Archive for June 2012

“It’s gonna rain on yo head.”

Bonus points if you can name the movie, unless you Google it. šŸ˜‰

I brought my running clothes, so the question of the day is, will the DragonLady be running in the rain? She won’t run in a storm, I can assure you. She may end up having a craptastic run even if it doesn’t rain on her. I haven’t run since the fail that was Saturday. Sunday is a rest day so I wasn’t going to do anything anyway. However, I intended to do something last night. I ruled out a run, but I have a stationary bike and elliptical so if I don’t run, I can at least do some cardio.

Except I did laundry. Oh, sure, there was time to work out while washing clothes. I did it last week. However, my hip joint pain was back. It’s the pain that I seem to only get when I do laundry. But the way my joints are hurting today, it’s probably the weather…and a dab of not being so young anymore. šŸ˜‰

My goal tonight? No walking, even if I end up running slower than I walk.

Oh, and I know. 2 posts in one day. Shocking! šŸ˜‰

“And this is what comes from dabbling…”

And if you drop something on a Facebook wall, you might as well turn it into a blog post…especially when prodded. šŸ˜‰ Seriously though, I would have let the whole thing go with just some eye rolls and head shaking, but further commenting just raked me the wrong way, and I was in the mood to fight anyway.

It all started when I got a message from Petra who read God Doesnā€™t Want You to Read Fifty Shades of Grey, and came across a sentence that reminded her of me, and made her laugh a lot. For the record, I don’t seek out pictures of cute kittens; they are sent to me. lol Anyway, I went ahead and read the post and dropped the link in the Google chat I was having with Molly. I think we discussed what little we knew about the book and I think I told her why I was going to let it pass on by. I’ve slept since then. Anyway, Molly posted a status on FB about wanting something to read. Out of the first 5 suggestions, I was the only one who did NOT recommend Fifty Shades of Grey. I had just started reading Eat to Live (which my doctor “prescribed” like 3 or 4 years ago), so I recommended it. You know, that’s how I roll. LOL I then proceeded to ignore the additional Fifty Shades of Grey recommendations, and then Petra commented…and a couple chicks got defensive…and I got irked, and dropped this comment:

People who read those books are typically less (or un-) satisfied with their sex lives, and looking for an instant thrill. I got introduced to the “smut novel” in my teens, and that just opened the door to a dysfunctional sex life when I got married. As someone who knows the consequences of porn addiction (both from “erotic fiction” and video porn) personally, I can assure you that porn does NOT improve a sexual relationship. Only when porn was completely out of our household (and my husband gave it up long before I did), did we start communicating to and with one another whereby we finally achieved the level of intimacy in our marriage that so that our sex life reached a mutually (very) fulfilling level. Porn is porn whether literary or video, and does not depict real life. Sexual addiction is every bit as enslaving as drugs, alcohol, food, and cigarettes. Reading erotic fiction and calling yourself “open minded” is just fooling yourself. It’s being single-mindedly focused on physical pleasure which ultimately does not satisfy.

So there went my skeletons – run-on sentences, extra words, questionable grammar, and all. And here they are for you my 10 regular readers, though I guess it would be 8 since Petra and Molly already know. haha. And yes, I generalized without evidence. Isn’t that what a flame war is all about? šŸ˜‰

I figured if I was going to put this out there, I should expound more on what I flushed out thinking on how feeding off the smut novels had such a negative impact. I developed expectations based on those novels. Expectations of every aspect of a relationship, too, and not just sexual. Naturally, when those expectations didn’t come to fruition, discontentment set in. But, of course the expectations weren’t going to be met because they were all based on fiction – from someone else’s imagination, and not even my own.

So, yeah, I won’t be reading Fifty Shades of Grey which is apparently the new Twilight only “heavy on sex” and without the vampires. And while I’m at it, I might as well throw out my opinion of the grown women who went/go nuts over Twilight. Women, when you are in your 30’s, but more especially in your 40’s and 50’s, and you are swooning over a fictional character, you look and sound immature and ridiculous. Just sayin’. Seriously,Cedric Diggory? Yes, I concluded that getting senselessly killed by Lord Voldemort turns you into a sparkly vampire.

