23 times my kids just couldn't

1) this baby just can't sleep unless she has a fan blowing on her

2) this baby just can't understand why when she touches her nose, her hair stands up like that

3) This soccer ball just can't beleive Hilary will ever be president if she continues to wear so many silly bandz

4) this kid just can't figure out how to use the swing

5) this kid can't keep saliva off of her shirt

6) this kid just can't 

7) but both of these kids can

8) this kid just can't flip the bird without disguising it by stabbing her face with hundreds of plastic pins

9) this kid just can't imagine what's at the end of the tunnel 

10) this kid just can't beleive her brother is so graceful 

11) this kid forgot how to TV

12) this kid just can't handle using markers.  Just can't.

13) this baby can't handle that frog shirt. She put on those glasses so she wouldn't have to look at it.

14) this kid just can't dig A HOLE unless you help

15) this kid can't kick your ass until he is done throwing another one back

16) this baby can't beleive that dump truck is creating so much air pollution 

17) this kid can't balloon.  Too hard.

18) this baby just can't sneak up on you

19) this baby just can't handle the pressure of having such a giant head

20) this kid just can't exclamation point.

21) this baby just can't daddy arm pit

22) these kids just can't seem to smother that man

23) this kid just can't understand why he is being man handled by the fat conductor

Perspective

Yesterday I got my 2nd shipment.  And my 2nd cooler. And my 2nd set of ice packs.

These coolers are big.  And a waste.  There has got to be a better way to ship this stuff.

I also got a 2nd sharps container.  I need to call the waste management people to find out what to do with the needles.  When the container is totally full, do I dump it out or do I toss the entire container?  I'll call, they will tell me.

But I had an interesting conversation with myself yesterday.  I've always been self conscious about my thighs.  Even when I was very young.  My perception of my thighs had nothing to do with media, nothing to do with Barbie, nothing to do with super models.  In elementary school, we would all line up, we would walk down the block, the teacher would give us each a dime and we would get on the city bus.  We'd take that bus to the Y for swim lessons.  It was generally very fun.  Like when we learned synchronized swimming.  But sometimes it wasn't as fun.  Like, the water was cold, our math and science teacher also happened to be our swim teacher, and we often saw him in his speedo which was weird.  And then there was the mean old lady swim teacher who would point at us with her crooked finger and get angry when we couldn't figure out which of us she was pointing at.  She would also pull our hair while "helping" us dry it under the dryers in the locker room.  

Then there was that one time that I left my swim bag on the bus.  We all arrived at the Y together, everyone else had their swim stuff but me.  I'm pretty sure I panicked.  I am pretty sure I cried.  

But then the mean old lady swim teacher came "to the rescue" and I was able to borrow a swim suit from lost and found.

Gross.

It was too big, it was navy blue, it was an old lady suit and if I recall, it was made of a similar material as my dance leotards at the time which were Scratchy and gross.  But what I recall most about the suit was that they leg holes were kind of square like, and more like shorts.  And as I sat on the edge of the pool, self conscious in this terrible lost and found travesty, I noticed how my thighs squished and seemed to grow exponentially as they rested on the pool deck.  Now, a logical person knows this is what happens to muscles at rest.  Just as the massage therapist told me once, healthy muscles jiggle.  Healthy muscles squish, flatten and spread when relaxed.  But from that instant on I have been self conscious about my thighs. Which is pretty sad since I was like only 7.

I was even self conscious about them when I was 15, stood 5'10" and was 30 pounds lighter than I am now.  How is that even possible??  What was wrong with me.

But regardless, I now use an injectable medication.  One that I need to inject into fat every night.  I'm supposed to rotate the injection site.  The nurse said she has seen kids who wind up with big patches of scar tissue because they inject in the same place over and over.  So they say, you can inject in your belly fat roll- to the left, to the right, a little up, a little down, in the center.  But you can also inject into your thigh fat, arm fat, etc. so last night as I was prepping, I happened to be wearing my angry birds boxer shorts so I was like hey!  I'll inject into my squishy, fat thighs.  And you know what happened?  When faced with the possibility of it hurting, all of a sudden, I really didn't have much fat on my thighs. What?  I couldn't find an ample enough patch of fat that I wanted to risk poking with that needle.  After 30+ years of thinking I had fat thighs, turns out I don't!  

