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Odds and Ends

By DragonLady on October 7, 2013

I had my second DNR this weekend. Even if I hadn’t already planned to not race, I wouldn’t have because I spent a good chunk of the morning on the toilet thanks to the glutening 2 weeks ago. I might have spent that time regretting the spicy pumpkin dip I’d eaten the day before also. 😉

Friday night, I went to Chatham Marketplace to get wine. As I was walking up from the parking lot, I noticed some young folks (I assumed college students) with clipboards, and I mentally groaned because I didn’t want to do a survey or buy anything or talk to strangers. They were supporting a cause, and trying to get others to support it. I politely and respectfully declined. But I didn’t get away so easy as I asked myself “Why didn’t you just go to Food Lion??” I was wearing my Ninja Challenge tshirt, and so we had a nice chat about that. I didn’t buy any wine either. I did pick up some more quinoa which I get from their bulk bins, and the sack busted open when the guy put it down on the register to weigh it. Oh, man. That stuff went everywhere! I was so glad it didn’t do that to me. lol

Saturday was a pretty busy day after spending the morning in the bathroom. lol The hubster and I went to get some nuts and bolts and locking washers to put the new spindle on the mower deck. Then we went to Harris Teeter to get Jaffa cakes for the kids, but there was only one box left so they had to share. Anyway, I got a pumpkin spice latte since Starbucks was right there in Harris Teeter. 😉 Then off to Walmart where I got this:

Yes, it’s a cheap Huffy. I didn’t get it for it’s speed or lack thereof. I have a good track record with Huffy. I took it out for a 3.4 mile ride that evening, and had to stop halfway and rest my butt. I’ve since adjusted the seat tilt, so hopefully it will be kinder to my backside. lol And I do have to this to earn this month:

I’ve written 881 words of my book. lol

Oh, yeah. The riding mower is fixed. But hardly any mowing happened because the hubster and I both woke up sick yesterday. And I am still sick. I called in this morning and said I would keep it at home today and share it tomorrow.

I thought I would do just a little bit of maintenance on Chad’s “old” laptop before I call Dell to have the screen fixed…again. Now I see why says it’s crap. It has issues and I’ve been troubleshooting the wireless on it since yesterday. Something is hogging some serious resources on it. :pullhair: Fun times.

This entry is filed under Biking, Exercise, Life, Maniacal Monday, Photos, Ramble. | 2 Comments

Funday Friday #17

By DragonLady on October 4, 2013

1. I am going to start writing that book.

2. I locked my keys in the truck at work yesterday. That was an extra hour I didn’t want to spend there waiting on AAA, but one of my co-workers stayed with me and let me borrow his phone because mine was in the truck with my keys. This is the downside of daily using the keyless entry on my “fancy” car. 😉

3. My daughter was scheduled for an English test yesterday. I forgot to give her the test. Told her this morning that I would give it to her tonight. She asked if I would give it to her this morning (since she and Chad were still up playing Call of Duty when I got up). The printer decided to have issues, so no test this morning. :sigh:

4. So the other night, Jamie came to my office to get KitKat (KitKat feels abandoned by Jamie now over Amber), and KitKat had a dead mouse under her. I was working on printing out a test for Jamie so I handed her a paper towel to pick up the dead mouse and dispose of it. Then as I stepped closer to the printer to flip the pages over (it’s a 3 in 1 printer/copier/scanner), I stepped on something cold, wet, and squishy. Another dead mouse. Yes, I was barefoot. So I took that one out and hosed down my bare foot with vinegar. Later that night just before I finally fell deep asleep, James woke me up with “KitKat just found a copperhead in your office.” A lot more drama ensued before he came back and told me it was dead and he would get rid of it the next day.

Turns out it was not a copperhead, but a rat snake. And I have claimed KitKat as my own. Even though she is still gross. But she is welcome in this spot now.

I even scratch her scabby belly. She’s allergic to fleas. Aside from her fat, she’s not so gross during the winter when the fleas are gone.

5. I actually read the Medication Guide that I get with my Celexa prescription this morning. “Do not drink alcohol while using citalopram.” Oops.

