really qualify as a warm up, then tried to stay relaxed and have some fun with my friends. took the first clif shot and got ready to race.

the swim:
i stayed left at the start to avoid the mad dash to watch the rope. there was a ton of contact for the whole swim. i think it wound up being more draft like then distracting or hampering. i tried to stick to people as much as i could, and just swam. i felt good the entire time. my arms didn't feel tired or weak like they have been lately, and other than a few minutes where i got super tight between my shoulder blades and the creepy seaweed from the deep stuck to my face, the swim was was good. i was happy with it, i loved the shallow water at the end.
it wound up being my fastest race swim at this distance!

nothing thrilling or interesting happened in T1.

the bike:
i love my bike. i felt strong, i felt fast, i had a ton of fun. nothing was hurting, which is a big deal! i got caught up in some car traffic at the turn around but made it through ok. at the 20 mile sign i was shocked to see on my bike computer that i was at 58 minutes. i don't set it to speed ever so i had no idea i was going over 20mph and wondering if i was even doing the math right, but that's pretty simple math right there. i was shocked and excited and amazed. so i kept going. hit some rain but welcomed it. i got caught in more car traffic at the end but ran it into T2. i took 2 clif shots on the bike and about 3 sips of heed.
this was my fastest bike time at this distance!

nothing thrilling happened in T2, thank goodness!

the run:
right away i had to pee. i looked longingly at the line of porta potties as i left transition. they were taped off from transition, so kept going. i was taking tiny steps since that seemed to work two races ago. i kept them quick, tried to think about form, but pretty sure it wasn't pretty, eric even let me know so after the race. the porta potties at the first aid station were full so i kept going. mile 2-3 was horrible, boring, omg its never going to end. but eventually i made it. i was able to pick up the pace after that, i started to feel better, my form felt better and i was more relaxed. i started looking for mini landmarks and accelerating to them and then settling in for a bit after each. i noticed my settled in pace was getting faster, but as it did, i was less inclined to accelerate again, but tried. AND THEN my tri top started to feel super tight. i folded it up to expose my belly but kids started crying, ladies started fainting, men started screaming that their eyes were burning, so i folded it back down. my shorts were tied too tight, too, but i couldn't untie them, so i just continued to suffocate in my kit. i took water twice on the run and 1 clif shot at mile 4.
this was my fastest run in an olympic tri, also a 10k PR had it been a stand alone race (even though that 8 miler i did was actually faster).

3 good things about this race:
1) i had fun the entire race. at no point did i want to quit, slow down, question why i was racing, not even during the swim! i was excited to start each leg of the race and was surprised how fast and "easy" they were going by.
2) I didn't stop to pee and i don't think it really effected my run. this was the first time ever that i have not stopped to pee during this distance.
3) this was the first race this distance where i didn't wear socks. but now i say - screw socks, who needs them. please don't tell them i said that!

3 things to work on:
1) i need to work on being comfortable in the aero position on the downhills. i took most of those hills out of aero. i was pedaling like crazy but i was too sketched out to not have easy access to my brakes.
2) i need to watch my fluid intake. i was well hydrated before the race but wonder if my lack of fluid on the bike affected anything. some of that was not being totally comfortable with the set up, and the other is not wanting to pee.
3) i could have run harder i think.

all in all this was a great race. i was happy when i crossed the finish line, knowing i had raced hard and felt good the entire time. i don't want to rain on my own parade, but i am pretty sure this is a super fast course, but i am still super psyched that this was 12 minutes faster than my fastest prior olympic distance. a big part of what made the race and whole weekend so fun was that so many of my LUNA teammates and ladies from our workouts were there. the 3rd place AG finish was gravy on top of all of that. i definitely want to do this race again next year. SO FUN.