So I poked my belly fat roll because I can still find that!

An app for that

If I recall my college education correctly, one of the psychological theories we learned had something to do with me being the one person and everyone and everything else is just a figment of my imagination,  something I have created to keep me entertained.  

While I was crying last night out of such a deep depression and miserable and hopeless state I started to think about this theory.  What part of this crying is entertaining? I guess the theory gives strength to the thinking that if you are sad you should just stop it and be happy instead, the whole you control your own destiny, and all the other positive Pinterest self help quotes out there.  

But then again, I guess I invented Pinterest and all those quotes.  I'm pretty creative and amazing under this theory as well.  I am also a horrible and disturbing person.  I mean, wow, I thought up the Kardasians and flying in airplanes and computers and this stupid bus that I'm on.  It was pretty smart of me to make the bus double long with that bendy part in the middle.  Having it extra long like this allows me to bring all these other made up sad saps with me each morning and the bendy part allows the big bus to make turns.

I definitely know I invented all of this for my own entertainment becUae why else would I have made those seats in that bendy part so high so that everyone's feet dangle like a little kid on a bar stool?  I'm pretty impressed with how I can make things be the same, or pretty close to the same every day.  Like the roads.  Do I keep them the SAMe so I can make fun things like the bendy part of the bus to navigate them?  Why don't I just make the roads bigger the next time I decide to take that trip?  Why do I make it so cold this morning? Why don't I bring out the sun? Am I really making the polar icecaps melt, the ocean levels rise and am I really killing of thousands of species of animals?  Why would I come up with that stuff?  It's pretty amazing that I have the ability to even think about it enough to creat the scenarios and imagine it.  While I was "researching" this theory of self entertainment, because I at first was thinking of tabula rasa, the blank slate theory, but that was wrong, I found more evidence that the theory is true.  I found an article in fancy Psychology Today that tells me this has more to do with egocentricism or narcissism,which is fine and dandy but the article only strengthen itself  becauSe in the article there was THIS:

That wouldn't be in there if it wasn't put  there to entertain me. 

Why would things like THIS ever exist if I hadn't imagined them in my own mind:

And when I was in Paris, I created THIS:

And this:

And THIS?  This does does not just happen because!

And lastly, of all the weird, horrible things out there, and among all the amazing, and fabulous things that I have imagined for my entertainment, THIS is the one I am most grateful for!  

Palm Springs

My exercise coordinator has been very patient with me.  I skip workouts all the time and do things not as prescribed.  If I were him, I would fire my ass but thankfully he has not.  But, after I did the 25k version of the Tiger Mountain Fat Ass in January, he was trying to get me to commit to something in an attempt to get me to be consistent.  

So I registered for another 25k and then very very foolishly also registered for a 50k.  The 50k is in June so we can chat about that later, but the 25k was in April. In Yakima, the Palm Springs of Washington, where jumping rope is not allowed.

I didn't do too much research into the event, I was a bit stressed because I was leaving the next day to go to London for a week for work.  But I knew they put in a requirement that everyone needed to start out with 40oz of water and that there was 4800 ft of elevation.  

I had no way to carry that much liquid, so Leslie came to the rescue and let me borrow her vest thingy.  She let me practice with it on a few runs prior too.  She is actually the reason why I even did the first 25k in January.  After I lost my job, I went with her on a bunch of her training runs because she was doing her first 25k.  I had so much fun on those runs with her, and being able to do those with her gave me enough confidence to do one on my own.  

So Saturday, the day before the race, which I was calling and event, and actually calling a hike with some jogging on the downhills and possibly on the flats, I spent the morning packing for my trip.  Then we went to sirus's soccer game! MVP

Loaded up in the car and headed first out to ellensburg. I pre warned Eric that I was super stressed and that I might not be able to be held responsible for my level if bitchyness.  He said he was bracing himself for it.