6. Since I was running a little behind this morning thanks to repeatedly hitting the snooze and deciding I had gone long enough this week without washing my hair, I drank my breakfast this morning via Pumpkin Spice Latte. Thank goodness (sort of) that the baristas know me because what I ordered (without realizing it) was “triple venti vanilla spice latte.” She was like “are you sure you want vanilla spice?” LOL

7. Tomorrow is the ~~full~~ half marathon. Guess who will be DNR… I might manage to do 2 miles tomorrow.

8. I am still paying for my last glutening…2 weeks ago. Ugh.

9. I’m thinking that the hubster and I are actually going to make it to our 20 year anniversary this month. If for no other reason than to have dinner at Shuckers. 😉

10. Despite all the work that needs to be done around this house this weekend, I am so looking forward to the weekend. Mainly sleeping in. But also to some tunage.

You can thank Petra for this:

Happy Friday!!

This entry is filed under Adventures in Homeschooling, Diet, Exercise, Funday Friday, Photos, Ramble, Running, Video. | 14 Comments

First things first

By DragonLady on October 1, 2013

Sometimes, I think up a title, get distracted before I start writing, and then sit here looking at the title wondering what the heck I was going to write about. This ~~may~~ will be totally different from what I was thinking about originally.

I’m not very organized. I know how to be. I know how to be so organized that I can tell if something has been moved even if it is in the spot where it belongs. I learned that because that’s how my dad was. Everything had a place and it was to stay in it’s place. I, of course, couldn’t keep my hands off of stuff, and therefore I learned how to put his stuff (mainly tools) back in the exact spot they were. That may be why I’m not so organized now. Rebellion is very deep-rooted in me. 😉 On the other hand, being that OCD just costs too much mental energy.

9 days later, I am back to this draft, and I have absolutely no idea where I was going with that. I’m leaving it there because that’s just how I roll. I also really don’t know where to go with the whole post, but whatever. It’s not like I’ve never written a rambling post before. 😉 It is now 5 days later since I started this paragraph. Really?

Not only am I not running the full marathon, I am not running the half either. The thought of running the last 4 miles with a backache is extremely unappealing. So whatever. I have nothing to prove since I have run 2 half marathons already. I have 2 races left to run this year to get in my 13 in 2013. Easy peasy.

I do now, however, have more time to devote to homeschool stuffs. Like tutoring my son in Algebra and explaining transitive and intransitive verbs to my daughter.

I also do not now have to stress on running. I can do 3-6 miles and enjoy it again. And buy a new bike maybe instead of new shoes. I have big plans. haha And I can make weekend plans without having to worry about being sore or running out of time. Seriously.

We went to Lee & Rachel’s Saturday and I had a blast!

And I passed my audition Sunday so I am excited about being part of a worship team again.

So yeah. Rambling and pointless. But this is now out of my drafts hole. 😉

This entry is filed under Adventures in Homeschooling, Diet, Exercise, Ramble, Running, Training Tuesday. | 6 Comments

“Like sands through the hourglass…”

By DragonLady on September 16, 2013

And now all I can hear is the theme music from Days of our Lives. I never was a big fan. I watched it enough to know the long time characters, but I just couldn’t ever stay into soaps. Except Santa Barbara. But I dumped it when Lane Davies left. Anywho…

I’m tired. It seems all I did over the weekend was grading. I really hope the kids don’t get all behind like that again this week. :sigh:

I did clean out my car though. The back floorboard was starting to look like a dumpster. It needs to be washed, but ain’t nobody got time fo dat.

If Granny Eoff’s fresh apple cake recipe was ever a secret, it isn’t anymore. I posted it on Facebook for a couple of folks, and at least 3 people reshared. lol But, I have Aunt Cora’s Italian Cream Cake recipe now, so it’s all good. And that all came about because I shared a old picture of my then young Granny for #throwbackthursday.

I didn’t run this weekend. Don’t judge me.

I took Chad out and let him practice driving…my car. :nervous2: He did good, but I still could have used a valium. 😉

I didn’t learn from another’s mistake and ate a Snickers Friday evening. Oh, yes, it was a mistake.

And, I’m all set to audition next week for the C.O.R.E. Worship team. By all set I mean I told Bradford I could do it next Sunday. Eek! It’s now time to get serious about learning those songs. I mean, I know them, but I need to know them without the crutch of words and chords in front of me.