Monday, July 11, 2011

pokemon

we've got a pokemon craze going on here in the house. non stop.
we also have a pain in my arse. mostly non stop. sometimes in my back.
last week we went to chelan and it was hot and glorious and relaxing and fun. i had a run analysis done. i look terrible when i run. i look like i am 85. i also look like my ass has gotten huge. has it? my mid section too. gawd i hate video. luckily he cut my head off in the video.
i had a race yesterday. i won my age group but i feel weird about the race. i had a sucky swim. ok, pity party going on right here. i am a sucky swimmer and its totally sucky. why bother swimming so much when i know people who haven't ever swam, or who have swum only a few times and then they get in and kick my ass? ugh.
oh, i had too much champagne the night before, too. and some wine. but just a little bit of wine. but it was a lot of champagne.
my bike was pretty good but i had mixed feelings about my run. maybe the booze affected it, i hope, or maybe it was the hills. i don't mean to be ungrateful for my age group placing, but man, i am going to have to figure out this swim situation.
i also have to figure out why i weigh like a thousand pounds. i think its because i am like super old and my metabolism has slowed down. or something.
my ART guy last week was just like WTF?!!?? why are you so messed up? he couldn't believe how i managed to get all messed up since the last time i had seen him, like a few days earlier. he's going to have a field day with me tomorrow, that's for sure. i am going to have to start booking him for double appointments or something. at the run analysis, that guy looked at me in horror as i couldn't touch my toes. i now have to stretch for 10 minutes a night, all in capital letters even.
maybe that will help me to get rid of my giant gut.

Monday, July 04, 2011

houston

we've got a problem. dude, so i am totally getting old. remember how not too long ago i hurt my neck getting back in bed? seems i have magically hurt my mothra effing back. essentially just the same. gaahh!!!! i am even more pist that i was yesterday! it actually happened yesterday, like last night. i'd say it happened while i was cleaning and disinfecting litter boxes. eric thinks it happened from me sitting incorrectly on the couch. it could be because i changed from drinking lemon drops to drinking lemonade. i am totally annoyed because i even stretched after my run yesterday, like a lot. ugh.
so i tried to sleep normal last night instead of the screwed up way i normally sleep. i laid in bed for a while this morning then got up only to go to they gym to sit in the hot tub there. eric got me this crazy heating pad thing that wraps around my waist, with velcro, totally funny but i think its helping, i don't know. its annoying. the gait analysis i have planned for wednesday isn't going to be very helpful if i am all tweeked and even worse the car ride to it is going to be a biatch.

Sunday, July 03, 2011

so pist!!!

OMG!!! how can netflix do this to me!!!! i settled down already to get my dexter on and what? its not there? what do you mean i can't watch it? you must be joking, here, give that to me, let me check. what?? waaaaahhhhh!!!! now what am i going to watch. so apparently netflix every once in a while will just add and drop things from their instant queue. thank goodness eric and i stayed up till all hours of the night watching the last several episodes of season 1 instead of calling it a night. wow, i would have been really mad then. instead now i just ordered season 2 disk 1 to show up in the mail and i can't remember what we did yesterday but it was not watch dexter.
this has been an awesome week. awesome i tell you. each day since i have taken off from work i have taken at least one nap, sometimes two!! i wake up, i eat breakfast and then i take a nap for a few more hours. delux. D-E-lux. then i do some running, or biking or like on saturday we called up the babysitter, ok, who am i kidding, we texted the babysitter and went for an open water swim and out on the mountain bikes. the swim was nice. although on the way back in i told eric that wow, he has really gotten to be much faster this year. to which he made the HUGE mistake of replying with, no, i don't think i am actually any faster. to which i said Ok, so you just said that i got considerably slower then since you dropped my ass out in the middle of the lake. to which he said, on the way out there i stopped and looked around and saw you back there but figured you must have stopped to fix your goggles or something, which i didn't. to which finally he decided on,that he has been putting on a lot of swimming muscle mass and that is must what it be. we did comment on how apparently my armpits have totally leaned out because my wetsuit is all baggy and stuff in my front and back arm pits.
the mtn biking was fun. i haven't been on the mtn bike in a while. it was quite fun. my handling was going pretty well, and i was having fun. nothing we did was technical even slightly but i was finally leaning into the turns for once, i think??
somehow i totally hurt my back cleaning out the damn litter boxes tonight. dude, last night that fuzy stripe got on our bed and ran up and down it all night until eric picked him up and put him on the floor. then he just ran around like a madman the rest of the night and then the kids came in and decided they needed to crawl all over us and then fuzy stripe and nadj felt they needed to "play" and fuzy stripe needed to play with the ball with the bell in it, and OMG can you just go in the other room? so i got out of bed at some ungodly hour and chased that ginger kitty all over the place, finally grabbed him and tossed him in seamus's room and shut the door. and then he meowed all morning, but only between the kids poking eric in the face asking him when they could have breakfast. so eric told them tonight, if you wake up and want to crawl into our bed just to fall back asleep - stay in your own bed because apparently you are still tired. usually they don't wind up with us until like 630 or so but dude, eric gets yelled at if he wakes me up at 659 when my alarm goes off at 7. luckily for all of them, i can just take a nap or two later in the day!
eric brought home some ice cream the other day. and this is a very rare and strange thing that i am about to say but it is super gross ice cream. its breyers Whoppers ice cream. makes me gag just thinking about it. first, whoppers are nasty. terrible nasty little buggers and then the ice cream itself is like a nasty whopper flavor. at least he is helping me to not eat ice cream i guess.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