But I was so happy to head up to our property and hike around.  Not only did it act as a mild opener for the next day, but the fresh air and amazing views bring new life to me!

We eventually got into Yakima, basically in time to get ready for bed. 

In the morning we tried to figure out where the race started.  The website was confusing, at least to me but we figured it out. And then it was go time!  I made the very risky move of wearing shoes that I had worn only once before. Luckily they worked great!

Eric and the kids hung out as I got suited up, pinned up, watered up, and ready to go.  I made one last potty stop and I was off. Ya, those sunglasses- they stayed on top of my head the hole way.  Thankful for the hat!

The first part of the run is like 2100 ft of elevation in the first two miles or something rediculous.  And it was tough. 

We all kind of hiked it together.  One foot infront of the other.  It was about an hour of straight up!  See those tiny people way way way up there?

It was pretty steep, but then there was a section right before it sorta leveled off called The Stairway to Heaven. It was tough, loose and dusty. 

This one is looking back on that initial climb.  Can you see the river down there?  That is where we started!  

Once at the top of the initial climb, it got fun.  It was rolling for the next almost 3 miles.  It was so nice to be running rather than hiking up hill, but after a while I started to realize that all that downhill was going to be uphill on the way back.  At the far end of this hill, 5 miles in, we took a sharp turn left and headed straight down for two miles, down to the river again.  This is where I started to see a decent flow of the people who were heading back already.  At the river was an aide station, which was at 8 miles, where i got a sunblock misting which felt delightfully refreshing, had a 1/4 pbj and some oranges.   I was there for like 2 or 3 minutes and then headed back up, at a race time of 2:03.

The trail back up was tough.  Not just because it was steep but because the footing was loose and dusty, too.  When I got to the water stop at mile 10-11, the volunteer there said we were done with the big climbs.  Which was not entirely true.  There was a ton more climbing- remember those rollers on the way down?  Yeah, up hill rollers are not as fun.

The last few miles were super steep downhill, down that Stairway to Heaven.  Wow! It was steep!  But it was fun to watch the average pace on my Garmin drop thanks to the downhill.  4:14 in, with no real idea of how much further it was to the finish I fell!  Yikes!  I geeked my knee and it HURT!!  I sat there on the trail repeating OHNOOHNOOHNO wondering how I was going to get the rest of the way out, wondering how I was going to manage my London trip the next day.  It was panic time.  So I stood up, ow ow ow!!!!  Shook it off and started running again.  Finish time of 4:21!

The kids asked if it was fun.  I said I wasn't sure if fun was the right word for it. Sirus asked how many miles and how myco climbing.  While he did acknowledge that it was a lot and he congratulated me, he was quick to follow with "now you know how I felt when daddy took us on that enchantments hike."  That day, they did 15 miles with 5k of elevation.  And they were 10 & 8. 

birfday barfs

OMG, so first, let me just tell you how my life has just changed forever!!  On a whim I decided to look in the App Store for a blogger app and ya know they have one and now I can update from my phone.  Do you know what this MEANS????  I can write posts from the BUS!!!  The BUS people!  During my 20 hour commute!!!!  Can you beleive it? I can't beleive it took blogger so long to plant that search idea into my head.  Someone over there is NOT doing their job very well.  

But so much has happened, even from that visit with my boyfriend Dan Hugo.  

I was going to use his water bottle the other day for one if our group bike rides, it was going to be like we were making out, but it rained and the workout was canceled so no making out.  Sad.

But let's discuss my birthday and the barfs.

So as some might recall, April 30 2012 was an interesting birthday because I was busy turning 28 but I was also being concerned (and at that point hiding from my kids) that I couldn't see out of my left eye and that I might have a potato in my head.  Had they known, they might have said, tots taste good, but instead, we had cake and I tried to be all happy.  Eric did make a fabulous cake of course, but there was impending doom.  The next day I found out about tha tuma.