Still didn’t get around to making Petra a pie. Because it’s just so hard to peel and slice apples. 😉

The kids got their new glasses today.

Oh, and since I gave up the caffeine, I am sleeping better at night. Huh. Really, I wasn’t drinking much and rarely had any after lunch, but I am sleeping for longer than an hour or two at a time. AND I’m not having so many headaches.

Chad didn’t appreciate me playing this when his friends were over Saturday night. I enjoyed it immensely. 😉

This entry is filed under Adventures in Homeschooling, Diet, Exercise, Family, Life, Maniacal Monday, Photos, Running, Video. | 4 Comments

Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do

By DragonLady on September 10, 2013

I got up Sunday morning ready to run. That is a lie. I was not ready, but I knew I had to, and kept telling myself, “It’s only 14 miles.” Right. That said, I started off slow and tapered off. lol But seriously, I was ok from about mile 3 to mile 8. I wasn’t enjoying it, but I felt confident I could finish. Then I hit mile 9.

Mile 9 was about where my lower back really started hurting. When I got to my last turnaround, I stopped briefly and dropped to one knee to see if that eased the pain. It did, and I took back off. The pain came back and about a quarter mile later (when I got back to a shady spot), I laid down on the side of the road on my back and pulled my knees up to stretch out. I made it about 3/4 of a mile and then laid down in the church driveway. Another half mile later, there I was in the road again and just a little over a quarter mile from the house. At this point, I was thinking about how I was going to get in the last 3 miles. But about the time I got to my driveway, I said “Screw the full. I’m doing the half instead.”

So there it is. I feel pretty confident that I can do the half because I’ve done halves before. I’m sure the back pain is my body telling me it’s time to buy new shoes. They are almost a year old. But I can’t afford a $120 pair of shoes right now and don’t want to break in new shoes right before a race.

Therefore, the half it is.

This entry is filed under Exercise, Fail, Running. | 2 Comments

Adventures in marathon training

By DragonLady on September 3, 2013

Or maybe that should be misadventures. 🙂 Saturday was an 18 miler. I did get 18 miles in, just not all Saturday. And my knees are yelling at me today.

I have discovered something over the past few weeks that really sunk in this weekend. I cannot do a long run with my husband. And that is why I did a little over 6 miles (about a 10k) Saturday morning, 5.4 miles Saturday evening, and 7.3 miles Sunday morning. 3 runs to get that 18 miles. Those first 2 runs were fantastic. I felt awesome. The Sunday morning run, not so much.

We had the oldest daughter of a couple of friends with us Saturday morning. I knew she wasn’t running 18 miles. I didn’t expect her to be able to and was not going to try to get her to run that much. She did a good 3. She needed to go to the bathroom and everything was closed at CCCC so the hubby took her to someplace with a bathroom and got them something to eat while I kept running. About mile 6 I decided I wasn’t going to make them sit and wait for another 2 or 3 hours on me to finish.

So I went and did 5 more that evening, or rather 5.4 because even though I was telling myself through the last 2 miles that I only had to make it back to my road, I went ahead and ran that last .4 miles because I was trying to beat the storms. Which is were I will back up and say that I looked at the radar and saw a line of storms around High Point and figured it would take them about an hour to get to us. I also thought I could finish 5 miles in about an hour. It was a little over an hour, and when I got back home and checked the radar again, that line had mostly dissipated.

The 7? Oh, man. I knew it was about 7 miles from my driveway to the other end of Lydia Perry Road and back. I ran Lydia Perry before. It sucked because it’s uphill the whole way back, but doable. Uh, nope. Not when I’ve run about 11.5 the day before. I was tired when I started, and even that whole downhill run was rough. And then the sun was beating on me for much of the way back, and I just had to suck it up and do the walk of shame. Although, there was a sprint in the middle of that walk thanks to a horsefly that decided it needed to bite my calves. I couldn’t outrun it so I decided to kill it. I failed, but I did manage to catch it twice and after the second time it eluded my foot when I threw it down on the pavement, it left me alone.