*The post title is a partial quote from Practical Magic. The full quote is “And this is what comes from dabbling; I mean you can’t practice witchcraft while you look down your nose at it.”

Maniacal Monday #8

1. Friday afternoon I was in full soccer mom mode, except that soccer (or any other sport) was not involved. I had to pick up Chad in the afternoon along with a friend of his who came over to the house. Shortly after getting them home, Jamie wanted sushi, and I agreed because we had to go get a card & present for a birthday party she was going to that evening. Seriously, I was on the go from 1pm to just after 8pm.

2. I got up Saturday morning with the intention of a run. Being Saturday, I refused to be in a hurry, and so it was 10am before I ever set out on the run. All was fine until the 1 mile mark. I want to note that at this point I was really tired, but not so tired I wasn’t still running. The 1 mile mark for this route is at the top of a hill. Small hill, but kind of steep. Anyway, it wasn’t far after this that I realized my folly in lollygagging around all morning. From the 1 mile mark to the halfway mark there was no shade, and I got HOT. I was really done before I got to the halfway mark, but I kept going until I hit the shade. I walked the entire way back home rather than risk getting any hotter and getting sick or having a heat stroke. Lesson learned – get my butt up and out there earlier, or wait until about 7pm.

3. I made what felt like 100 stops shopping Saturday. I won’t even discuss what I spent. ugh.

4. I got sucked into a discussion on Facebook that ended up in me going all confessional to make a point. Now Petra thinks it should be a blog post. It would generate traffic that’s for sure…

5. Is considering signing up for a 5k 4th of July. All my running friends are (of course) telling me to do it. I am almost positive Molly will make me sign up and probably before the day is out. lol Last time I got up early on 4th of July, well, it was 2001 and that’s a story in itself that I might tell again sometime. But not today…

6. Darci, aka the escape artist, dug out again over the weekend. It’s been a while. No one has bothered yet to find the hole and fill it in.

7. I broke down and snaked the drain in the shower in the master bath. This is why I haven’t done #6.

8. I’m craving a burger and tater tots from Sonic. :sigh:

9. Got to work early this morning. Was nice not having to get the kids up.

10. Traffic was fairly light this morning and I don’t think I got mad enough to cuss anyone. Yes, this is a problem. My mouth, not the traffic. Ok, yeah, people are stupid, but I drive stupid sometimes, too.

I was looking for something else, and fell upon this song which has now been stuck in my head all morning.

You’re welcome. šŸ™‚

Funday Friday #8

Yes, I have managed a post every day this week. Take note because this rarely happens. šŸ˜‰

Ok, this can’t wait until Tuesday. I forced myself out for a run last night, you know because I have a 5k week after next.

Of course Molly talked me into running it with her even though my record distance was 1.5 miles running before having to walk. But since I had managed 1.5 miles twice since Saturday, I was determined to go for 2. I did my hill training route, which is back and forth between the hills on either side of the house. I treat it as a really oblong track since it is on the road and I always run facing traffic so as not to get hit from behind. Anyway, it turns out that 4 laps is 3.1 miles – a 5k. Perfect for training and I’m never more than a quarter mile from the house. Saturday, I did 2 laps before walking, and last night my goal was 3 – a little over 2 miles. Well, once I made the 3rd lap, I heard Molly’s voice telling me, “YOU GOT THIS!” I decided I would try for the full 4…and I did it. I barely made it up that last hill, and can walk faster than I was running, but I made it, and finished off the last quarterish mile all downhill. FINALLY!

I’ve had this stuck in my head most of the week:

In case you haven’t heard, Bob Welch has died. In case you have heard and still wonder who he is, he was one of the Fleetwood Mac guitarists, post Peter Green & Jeremy Spencer, and pre Buckingham Nicks. He had a couple of solo hits in the 70’s after leaving FM. The following song is one of them, but this isn’t his solo version, it is the original Fleetwood Mac version which I like much better.

