sigh...

its been a rough few days.
yes, i have been resting, i have been taking it easy. i have been trying to get better, to get over this throat and ear thing, but its been hard.  i went to work the three days i was supposed to but i slept a lot too.
yesterday i even slept until 3:30pm.  ugh.  so lame. we walked the mile to the bike shop yesterday so sirus could change their calendar over, but had to have eric come pick us up.  can't even say i've been sitting on my ass because i haven't.  i have been laying down, asleep!

today i took the kids out for a busy day.  first we went to the gym.  i was supposed to do a run, an hour.  but since i had been asleep all week rather then doing anything active, i instead did 50 minutes of walking and running at a very easy pace.  i didn't want to over do anything, for fear i would wind up sick again or whatever. after i laid on the mat, did some stretches and unfortunatly thought about the image i saw earlier when i looked in the mirror.  and i started to cry, right there at the gym.  not just a tear rolling down,  but full on cry.
i have gone through "i'm fat" stages before.  but i wasn't actually fat.  i mean, really, at 13% body fat, you aren't fat.  now it is very different.  i am not 13%, not even close.  i can't even imagine what 13% is actually like.  13% is a number, just like the number on the scale, but what i see in the mirror makes me cry.  people can tell me until they are blue in the face that there are plenty of women who would love to have my physique, but you know what, i'm not one of them. i knew part of the reason i trained as much as i did was because of how it made me look, but i didn't realize quite how much of my athletic self worth is based on my appearance.  so i went and got in the shower at the gym and cried in there, its a little more discrete.  but then i had to stop crying because i thot maybe i would feel better if i shaved my legs as its been like 3 weeks and i was a harry beast and i needed to be able to see to do that, so i had to stop crying.
then i loaded up the kids and we headed out.
we went to the cougar mountain zoo. we haven't ever been there before and it was pretty fun.  and BOY did we have some excitement there!  we were watching the tigers and they got all in a tiger fight!!  there are 4 boy tigers and they are separated into groups of 2 because they don't all get along.  we got to witness them taunting each other through some of the bars.  lots of roaring!!  and swatting at each other.  and pacing.  it was so exciting that the zoo keeper came by to tell us all what was going on.  she basically said they were just re-emphasizing why they all won't ever be together in one enclosure. make sure to turn up the volume to get the full effect of the video!

the kids were not fans of all the roaring.  it was loud!  i was amazed.  and wow, those tigers are huge.  the one orange one came right up to the fence by us, just a few feet away.  it was exciting! and scary since we were in the "warning - tigers can spray up to 20 ft, stand here at your own risk!" zone. 
after, we went into seattle to drop some stuff off and then went to northgate mall.  it has been like a billion years since we have been there.  managed to get seamus some tom's shoes.  she has been asking for them forever and i can't deny my baby girl a pair of hot pink glitter shoes. our sales guy was awesome.  he was a total combo of Team Jacob and a member of a teeny bopper boy band.  i wanted to hug him and bring him home with us- SO CUTE!!!
then we went to UVillage.  while at northgate i did some very brave things - i tried on clothes.  in my obese state, that is dangerous.  the one benefit of it being fat and not muscle is that i can squish it to where ever i might want it.  not everything looks great, but i managed to find a few things.  but one jacket wasnt the right size and i had to go to uvllage to get it.  again, hadn't been to uvillage in forever.  we drove by the old house on the way there and i got all sentimental. i loved that little house!  so sunny and warm! ok, hot.  but i did love it.  i got my jacket and a shirt i need to return or lose 20 pounds to wear and a shirt for eric.
but i also got the boots!!  i totally splurged on these boots.  SPLURGE.  they are my surviving radiation reward.  although i still have one more day, and i already told xtie that if i don't survive that one last day i will her the boots.  i was so excited!!  i instantly felt better and less fat.  i was 100% sure that these boots were THE boots i have been wishing for!!
when i got home however, and tried them on with something other then shorts and pink tube socks, i still love them, but they aren't quite as awesome as i had thought.  it could have been the pants i tried them on with.  the pants are extra snug right now.  sigh.... so i may have been concentrating too much on their uncomfortable snugness.  ok and i thought they were black but they are actually dark brown.  i will keep them.  they are awesome.  i will quit looking for boots. for now.

boots of the pretty bad ass persuasion

sirus took his head off!

teeny tiny brother!!

teeny tiny sister!!

it's all fun and games until someone gets mauled by a bear

at the zoo with the macaw

someone had low blood sugar and needed a snack!