So, I now need to make myself do the weekday runs this week, and do 14 this weekend. In less than 5 weeks, this will all be over. No more long runs. Until the Tar Heel 10 Miler.

This entry is filed under Exercise, Family, Life, Running, Training Tuesday. | 8 Comments

“You have to do the weekday runs!”

By DragonLady on August 27, 2013

I decided to revive my themed posting days. Mainly I am just trying to force myself to post every day again and do so in ways that aren’t snarky criticisms. Because I have a load of those I could write. But anyway, this is kind of a “long story” version of how my marathon training is going. And it isn’t going well. With Karyn gone, I really don’t have that same accountability to git ‘er dun, and plus I spent a few Saturday morning in Al-Anon meetings. It’s just so much harder to get up and run on a Sunday morning.

So, Brenda called me Sunday and started off asking me about how my training was going. I was honest with her, and so she let me have it. Hence the title of this post plus she added “You have got to get your full long runs in. At least 18.” *sigh* Well, this past weekend, I only ran a 10k. And it hurt because I slept in all weekend the previous weekend and didn’t get a single run in during the week. Brenda decided that while she can’t run with me here, she can run when I run and I gotta run when she runs. Well, she ran yesterday but I told her up front that’s a rest day. Or it was. I will get back into the Monday runs. But I will run with the Tribe this evening. And, I will run either tomorrow or Thursday evening. Or maybe both since she made sure to tell me that it is better to do 3 runs during the week.

And I HAVE to do 18 this weekend.

Now, all that said, the hubster is willing to run with me, and has come on most of my long runs since Karyn moved. There is a big difference though. Karyn is a speed demon who would run off and leave me (and I am ok with that), but that would keep me running because I knew the faster I finished, the less time she had to wait on me to finish. I don’t really have that with James. Yes, he will push me and encourage me, but he will also let me drop to a walk. I’m not yet to the point that I can run again once I walk. BUT. I always have a but to put in any excuse. lol I told Brenda about how if I start walking I am done and can’t run again. She said, “You know that’s mental too, right?” Ugh. Well, yeah. I hadn’t really thought about that, but it is. She said she used to be the same way, but now she can walk for a little bit and then be able to run again.

She didn’t get on me about this, but she also mentioned eating and drinking right. I have not been drinking water like I should ever since I started taking the “happy pills.” So I have to force myself to drink more water. I know my diet could be better, and I have been cutting out the junk food I was eating.

Overall, my training thus far has been a big epic fail. With 5 1/2 weeks left, I may or may not be able to run 26.2 miles, but I will give it a go. Because I paid for it already. 😉

This entry is filed under Diet, Exercise, Fail, Running, Training Tuesday. | 2 Comments

Maniacal Monday #19

By DragonLady on August 12, 2013

So, I haven’t blogged in a few days and I guess I should write something given the dark nature of 2 of the 3 last posts.

1. I feel a whole lot better. I went to my doctor and asked for something to help me function. I’m really grateful that our doctor is a family doctor who knows me and my husband pretty well, and so I really didn’t have to go into too great a detail of what all was going on. I did let him know I was going to Al-Anon and wanted counseling for the additional issue(s) that got dredged up. He understood, and just asked if I needed something for the mental or mental and physical. I told him just mental, and he gave me an antidepressant which had me feeling stoned out of my mind for about 5 days before my body adjusted to it. He also told me to absolutely keep running and why. And he gave me referrals for counseling, and I have an appointment with a psychologist Wednesday.

2. Al-Anon. Now that I am “drugged up,” I can attend meetings without crying the whole time. Granted, it is ok to sit and cry through a whole meeting, but I prefer to have my meltdowns in the privacy of my shower. I’ve gone to a 3 different groups: a beginner’s group, and 2 regular groups. I really like the beginner’s group because of it’s focus on newcomers. Of the other 2 groups, one is pretty big, and one pretty small. I like the smaller group even though they spent a lot more time on me than my social anxiety was comfortable with. Regardless, I should have gone to Al-Anon years ago.

3. Running. Ugh. The marathon training is kicking my butt. I do fine with the short runs, but the long runs are a succession of fails. Quite discouraging. And I miss my running partner Karyn. 🙁

4. I am now officially chief administrator of a homeschool. And my daughter is a lot closer to having enough credits to graduate than I thought so that should be able to graduate at the end of this school year. The only thing my son passed last year was gym. :sigh: Looks like it will take summer school to ever get him back on track.