Bearing burdens

Worse than being completely blank is knowing what you want to write about, but you canā€™t seem to get it started. That would be todayā€™s problem. Maybe I should do all my theme posts on the weekend and autopost throughout the week. Like I have time to blog on the weekendsā€¦.

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. (Galatians 6:2 ESV)

I never did understand that verse completely until I grasped this one:

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. (James 5:16 ESV)

I mentioned once before about having to take an issue I was struggling hard with to a small group of very close friends. After that, it became easier to deal with. The problem that was causing my issue didnā€™t go away, but I found it easier to squash the thoughts that sought to consume me. After sharing my issue, 2 things went to work.

1: I had accountability. I had people close enough to me to know right away if something was amiss, and call me out on it.

2: They were praying for me, with me, and over all the details of the issue, so I was no longer fighting myself alone.

Thatā€™s when I finally got what it really means to bear one anotherā€™s burdens. No judging, no condemning, just a commitment on their part to keep me from stumbling (and falling on my face). It made my burden lighter; my problem easier to deal with. Iā€™ve been on the other end, and I know itā€™s tough to make that commitment to someone to hold them accountable and to faithfully pray for them. Tough, but so worth it.

Because I told myself I would blog today

So today is supposed to be Wholesome Wednesday, but despite the fact Iā€™ve been thinking on it all week, I am a blank today. But I will see if I canā€™t pull something out of my rear and spread across the blog. Haha.

I hit a plateau in my weight loss. Iā€™ve been bouncing between 18 and 24 pounds for 2 or 3 months, and so I think I need to step something up. I am more consistently exercising, but again, I still have the bounce, so I turned back to my diet.

Portion control has always been at the root of my weight fight. So, I took a look at what I have been eating and as I fell back off the meal planning, I fell back into eating for pleasure. I guess it wasnā€™t just a pasta problem after all. *sigh*

After my surgery in March, I completely fell off the wagon, and not only was I indulging in some ā€œfoodsā€ containing artificial colors/flavors/preservatives, but I flirted around with gluten. Oh, I stayed away from pasta, but I was all over breads. Until the double bacon cheeseburger incident, that is. šŸ˜‰ So, I have been getting back on the wagon, but I had a bottle of A1 in the fridge that I felt compelled to get rid of, but not enough to just throw it away. Needless to say, I had a few steaks. When I wasnā€™t eating steak, I was eating chicken, and with chicken came potatoes.

So, I am cutting back on the meat. I canā€™t go vegetarian, and sure canā€™t go vegan. Seriously, I am wearing a lanyard that says ā€œI &#9829 BACON.ā€ But I canā€™t afford to eat the local grass-fed meats (often), which leads me to find other protein sources that I can better portion control myself with. Granted, eggs are still considered meat, I guess (yeah, I donā€™t care enough to look it up-if Iā€™m wrong, Iā€™m wrong), but Iā€™ll only eat 2 with a meal. Thatā€™s my supper this week. Egg sandwiches. Note that is not egg salad because I donā€™t like egg salad. I planned on lunching on salad, but I canā€™t do that with spring mix. Bleck.

And snacking on fruitā€¦which does not include Powerberries. šŸ˜‰

“Put one foot in front of the other…”

It was really difficult not to write about running yesterday. It would seem I have caught the running bug, even though I am still kind of sucking at it. But anyway, at the end of this post, I listed out my 3 (so far) running rules. Last Tuesday night I negated rule #1. The DragonLady will run in the rain. I think temperature will be the determining factor for that one. It was hot, and the rain was light, and the run felt great. I was so stoked, even the next day that by Thursday I was convinced I could do this half marathon.

So I set out Thursday evening all fired up and ready to go, and I was good for a mile. I made it just a little over a mile, and I couldn’t get enough breath, so I dropped to a walk. I never could get my groove back after that. I was out of energy, I couldn’t get my stride right, and then I got mad. Not mad enough that I could muster the energy to run, but mad enough to ball up my fists and cry a little bit because I didn’t feel it was appropriate to yell and scream the f-bomb. By the time I straggled myself home, I was even more determined that I was going to do this…still mad.