today i said holly shart

i was wound up so tight this morning that i was pretty sure i was going to pop a blood vessel or something. now that i think about it, i did look in the mirror at one point at work and my left eye was so totally bloodshot for no apparent reason. i checked my calendar for the next few days and said - dude, i am taking a vacation. omg, that felt so good. the day went by ok but by the end i was so excited to set my out of office and gt outta there! whew!! i have the next 6 days as work free!
dudes, my ass has been killing me. the chiropractor guy, man i love him has been ARTing on me and i've been loving that and he's been cracking me all over the place and it has been delicious. the arse is better indeed, i just have to learn to sit correctly and sleep like a normal person. ok and maybe drink a bit more water too.
over the weekend we went to my friends wedding. we hired the swim coach's younger brother to watch the kids. they loooove him so they couldn't wait to get rid of us. i had so much fun at the wedding. i totally let loose, drank a ton, danced like a fool even getting a few zn4 intervals out there on the dance floor and looked totally awesome doing it. i wore my new awesome dress and shoes and my feet and legs didn't hurt at all. even with all the dancing!!
fuzy stripe is getting so big these days. he is actually quite often called fuzy kitty or just kitty. he's a chewer and he loooves nadj. he will follow her around the house. she will walk slowly allowing him to bat at her tail and get close but then she will turn and hiss at him every once in a while, i assume just for shits and giggles. she will sit all like a loaf of bread and then he will get so close that she'll make her skin crawl and then he will run away. then he will sneak up on her again, be getting ready to pounce and before he does, she'll turn and his and he will run away sideways! they aren't cuddling yet, but soon i imagine, soon i hope. seamus mccat on the other hand is not amuzed. she just hisses at him. she doesn't move or swat or anything, she just hisses the most horrible sounding hiss.
what else?? i am being punished with a rest week, although this rest week i really really am enjoying and actually feel like i am getting something out of it. normally i am a total mess while trying to rest but this week i am managing, at least so far a total i don't give a fark, i'll do whatever i want. AND my new tri shoes showed up!! oooooh! they are white and pearly! and pretty and i can't wait to get some cleats on those bad bears!!
and you know what? i know its june because i wore a skirt today. i also know its june because i wore my puffy coat with that skirt. we're all like, what the hell? it claims its like 70 out but its cold as balls. doesn't make sense.
at least the water is warmer these days.
gettin in some good training in the next few weeks and after mid july will start with the xterra training. i was thinking i'd like to go on a trail run tomorrow or mtn biking or something but gotta wait and see!!!
yay!!! going to watch some dexter now!!




Friday, June 24, 2011

Fuzzy Stripe

i think i love the little guy. i told him i didn't know him very well yet but that i think i might love him anyway. he is starting to explore the house and mix with the other cats, even having the kitty balls to go up to the cat tree, with nadj sitting right under it, and start scratching it.
i took today as a rest day. it was a rough week. re-org, reviews - giving and receiving, crappy and nice weather. you name it we had it. i wanted to lay on the floor in my office at around 3pm and take a nap. instead i came home after work and slept instead of running.
tomorrow is a tough long swim + a long, semi tough run. my calves hurt from some calf raises and possibly from running on the treadmill while watching Twilight: New Moon yesteday. so i needed the rest. i need to work better on my hydration and recovery, too.
kitty is on my shoulder! horray!
i got some spray tan stuff. i normally use this lotion stuff that smells pretty terrible but while standing in line at target to buy a wedding hat, OMG let me tell you about the HAT! they had the spray on stuff right there, so i bought it.
as a joke i totally sprayed on some abs. i can't wait to see if they show up at all - cannot wait!!
so we are going to a wedding tomorrow. sooo excited! while on jury duty i went to betsy johnson and got a new dress and finally some shoes!!! so i am going to wear the new dress and shoes and i figured i needed something fancy for my hair. so i got this feather and pearl and rinestone thing - like a hat, all royal wedding style and i am totally going to wear it. i cannot wait!! i am not going to wear it all victoria beckham pregnant style
or Eugennie style either,
but i am totally going to wear it, cannot wait. super excited. first i gotta git through that swim which i am somewhat looking forward to and then the run. hoping the leg is better by then.
hooray! TGIF.