5. We have electricity again in the master bedroom & bathroom! After replacing all the switches and outlets, the culprit had to be a wire. There is a light in the attic, and I told the hubby that we need to check that before we start tearing out walls. That light was ok, but he traced the wire he could see on the attic side of our bedroom and found this:

The mouse tried to fit through the same hole as the wire through the 2×4 in the corner, got stuck, and proceeded to chew through the wire…and got fried. So we just had to replace a few feet of wire between outlets that (unfortunately) went around a corner, but yet (fortunately) was half in the attic so there was minimal wall damage around one outlet. This is the damaged wire that was inside the stud:

I cannot tell you how nice it was to sleep in my bed again. And have bright light in the bathroom. Because the lantern just wasn’t cutting it.

6. Mice. They are everywhere. KitKat will not stay in my daughter’s room anymore because she is stalking. I sat in the living room the other evening and watched a mouse running back and forth through the kitchen, but KitKat was perched in the laundry room where she couldn’t see it, and Gizmo wasn’t anywhere to be seen. :sigh: And the kittens keep themselves to the back of the house when they are let out.

7. Fleas. I don’t know which is worse. The mice or the fleas. It’s almost as if Gizmo is producing fleas. Winter can’t come quick enough. Just sayin’.

8. All our lawn equipment is back and fixed, and the hubby mowed the front before it got way too far out of control. The back is way out of control though.

9. The hubby finally got paid, and bought the boy a moped. (The blue one.)

And less than 24 hours later, I got a call from my son telling me “I crashed! I need help!” He got pretty scuffed up, but it could have been so much worse.

Elbow

Knee from top

Knee from front

The faceplate is why his face didn’t look like his knee. One of his hands was pretty scuffed up too.

10. Diet. I really need to stop eating tater tots. Also, I found some gluten free wasabi peas at Harris Teeter. Only thing, some of the peas are so hard that it is like chewing up gravel.

And I think that is pretty much it.

This entry is filed under Diet, Exercise, Family, Life, Maniacal Monday, Photos, Running, Video. | 8 Comments

The best laid plans…

By DragonLady on June 20, 2013

…and goals. And who gets a cold on the eve of the beginning of summer? Oh, me. But I’m getting better (said in a bad English accent attempting to quote The Holy Grail). Anyway, I’m going to do a quick recap of the previous linked goals from January.

1. It took a couple of months, but I figured out what my lack of rest problem was. It wasn’t so much a work issue, but a stress issue. I got out of the one stressful situation I could, and it’s been easier to deal with the others. Way easier. And no, I will not go public with what that thing was.

2. I have done 7 races so far. I am registered for a half next month, and a full in October, and plan on doing the CARA 10k in August. I may even do the labor day 8k I did last year just to redeem myself from all the wrong things I did last year before that race. Bottom line, I am still on track with this one.

3. I decided I liked knitting better. Go figure.

4. :sigh: I did do a couple of pushups a couple months ago. I may not have broken the plane, but whatever. It was better than falling on my face on the way down. 😉

5. This has been so tough. That’s all I have to say about that.

6. Yeah, this hasn’t happened since like March.

7. I’ve had a lot of hotdogs and tater tots the last couple of months. And cider. And wine. And Starbucks. :-/

Speaking of Starbucks, this is kind of an aside, but I got about a half mile from the front gate and realized I left my purse at home. And this is the first morning I have deliberately speeded to work in forever because I pittle-farted around the house for way too long and wanted to limit how late I was going to be. First, I was both thankful and sad that I had enough change in the car to pay for a tall blonde. Sad because I wanted a triple venti vanilla latte and my Starbucks card is in my purse. However, in the parking lot I remembered that I have the Starbucks app on my phone. SCORE! So I was able to use that to pay for my fru-fru coffee.

Also, I gave up my semi-anonymity on Twitter and put my real name up on it. Figured I would make it less of an effort for NSA. 😉 The DragonLady pseudonym/alter-ego still stands in the blogsphere though. That said, I was forced to use my real name commenting on some blog last week because I had to use my Google profile. Eh.