The boy had an event at school Friday night, so I didn’t do anything but sit at the house ready to throw on some shoes and leave immediately in case he called me to come get him. This because I knew he didn’t really want to go, and I told him if he wanted to leave to call, otherwise I’d be there at 10:30. Anyway, that’s all beside the point. I was in a much better mood Saturday morning, even though I knew the day was going to be packed with busyness from start to finish, but I made sure to get me a run in while the hubby started weed-eating. I did my hill-training 5k, and made it a mile and a half before I walked and I had predetermined to make it at least to that point. Run 1.5(ish..it’s a little over), which was 2 “laps”, walk 1, then run the last. That’s 4 times up each hill. The 4th time up the last hill, I barely made it, but the key is I made it. I walked down the hill and then ran the remaining bit, so I ran in total a little over 2 miles. I broke below the 13 min mile, and managed a 12:24 pace. I was still able to mow, clean, & grocery shop before calling it an evening and watching a movie with the hubby (he fell asleep).

Sundays and Wednesdays are my rest days, so I did not exercise Sunday. Yesterday evening I had to make another grocery run (because I never made it to Whole Foods & Trader Joes over the weekend), so I decided that rather than run, I would do the elliptical and stationary bike since they aren’t dependent on whether or not it is still daylight outside. My intent was 20 min on the bike and 30 on the elliptical. I forgot the elliptical is only 20 min workouts. Anyway, I did the bike first as a 30 min warmup sporting my brand new heart rate monitor watch, and not only did I at no point in the workout feel like I was pushing it, my heart rate never got above 90. (It was 60 when I started.) I was pretty sure I was going to die on the elliptical, but my heart rate never got above 130. What I did notice was that even though I never really got winded, what was happening on the elliptical was muscle fatigue. I think that is what is killing me on my runs – lack of strength. Of course, again, it would probably help considerably if I lost another 20-25 pounds. šŸ˜‰

And why not a little Christmas in June. šŸ™‚

Maniacal Monday #7

The whole blogging regularly thing hasnā€™t been working out like I had planned. That was the reasoning behind having ā€œtheme daysā€ so I would have a direction to go in. Apparently, that really doesnā€™t help that much, sadly. But perhaps I can manage a random list post because the other alternative would be ā€œrealā€ and ā€œconfessional,ā€ and Iā€™m not really feeling publicly putting those kinds of issues out there. šŸ˜‰ Iā€™m also going to attempt to avoid any talk of running and save that for tomorrow; you know, for Training Tuesday. haha

1. 2 weeks ago I mentioned having issues with putting the new belt on the mower deck. Well, that finally resulted in taking the deck off. Since it was off, the hubby was going to sharpen the blades, but when he looked at them, he decided replacing them was the more viable option. Getting the first one off was a major battle, but the second one was worse. Once we got the second one off, we discovered the teeth the blade fits onto were pretty much gone, and so we opted to just buy a new riding mower. *sigh* Oh, donā€™t get me wrong, the new mower is GREAT, but that was $$$$ I wasnā€™t up for spending.

2. Realized Friday night that Iā€™m about to have 2 high school kids.

3. Still freaks out over speaking in front of people even if itā€™s only about 11, one of which is one of my children.

4. I havenā€™t had any caffeine in a week and a half, and did not get a caffeine withdrawl headache. Also, have not had a significant energy drain, and only had to take a nap once. Almost caved and got Starbucks this afternoon, but I think I will treat myself on Friday instead.

5. Seems to now be on a 14-day cycle. :-/

6. Eating a really craptastic salad as I type this. Yes, you all need to know that.

7. Found a kitten on the front porch Saturday afternoon. My first thought was that Petra had finally followed through on her threat to dump her kittens at my house, but upon closer examination (and the fact that it ran away instead of to me), it was not colored like her remaining kittens.

8. Speaking of Petra, she gave birth to an adorable baby girl last week.

9. Finally moved plants outside for the summer, and turns out I donā€™t have so many as I did that need to be out.

10. Has apparently plateaued at 20 pounds. Actually, Iā€™ve been bouncing between 18 and 23. *sigh* Having to once again get my diet under control.