So this year, as the day approached, not only was the royal baby NOT born, but I got a lesson on how to inject myself with growth hormone.  

This was Wednesday.  The interesting thing about that Wednesday, well one of them, is that my new job is in down town, hence #thebus.  It's also right in the thick of the action, and the prescribed action for Wednesday was a protest with potential for riots and violence becauSe the protest was having to do with the man in Baltimore who recently died in police custody.  Long story short, they sent us home early. 

So the nurse came over to show me what was what.  The medication arrived the previous week when I was in LONDON when the total baby wasn't being born.  

It came in this incredibly wasteful container, of which we will receive every 25 days for the rest of my life.  I imagine maybe we will make an igloo or something out of them.  What a waste.  But the meds had been residing in the fridge since they arrived, the cooler has been sitting by the 100% organic lump charcoal ever since.   While the charcoal knows it's fate, the coolers is still TBD.

The nurse arrived at 645, we sat at the table.  She showed me the demo pens full of water, we practiced prepping them, I felt all cool, just like TV flicking them so the air bubble rose to the top. She assured me they are safe and that one tiny air bubble would not kill me like in the movies.  She said it take more like a foot long of air bubbles, but still better to inject medicine rather than air.

We practiced injecting into a thing that looked like this:

I asked her first if we were going to check it for breast cancer. She kinda laughed.  Then i opened the alcohol swabs, cleaned the real medicine pen, attached one of the real needles, prepped it for reals, set the real dosage, rolled up my shirt to expose my fat roll, cleaned that roll with a new alcohol swab, too a break and poked. What?  OMG, couldn't even feel it.  Nothing at all.  Once poked, I pushed the button and the meds go in, wait 5 second and take it out.  I've got my own biohazard container for the used needles, so took care of that, cleaned up and done.  I looked at the injection site and saw a tiny spot of red and exclaimed that I was gushing blood!!! The nurse looked alarmed and quickly came to inspect.  She didn't think that was too funny, but did say on occasion I might knock a capillary or something. During the whole process I did get quite sad and I almost started crying.  Taking new pills is like no big deal.  Everyone takes pills.  This seemed more extreme and made me feel like a sick person.  But I am so hopeful that it will do it's job and I'll get some energy back, my concentration will come back and quality of life will improve.  Fingers crossed.

So then Thursday was my birthday!  Horray! So many people sent wonderful messages and cards and packages, I am truly lucky to have such wonderful people in my life!  My workmates surprised me with flowers, too, and there was an alredy planned April 30 Cinco de Mayo party happening, so we celebrated with some jicama slaw and other tasty treats.

A little after 5, I packed up my computer becauSe we were encouraged to work from home on Friday due to the May Day protests and marching that were scheduled for Friday and gain the potential for riots and violence.  

I got on the bus.  Not too long after on the bus I started to not feel very well.  My stomach was hurting. And it was getting worse.  By the time I got home I was in quite a bit of pain.  But Eric and the kids had made dinner so I tried a few bites but had to lay on the couch.  Then I tried to have some birthday cake and open presents but I was miserable, I had never had this type of stomach pain, I couldn't identify it, it was awful.  The kids went to bed, and I asked Eric if he wanted to see how the injections were done.  So i got everything ready, did the injection and then everything went black and I almost passed out.  I laid on the floor, writhing in pain.  I asked Eric to clean up the medicine stuff and I got up, and hurried to bed, also passing out again.  A few minutes later the birfday barfing began.

Nothing is easy any more.  Was this a bug? Was this a reaction to medication? Was this a tumor thing?  Who the hell knows. We called the nurse line for the medication but they closed about an hour earlier.  We contemplated calling my endocrinologist but Eric convinced me they were going to tell me to go to the ER and the ER would just tell me they had no idea. Since the kids were in bed already and it was late, we decided to just wait it out and hope I didn't die.  I didn't, so that's a plus.  By morning I felt better.  WTF.