I ran across this by accident on Twitter yesterday morning and decided I’m going to give the 21-Day Plank Challenge #plankwithbex & Delta Labs a go. Did my first plank last night, and shook like crazy for the last 15 or 30 seconds or so of my 36 second plank. I’m feeling it today. Just sayin’.

This entry is filed under Diet, Exercise, Fail, Life, Ramble, Running, Semi-confessional, Video. | 2 Comments

Maniacal Monday #17

By DragonLady on June 17, 2013

It’s been a while. I put off writing something I wanted to write about, and now I’ve decided that if I do write about it, it will be all snarky and end up with me being exactly what I want to rail against. So now you get a list post of catch up material. You know, for the 2 or 3 of you who still keep up. 😉

1. Rather than doing a recap (way after the fact), you will get the Reader’s Digest version of the last race. The Wednesday (I think) following the Ninja Challenge, Karyn dropped a link to a race on my Facebook wall for that Saturday. Thinking “It’s only a 5K,” I signed up for it (and the hubby too). Who knew that on May 25 we would wake up to temp in the low/mid-40s(F)?

It was a trail, not real rough, but not real smooth and way more hills than I wanted to do. I struggled. Bad. Then as we were coming in to the finish line, a chick who had walked much of the course (ok, maybe she didn’t, but every time I had seen her prior she was walking) passed us running to the finish. I decided that she was NOT going to beat me, and busted out into a sprint to the finish line. Karyn was shocked to see that kind of speed come out of me though I am sure I wasn’t going near as fast as I felt. LOL

2. The first weekend in June, the hubby went to a small music festival that a friend of his hosts every year. He came back and told me “I brought you something.” I got all excited thinking he got me some of that fantastic homemade wine, but it was a small (roughly half-pint) jar of moonshine. :-/ If you like sourmash, it was good. I don’t, but I drank it anyway ’cause that’s how I roll. And not in one day either.

Then 2 or 3 days after the festival I come home, and he opens up the front door, and this ran out:

Yes, he brought home another dog under the reasoning that someone else wanted a dog like that. Her name is Precious, and yes, we still have her. :sigh:

KitKat is not amused.

3. Tiger and Sushi are doing really well. They got totally eaten up with fleas, and we undertook chemical warfare this weekend to rid them and the dogs of the flea menace. KitKat kept herself well hidden and managed to (so far) escape bath time and/or dusting. She isn’t likely to get a bath because despite her fat, she is quite nimble and not afraid to sink her claws to the bone.

4. Friday night I sent Karyn a text asking her if she was up for 10 miles on the American Tobacco Trail (ATT) in the morning. She said no, but that she needed to. So I asked her if it would help that we only had to run 7. 🙂 So we go out there, and if she hadn’t been going, I would have gone back to bed. But, it turned out to be a much better run than I was expecting. Just after the 3 mile marker I met Karyn on her way back, and told her I had improved my 3 mile time. I was feeling great and kicking it. And then I hit a stretch of trail that wasn’t shaded and nearly died. And had to run back through that stretch after the turnaround. But I got my third wind around mile 5, and even after sprinting the last tenth of a mile, I felt like I could keep going. However, I was very glad I didn’t have to! Twice during the run I had to stop and rake pea gravel out of my shoes, only the second time when I did the rake, I nearly cried when I realized that was NOT a rock, but was a blister. Evidently I can no longer wear the really short running socks.

5. Father’s Day was rough this year. For me. I might write specifically about why at some point.

6. June 9 I had to take Chad to pick up a game we preordered on his birthday. This year his birthday gift was one that just keeps on taking, and I’ll have some more pain in August or September when the other one comes in that I preordered for him. Anyway, since Starbucks was right there I “needed” to stop. Now Saturday morning when I picked up Karyn, I told her that we would be going to Starbucks after the run. And when I ordered (at the drive through) the dude who took my order was very friendly and Karyn made note of it. So I then told her about the stop with Chad because that dude was just as wacky friendly. Which is fine. It’s entertaining. What wasn’t entertaining on the 9th was when the dude handed me my coffee and hesitated over the handoff as our hands were (awkwardly) touching.